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85 |
Talia-Hibbert-Highly-Suspicious.txt
| 79 |
and talk about books. “Our mums are best friends,” I explain, “and we’re the same age so we were best friends too. We applied to the same secondary school and stuck together, and I was…well.” I take a breath and when I exhale it shakes. “In primary school, I was the kid everyone made fun of.” “That’s rough,” Aurora says wryly. “Obviously, I can’t relate.” After a second of silence, we both burst into laughter. It’s the kind that knits your stomach muscles together but releases something deeper. I speak again, and it’s easier now. “When I made friends with Brad, I thought we were both…you know…He’s really short-sighted. He got contacts for football, but he used to wear these Coke-bottle glasses, and he had acne.” He still gets acne sometimes. He puts these star-shaped stickers on his face and everyone thinks it’s mind-blowingly cool, but if I get a single spot (which I do, twice a month, like clockwork), I get comments on TikTok telling me to wash my face. My theory is, there’s a special something that certain people just have, something that makes everyone around them breathless and witless with adoration. And he has it. He’s always had it. But I’m distracting myself when I should just get this over with. “I assumed we’d be bullied together,” I admit, “and I thought we could handle that. We didn’t need to, though, because it turns out when Brad is on your side, that stuff just doesn’t happen.” So guess what happens when he’s not on your side? Yeah. Oh, well. “Even back then, no one made fun of him because he was so beautiful—” Shit. I did not mean to say that. “—and charming,” I add quickly, smoothly (I hope). “You know how he is. You like him.” She’s blushing, appropriately shamefaced. “Well, yeah. He’s…” She waves a hand. “You know.” “Sure,” I say dryly. “I know.” “Honest!” she laughs, blushing harder. “He’s so honest! You feel how much he means everything, like…like he cares about every single word he says to you.” Yeah, I do feel that. It’s rocket fuel to the fire when he insults me. But four years ago, he squashed that quality, he squashed himself, to fit into a social box that wasn’t made for him. Brad is so much more than the popular crowd’s Nice Guy or the prettiest girl in school’s boyfriend. (Thank God that thing with Isabella Hollis didn’t last too long because watching him French-braid her hair in the cafeteria was honestly a gut-wrenching, nauseating travesty of hygiene and at one point I was on the verge of shaving her head for the good of the school biosystem and—) Anyway. The point is: he was Bradley Fucking Graeme and he was too special to play a crudely drawn role in some tacky 2000s high school movie. But he didn’t even know it. I tried to tell him. But he didn’t want to hear. Silence rings in my ears and I realize I haven’t spoken for a while. Instead, I’ve been sitting here
| 0 |
95 |
USS-Lincoln.txt
| 15 |
his ship, his crew.” Captain Wallace Ryder stood there. One arm was in a sling; his left ear was bandaged. He attempted a smile. “Come to check on me sweetheart.” Viv cursed under her breath and stormed off. “She’s right,” I said. “My intentions are self-serving here.” “Yeah, well, you’ve always been an asshole. Think it comes with the job. Let me help make you even less popular. My totally un-medical opinion tells me we have ten, maybe twelve, pilots ready to be released soon. I’ve been ordered to my quarters for rest and recuperation. How’s it looking in Flight Bay?” I looked about HealthBay and then back to my friend. “Honestly? Not so different than here.” “Yeah, we’ve taken it in the shorts. I get that, Quintos. But we’ve been right here before. We’ll come out of this—” “I don’t need a pep talk, Ryder. What’s waiting for us beyond the remnants of that destroyed world is far more than a few Ziu scout ships. Go to your quarters, follow Viv’s directives, and get some rest.” I squeezed his shoulder and headed for the exit. Across the compartment, I momentarily caught Viv’s eye. She looked away. My Jadoo ring vibrated. Without looking at it, I said, “Go for Captain.” “Captain, I believe we have it worked out.” I stopped outside in the corridor. “Go on, Coogong.” “I believe we’re ready …” “You’ll have to be more specific. Ready for what?” “To jump us out of here, Captain. To return us to our own universe.” I had a lot of questions. What were the odds of success? What about Wrath and Portent? How long would it take to get things going? But instead of wasting even a moment’s time, I said, “Where are you?” “I’m on the bridge, Captain. We’re all on the bridge.” “On my way.” Having just quansported, I literally sprinted into the bridge. “Sitrep!” I barked, now seeing not only Coogong but also Captain Loggins and Captain Church. Akari said, “We’ve been busy.” She looked to Coogong to take it from there. The Thine scientist glanced to Church and Loggins and raised his stick-figure hands, conveying I should slow down and take a breath. “The not-so-good news first. Both Wrath’s and Portent’s drive compensator circuits have been, for lack of a better way of putting it, overwritten.” I looked to Church and Loggins. Neither looked overly concerned. Okay … Coogong continued, “With that said, Adams will have to make the jump for all three vessels. Together, we will make the … maneuver.” The ship suddenly shook to the point I had to reach out for the captain’s mount armrest. “What was that?” Akari said, “That would be Boundless Wrath cozying up to our starboard side. Portent is already on our port side. Mooring clamps have been secured. For all intents and purposes, we are now one ship.” I was impressed and a tad speechless. Hardy said, “Understand, this might not work. We might tear apart from one another; we might have miscalculated things …” “Uh … Captain?” Grimes said
| 0 |
70 |
Kalynn-Bayron-Youre-Not-Supposed.txt
| 64 |
does. We don’t have a marketing budget. We don’t have commercials or billboards—we have word of mouth and that’s it. We have to dial the fear up to ten so the guests can run home and tell all their friends how scared they were. That’s what keeps people, with what I’m convinced is some kind of masochistic streak, coming up here night after night. As our season approaches its end, I’m left planning for the final Camp Mirror Lake experience—the biggest night of our season. We put everything into it, and this year is going to be the best send-off in Camp Mirror Lake history. I can feel it in my bones. We have brand-new squibs, a better recipe for more realistic-looking fake blood, and I’m way too excited to see Kyle use the newly renovated trapdoor in the main lodge to pop up on unsuspecting guests who always think it’s a good idea to hide in the kitchen. Only three more days until the big show, and I’m so hyped I can hardly stand it. Our checkout policy states that all guests must exit the camp as soon as the game officially ends, and that means seeing people off at nearly one in the morning. After I check everyone out, including Brandon and his now-ex-girlfriend, Leslie, I do my final walk through of the main office and the western lodge; then I retreat to Lakeview Cabin #1, the place I call home for most of the summer. Every time a game ends, its conclusion brings me one step closer to having to go home. I’d rather be out in these woods being chased by a fake serial killer than head home to Groton where my mom and her boyfriend, Rob, can pretend I don’t exist. We live in Cedra Court, a motel that had been converted into apartments sometime in the late nineties. I think that might have been the worst idea anyone has ever had. It never really feels like home, just a place to stay. In my mom’s eyes, Rob can do no wrong even though Rob, at his big age, can’t hold a job, and there’s a permanent outline of his body on the couch because he sits in the same spot every single day. He drinks too much and spends my mom’s money like she’s not working two jobs just to stay afloat, but somehow I’m still the biggest problem he has. The best thing he’s ever done for me is hand me the job listing for Camp Mirror Lake. I shake myself, trying to somehow reverse the rot those memories have caused. I take out my earpiece to clean it off. Fake blood is caked around the little cord that connects the earpiece to the battery pack that clips on to the waist of my jeans. I pineapple my hair, tuck it under a plastic cap, grab my shower kit and a flashlight, and slip on my shower shoes. The cabins don’t have private showers, so I have to make my way to the community stalls.
| 0 |
32 |
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.txt
| 54 |
enough." The children left for school, and the old lady to call on Mrs. Harper and vanquish her realism with Tom's marvellous dream. Sid had better judgment than to utter the thought that was in his mind as he left the house. It was this: "Pretty thin -- as long a dream as that, without any mistakes in it!" What a hero Tom was become, now! He did not go skipping and prancing, but moved with a dignified swagger as became a pirate who felt that the public eye was on him. And indeed it was; he tried not to seem to see the looks or hear the remarks as he passed along, but they were food and drink to him. Smaller boys than himself flocked at his heels, as proud to be seen with him, and tolerated by him, as --------------------------------------------------------- -184- if he had been the drummer at the head of a procession or the elephant leading a menagerie into town. Boys of his own size pretended not to know he had been away at all; but they were consuming with envy, nevertheless. They would have given anything to have that swarthy suntanned skin of his, and his glittering notoriety; and Tom would not have parted with either for a circus. At school the children made so much of him and of Joe, and delivered such eloquent admiration from their eyes, that the two heroes were not long in becoming insufferably "stuck-up." They began to tell their adventures to hungry listeners -- but they only began; it was not a thing likely to have an end, with imaginations like theirs to furnish material. And finally, when they got out their pipes and went serenely puffing around, the very summit of glory was reached. Tom decided that he could be independent of Becky Thatcher now. Glory was sufficient. He would live for glory. Now that he was distinguished, maybe she would be wanting to "make up." Well, let her -- she should see that he could be as indifferent as some other people. Presently she arrived. Tom pretended not to see her. He moved away and joined a group of boys and girls and began to talk. Soon he observed that she was tripping gayly back and forth with flushed face and dancing eyes, pretending to be busy chasing schoolmates, and screaming with laughter when she made a capture; --------------------------------------------------------- -185- but he noticed that she always made her captures in his vicinity, and that she seemed to cast a conscious eye in his direction at such times, too. It gratified all the vicious vanity that was in him; and so, instead of winning him, it only "set him up" the more and made him the more diligent to avoid betraying that he knew she was about. Presently she gave over skylarking, and moved irresolutely about, sighing once or twice and glancing furtively and wistfully toward Tom. Then she observed that now Tom was talking more particularly to Amy Lawrence than to any one else. She felt a sharp pang and
| 1 |
67 |
How to Sell a Haunted House.txt
| 10 |
so she got twice as many. The Calvins’ presents were the best. The Calvins were very old and didn’t have any children of their own, and they’d known her since she was a little baby, so they always gave her something her mom said was too nice. This year they visited the Calvins the day before Christmas Eve, the last visit of the season. That night they’d have cheese toast and tomato soup because her mom was resting for Christmas Eve, when she’d cook all day for supper and then at midnight they’d go for the candlelight service at church. After that they’d go to bed and Santa would come, then it would be Christmas morning, and presents, and then all the cousins would come and stay all day and into the night, and they’d bring covered dishes and she could eat as much as she wanted. The Calvins represented the end of the visits and the start of two days of fun. Patricia and Martin Calvin lived in a bungalow out at the far end of Pitt Street by the ruined old bridge, on a big lot with a long driveway. To Louise, going to their house always felt like driving to the country, even though they lived less than a mile away. Their mom parked in the drive and turned around over the seat to make sure their hats and gloves were on and their jackets were zipped up, then she let them out and they crunched across the frosted grass and rang the Calvins’ doorbell. Martin Calvin opened the door and let them in. It was warm inside and smelled like Christmas trees, and they had on lamps and a fire, and everything was dim and orange and glowed. Mr. Calvin pulled two boxes out from under the tree with its pulsing green, yellow, and red lights. Louise put Pupkin next to her and carefully peeled off her paper to reveal a Spirograph. She traced the big round letters on the cover of the box with one finger, then opened it to see the hot pink harness, the yellow ruler, the different-size blue tips, each with their own pocket to hold it. Her breath moved up into the back of her throat. “Thank you, Mr. Calvin,” she said. “Thank you, Mrs. Calvin.” “Marty,” her mom said, “it’s too much.” “Do you like that, honey?” Mr. Calvin asked. “It’s precious,” Louise said. She didn’t want to take it out of its box until she was home and could do it carefully and make sure she didn’t lose a piece, so instead she just kept opening the box and looking at how everything inside had a perfect place, touching them one after the other, rubbing their smooth edges with her fingertips. Mark got one of those super-detailed Hess trucks people bought at the gas station for five fill-ups and five dollars. He fell down hard on his bottom and pushed his Hess truck around on the floor. Their mom began to talk in hushed tones with Mrs. Calvin about her health.
| 0 |
66 |
Hell Bent.txt
| 29 |
the look of a well-loved book, spine broken, pages dog-eared and marked up. Now Turner’s lips quirked in a smile. “It sure does. But look again. Look at her.” Alex didn’t want to. She was still reeling from what she’d seen at Black Elm and now Turner was testing her. But then she saw it. “Her rings are loose.” “That’s right. And look at her face.” No way was Alex gazing into those milky eyes again. “She looks like a dead woman.” “She looks like an eighty-year-old dead woman. Marjorie Stephen just turned fifty-five.” Alex’s stomach lurched, as if she’d missed a step. That was why Turner thought the societies were involved. “She hadn’t been ill,” he continued. “This lady liked to hike East Rock and Sleeping Giant. She ran every morning. We spoke to two people with offices on this hallway who saw her earlier today. They said she looked normal, perfectly healthy. When we showed them a photo of the body, they barely recognized her.” It smacked of the uncanny. But what about the Bible? The societies weren’t the type to quote scripture. Their texts were far rarer and more arcane. “I don’t know,” said Alex. “It doesn’t quite add up.” Turner rubbed a hand over his low fade. “Good. So tell me I’m jumping at shadows.” Alex wanted to. But there was something wrong here, something more than a woman left to die alone with a Bible in her hand, something in those milky gray eyes. “I can search the Lethe library,” Alex said. “But I’m going to require some reciprocity.” “That’s not actually the way this works, Dante.” “I’m Virgil now,” Alex said, though maybe not for long. “It works the way Lethe says it does.” “There’s something different about you, Stern.” “I cut my hair.” “No, you didn’t. But something’s off about you.” “I’ll make you a list.” He led her into the hall and waved the coroner staff through to the office, where they’d zip Marjorie Stephen into a body bag and wheel her away. Alex wondered if they’d close her eyes first. “Tell me what you find in the library,” Turner said at the elevator. “Send me the tox report,” Alex replied. “That would be the likeliest link to the societies. But you’re right. It’s probably nothing except a waste of my night.” Before the doors could close, Turner shoved his hand in and they pinged back open. “I’ve got it,” he said. “You always looked like you had trouble chasing you.” Alex jabbed the door-close button. “So?” “Now you look like it caught up.” 9 Last Summer Alex touched down at LAX at 9 a.m. on Sunday. Michael Anselm and Lethe had sprung for first class, so she’d ordered two shots of gratis whiskey to knock herself out and slept through the flight. She dreamed of her last night at Ground Zero, Hellie lying cold beside her, the feel of the bat in her hand. This time, Len spoke before she took her first swing. Some doors don’t stay locked, Alex. And then he’d
| 0 |
90 |
The-Lost-Bookshop.txt
| 51 |
now is a very different creature, one who is also bent on destruction. Namely yours.’ ‘Am I to be moved by this spectacle? Because I assure you, I am not.’ I paced around him like a lioness around her prey. ‘Within hours, the whole world will know what you have done. The ink is soaking into the paper as we speak.’ ‘What paper? What are you talking about, woman?’ ‘The Times. They were very interested in your past. Especially your nickname, The Reaper.’ I saw a flicker of concern. ‘Paper will take any ink, regardless of its veracity. And you will only reveal yourself as a dim-witted fool who belongs in a sanitorium.’ ‘Ah yes, you have me there. Unjust as it is, I knew my story alone wouldn’t be enough to ruin your reputation. Tarnish it, perhaps, but not the annihilation I seek. No, Lyndon, the morning papers will be full of your crimes on the battlefield and those men you murdered under the guise of cowardice. Most of the records were destroyed, but I have gathered enough evidence of your despicable acts to make you a pariah in the eyes of everyone you know and an enemy to everyone else.’ His eyes widened momentarily. ‘Those pitiful excuses for men did not deserve to wear the uniform. They were a disgrace to their families, to their country.’ ‘I have proof that the men you shot were not deserters. Witnesses who are prepared to go on record that you murdered those men. Their families deserve justice.’ ‘I gave them justice!’ His voice boomed like a cannon from his ribcage. ‘It’s just as I suspected. You are truly mad.’ We were all just pieces on a chessboard to him. Inconsequential pieces to be moved around at his will. ‘Well, it takes one to know one. Besides, they were conscripts, not real soldiers.’ I knew he was baiting me. ‘Some of them were just boys, did you know that? So yes, perhaps they panicked in the face of all that death, but they were not deserters.’ ‘Oh, please, Opaline, do tell us more about your experience of life on the battlefield. Enlighten me with your knowledge of such matters.’ ‘I know that it is not my right to be judge and juror over someone else’s life.’ ‘Shall I tell you of the thousands that died of exposure that winter? Still more from cholera. The indescribable suffering of millions of the Empire’s best men, lying in those mud trenches for weeks, in rain, cold, wind – hungry and weary under the constant rain of the enemy’s bullets. The terrible booming and slaughter that carried on ceaselessly. The dead and wounded cleared away for new soldiers to face an enemy better armed and better prepared. Showers of black mud raining down on the wild, primitive countryside. Twenty thousand men were killed on the first day at the Somme. It was as if the last day had come, and every man had to face it with only the comrade at his side for support. In the trenches
| 0 |
71 |
Kate-Alice-Marshall-What-Lies-in-the-Woods.txt
| 25 |
the pond, like we expected. Just took us a while to sift through all the junk in there,” he said. “Look, I know Bishop has been hassling you. You know how it is, new to town, gotta prove herself. Jim’s told her to simmer down, though, now that we’ve got the weapon.” “Was it Marcus Barnes’s gun?” I asked. “Sure was.” “And you’re sure that … You’re sure that’s the gun that killed her.” I swallowed hard. “Well, we don’t have the bullet, so we can’t match the ballistics. But there’s no other reason for that gun to be in that pond, is there?” He cleared his throat. “I imagine it’s a relief for everyone, to have things wrapped up.” “You’re putting it down as a suicide, then.” “Seems pretty clear, doesn’t it?” I hadn’t thought Liv had killed herself—but I’d been wrong about everything so far. Maybe I was wrong about this, too. My fingertips found the spiderweb cracks in Persephone’s skull, tightening in toward a center where one fragment had long since fallen away, leaving a ragged black gap. No. Liv wouldn’t have shot herself, and she hadn’t been suicidal. She’d been disappointed, but she wouldn’t have given up that easily. Not when she had something that she cared so much about and was so close to seeing through. Not when she’d promised me. Dougherty was talking about Bishop again. About how she wouldn’t have any choice now but to admit it was suicide and move on. His voice dipped in and out. “So I don’t think she’ll be bothering you again,” he said. “And if she does, you let me know and I’ll talk to Mayor Green about it. Make sure she understands.” “Thank you,” I bit out, because it was what he wanted to hear. Bishop saw it. She knew Liv hadn’t hurt herself, but would that matter? If Mayor Green told her to drop it, she’d be risking her job to do anything else. “It’s no problem, hon,” Dougherty said. “Hey, you made my career. I kind of owe you, I figure.” “Made your career,” I repeated dully. The words didn’t make sense. And then they snapped into focus. “You mean because you were the one who got Stahl.” He made a demurring sound. “I wouldn’t say I got him, just put the pieces together. My brother-in-law knew a guy working on the case, and he told me all about the guy they were looking at. I’d been carrying his photo around just in case I spotted him. Figured it was only a matter of time before he came hunting around here. As soon as those girls told me what had happened, it clicked.” Silence stretched. I heard him shift, chair creaking, like he was expecting me to chime in with a bit of praise and was slowly realizing it wouldn’t come. He had no idea what he’d done. The error he’d set in motion. And now he was doing it all over again. He’d known from the start it was suicide, like he’d known from the
| 0 |
32 |
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.txt
| 89 |
this time, I lay I'll just waller in Sunday-schools!" And Tom began to snuffle a little. " You bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle too. "Consound it, Tom Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'longside o' what I am. Oh, lordy , lordy, lordy, I wisht I only had half your chance." Tom choked off and whispered: "Look, Hucky, look! He's got his BACK to us!" Hucky looked, with joy in his heart. --------------------------------------------------------- -115- "Well, he has, by jingoes! Did he before?" "Yes, he did. But I, like a fool, never thought. Oh, this is bully, you know. Now who can he mean?" The howling stopped. Tom pricked up his ears. "Sh! What's that?" he whispered. "Sounds like -- like hogs grunting. No -- it's somebody snoring, Tom." "That is it! Where 'bouts is it, Huck?" "I bleeve it's down at 'tother end. Sounds so, anyway. Pap used to sleep there, sometimes, 'long with the hogs, but laws bless you, he just lifts things when he snores. Besides, I reckon he ain't ever coming back to this town any more." The spirit of adventure rose in the boys' souls once more. "Hucky, do you das't to go if I lead?" "I don't like to, much. Tom, s'pose it's Injun Joe!" Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and the boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to their heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily down, the one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps of the snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap. The man moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight. It was Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had stood still, and their hopes too, when the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They --------------------------------------------------------- -116- tiptoed out, through the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little distance to exchange a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on the night air again! They turned and saw the strange dog standing within a few feet of where Potter was lying, and facing Potter, with his nose pointing heavenward. "Oh, geeminy, it's him!" exclaimed both boys, in a breath. "Say, Tom -- they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill come in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and there ain't anybody dead there yet." "Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller fall in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?" "Yes, but she ain't dead. And what's more, she's getting better, too." "All right, you wait and see. She's a goner, just as dead sure as Muff Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers say, and they know all about these kind of things, Huck." Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom window the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive caution,
| 1 |
43 |
The Turn of the Screw.txt
| 58 |
back!--that I saw my service so strongly and so simply. I was there to protect and defend the little creatures in the world the most bereaved and the most lovable, the appeal of whose helplessness had suddenly become only too explicit, a deep, constant ache of one's own committed heart. We were cut off, really, together; we were united in our danger. They had nothing but me, and I--well, I had THEM. It was in short a magnificent chance. This chance presented itself to me in an image richly material. I was a screen-- I was to stand before them. The more I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in a stifled suspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had it continued too long, have turned to something like madness. What saved me, as I now see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didn't last as suspense--it was superseded by horrible proofs. Proofs, I say, yes--from the moment I really took hold. This moment dated from an afternoon hour that I happened to spend in the grounds with the younger of my pupils alone. We had left Miles indoors, on the red cushion of a deep window seat; he had wished to finish a book, and I had been glad to encourage a purpose so laudable in a young man whose only defect was an occasional excess of the restless. His sister, on the contrary, had been alert to come out, and I strolled with her half an hour, seeking the shade, for the sun was still high and the day exceptionally warm. I was aware afresh, with her, as we went, of how, like her brother, she contrived--it was the charming thing in both children--to let me alone without appearing to drop me and to accompany me without appearing to surround. They were never importunate and yet never listless. My attention to them all really went to seeing them amuse themselves immensely without me: this was a spectacle they seemed actively to prepare and that engaged me as an active admirer. I walked in a world of their invention--they had no occasion whatever to draw upon mine; so that my time was taken only with being, for them, some remarkable person or thing that the game of the moment required and that was merely, thanks to my superior, my exalted stamp, a happy and highly distinguished sinecure. I forget what I was on the present occasion; I only remember that I was something very important and very quiet and that Flora was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, as we had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof. Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the other side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator. The way this knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world--the strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with a piece
| 1 |
32 |
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.txt
| 27 |
don't begin that groaning again. Open your mouth. Well -- your tooth IS loose, but you're not going to die about that. Mary, get me a silk thread, and a chunk of fire out of the kitchen." Tom said: "Oh, please, auntie, don't pull it out. It don't hurt any more. I wish I may never stir if it does. Please don't, auntie. I don't want to stay home from school." "Oh, you don't, don't you? So all this row was because you thought you'd get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love you --------------------------------------------------------- -70- so, and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart with your outrageousness." By this time the dental instruments were ready. The old lady made one end of the silk thread fast to 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
| 1 |
28 |
THE SCARLET LETTER.txt
| 54 |
to me, just as it was written out by the reality of the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only because my brain wanted the insight, and my hand the cunning, to transcribe it. At some future day, it may be, I shall remember a few scattered fragments and broken paragraphs, and write them down, and find the letters turn to gold upon the page. These perceptions had come too late. At the Instant, I was only conscious that what would have been a pleasure once was now a hopeless toil. There was no occasion to make much moan about this state of affairs. I had ceased to be a Thesaurus faculties: (n) mother wit. untowardly, nosily, unbefittingly, importance, tangibility, reality, flitting: (adj) fleeting, fugitive, unfortunately. element, essential nature, momentary, transient, ephemeral; (v) marvelous: (adj) wonderful, fantastic, groundwork, vital part, materialness. migration. incredible, fabulous, extraordinary, ANTONYM: (n) immateriality. humourous: (adj) humorous. tremendous, grand, astonishing, opaque: (adj) dense, muddy, obscure, inefficacious: (adj) ineffective, futile, terrific, great; (adj, v) prodigious. cloudy, hazy, murky, thick, inefficient, bootless, useless, ANTONYMS: (adj) ordinary, unintelligible, milky, misty, vague. inoperative, inutile, null, feckless, mundane, abysmal, bad, dreadful, ANTONYM: (adj) transparent. nugatory, fruitless. unworthy, dire, humdrum, transcribe: (n, v) copy, reproduce; (v) intrusively: (adv) meddlesomely, unimpressive, unremarkable, boring. record, transliterate, note, put down, obtrusively, impertinently, pryingly, materiality: (n) corporeality, write down, write, paraphrase; (n) meddlingly, curiously, busily, substantiality, concreteness, duplicate, imitate. Nathaniel Hawthorne 37 writer of tolerably poor tales and essays, and had become a tolerably good Surveyor of the Customs. That was all. But, nevertheless, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away, or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. Of the fact there could be no doubt and, examining myself and others, I was led to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office on the character, not very favourable to the mode of life in question. In some other form, perhaps, I may hereafter develop these effects. Suffice it here to say that a Custom-House officer of long continuance can hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for many reasons; one of them, the tenure by which he holds his situation, and another, the very nature of his business, which--though, I trust, an honest one--is of such a sort that he does not share in the united effort of mankind.% An effect--which I believe to be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position--is, that while he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength, departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capability of self-support. If he possesses an unusual share of native energy, or the enervating magic of place do not operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. The ejected officer--fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes, to struggle
| 1 |
3 |
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt
| 90 |
pretty well, and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights, and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the place. I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When I woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from shore. Every- thing was dead quiet, and it looked late, and SMELT late. You know what I mean -- I don't know the words to put it in. I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night. I peeped out through the willow branches, and there it was -- a skiff, away across the water. I couldn't tell how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it was abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it. Think's I, maybe it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped below me with the current, and by and by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy water, and he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him. Well, it WAS pap, sure enough -- and sober, too, by the way he laid his oars. I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a- spinning down stream soft but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing, and people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood, and then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float. I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking away into the sky; not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before. And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people talking at the ferry land- ing. I heard what they said, too -- every word of it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short nights now. T'other one said THIS warn't one of the short ones, he reckoned -- and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out something
| 1 |
94 |
Titanium-Noir.txt
| 5 |
yes, Mâri says, she knows Roddy. Occasionally he comes and sits in. He always orders the same things, very particular. He doesn’t drink much. Always used to come in by himself. No, never with Mrs. Catchpole—Mâri does not love Mrs. Catchpole—but there was a girl, a pale, pretty girl, she looked tiny next to him but she was about the same height as Mâri. Atilla says she was a singer. How does he know she was a singer? She told him so. And when was he talking to the pretty singer, exactly? When he brought the sorpotel and the paprika feijoada. Well, he should keep his eyes on his cooking, then, and not disturb the female guests. I was going to ask whether the singer wore earrings, but I figure I’m not getting an answer to that now. Atilla goes back to the kitchen, and when a kid comes through the main door with a skateboard Mâri immediately brings him over and sits him down. “This is Andor. He made the delivery last night. Tell him, Andor.” The kid says he made the delivery last night. “But the guy never came to the door. No tip.” “Andor!” “Sorry, Mom.” “You’re not supposed to leave food. If they don’t come to the door we bring it back. Keep it warm.” “But he called out to leave it.” That’s interesting. “You sure about that?” “Pretty sure. I knocked, he didn’t answer. I knocked again and he said to leave the food.” “Him or someone else?” “I…guess it could have been either.” “Andor!” “No, he’s right, Mrs.—” What did she say the name was? “Adami. Through a door, one sentence like that, he can’t know whose voice. Not to be sure. That’s important. Thank you, Andor.” “S’okay.” He gets up to go. I lay a couple of bills on the table. “Since you didn’t get a tip.” Leave my finger on the top one. “You think there was someone else in there? Or was he by himself?” “Someone else. I figured it was his girlfriend. I thought there was, uh,” a glance at his mother, “kinda heavy breathing. Like if someone had been, uh, getting a lot of exercise.” She scowls, and he takes flight. “Do your chores!” “Yes, Mom.” The kitchen door closes. “Good kid.” She smiles then, like sunrise. I go outside and think about Roddy Tebbit ordering food before killing himself, and Roddy Tebbit sitting in his chair overlooking the city, and Roddy Tebbit dead on the carpet, and I think about someone breathing heavy enough to be heard outside by a kid who had other things on his mind. * * * — Musgrave’s office is on the first floor, with the mortuary right alongside. The entire south wall is made of white smoked glass so the autopsy room can use natural light. The other wall is the cadaver bank, row upon row of square doors with corpses stored behind them one on top of the other like a library of grief. I put my head round the door and say:
| 0 |
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt
| 42 |
all eternity. Gradually, as his soul was enriched with spiritual knowledge, he saw the whole world forming one vast symmetrical expression of God's power and love. Life became a divine gift for every moment and sensation of which, were it even the sight of a single leaf hanging on the twig of a tree, his soul should praise and thank the Giver. The world for all its solid substance and complexity no longer existed for his soul save as a theorem of divine power and love and universality. So entire and unquestionable was this sense of the divine meaning in all nature granted to his soul that he could scarcely understand why it was in any way necessary that he should continue to live. Yet that was part of the divine purpose and he dared not question its use, he above all others who had sinned so deeply and so foully against the divine purpose. Meek and abased by this consciousness of the one eternal omnipresent perfect reality his soul took up again her burden of pieties, masses and prayers and sacraments and mortifications, and only then for the first time since he had brooded on the great mystery of love did he feel within him a warm movement like that of some newly born life or virtue of the soul itself. The attitude of rapture in sacred art, the raised and parted hands, the parted lips and eyes as of one about to swoon, became for him an image of the soul in prayer, humiliated and faint before her Creator. But he had been forewarned of the dangers of spiritual exaltation and did not allow himself to desist from even the least or lowliest devotion, striving also by constant mortification to undo the sinful past rather than to achieve a saintliness fraught with peril. Each of his senses was brought under a rigorous discipline. In order to mortify the sense of sight he made it his rule to walk in the street with downcast eyes, glancing neither to right nor left and never behind him. His eyes shunned every encounter with the eyes of women. From time to time also he balked them by a sudden effort of the will, as by lifting them suddenly in the middle of an unfinished sentence and closing the book. To mortify his hearing he exerted no control over his voice which was then breaking, neither sang nor whistled, and made no attempt to flee from noises which caused him painful nervous irritation such as the sharpening of knives on the knife board, the gathering of cinders on the fire-shovel and the twigging of the carpet. To mortify his smell was more difficult as he found in himself no instinctive repugnance to bad odours whether they were the odours of the outdoor world, such as those of dung or tar, or the odours of his own person among which he had made many curious comparisons and experiments. He found in the end that the only odour against which his sense of smell revolted was a
| 1 |
60 |
Divine Rivals.txt
| 18 |
left the front door unlocked for her mother and carried a candle into her room, where she was surprised to find a piece of paper lying on her floor. Her mysterious pen pal had written again, even though she had yet to respond to their myth-filled letter. She was beginning to wonder if they were from another time. Perhaps they had lived in this very room, long before her. Perhaps they were destined to live here, years from now. Perhaps their letters were somehow slipping through a fissure of time, but it was this place that was causing it. Iris retrieved the paper and sat on the edge of her bed, reading: Do you ever feel as if you wear armor, day after day? That when people look at you, they see only the shine of steel that you’ve so carefully encased yourself in? They see what they want to see in you—the warped reflection of their own face, or a piece of the sky, or a shadow cast between buildings. They see all the times you’ve made mistakes, all the times you’ve failed, all the times you’ve hurt them or disappointed them. As if that is all you will ever be in their eyes. How do you change something like that? How do you make your life your own and not feel guilt over it? While she was reading it a second time, soaking in their words and pondering how to respond to something that felt so intimate it could have been whispered from her own mouth, another letter came over the threshold. Iris stood to fetch it, and that was the first time she truly tried to envision who this person was. She tried, but they were nothing more than stars and smoke and words pressed on a page. She knew absolutely nothing about them. But after reading something like this, as if they had bled themselves on the paper … she longed to know more. She opened the second letter, which was a hasty: I sincerely apologize for bothering you with such thoughts. I hope I didn’t wake you. No need to reply to me. I think it helps to type things out. Iris knelt and reached for her typewriter beneath the bed. She fed a fresh sheet of paper into the roller and then sat there, staring at its possibilities. Slowly, she began to type, her fingers meeting the keys. Her thoughts began to strike across the page: I think we all wear armor. I think those who don’t are fools, risking the pain of being wounded by the sharp edges of the world, over and over again. But if I’ve learned anything from those fools, it’s that to be vulnerable is a strength most of us fear. It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see you as you are. Sometimes I feel the same as you: I can’t risk having people behold me as I truly am. But there’s also a small voice in the back of my mind, a voice that
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20 |
Jane Eyre.txt
| 2 |
I m e t t h o s e q u a l i t i e s i n c a r n a t e i n m a s c u l i n e s h a p e , I s h o u l d h a v e k n o w n i n s t i n c t i v e l y t h a t t h e y n e i t h e r h a d n o r c o u l d h a v e s y m p a t h y w i t h a n y t h i n g i n m e , a n d s h o u l d h a v e s h u n n e d t h e m a s o n e w o u l d f i r e , l i g h t n i n g , o r a n y t h i n g e l s e t h a t i s b r i g h t b u t a n t i p a t h e t i c . I f e v e n t h i s s t r a n g e r h a d s m i l e d a n d b e e n g o o d - h u m o r e d t o m e w h e n I a d d r e s s e d h i m ; i f h e h a d p u t o f f m y o f f e r o f a s s i s t a n c e g a y l y a n d w i t h t h a n k s , I s h o u l d h a v e g o n e o n m y w a y a n d n o t f e l t a n y v o c a t i o n t o r e n e w i n q u i r i e s ; b u t t h e f r o w n , t h e r o u g h n e s s o f t h e t r a v e l e r , s e t m e a t m y e a s e : I r e t a i n e d m y s t a t i o n w h e n h e w a v e d t o m e t o g o , a n d a n n o u n c e d : " I c a n n o t t h i n k o f l e a v i n g y o u , s i r , a t s o l a t e a n h o u r , i n t h i s s o l i t a r y l a n e , t i l l I s e e y o u a r e f i t t o m o u n t y o u r h o r s e . " H e l o o k e d a t m e w h e n I s a i d t h i s ; h e h a d h a r d l y t u r n e d h i s e y e s i n m y d i r e c t i o n b e f o r e . I s h o u l d t h i n k y o u o u g h t t o b e a t h o m e y o u r s e l f , " s a i d h e , " i f y o u h a v e a h o m e i n t h i s n e i g h b o r h o o d ; w h e r e d o y o u c o m e f r o m ? " " F r o m j u s t b e l o w ; a n d I a m n o t a t a l l a f r a i d o f b e i n g o u t l a t e w h e n i t i s m o o n l i g h t ; I w i l l r u n o v e r t o H a y f o r y o u w i t h p l e a s u r e , i f y o u w i s h i t ; i n d e e d , I a m g o i n g t h e r e t o p o s t a l e t t e r . " " Y o u l i v e j u s t b e l o w d o y o u m e a n a t t h a t h o u s e w i t h t h e b a t t l e m e n t s ? " p o i n t i n g t o T h o r n f i e l d H a l l , o n w h i c h t h e m o o n c a s t a h o a r y g l e a m , b r i n g i n g i t o u t d i s t i n c t a n d p a l e f r o m t h e w o o d s , t h a t , b y c o n t r a s t w i t h t h e w e s t e r n s k y , n o w s e e m e d o n e m a s s o f s h a d o w . " Y e s , s i r . " " W h o s e h o u s e i s i t ? " " M r . R o c h e s t e r ' s . " " D o y o u k n o w M r . R o c h e s t e r ? " " N o ; I h a v e n e v e r s e e n h i m . " " H e i s n o t r e s i d e n t , t h e n ? " " N o . " " C a n y o u t e l l m e w h e r e h e i s ? " " I c a n n o t . " " Y o u a r e n o t a s e r v a n t a t t h e h a l l , o f c o u r s e . Y o u a r e " H e s t o p p e d , r a n h i s e y e o v e r m y d r e s s , w h i c h , a s u s u a l , w a s q u i t e s i m p l e a b l a c k m e r i n o c l o a k , a b l a c k b e a v e r b o n n e t ; n e i t h e r o f t h e m h a l f f i n e e n o u g h f o r a l a d y ' s m a i d . H e s e e m e d p u z z l e d t o d e c i d e w h a t I w a s : I h e l p e d h i m . " I a m t h e g o v e r n e s s . " " A h , t h e g o v e r n e s s ! " h e r e p e a t e d ; " d e u c e t a k e m e , i f I h a d n o t f o r g o t t e n ! T h e g o v e r n e s s ! " a n d a g a i n m y r a i m e n t u n d e r w e n t s c r u t i n y . I n t w o m i n u t e s h e r o s e f r o m t h e s t i l e ; h i s f a c e e x p r e s s e d p a i n w h e n h e t r i e d t o m o v e . " I c a n n o t c o m m i s s i o n y o u t o f e t c h h e l p , " h e s a i d ; " b u t y o u m a y h e l p m e a l i t t l e y o u r s e l f , i f y o u w i l l b e s o k i n d . " " Y e s , s i r . " " Y o u h a v e n o t a n u m b r e l l a t h a t
| 1 |
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Cold People.txt
| 98 |
troubled Echo – an expression of how alien she really was, as if being human meant that your blood ran red. The only person she’d confided in was Tetu, hoping he’d be nerdish and academic about it. To her surprise he’d reacted emotionally, and she realized in that moment that he’d been contemplating their compatibility as sexual partners or, to put it less scientifically, that he might be in love. He’d tried to cover his feelings by joking that ‘blue blood’ used to be a phrase denoting royalty, that she was a member of Antarctica’s royal family, an Ice Princess, and he was a humble peasant on this land, a man who should bow before her. Even his attempt at humour was revealing, the joke touching upon the belief that he didn’t feel that he was worthy of her, that the biological barriers between them couldn’t be bridged by affection alone. Swimming along the seabed towards the flickers of alien light ahead, Echo thought about asking these difficult questions when she arrived at McMurdo City. She would meet her creators, stand before them, ask a long series of questions and listen as her place in this world became clear. It was for this reason that she admired Tetu so much. He had no wise creators he could quiz for answers, he had no family, he had nothing except the wisdom he’d worked for and the ambition to be more than a survivor. Though she rarely paid him a compliment, she decided it was time to tell him, when she handed him this alien fragment, not that she loved him – she wasn’t confident of using that word – but that she was proud to be his friend. The freezing water was sapping her heat more rapidly than the air, water being a far more powerful cooling agent, and her body responded by unlocking the heat stored in her genetically altered adipose tissue, a form of fat found in newborn babies who were particularly vulnerable to the cold since they were unable to shiver. These cells broke down on command, generating heat through highly specialized non-shivering thermogenesis. Most ordinary-born adults had very little adipose tissue, but Echo’s entire body was lined with an enhanced version created in the McMurdo labs. In Antarctica, fat was life, and her fat cells were the most advanced ever created. She spotted a second octopus and then a third, curious as to what was attracting these solitary and highly intelligent creatures. They seemed to be drawn to the alien light and, reaching the fragment, she found a cluster of them, their tentacles wrapped around it. She stood, watching them for a time, before gently plunging her arm into their writhing mass. As she grabbed hold of it the octopuses travelled up her arms, across her body and onto her face, one sitting on her bald head like a hat. She carried on regardless, allowing them to coil around her, finally feeling the peculiar texture of the alien technology and pulling it free. She studied its luminescent pulses. Tetu
| 0 |
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Five On A Treasure Island.txt
| 15 |
properly out, and the children's wet clothes dried in its hot rays. They steamed in the sun, and even Tim's coat sent up a mist too. He didn't seem to like the wreck at all, but growled deeply at it. "You are funny, Tim," said George, patting him. "It won't hurt you! What do you think it is?" "He probably thinks it's a whale," said Anne with a laugh. "Oh, George- this is the most exciting day of my life! Oh, can't we possibly take the boat and see if we can get to the wreck?" "No, we can't," said George. "I only wish we could. But it's quite impossible, Anne. For one thing I don't think the wreck has quite settled down on the rocks yet, and maybe it won't till the tide has gone down. I can see it lifting a little still when an extra big wave comes. It would be dangerous to go into it yet. And for another thing I don't want my boat smashed to bits on the rocks, and us thrown into that wild water! That's what would happen. We must wait till tomorrow. It's a good idea to come early. I expect lots of grown-ups will think it's their business to explore it." The children watched the old wreck for a little time longer and then went all round the island again. It was certainly not very large, but it really was exciting, with its rocky little coast, its quiet inlet where their boat was, the ruined castle, the circling jackdaws, and the scampering rabbits everywhere. "I do love it," said Anne. "I really do. It's just small enough to feel like an island. Most islands are too big to feel like islands. I mean, Britain is an island, but nobody living on it could possibly know it unless they were told. Now this island really feels like one because wherever you are you can see to the other side of it. I love it." George felt very happy. She had often been on her island before, but always alone except for Tim. She had always vowed that she never, never would take anyone there, because it would spoil her island for her. But it hadn't been spoilt. It had made it much nicer. For the first time George began to understand that sharing pleasures doubles their joy. "We'll wait till the waves go down a bit then we'll go back home," she said. "I rather think there's some more rain coming, and we'll only get soaked through. We shan't be back till tea-time as it is, because we'll have a long pull against the out-going tide." All the children felt a little tired after the excitements of the morning. They said very little as they rowed home. Everyone took turns at rowing except Anne, who was not strong enough with the oars to row against the tide. They looked back at the island as they left it. They couldn't see the wreck because that was on the opposite side, facing the open sea.
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treasure island.txt
| 32 |
was led like a dancing bear. Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder, bearing a point to the N. of The other men were variously burthened, some carrying N.N.E. Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E. Ten feet. picks and shovels—for that had been the very first necessary A tall tree was thus the principal mark. Now, right before they brought ashore from the HISPANIOLA— others laden us the anchorage was bounded by a plateau from two to three with pork, bread, and brandy for the midday meal. All the hundred feet high, adjoining on the north the sloping south- stores, I observed, came from our stock, and I could see the ern shoulder of the Spy-glass and rising again towards the truth of Silver’s words the night before. Had he not struck a south into the rough, cliffy eminence called the Mizzen-mast bargain with the doctor, he and his mutineers, deserted by Hill. The top of the plateau was dotted thickly with pine- the ship, must have been driven to subsist on clear water and trees of varying height. Every here and there, one of a differ- the proceeds of their hunting. Water would have been little ent species rose forty or fifty feet clear above its neighbours, to their taste; a sailor is not usually a good shot; and besides and which of these was the particular “tall tree” of Captain all that, when they were so short of eatables, it was not likely Flint could only be decided on the spot, and by the readings they would be very flush of powder. of the compass. Contents Well, thus equipped, we all set out—even the fellow with Yet, although that was the case, every man on board the the broken head, who should certainly have kept in shadow— boats had picked a favourite of his own ere we were half-way Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 262 263 over, Long John alone shrugging his shoulders and bidding We had thus proceeded for about half a mile and were them wait till they were there. approaching the brow of the plateau when the man upon the We pulled easily, by Silver’s directions, not to weary the farthest left began to cry aloud, as if in terror. Shout after hands prematurely, and after quite a long passage, landed at shout came from him, and the others began to run in his the mouth of the second river—that which runs down a woody direction. cleft of the Spy-glass. Thence, bending to our left, we began “He can’t ‘a found the treasure,” said old Morgan, hurry- to ascend the slope towards the plateau. ing past us from the right, “for that’s clean a-top.” At the first outset, heavy, miry ground and a matted, Indeed, as we found when we also reached the spot, it was marish vegetation greatly delayed our progress; but by little something very different. At the foot of a pretty big pine and little the hill began to steepen and become stony under and involved in a green creeper, which had even partly lifted foot, and
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The Hunger Games.txt
| 58 |
But I do notice they omit the part where I covered her in flowers. Right. Because even that smacks of rebellion. Things pick up for me once they’ve announced two tributes from the same district can live and I shout out Peeta’s name and then clap my hands over my mouth. If I’ve seemed indiffe- rent to him earlier, I make up for it now, by finding him, nurs- ing him back to health, going to the feast for the medicine, and 356 being very free with my kisses. Objectively, I can see the mutts and Cato’s death are as gruesome as ever, but again, I feel it happens to people I have never met. And then comes the moment with the berries. I can hear the audience hushing one another, not wanting to miss any- thing. A wave of gratitude to the filmmakers sweeps over me when they end not with the announcement of our victory, but with me pounding on the glass door of the hovercraft, scream- ing Peeta’s name as they try to revive him. In terms of survival, it’s my best moment all night. The anthem’s playing yet again and we rise as President Snow himself takes the stage followed by a little girl carrying a cushion that holds the crown. There’s just one crown, though, and you can hear the crowd’s confusion — whose head will he place it on? — until President Snow gives it a twist and it separates into two halves. He places the first around Peeta’s brow with a smile. He’s still smiling when he settles the second on my head, but his eyes, just inches from mine, are as unforgiving as a snake’s. That’s when I know that even though both of us would have eaten the berries, I am to blame for having the idea. I’m the in- stigator. I’m the one to be punished. Much bowing and cheering follows. My arm is about to fall off from waving when Caesar Flickerman finally bids the au- dience good night, reminding them to tune in tomorrow for the final interviews. As if they have a choice. Peeta and I are whisked to the president’s mansion for the Victory Banquet, where we have very little time to eat as Capi- 357 tol officials and particularly generous sponsors elbow one another out of the way as they try to get their picture with us. Face after beaming face flashes by, becoming increasingly in- toxicated as the evening wears on. Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of Haymitch, which is reassuring, or President Snow, which is terrifying, but I keep laughing and thanking people and smiling as my picture is taken. The one thing I never do is let go of Peeta’s hand. The sun is just peeking over the horizon when we straggle back to the twelfth floor of the Training Center. I think now I’ll finally get a word alone with Peeta, but Haymitch sends him off with Portia to get something fitted for the interview and personally escorts me to my door. “Why
| 1 |
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The Hunger Games.txt
| 94 |
a silver para- chute. My first gift from a sponsor! Haymitch must have had it sent in during the anthem. The pot easily fits in the palm of my 186 hand. What can it be? Not food surely. I unscrew the lid and I know by the scent that it’s medicine. Cautiously, I probe the surface of the ointment. The throbbing in my fingertip vanish- es. “Oh, Haymitch,” I whisper. “Thank you.” He has not aban- doned me. Not left me to fend entirely for myself. The cost of this medicine must be astronomical. Probably not one but many sponsors have contributed to buy this one tiny pot. To me, it is priceless. I dip two fingers in the jar and gently spread the balm over my calf. The effect is almost magical, erasing the pain on con- tact, leaving a pleasant cooling sensation behind. This is no herbal concoction that my mother grinds up out of woodland plants, it’s high-tech medicine brewed up in the Capitol’s labs. When my calf is treated, I rub a thin layer into my hands. After wrapping the pot in the parachute, I nestle it safely away in my pack. Now that the pain has eased, it’s all I can do to repo- sition myself in my bag before I plunge into sleep. A bird perched just a few feet from me alerts me that a new day is dawning. In the gray morning light, I examine my hands. The medicine has transformed all the angry red patches to a soft baby-skin pink. My leg still feels inflamed, but that burn was far deeper. I apply another coat of medicine and quietly pack up my gear. Whatever happens, I’m going to have to move and move fast. I also make myself eat a cracker and a strip of beef and drink a few cups of water. Almost nothing stayed in my stomach yesterday, and I’m already starting to feel the effects of hunger. 187 Below me, I can see the Career pack and Peeta asleep on the ground. By her position, leaning up against the trunk of the tree, I’d guess Glimmer was supposed to be on guard, but fatigue overcame her. My eyes squint as they try to penetrate the tree next to me, but I can’t make out Rue. Since she tipped me off, it only seems fair to warn her. Besides, if I’m going to die today, it’s Rue I want to win. Even if it means a little extra food for my family, the idea of Peeta being crowned victor is unbearable. I call Rue’s name in a hushed whisper and the eyes appear, wide and alert, at once. She points up to the nest again. I hold up my knife and make a sawing motion. She nods and disap- pears. There’s a rustling in a nearby tree. Then the same noise again a bit farther off. I realize she’s leaping from tree to tree. It’s all I can do not to laugh out loud. Is this what she showed the Gamemakers?
| 1 |
90 |
The-Lost-Bookshop.txt
| 94 |
long before Madame Bowden arrived. ‘What happened to your husband, if you don’t mind me asking?’ ‘Plane crash. We were only married a year when his plane went down over Gibraltar.’ ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘Yes, it was a difficult time. That’s when I met Archie.’ ‘Archie?’ ‘My second husband. He was a doctor from Cork.’ ‘I thought you said he was Russian?’ ‘Oh no, that was husband number three.’ ‘But what happened to Archie?’ I realised that this was really none of my business, but I couldn’t help myself. Maybe when you got to her age, minor details like this didn’t matter any more. ‘Archie contracted malaria when he was working in Africa, poor fellow.’ I wondered what had happened to the Russian mathematician – death by numbers? ‘What’s with all of these questions? I hope you’re not planning on bumping me off and getting your hands on my house?’ ‘Honestly, Madame Bowden, if anyone should be worried about getting bumped off, I think it should be me.’ She stared at me for a moment and I was full sure she was going to fire me for insolence, when she let out an enormous laugh. I really needed to hang out with people my own age. I spent that entire day giving the house a deep clean. It was something I always enjoyed doing, not because I was a fan of housework, but because the methodical action of cleaning was the only way I’d ever found to make my thoughts stop. Thoughts like: I had married a bully, I had wasted my life, and now I could add a new one to the list – I had humiliated myself in front of Henry. Why did I care about his opinion so much anyway? Besides, it wasn’t my fault he’d neglected to tell me about his fiancée. But the truth was, I already knew. I could read in his eyes that his heart was tied elsewhere, so why did I act like it was such a big surprise? And why did it even matter? What kind of an idiot would start having feelings for someone when they’d just got out of an abusive marriage? That should have been the end of it. I simply couldn’t permit myself to feel anything. I was exhausted by the time I got downstairs to the basement that night. I brushed my teeth in the bathroom and changed for bed with unseeing eyes. It was only as I pulled the covers down and flopped into bed that I saw it. Where the lines in the wall had been, there now emerged a shelf. With one single book on it. Standing upright. I looked around the room, for what, I don’t know. I almost felt like saying out loud, ‘Can anyone else see this?’ I was afraid to get out of bed and so I just stayed there, frozen for a minute. Nothing else happened, not a sound came. I had no idea how it got there, other than that Madame Bowden must have placed it
| 0 |
33 |
The Age of Innocence.txt
| 3 |
jeopardy) to be able to remind themselves that Beaufort WAS; but, after all, if a Dallas of South Carolina took his view of the case, and glibly talked of his soon being "on his feet again," the argument lost its edge, and there was nothing to do but to accept this awful evidence of the indissolubility of marriage. Society must manage to get on without the Beauforts, and there was an end of it--except indeed for such hapless victims of the disaster as Medora Manson, the poor old Miss Lannings, and certain other misguided ladies of good family who, if only they had listened to Mr. Henry van der Luyden . . . "The best thing the Beauforts can do," said Mrs. Archer, summing it up as if she were pronouncing a diagnosis and prescribing a course of treatment, "is to go and live at Regina's little place in North Carolina. Beaufort has always kept a racing stable, and he had better breed trotting horses. I should say he had all the qualities of a successful horsedealer." Every one agreed with her, but no one condescended to enquire what the Beauforts really meant to do. The next day Mrs. Manson Mingott was much better: she recovered her voice sufficiently to give orders that no one should mention the Beauforts to her again, and asked--when Dr. Bencomb appeared--what in the world her family meant by making such a fuss about her health. "If people of my age WILL eat chicken-salad in the evening what are they to expect?" she enquired; and, the doctor having opportunely modified her dietary, the stroke was transformed into an attack of indigestion. But in spite of her firm tone old Catherine did not wholly recover her former attitude toward life. The growing remoteness of old age, though it had not diminished her curiosity about her neighbours, had blunted her never very lively compassion for their troubles; and she seemed to have no difficulty in putting the Beaufort disaster out of her mind. But for the first time she became absorbed in her own symptoms, and began to take a sentimental interest in certain members of her family to whom she had hitherto been contemptuously indifferent. Mr. Welland, in particular, had the privilege of attracting her notice. Of her sons-in-law he was the one she had most consistently ignored; and all his wife's efforts to represent him as a man of forceful character and marked intellectual ability (if he had only "chosen") had been met with a derisive chuckle. But his eminence as a valetudinarian now made him an object of engrossing interest, and Mrs. Mingott issued an imperial summons to him to come and compare diets as soon as his temperature permitted; for old Catherine was now the first to recognise that one could not be too careful about temperatures. Twenty-four hours after Madame Olenska's summons a telegram announced that she would arrive from Washington on the evening of the following day. At the Wellands', where the Newland Archers chanced to be lunching, the question as to who
| 1 |
61 |
Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt
| 90 |
dreary rainstorms and the occasional frost. And more rainstorms, of course. Do they have other weather in Ireland?” He glowered at me from behind his mug—I had made him the chocolate after all. “We cannot all be made of stone and pencil shavings,” he replied. After supper, he fell asleep in the chair, and I helped him to his bed. To my great amusement, one of his conquests showed up shortly thereafter, apparently for a prearranged rendez-vous, a pretty, dark-haired thing, yet another of Thora’s granddaughters. I was sorely tempted to show her the state of her paramour after a hike of only a few hours, and not a particularly difficult one, for Ljoslanders appear to prize hardiness above all things, amusing myself imagining the dent it would put in Bambleby’s appeal. SKIP NOTES * There are, in fact, several stories from France and the British Isles which describe this sort of enchantment. In two of the Irish tales, which may have the same root story, a mortal maiden figures out that her suitor is an exile of the courtly fae after he inadvertently touches her crucifix and burns himself (the Folk in Irish stories are often burning themselves on crucifixes, for some reason). She announces it aloud, which breaks the enchantment and allows him henceforth to reveal his faerie nature to whomever he chooses. 16th November I expected Wendell to sleep late today, and he did not surprise me; by the time he stirred himself I had already breakfasted and returned from my visit with Poe, whose tree home required shovelling again. It snowed again in the night, a true snow this time. I myself had awoken to the sound of a very strange knock at the door, heavy and rhythmic, and I had a moment of terror, my mind going to tales of ancient winter kings come to demand unfavourable bargains, only to discover that it was Finn, kindly shovelling our steps. The snow was waist-deep in places, with drifts rolling higher like waves, deep enough to drown in and painfully bright beneath the cloudless sky. After breakfast, Aud arrived on snowshoes with a lump of beeswax and a basket of candles. From the latter rose a powerful smell, a mixture of lemons and rot. “For the windows,” she said. “Light them each night. It will keep the tall ones from your door.” “I see,” I said, and proceeded to extract from her the recipe for our paper. The candles were made from fish oil, lemon juice, fermented seaweed, rose petals harvested on the full moon, and the crushed bones of ravens (quantities to be provided in the appendix). It sounded rather fanciful to me—there are human workings, metal for instance, that the Folk near universally disdain, but they rarely take the form of poetic recipes (not that this has prevented many charlatans from making a tidy profit from same). But Aud assured me that the tall ones’ music would not pass into the cottage with the candles burning. I showed the candles to Wendell, when he finally bestirred himself,
| 0 |
21 |
Little Women.txt
| 3 |
Marmee and the girls, and day after day said hopefully to herself, " I know I'll get my music some time, if I'm good." There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind. If anybody had asked Amy what the greatest trial of her life was, she would have answered at once, "My nose." When she was a baby,Jo had accidently dropped her into the coal hod, and Amy insisted that the fall had ruined her nose forever. It was not big nor red, like poor `Petrea's', it was only rather flat, and all the pinching in the world could not give it an aristocratic point. No one minded it but herself, and it was doing its best to grow, but Amy felt deeply the want of a Grecian nose, and drew whole sheets of handsome ones to console herself. "Little Raphael," as her sisters called her, had a decided talent for drawing, and was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art. Her teachers complained that instead of doing her sums she covered her slate with animals, the blank pages of her atlas were used to copy maps on, and caricatures of the most ludicrous description came fluttering out of all her books at unlucky moments. She got through her lessons as well as she could, and managed to escape reprimands by being a model of deportment. She was a great favorite with her mates, being good-tempered and possessing the happy art of pleasing without effort. Her little airs and graces were much admired, so were her accomplishments, for besides her drawing, she could play twelve tunes, crochet, and read French without mispronouncing more than two-thirds of the words. She had a plaintive way of saying, "When Papa was rich we did so-and-so," which was very touching, and her long words were considered `perfectly elegant' by the girls. Amy was in a fair way to be spoiled, for everyone petted her, and her small vanities and selfishnesses were growing nicely. One thing, however, rather quenched the vanities. She had to wear her cousin's clothes. Now Florence's mama hadn't a particle of taste, and Amy suffered deeply at having to wear a red instead of a blue bonnet, unbecoming gowns, and fussy aprons that did not fit. Everything was good, well made, and little worn, but Amy's artistic eyes were much afflicted, especially this winter, when her school dress was a dull purple with yellow dots and no trimming. "My only comfort," she said to Meg, with tears in her eyes, "is that Mother doesn't take tucks in my dresses whenever I'm naughty, as Maria Parks's mother does. My dear, it's really dreadful, for sometimes she is so bad her frock is up to her knees, and she can't come to school. When I think
| 1 |
38 |
The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt
| 80 |
Doctor Kemp, putting his pen into his mouth again and listening. "Who's letting off revolvers in Burdock? What are the asses at now?" He went to the south window, threw it up, and leaning out stared down on the network of windows, beaded gas-lamps and shops with black interstices of roof and yard that made up the town at night. "Looks like a crowd down the hill," he said, "by the Cricketers," and remained watching. Thence his eyes wandered over the town to far away where the ships' lights shone, and the pier glowed, a little illuminated pavilion like a gem of yellow light. The moon in its first quarter hung over the western hill, and the stars were clear and almost tropically bright. After five minutes, during which his mind had travelled into a remote speculation of social conditions of the future, and lost itself at last over the time dimension, Doctor Kemp roused himself with a sigh, pulled down the window again, and returned to his writing-desk. It must have been about an hour after this that the front-door bell rang. He had been writing slackly and with intervals of abstraction, since the shots. He sat listening. He heard the servant answer the door, and waited for her feet on the staircase, but she did not come. "Wonder what that was," said Doctor Kemp. He tried to resume his work, failed, got up, went downstairs from his study to the landing, rang, and called over the balustrade to the housemaid as she appeared in the hall below. "Was that a letter?" he asked. "Only a runaway ring, sir," she answered. "I'm restless to-night," he said to himself. He went back to his study, and this time attacked his work resolutely. In a little while he was hard at work again, and the only sounds in the room were the ticking of the clock and the subdued shrillness of his quill, hurrying in the very centre of the circle of light his lamp-shade threw on his table. It was two o'clock before Doctor Kemp had finished his work for the night. He rose, yawned, and went downstairs to bed. He had already removed his coat and vest, when he noticed that he was thirsty. He took a candle and went down to the dining-room in search of a siphon and whisky. Doctor Kemp's scientific pursuits had made him a very observant man, and as he recrossed the hall, he noticed a dark spot on the linoleum near the mat at the foot of the stairs. He went on upstairs, and then it suddenly occurred to him to ask himself what the spot on the linoleum might be. Apparently some subconscious element was at work. At any rate, he turned with his burden, went back to the hall, put down the siphon and whisky, and bending down, touched the spot. Without any great surprise he found it had the stickiness and colour of drying blood. He took up his burden again, and returned upstairs, looking about him and trying to account for
| 1 |
21 |
Little Women.txt
| 23 |
while she resolved in her quiet little soul to be all that Father hoped to find her when the year brought round the happy coming home. Mrs. March broke the silence that followed Jo's words, by saying in her cheery voice, "Do you remember how you used to play Pilgrims Progress when you were little things? Nothing delighted you more than to have me tie my piece bags on your backs for burdens, give you hats and sticks and rolls of paper, and let you travel through the house from the cellar, which was the City of Destruction, up, up, to the housetop, where you had all the lovely things you could collect to make a Celestial City." "What fun it was, especially going by the lions, fighting Apollyon, and passing through the valley where the hob-goblins were," said Jo. "I liked the place where the bundles fell off and tumbled downstairs," said Meg. "I don't remember much about it, except that I was afraid of the cellar and the dark entry, and always liked the cake and milk we had up at the top. If I wasn't too old for such things, I'd rather like to play it over again," said Amy, who began to talk of renouncing childish things at the mature age of twelve. "We never are too old for this, my dear, because it is a play we are playing all the time in one way or another. Out burdens are here, our road is before us, and the longing for goodness and happiness is the guide that leads us through many troubles and mistakes to the peace which is a true Celestial City. Now, my little pilgrims, suppose you begin again, not in play, but in earnest, and see how far on you can get before Father comes home." "Really, Mother? Where are our bundles?" asked Amy, who was a very literal young lady. "Each of you told what your burden was just now, except Beth. I rather think she hasn't got any," said her mother. "Yes, I have. Mine is dishes and dusters, and envying girls with nice pianos, and being afraid of people." Beth's bundle was such a funny one that everybody wanted to laugh, but nobody did, for it would have hurt her feelings very much. "Let us do it," said Meg thoughtfully. "It is only another name for trying to be good, and the story may help us, for though we do want to be good, it's hard work and we forget, and don't do our best." "We were in the Slough of Despond tonight, and Mother came and pulled us out as Help did in the book. We ought to have our roll of directions, like Christian. What shall we do about that?" asked Jo, delighted with the fancy which lent a little romance to the very dull task of doing her duty. "Look under your pillows Christmas morning, and you will find your guidebook," replied Mrs. March. They talked over the new plan while old Hannah cleared the table, then out
| 1 |
28 |
THE SCARLET LETTER.txt
| 76 |
vagabond; (v) distinguished, brilliant, well-known. prescriptive, pristine, primaeval, dawdle ANTONYMS: (adj) unknown, primeval, traditional, old, eternal, idly: (adj, adv) foolishly; (adv) vainly, obscure, ordinary, undistinguished, customary vaguely, listlessly, forgetfully, lowly immensity: (n) greatness, distractedly; (adj) thoughtlessly. ill-will: (n) enmity enormousness, immenseness, ANTONYM: (adv) energetically imaginary: (adj) fictitious, unreal, infinity, bulk, largeness, infiniteness, idolise: (v) venerate, worship, revere, false, mythical, illusory, ideal, infinitude, vastness, grandeur, glorify, fear, adore hypothetical, visionary, fictional, grandness. ANTONYM: (n) idolized: (adj) adored, beloved, notional, chimerical. ANTONYMS: lightness loved, precious, worshipped (adj) real, palpable, actual, concrete, imminent: (adj) forthcoming, coming, ignominious: (adj) dishonorable, prosaic, normal, true close, future, near, pending, shameful, disreputable, infamous, imagining: (n) conception, approaching, at hand, menacing, base, discreditable, dishonourable, daydream, fantasy, opinion; (v) threatening, prospective. inglorious, black, despicable, imagine; (adj) imaginant ANTONYMS: (adj) remote, past degrading. ANTONYMS: (adj) imbecility: (n) folly, foolishness, immortal: (adj) eternal, enduring, honorable, glorious idiocy, fatuity, weakness, stupidity, undying, endless, monumental; (adj, ignominiously: (adv) disgracefully, feeblemindedness, lunacy; (adj, n) v) deathless, imperishable, shamefully, discreditably, debility, feebleness; (adj) infirmity celebrated; (n) deity, God, divinity. dishonorably, scandalously, imbibing: (n) drinking, absorption, ANTONYMS: (adj) obscure, earthly, dishonourably, opprobriously, intake, swillings, drink, potation, forgettable, perishable, temporary infamously, basely, vilely, foully drunkenness, gulping, boozing, immortality: (n) sempiternity, ignominy: (n) disgrace, dishonor, crapulence; (adj) absorbent perpetuity, athanasia, glory, aye, shame, reproach, contempt, imbue: (v) infuse, saturate, permeate, fame, everness, immortal, disrepute, degradation, discredit, tinge, steep, dye, fill, impregnate, permanency, deathlessness, scandal; (adj, n) odium; (adj) pervade, instill, inoculate undying. ANTONYM: (n) mortality opprobrium. ANTONYMS: (n) imbued: (adj) addicted, alive, immortally: (adv) undyingly, success, glorification, pride instinct, full everlastingly, deathlessly, ill-defined: (adj) unclear, ambiguous, imitated: (adj) mimical perpetually, eternally, perennially, vague, indistinct, obscure, fuzzy, imitative: (adj) mock, counterfeit, lastingly, abidingly, timelessly, loose, general, faint, hazy derivative, fake, false, fictitious, enduringly, permanently ill-fated: (adj) hapless, unfortunate, bogus, bastard, onomatopoeic, base, immunity: (n) freedom, franchise, unhappy, poor, accursed, cursed, sham. ANTONYMS: (adj) genuine, dispensation, privilege, exception, fatal, infelicitous, unchancy, real, nonimitative relief, invulnerability, exoneration, disastrous, inauspicious immaterial: (adj) insignificant, excuse, safety, liberty. ANTONYMS: ill-fitted: (adj) ill-suited, inapt inconsequential, irrelevant, (n) susceptibility, liability, inclusion ill-omened: (adj) ill-fated, ominous, disembodied, incorporeal, trivial, impalpable: (adj) imperceptible, inauspicious, infelicitous, doomed bodiless, spiritual, unimportant, shadowy, invisible, efflorescent, illuminated: (adj) lit, lighted, extraneous, psychic. ANTONYMS: gritty, insubstantial, incorporeal, luminous, enlightened, clear, light, (adj) significant, material, corporeal, inscrutable, ethereal, shining, irradiated, lighter, Lighty, physical, tangible, important inapprehensible, elusive. irradiate immature: (adj) green, childish, ANTONYMS: (adj) tangible, definite illuminating: (adj) illuminate, tender, unripe, raw, crude, youthful, impart: (v) give, convey, disclose, Nathaniel Hawthorne 293 communicate, announce, grant, strongly undignified, lowly reveal, hand, bestow, divulge, imperfect: (adj) faulty, deficient, impossibility: (n) impossibleness, confer. ANTONYMS: (v) withhold, defective, unfinished, incomplete, option, nonexistence, absurdity, withdraw poor, flawed, partial, inadequate, inability, impracticability, imparting: (n) giving, conveyance, broken, fallible. ANTONYMS: (adj) alternative, choice, contradiction, conveyance of title, conveyancing, perfect, whole, unblemished, contradiction in terms, conveying adequate, complete, sound, doubtfulness. ANTONYMS: (n) impassioned: (adj) fervent, fanatical, boundless, capable, flawless possibility, probability fiery, burning, passionate, hot, imperfectly: (adv) faultily, impossibly: (adv) unusually, torrid, vehement, keen, zealous; defectively, badly, deficiently, unthinkably, doubtfully, (adj, v) enthusiastic. ANTONYMS:
| 1 |
8 |
David Copperfield.txt
| 77 |
am also aware that the various members of my family, to whom Mr. Micawber has written in the most gentlemanly terms, announcing that fact, have not taken the least notice of Mr. Micawber's communication. Indeed I may be superstitious,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'but it appears to me that Mr. Micawber is destined never to receive any answers whatever to the great majority of the communications he writes. I may augur, from the silence of my family, that they object to the resolution I have taken; but I should not allow myself to be swerved from the path of duty, Mr. Copperfield, even by my papa and mama, were they still living.' I expressed my opinion that this was going in the right direction. 'It may be a sacrifice,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'to immure one's-self in a Cathedral town; but surely, Mr. Copperfield, if it is a sacrifice in me, it is much more a sacrifice in a man of Mr. Micawber's abilities.' 'Oh! You are going to a Cathedral town?' said I. Mr. Micawber, who had been helping us all, out of the wash-hand-stand jug, replied: 'To Canterbury. In fact, my dear Copperfield, I have entered into arrangements, by virtue of which I stand pledged and contracted to our friend Heep, to assist and serve him in the capacity of - and to be - his confidential clerk.' I stared at Mr. Micawber, who greatly enjoyed my surprise. 'I am bound to state to you,' he said, with an official air, 'that the business habits, and the prudent suggestions, of Mrs. Micawber, have in a great measure conduced to this result. The gauntlet, to which Mrs. Micawber referred upon a former occasion, being thrown down in the form of an advertisement, was taken up by my friend Heep, and led to a mutual recognition. Of my friend Heep,' said Mr. Micawber, 'who is a man of remarkable shrewdness, I desire to speak with all possible respect. My friend Heep has not fixed the positive remuneration at too high a figure, but he has made a great deal, in the way of extrication from the pressure of pecuniary difficulties, contingent on the value of my services; and on the value of those services I pin my faith. Such address and intelligence as I chance to possess,' said Mr. Micawber, boastfully disparaging himself, with the old genteel air, 'will be devoted to my friend Heep's service. I have already some acquaintance with the law - as a defendant on civil process - and I shall immediately apply myself to the Commentaries of one of the most eminent and remarkable of our English jurists. I believe it is unnecessary to add that I allude to Mr. justice Blackstone.' These observations, and indeed the greater part of the observations made that evening, were interrupted by Mrs. Micawber's discovering that Master Micawber was sitting on his boots, or holding his head on with both arms as if he felt it loose, or accidentally kicking Traddles under the table, or shuffling his feet over one another, or producing
| 1 |
0 |
1984.txt
| 42 |
ever. Her eyes were fixed on his, with an appealing expression that looked more like fear than pain. A curious emotion stirred in Winston's heart. In front of him was an enemy who was trying to kill him: in front of him, also, was a human creature, in pain and perhaps with a broken bone. Already he had instinctively file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (58 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt started forward to help her. In the moment when he had seen her fall on the bandaged arm, it had been as though he felt the pain in his own body. 'You're hurt?' he said. 'It's nothing. My arm. It'll be all right in a second.' She spoke as though her heart were fluttering. She had certainly turned very pale. 'You haven't broken anything?' 'No, I'm all right. It hurt for a moment, that's all.' She held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up. She had regained some of her colour, and appeared very much better. 'It's nothing,' she repeated shortly. 'I only gave my wrist a bit of a bang. Thanks, comrade!' And with that she walked on in the direction in which she had been going, as briskly as though it had really been nothing. The whole incident could not have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. There was no question that she had done it intentionally. It was something small and flat. As he passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to his pocket and felt it with the tips of his fingers. It was a scrap of paper folded into a square. While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little more fingering, to get it unfolded. Obviously there must be a message of some kind written on it. For a moment he was tempted to take it into one of the water-closets and read it at once. But that would be shocking folly, as he well knew. There was no place where you could be more certain that the telescreens were watched continuously. He went back to his cubicle, sat down, threw the fragment of paper casually among the other papers on the desk, put on his spectacles and hitched the speakwrite towards him. 'Five minutes,' he told himself, 'five minutes at the very least!' His heart bumped in his breast with frightening loudness. Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on was mere routine, the rectification of a long list of figures, not needing close attention. Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind of political meaning. So far as he could see there were two
| 1 |
99 |
spare.txt
| 27 |
to me with love and humor and, that night, that magic night,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">respect.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">70<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.:me/Afghansalarlibrary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I wish I’d asked about her husband, King George VI, who died young. Or<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">her brother-in-law, King Edward VIII, whom she’d apparently loathed. He<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">gave up his crown for love. Gan-Gan believed in love, but nothing<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">transcended the Crown. She also reportedly despised the woman he’d<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">chosen.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I wish I’d asked about her distant ancestors in Glamis, home to Macbeth.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">She’d seen so much, knew so much, there was so much to be learned<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">from her, but I just wasn’t mature enough, despite the growth spurt, or brave<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">enough, despite the gin.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I did, however, make her laugh. Normally that was Pa’s job; he had a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">knack for finding Gan-Gan’s funny bone. He loved her as much as he loved<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">anybody in the world, perhaps more. I recall him glancing over several times<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">and looking pleased that I was getting such good giggles out of his favorite<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">person.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">At one point I told Gan-Gan about Ali G, the character played by Sacha<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Baron Cohen. I taught her to say Booyakasha, showing her how to flick her<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">fingers the way Sacha did. She couldn’t grasp it, she had no idea what I was<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">talking about, but she had such fun trying to flick and say the word. With<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">every repetition of that word, Booyakasha, she’d shriek, which would make<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">everyone else smile. It tickled me, thrilled me. It made me feel...a part of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">things.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">This was my family, in which I, for one night at least, had a distinctive<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">role.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">And that role, for once, wasn’t the Naughty One.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">30.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">\ \ } EEKS LATER, BACK at Eton, I was walking past two blue doors, almost<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">exactly the same blue as one of Gan-Gan’s kilts. She’d have liked<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">these doors, I thought.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">They were the doors to the TV room, one of my sanctuaries.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Almost every day, straight after lunch,
| 0 |
55 |
Blowback.txt
| 34 |
got a callback about my application to Google—and an offer. They wanted me to be their head of national security relations. The pay was higher than any job I’d had, and after years of a public service salary, I accepted without a second thought. Google seems like adult Disneyland. A few weeks later, I started work and found that our Washington, D.C., office boasted unlimited gourmet food, nap pods, game rooms, and massages. At orientation in Mountain View, California, they’d showered us with electronics and swag. To boot, the work was interesting, since I was charged with managing the company’s relationships with the CIA, FBI, and other national security agencies. Then I encountered the activist employee base. A few California-based staff heard that the D.C. office had hired a “Trump official” and decided to make a point. With whatever scant information they could find about me online at the time, they determined that I was clearly MAGA—and the mastermind behind Trump’s worst policies. They say a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on. In the tech sector, it travels at fiber-optic speed. All the while, the truth is dead asleep. Left-leaning press outlets and tech blogs posted about how Google had hired a Trump immigration fanatic. They portrayed me as a champion of the Muslim ban and an architect of family separation, based on thin sourcing and an avalanche of false assumptions. I got a call from a reporter who asked me for a comment about the fact that Google employees were protesting the hiring of a MAGA hard-liner. If they only knew, I thought. The CEO, Sundar Pichai, was forced to address my employment at a company-wide town hall. His office called ahead of time to offer support. They knew the stories were the opposite of the truth (I’d helped dismantle the Muslim ban and end family separation, including repeatedly blocking its reinstatement) and defended me against the misleading broadsides. If I wanted, I was welcome to put out a statement or address my colleagues, they said. I chose to say nothing. Enough years in Washington had taught me that if you extend a hand to a pitchfork mob, they’ll eventually try to take your head. Just as important, I wasn’t going to let this be the moment I came out against Trump, disrupting my plans. But the defiance wasn’t easy. That week I was stranded in California. On the flight out for an event, I had a sinus infection, and my eardrum burst with explosive pain. I was told to stay put until it healed. Alone in a hotel room, I watched the virtual town hall on my laptop, as fellow employees (whom I’d never met) painted me as a bigot. The comments made in the meeting and on public message boards were a gut punch. “It makes no sense why we would hire someone with clear racial bias into a government-facing role.” “How can we respect Google’s DEI values and avoid hiring those who dehumanize marginalized groups?” “As a Muslim, it makes me
| 0 |
75 |
Lisa-See-Lady-Tan_s-Circle-of-Women.txt
| 96 |
hurt or anger you? Do the worries of which you spoke on my wedding day still trouble you? If you could know—truly know—how lonely I am, you would come to me. I’m sure of it. I’m confused. I feel myself swirling down, down, down. I will forever be your friend, Yunxian I reread the letter, making sure I haven’t written a character Meiling won’t recognize. Next, I write to Grandmother, telling her that I’m well—I don’t want her to be concerned about my welfare—letting her know how I’d like to treat Yining, and including a list of the ingredients I’d like her to send so I can make a formula, if I’m correct, and some extra herbs for me that won’t alert Grandmother to my condition and will confuse Lady Kuo if I’m caught. “Poppy,” I call, “take these to Grandmother. She’ll get the letter to Meiling.” I anticipate that Poppy will return with a note from my grandmother saying the usual things—that all is fine, that Miss Zhao has been helping her in the pharmacy, and that Yifeng is studying hard—along with the herbs I requested. But will she bring a letter from Meiling? * * * A husband is Heaven to his wife. I want to please Maoren. I want to make him happy. I want us to create a life that parallels all the scenes of marital bliss that are in the silk paintings and tiny carvings that surround my bed, but Maoren and I don’t spend much time together. He’s busy during the day with his tutors. Many nights he continues his studies in his library and doesn’t come to me at all. And soon Maoren will leave the compound for his final push before taking the municipal exam to become a scholar of the juren level. Although our hours together are scant, I believe in my heart that he likes me. I like him too. In time, our affection will grow, I hope, into the deep-heart love the concubines are always talking about. Tonight, since Poppy has yet to return from her errand, I serve my husband a simple meal of a soup, duck glazed with kumquat, water spinach sautéed in ginger and garlic, and tofu with black mushrooms and pickled turnip. When I pour his wine, he touches my hand. “Sit with me tonight,” he says. “Let me feed you.” It’s hardly proper. Wives don’t eat with their husbands, but no one is here to see what we’re doing. He uses his chopsticks to lift a sliver of duck. With his other hand cupped beneath the morsel, he guides it to my mouth. The way he watches me chew causes my cheeks to flush, which seems to please him even more. I’m equally fascinated by him: the precision with which he picks up a slice of mushroom, the gentleness with which he places it between my lips, the look in his eyes as he takes in my features. He’s the first man, apart from my father and grandfather, with whom I’ve spent time alone; I suspect—but
| 0 |
61 |
Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt
| 40 |
faerie you may encounter, as I know you can handle yourself in that regard, but of the harshness of the climate. Though I must confess a secondary motive in writing—a fascination with the legends you’ve uncovered about these Hidden Ones. I urge you to write to me with your findings—although, if certain plans I’ve set in motion come to fruition, this may prove redundant. I sat frozen in my chair. Good God! Surely he was not thinking of joining me here? Yet what else could he have meant by such a remark? My fear ebbed somewhat, though, as I sat back and imagined Bambleby actually venturing to such a place as this. Oh, Bambleby has done extensive work in the field, to be sure, most recently organizing an expedition to investigate reports of a miniature species of Folk in the Caucasus, but Bambleby’s method of fieldwork is one of delegation more than anything else; he settles himself at the nearest thing that passes for a hotel and from there provides directives to the small army of graduate students constantly trailing in his wake. He is much praised at Cambridge for deigning to provide co-author credit to his students in his many publications, but I know what those students put up with, and the truth is that it would be monstrous if he did not. I was unable to convince even one of my students to accompany me to Hrafnsvik, and I very much doubt that Bambleby, despite his charms, would have much better luck. And so, he will not come. The remainder of the letter consisted of assurances of his intention to provide the foreword to my book. I felt a little ill at this—a combination of relief and resentment—for though I do not want his assistance, particularly after he scooped me on the gean-cannah changeling discovery, I cannot deny its value. Wendell Bambleby is one of the foremost dryadologists at Cambridge, which is to say that he is one of the foremost dryadologists in the world. The one paper we co-authored, a straightforward but comprehensive meta-analysis of the diet of Baltic river fae, earned me invitations to two national conferences and remains my most cited work. I tossed the letter into the fire, determined to think no more of Bambleby until the arrival of his next letter, which would no doubt be swift if I did not reply with a haste sufficient to his self-regard. I turned to Shadow, curled at my feet. The beast had been watching me with solemn dark eyes, concerned for my well-being in the wake of my panic. I discovered another chilblain upon his paw and fetched the salve I had purchased specially for him. I also took the time to comb through his long fur until his eyes drooped with pleasure. I removed my manuscript from my suitcase, carefully unfolding the protective wrapping, then laid it upon the table. I flicked through the pages, savouring the crisp sound of the heavily inked paper, ensuring they were still in order. It is a heavy thing, presently
| 0 |
43 |
The Turn of the Screw.txt
| 90 |
proper as well as the pleasant and friendly thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public conveyance I should be in waiting for him with his little sister; an idea in which Mrs. Grose concurred so heartily that I somehow took her manner as a kind of comforting pledge--never falsified, thank heaven!--that we should on every question be quite at one. Oh, she was glad I was there! What I felt the next day was, I suppose, nothing that could be fairly called a reaction from the cheer of my arrival; it was probably at the most only a slight oppression produced by a fuller measure of the scale, as I walked round them, gazed up at them, took them in, of my new circumstances. They had, as it were, an extent and mass for which I had not been prepared and in the presence of which I found myself, freshly, a little scared as well as a little proud. Lessons, in this agitation, certainly suffered some delay; I reflected that my first duty was, by the gentlest arts I could contrive, to win the child into the sense of knowing me. I spent the day with her out-of-doors; I arranged with her, to her great satisfaction, that it should be she, she only, who might show me the place. She showed it step by step and room by room and secret by secret, with droll, delightful, childish talk about it and with the result, in half an hour, of our becoming immense friends. Young as she was, I was struck, throughout our little tour, with her confidence and courage with the way, in empty chambers and dull corridors, on crooked staircases that made me pause and even on the summit of an old machicolated square tower that made me dizzy, her morning music, her disposition to tell me so many more things than she asked, rang out and led me on. I have not seen Bly since the day I left it, and I daresay that to my older and more informed eyes it would now appear sufficiently contracted. But as my little conductress, with her hair of gold and her frock of blue, danced before me round corners and pattered down passages, I had the view of a castle of romance inhabited by a rosy sprite, such a place as would somehow, for diversion of the young idea, take all color out of storybooks and fairytales. Wasn't it just a storybook over which I had fallen adoze and adream? No; it was a big, ugly, antique, but convenient house, embodying a few features of a building still older, half-replaced and half-utilized, in which I had the fancy of our being almost as lost as a handful of passengers in a great drifting ship. Well, I was, strangely, at the helm! II This came home to me when, two days later, I drove over with Flora to meet, as Mrs. Grose said, the little gentleman; and all the more for an incident that, presenting itself the second evening,
| 1 |
71 |
Kate-Alice-Marshall-What-Lies-in-the-Woods.txt
| 85 |
me, taking my hand and turning it upward. “Naomi, you’re bleeding,” he said. I stared. The cut on my thumb was deeper than I’d thought, and everything—the bottle, the glass, the corkscrew, the counter—was smeared with blood. I wrenched my hand free of Mitch and stuck my thumb in my mouth. The coppery taste washed across my tongue, and instantly I was back in the forest, the loamy scent of the woods overlaid with the metallic smell of my blood, the birds in the trees flitting and calling without a care for the girl dying below. When I remembered it, I pictured myself from above, crawling over the ground, dragging myself up onto that log. I didn’t remember the pain. The mind is not constructed to hold on to the sense of such agony. “Look at me. Naomi, come on. Look at my face,” Mitch said, touching the underside of my chin delicately, like he was afraid I would bruise. I met his eyes with difficulty. “There you are. What’s going on? If you didn’t talk to Liv—” “I know why she was calling,” I said. I swallowed. It was mine until I said it out loud. Then it belonged to Mitch, too, and all the people he told, and the people they told. But of course the story already belonged to countless others—Cassidy and Liv and Cody Benham and whatever journalist found out about it first, and surely there would be some footnote article in the papers tomorrow, “QUINAULT KILLER” DIES IN PRISON. “Naomi. You’re drifting again,” Mitch said. This was why I liked him. I remembered now. “Alan Stahl is dead,” I said. “Cancer. He died in prison. He’s gone.” If I could say it in just the right way, it would make sense. Everything would fall into its proper order, and I would know how I was supposed to feel. “Oh my God. That’s great news!” Mitch seized my shoulders, grinning. “Naomi, that’s good. I mean, I’d rather he be tortured every day for another twenty years, but dead is the next best thing. You should be celebrating.” “I know. It’s just complicated,” I said, sliding past him. I grabbed a kitchen towel and pressed it to my thumb. The bleeding wasn’t too bad. It would stop soon. “It must be bringing up a lot of trauma,” he said with a wise nod. And that was why I didn’t like him. “Can you stop talking like you know what I’m going through better than I do?” I stalked to the hall closet, pawing through it one-handed for a bandage. “You’ve never really processed what happened to you. You shy away from it in your work. You need to confront it head-on. This is a perfect opportunity. Turn it into the catalyst you need to really dig in. You could do a series of self-portraits, or—” “Oh, for the love of God, Mitch, will you let it go?” I said. I found the package of Band-Aids and held it under my arm while I fished one out. Mitch moved in
| 0 |
50 |
A Day of Fallen Night.txt
| 40 |
to fight this battle. She did not have to stand here and try to outwit the River Lord. She did not have to become like him – and she had come so close, some days. This court had made her reckless, untrusting and hard; it had almost made her cruel. Now she remembered the godsinger of Mount Ipyeda, who had wished for nothing more than the life she already had. That godsinger had needed no throne to serve Kwiriki, or to help the people of Seiiki. After all, she had known Kwiriki before she ever set eyes on his throne. You are a kite, a rainbow, a rider. The realisation tilted the corners of her lips. Where have you ever belonged but the sky? Before she could think better of it, she walked towards the throne and knelt, taking Suzumai by the hand. ‘Your Majesty,’ she said, ‘I love and respect you, as your big sister. I will not ask for the Rainbow Throne. You have every right to sit on it, too.’ She touched her cheek. ‘I must leave again, for a little while, but I will always come back.’ Suzumai swallowed, eyes shimmering. ‘You promised you wouldn’t go away again.’ ‘I know.’ Dumai tightened her hold on her hand. ‘I’m sorry. Will you keep me safe?’ ‘Yes,’ Suzumai whispered. Dumai looked at the River Lord, whose face betrayed his curiosity. He was trying to predict her next move. ‘I do not wish to fight you when an enemy threatens our island. I would not seek to divide it from within,’ Dumai said, rising to face him. ‘My mother was once a . . . provincial, as you say. She worked the barley fields of Afa. Her father was its governor, long ago.’ At last, understanding barbed his gaze. She wondered if he had ever guessed who Unora was, or if she had disappeared from his notice as soon as she was stripped of her nobility. ‘As a godsinger, as a rider, and as a princess, I serve them,’ Dumai told him. ‘It is they who will suffer most in this time of fire. I have the means to defend them. I must use it.’ Beside her, Nikeya released a breath. The River Lord watched Dumai without speaking. She could see him preparing to reshape her words, the busy work behind his eyes. ‘I will go into exile, but not to Muysima.’ Dumai faced the nobles. ‘Emperor Jorodu wished for power to reside in two places. The Grand Empress will attest to this, as will my mother, the Maiden Officiant.’ Hundreds of eyes stared at her. ‘I will honour his wishes. I will go beyond this court and establish my own, in the provinces – to protect our island, to give hope to the people, until the coming of the comet that will end this.’ Before the River Lord could steal the final word, she strode from the hall to immediate shouts of indignation, taking the path the nobles cleared for her, blocking out their voices as best she could. Nikeya
| 0 |
93 |
The-Silver-Ladies-Do-Lunch.txt
| 55 |
sprawled next to her, looking at their phones. Then Malia said, ‘My dad keeps asking me all sorts of questions about Devlin. He thinks I’m going out with him.’ Natalie laughed. ‘My mum did the same about Finn and us all being out together, saying the Toomeys were a bad lot, then my grandad got cross and said that he’d been friends with Finn’s dad since primary school and they were a great family.’ ‘And are you – going out with Devlin and Finn?’ Florence asked, only half-interested. Her mind was elsewhere nowadays. ‘We just hang out and have fun.’ Malia shrugged. ‘I’ll be off to London after Christmas – I’m not in the market for a proper relationship.’ ‘Nor me, not after Brandon.’ Natalie rolled her eyes. ‘I’m so glad I saw the light.’ ‘You were so wrapped up in him,’ Malia said gently. Natalie agreed. ‘I was – but I think I was more wrapped up in the idea of the beautiful dress and the big wedding. I’d have woken up the next day and wondered what I was going to do with the rest of my life.’ ‘What made you change your mind?’ Malia asked. ‘It was his attitude to you two that put the nail in the coffin,’ Natalie scoffed. ‘He didn’t like it when I spent time with my friends. It was always like, “You’re my girlfriend, you should be at my side.” At first, I thought it was because he couldn’t bear to be away from me – I thought it was cute. But no, he just wanted to control who I spoke to. When we were with his friends, they’d all laugh and joke and I’d just be sitting there like a spare part, but he hated it when I was with you two and not him.’ ‘You’ll find someone who deserves you. You’re worth so much more.’ Florence massaged her belly where the baby had thrust out a foot. She smiled. ‘It’s not far off now.’ ‘Do you want us to be there with you?’ Malia asked. ‘Have you made your mind up about who you’re going to have as your birth partner?’ ‘Adam keeps asking me that.’ Florence gazed into the distance. ‘Dad too. I said I’ll know when the time comes.’ Natalie shook her head. ‘Aren’t you scared of the pain?’ ‘Not now.’ Florence smiled. ‘I’ve done everything right through the pregnancy and I’m ready to meet this little one. I even have a name…’ ‘I bet you won’t tell us…’ Malia pouted. ‘You’ll have to wait until the baby’s born.’ Florence smiled. Malia and Natalie took her hands. ‘We’re there for you, Florence.’ Florence sighed. ‘I know. You’re just like sisters.’ She picked a daisy from the nearby grass and held it to her nose ‘You’ll be Auntie Malia and Auntie Nat… It doesn’t matter that my own mother has no idea she’s about to be a grandma. I’ve got Dad and you two and Adam looking out for me. And Bobby keeps bringing gorgeous baby clothes from his girlfriend. I’m
| 0 |
0 |
1984.txt
| 80 |
more like fear than pain. A curious emotion stirred in Winston's heart. In front of him was an enemy who was trying to kill him: in front of him, also, was a human creature, in pain and perhaps with a broken bone. Already he had instinctively file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (58 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt started forward to help her. In the moment when he had seen her fall on the bandaged arm, it had been as though he felt the pain in his own body. 'You're hurt?' he said. 'It's nothing. My arm. It'll be all right in a second.' She spoke as though her heart were fluttering. She had certainly turned very pale. 'You haven't broken anything?' 'No, I'm all right. It hurt for a moment, that's all.' She held out her free hand to him, and he helped her up. She had regained some of her colour, and appeared very much better. 'It's nothing,' she repeated shortly. 'I only gave my wrist a bit of a bang. Thanks, comrade!' And with that she walked on in the direction in which she had been going, as briskly as though it had really been nothing. The whole incident could not have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. There was no question that she had done it intentionally. It was something small and flat. As he passed through the lavatory door he transferred it to his pocket and felt it with the tips of his fingers. It was a scrap of paper folded into a square. While he stood at the urinal he managed, with a little more fingering, to get it unfolded. Obviously there must be a message of some kind written on it. For a moment he was tempted to take it into one of the water-closets and read it at once. But that would be shocking folly, as he well knew. There was no place where you could be more certain that the telescreens were watched continuously. He went back to his cubicle, sat down, threw the fragment of paper casually among the other papers on the desk, put on his spectacles and hitched the speakwrite towards him. 'Five minutes,' he told himself, 'five minutes at the very least!' His heart bumped in his breast with frightening loudness. Fortunately the piece of work he was engaged on was mere routine, the rectification of a long list of figures, not needing close attention. Whatever was written on the paper, it must have some kind of political meaning. So far as he could see there were two possibilities. One, much the more likely, was that the girl was an agent
| 1 |
19 |
Hound of the Baskervilles.txt
| 99 |
it should not be through lack of energy or persever- ance that I should miss the chance which fortune had thrown in my way. The sun was already sinking when I reached the summit of the hill, and the long slopes beneath me were all golden-green on one side and gray shadow on the other. A haze lay low upon the farthest sky-line, out of which jutted the fantastic shapes of Belliver and Vixen Tor. Over the wide expanse there was no sound and no movement. One great gray bird, a gull or curlew, soared aloft in the blue heaven. He and I seemed to be the only living things between the huge arch of the sky and the desert beneath it. The barren scene, the sense of loneliness, and the mystery and urgency of my task all struck a chill into my heart. The boy was nowhere to be seen. But down beneath me in a cleft of the hills there was a circle of the old stone huts, and in the middle of them there was one which retained sufficient roof to act as a screen against the weather. My heart leaped within me as I saw it. This must be the burrow where the stranger lurked. At last my foot was on the threshold of his hiding place -- his secret was within my grasp. As I approached the hut, walking as warily as Stapleton would do when with poised net he drew near the settled butterfly, I satisfied myself that the place had indeed been used as a habita- tion. A vague pathway among the boulders led to the dilapidated opening which served as a door. All was silent within. The unknown might be lurking there, or he might be prowling on the moor. My nerves tingled with the sense of adventure. Throwing aside my cigarette, I closed my hand upon the butt of my revolver and, walking swiftly up to the door, I looked in. The place was empty. But there were ample signs that I had not come upon a false scent. This was certainly where the man lived. Some blankets rolled in a waterproof lay upon that very stone slab upon which neolithic man had once slumbered. The ashes of a fire were heaped in a rude grate. Beside it lay some cooking utensils and a bucket half-full of water. A litter of empty tins showed that the place had been occupied for some time, and I saw, as my eyes became accustomed to the checkered light, a pannikin and a half-full bottle of spirits standing in the corner. In the middle of the hut a flat stone served the purpose of a table, and upon this stood a small cloth bundle -- the same, no doubt, which I had seen through the telescope upon the shoulder of the boy. It contained a loaf of bread, a tinned tongue, and two tins of preserved peaches. As I set it down again, after having examined it, my heart leaped to see that beneath it there lay
| 1 |
4 |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.txt
| 72 |
said a whiting to a snail. "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance? "You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!" But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance-- Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. `"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied. "There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The further off from England the nearer is to France-- Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"' `Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch,' said Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last: `and I do so like that curious song about the whiting!' `Oh, as to the whiting,' said the Mock Turtle, `they--you've seen them, of course?' `Yes,' said Alice, `I've often seen them at dinn--' she checked herself hastily. `I don't know where Dinn may be,' said the Mock Turtle, `but if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're like.' `I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully. `They have their tails in their mouths--and they're all over crumbs.' `You're wrong about the crumbs,' said the Mock Turtle: `crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they HAVE their tails in their mouths; and the reason is--' here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his eyes.--`Tell her about the reason and all that,' he said to the Gryphon. `The reason is,' said the Gryphon, `that they WOULD go with the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn't get them out again. That's all.' `Thank you,' said Alice, `it's very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before.' `I can tell you more than that, if you like,' said the Gryphon. `Do you know why it's called a whiting?' `I never thought about it,' said Alice. `Why?' `IT DOES THE BOOTS AND SHOES.' the Gryphon replied very solemnly. Alice was thoroughly puzzled. `Does the boots and shoes!' she repeated in a wondering tone. `Why, what are YOUR shoes done with?' said the Gryphon. `I mean, what makes them so shiny?' Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her
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The Picture of Dorian Gray.txt
| 40 |
always something ridiculous about the passions of people whom one has ceased to love. Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic. Her tears and sobs annoyed him. "I am going," he said at last, in his calm, clear voice. "I don't wish to be unkind, but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me." She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer to him. Her little hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him. He turned on his heel, and left the room. In a few moments he was out of the theatre. Where he went to, he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly-lit streets with gaunt black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him. Drunkards had reeled by cursing, and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon door-steps, and had heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts. When the dawn was just breaking he found himself at Covent Garden. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain. He followed into the market, and watched the men unloading their wagons. A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them. A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge jade- green piles of vegetables. Under the portico, with its gray sun- bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over. After some time he hailed a hansom and drove home. The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like silver against it. As he was passing through the library towards the door of his bedroom, his eye fell upon the portrait Basil Hallward had painted of him. He started back in surprise, and then went over to it and examined it. In the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-colored silk blinds, the face seemed to him to be a little changed. The expression looked different. One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly curious. He turned round, and, walking to the window, drew the blinds up. The bright dawn flooded the room, and swept the fantastic shadows [42] into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be more intensified even. The quivering, ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing.
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32 |
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.txt
| 41 |
again. The labor dragged a little, but still they made progress. They pegged away in silence for some time. Finally Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed the beaded drops from his brow with his sleeve, and said: "Where you going to dig next, after we get this one?" "I reckon maybe we'll tackle the old tree that's over yonder on Cardiff Hill back of the widow's." "I reckon that'll be a good one. But won't the widow take it away from us, Tom? It's on her land." "She take it away! Maybe she'd like to try it once. Whoever finds one of these hid treasures, it belongs to him. It don't make any difference whose land it's on." That was satisfactory. The work went on. By and by Huck said: "Blame it, we must be in the wrong place again. What do you think?" "It is mighty curious, Huck. I don't understand it. Sometimes witches interfere. I reckon maybe that's what's the trouble now." "Shucks! Witches ain't got no power in the daytime." --------------------------------------------------------- -233- "Well, that's so. I didn't think of that. Oh, I know what the matter is! What a blamed lot of fools we are! You got to find out where the shadow of the limb falls at midnight, and that's where you dig!" "Then consound it, we've fooled away all this work for nothing. Now hang it all, we got to come back in the night. It's an awful long way. Can you get out?" "I bet I will. We've got to do it to-night, too, because if somebody sees these holes they'll know in a minute what's here and they'll go for it." "Well, I'll come around and maow to-night." "All right. Let's hide the tools in the bushes." The boys were there that night, about the appointed time. They sat in the shadow waiting. It was a lonely place, and an hour made solemn by old traditions. Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves, ghosts lurked in the murky nooks, the deep baying of a hound floated up out of the distance, an owl answered with his sepulchral note. The boys were subdued by these solemnities, and talked little. By and by they judged that twelve had come; they marked where the shadow fell, and began to dig. Their hopes commenced to rise. Their interest grew stronger, and their industry kept pace with it. The hole deepened and still deepened, but every time their hearts jumped to hear the pick strike upon something, they only suffered a new disappointment. It was only a stone or a chunk. At last Tom said: --------------------------------------------------------- -234- "It ain't any use, Huck, we're wrong again." "Well, but we can't be wrong. We spotted the shadder to a dot." "I know it, but then there's another thing." "What's that?". "Why, we only guessed at the time. Like enough it was too late or too early." Huck dropped his shovel. "That's it," said he. "That's the very trouble. We got to give this one up. We can't ever tell the right time, and
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58 |
Confidence_-a-Novel.txt
| 84 |
“So you’re listening to Ivy League assholes now?” He cocked his head at me. “I thought we weren’t about that anymore.” “I mean, no—” “Then let’s not be about that.” He smiled and shook my shoulder. Then he stole a look upstairs, a look at the kitchen, and leaned forward to kiss me. It was brief but soft, and I couldn’t help but close my eyes for it. “I’m going to turn in soon,” he said, breaking away to stand up. “If you want something to drink, whatever, the staff you hired is pretty damn attentive.” He took the stairs two at a time and I watched him go, aching for him, resisting the urge to follow him. Things were not the way I wanted them to be but they wouldn’t be that way forever. They couldn’t be that way forever. What had I done, after all? I’d given him the Farm, and his farmhouse, and the opportunity to hobnob with these semifamous people who loved him. His life would be less lush without me, less resplendent. There was no doubting that. Something buzzed on the couch: his phone. It must have fallen out of his pocket. I picked it up, saw that he’d just received an email from Delpy, and put it in my own pocket. He’d want his phone by his bedside, I knew. He always looked at it first thing in the morning. I climbed the stairs, whisper-shouting his name, careful not to disturb the sleeping guests. He didn’t call back to me. I began checking in empty offices, and when I didn’t find him in those I climbed to the next floor. All the doors were closed except for one at the end of the hall, which announced its openness by projecting a sliver of orange-ish light into the hallway. I could hear Orson’s voice in conversation with a woman’s. I got closer and recognized Emily’s faux-innocent lilt. I stood at the edge of the doorframe to find her sitting in a chair in a tank top and a pair of Spandex shorts so small they could have been underwear. Orson stood behind her, fingers at her temples. Both their eyes were closed. He was Synthesizing her, and I watched her shoulders tense and relax as he instructed her to reconstruct this or that thing about her past, to merge the good with the bad. He was different Synthesizing her than he had been with anyone else: he moved slower, spoke more deliberately, laughed gently as she jumped at his touch. There was something very wrong about it, something that made me want to stop it, but I couldn’t, because it was clear that would make him unhappy. So I wordlessly set his phone down on the carpet in the doorway and left them alone in the room, locked in a Synthesis so intense and magnetic neither of them noticed I was there. EIGHT REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER CHUCK ENNER, the father of delinquent youth Jeremy Enner, wrote an essay about watching his adolescent son set fire to the
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A-Living-Remedy.txt
| 41 |
immense and homely, and seem so close I can almost imagine running right into them if we could cross the neighboring field. When I lived here, I used to walk to another field near our old house to watch the sky darken above gold-limned hills. Sometimes, driving home in the evening, I’d pull over to admire the view—the riotous colors of sunset, the slow-deepening blue of the mountains as the light receded. I’ve relaxed at peaceful eastern lakes and walked along Atlantic beaches, but have yet to find any substitute for these mountains. There’s a reason my mother still sends me cards featuring photographs and watercolors of snow-covered peaks and foothills clustered with evergreens—she knows how much I miss the geography of home. Every time I return, it’s the Cascades that greet me first, from the window of a small plane. Without words, without answers, they offer me the same peace they always have. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. I can feel my mind ease a fraction, though my anxieties are slower to dissipate than the strands of fog clinging to the base of the hills. Other than my family, there’s little I miss, feel genuinely nostalgic for, in this sheltered valley. But the way I love these mountains, high and stark amid cloud cover and sun-shot sky, is as simple as the comfort of a dog, the promise of an Oregon rain shower. No matter my state of mind when I return, the friendly ranges encircle and welcome me, rising above green and gold fields, too vast to be outgrown; more than anything else, they make me feel that I might still have a place here. My dad loved this view. I can picture him sitting outside on my parents’ patio, wearing a baseball cap and his favorite blue Hawaiian shirt, listening to the radio and watching the hills emerge from the clouds. The day we buried him, there was a sun shower, and we gathered outside to see a rainbow arching over the peaks. Some hours later, when the overcast sky gave way to a fiery orange-and-rose sunset, one of the best I could 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
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Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt
| 6 |
he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically. It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand. Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assist in comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such trivial occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on my desk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with the copy, so that immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby might snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay. In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.” I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, “I would prefer not to.” “Prefer not to,” echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. “What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here—take it,” and I thrust it towards him. “I would prefer not to,” said he. I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at
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76 |
Love Theoretically.txt
| 39 |
for a long glance and a low “Goodbye, Elsie.” After a beat, he adds, “It was a pleasure.” 8 FRICTION W HAT DO YOU MEAN , YOU THINK WE SHOULD LEAVE THEM be?” Mom’s voice is so shrill, I glance around to make sure no one overheard her through the phone. Dr. Voight waves at me before slipping inside the auditorium—the one where I’ll give my research talk in fifteen minutes—and my stomach flips, omelet-style. “It’s just . . . Lucas is very stubborn. Short of locking him in my dishwasher, I’m not sure how to stop him from acting up.” I hasten to add before Mom asks me to do just that, “And I think he’ll be okay if we give him space to sulk.” “What about Thanksgiving?” Uh? “What about Thanksgiving?” “What if he’s not done sulking by Thanksgiving? Where do I seat him? What if he doesn’t show? Your aunt will say that I don’t have my family under control. That she should host next year! She’s been trying to steal this from me for decades!” “Mom, it’s . . . January.” “And?” I spot Jack and Andrea coming my way, laughing, Michi and a gaggle of grads in tow. He’s one whole head taller than the crowd—like at every single Smith gathering—and wears a gray long-sleeved henley that manages to look simultaneously like the first thing he found in the laundry hamper and a highend piece tailored to showcase that protein is his favorite macronutrient. Haute couture by Chuck Norris. I wish he didn’t nod at me with that stupid smirk. I wish he wasn’t amused by my glare. “If by November things aren’t better, I’ll . . . look into rope restraints and cheap storage space, I promise. Gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you back tonight, okay?” I hang up to find a good luck email from Dr. L., who hasn’t quite mastered text messaging yet, and smile. At least someone cares. “I’m so, so sorry about yesterday,” Monica says, arriving in a flurry of clicking heels. Her eyes knife into Jack’s monstrous shoulders, and I do love how committed she is to despising him. Truly warms my high-risk cardiovascular system. “I left you with Jack for so long. I had no idea Sasha was late—men. So unreliable.” “Not a problem.” It’s not even a lie. Last night I managed to put in two solid hours of email answering before dinner, and I didn’t even doze off when Cece told me all about the recent breakthrough in her analysis of “The Odessa Steps” (i.e., act 4 of the 1925 silent movie Battleship Potyomkin). We’ve watched it together before—multiple times, since I made the rookie mistake of pretending to love it the first. But last night I was considerably less tired than usual, and my theory is that Jack’s the reason. Here’s the deal: things between him and me are unsalvageably bad. I’ll never conjure an Elsie able to please him, especially since he’s figured out my APE strategies. And as much as I hate knowing that there’s
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What-Dreams-May-Come.txt
| 5 |
she challenged him with only a look, telling him he could be more than what he’d limited himself to? Letting out another sigh, Mother lowered her own sewing and gestured to the stranger on the settee, who stood gracefully. “This is Martine. Martine Calloway. She arrived early this morning, much to our surprise.” Calloway? But they didn’t have any relatives in France. Simon opened his mouth to say so when a hand clapped on his shoulder, making him jump. “You’re blocking the door,” William said brightly. He seemed to have fully recovered overnight, and he pushed Simon deeper into the room so he could get inside as well. Then, to Simon’s consternation, William stepped right up to the mysterious Calloway woman and planted a kiss on her lips. Oh. He didn’t have the energy to deal with this new development. Simon turned right around and left the room. If William was already married to someone else, that somehow made all of this even worse, and he was desperate to find some reason to leave the county and give himself some space from the topsy-turvy world his life had become. He made it only a dozen steps down the corridor before William caught up to him, sliding to a halt in front of him and blocking his path. “Get out of my way,” Simon growled. William shook his head. “Not until you hear what I have to say.” Simon had no idea what to believe anymore, and no matter what William told him, he had no way to know if he could trust him. Even his mother and sister seemed privy to whatever nonsense was happening around him, and Simon wanted to run. To ride his horse as far as he would go and then keep running. But he couldn’t go to the stables now. Not when it would only remind him of that kiss with Lucy. An involuntary shudder ran through him at the memory. First the library, then his pond, now riding—Lucy had tainted everything he loved. “I am not in the mood, Will,” he said. Narrowing his eyes, William looked far stronger than he likely was. Simon had always been able to beat him in a wrestling match, but after this latest fever, he knew it would be perfectly easy to knock his brother down and get away. He had endured enough unrest the last several days, however, so he kept his fists at his side and clenched his jaw tight. “You were the one who said you wanted to talk when I recovered,” William pointed out, relaxing a bit as he stood there. Did he really think Simon might have hurt him? Perhaps they didn’t know each other at all. “So let’s talk.” Simon knew he would regret this. “About what?” “About Lucy.” Simon reconsidered his decision not to fight, but his mother would surely find them if he laid a finger on William. She had always had a knack for turning up at the worst moments. Groaning, he shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about Lucy.”
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Cold People.txt
| 11 |
remember the lesson. She was the last of her kind.’ ‘Echo, you’re the first of your kind and the last. I don’t know what kind of genetic advances they’ve made in McMurdo. I don’t know what this new generation of Cold People will be like. But I do know that you’re special. More special than even the scientists realize.’ As she said goodbye, Professor Lili, a woman who’d once enjoyed promenades by the Huangpu River with her husband and her two children, felt like she was losing her family for a second time. Echo gave her mentor a hug, feeling her fragile body in her powerful arms. Her teacher was crying. Waiting for the professor to stop, she wondered how such sensitive, delicate creatures had survived for so long. THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA HOPE TOWN WORDIE HOUSE SAME DAY WORDIE HOUSE WAS ONE OF Hope Town’s most prestigious properties, now occupied by one of the community’s most prominent families – Liza, Atto and their daughter Echo. They were a family known for their contribution to society, their kindness and willingness to help anyone who called on them for support. Their house was named after James Wordie, the chief geologist on Shackleton’s expedition. Shackleton was a revered historical figure, admired as a supreme survivor of the cold having endured four hundred and ninety-seven days on the ice with primitive equipment and, most crucially of all, losing none of his team. Built nearly a hundred years ago, the house was among the oldest manmade structures anywhere in Antarctica, evocative of ancient Icelandic fishing cottages, ducked low out of the winds, the walls made from the reclaimed timbers of abandoned whaling stations in the Antarctic tradition of repurposing everything and wasting nothing. Once located on Winter Island, several hundred miles north, the ancient structure had been dismantled and carried south, too valuable to leave behind, reconstructed as part of Hope Town as a symbol of survival and intended to inspire. Situated outside the city sprawl, at night the house had a fairy-tale feel, framed against the stars with a piglet curl of smoke from the chimney. All accommodation allocations were decided by the Housing Committee at Hope Town’s Parliament, the authority which sought to best match families and their homes. Since accommodation was in short supply, almost everyone shared, and if the combination of occupants was judged correctly, this act of sharing was found to improve the quality of people’s lives. No one was ever alone, conversation and interests were carefully balanced, and if someone fell sick, the others looked after them. If any groupings of people fell short of those standards, if there was friction or tension, they were quickly rearranged. Liza and Atto had been given the honour of living in this house as a celebration of their love story, people who’d found each other during the Exodus, a love story that had known only a single week of warmth and twenty years of cold. This historic house was assigned to them as a celebration of Liza’s achievements as a doctor in the most
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The Turn of the Screw.txt
| 29 |
have made a wonderful face. "Do I show it?" "You're as white as a sheet. You look awful." I considered; I could meet on this, without scruple, any innocence. My need to respect the bloom of Mrs. Grose's had dropped, without a rustle, from my shoulders, and if I wavered for the instant it was not with what I kept back. I put out my hand to her and she took it; I held her hard a little, liking to feel her close to me. There was a kind of support in the shy heave of her surprise. "You came for me for church, of course, but I can't go." "Has anything happened?" "Yes. You must know now. Did I look very queer?" "Through this window? Dreadful!" "Well," I said, "I've been frightened." Mrs. Grose's eyes expressed plainly that SHE had no wish to be, yet also that she knew too well her place not to be ready to share with me any marked inconvenience. Oh, it was quite settled that she MUST share! "Just what you saw from the dining room a minute ago was the effect of that. What _I_ saw--just before--was much worse." Her hand tightened. "What was it?" "An extraordinary man. Looking in." "What extraordinary man?" "I haven't the least idea." Mrs. Grose gazed round us in vain. "Then where is he gone?" "I know still less." "Have you seen him before?" "Yes--once. On the old tower." She could only look at me harder. "Do you mean he's a stranger?" "Oh, very much!" "Yet you didn't tell me?" "No--for reasons. But now that you've guessed--" Mrs. Grose's round eyes encountered this charge. "Ah, I haven't guessed!" she said very simply. "How can I if YOU don't imagine?" "I don't in the very least." "You've seen him nowhere but on the tower?" "And on this spot just now." Mrs. Grose looked round again. "What was he doing on the tower?" "Only standing there and looking down at me." She thought a minute. "Was he a gentleman?" I found I had no need to think. "No." She gazed in deeper wonder. "No." "Then nobody about the place? Nobody from the village?" "Nobody--nobody. I didn't tell you, but I made sure." She breathed a vague relief: this was, oddly, so much to the good. It only went indeed a little way. "But if he isn't a gentleman--" "What IS he? He's a horror." "A horror?" "He's--God help me if I know WHAT he is!" Mrs. Grose looked round once more; she fixed her eyes on the duskier distance, then, pulling herself together, turned to me with abrupt inconsequence. "It's time we should be at church." "Oh, I'm not fit for church!" "Won't it do you good?" "It won't do THEM--! I nodded at the house. "The children?" "I can't leave them now." "You're afraid--?" I spoke boldly. "I'm afraid of HIM." Mrs. Grose's large face showed me, at this, for the first time, the faraway faint glimmer of a consciousness more acute: I somehow made out in it the delayed dawn
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We-Could-Be-So Good.txt
| 49 |
to embrace with both arms. When the paper that employed Miss Marks threatened to fold, Andrew did the only sensible thing a man could do in that situation and bought the paper. Suitably wooed, Miss Marks became Mrs. Fleming, even though in the newspaper she retained her old byline. The paper succeeded; more papers were acquired; a son was produced, staid and responsible in a way that shocked the sensibilities of both of his parents. Young Andrew went off to fight a war, survived it, returned home to find that his father hadn’t, and took over the Chronicle. In the twenties, the Chronicle’s circulation exceeded half a million, which was none too shabby in a city that already had a couple dozen daily papers, not counting the weeklies, not counting the Black papers or those in other languages. The Chronicle’s success carried on through the thirties and right on through the war, not stumbling in the least when Fleming, again following in his father’s footsteps, married his star reporter. He divorced her almost immediately—but not before fathering a child. The circumstances that precipitated Andrew Fleming and Margaret Kelly’s divorce were well documented, having occurred in the newsroom of a major newspaper, surrounded by journalists with steel-trap memories and a penchant for gossip. Andy’s mother wanted to go to Germany to see what in hell was the matter over there. The Chronicle had always been progressive, and had only become more so under the stewardship of Andrew Fleming II, and while the staff might take their quarrels with one another about Stalin to the pages of the paper with unfortunate frequency, everyone agreed that Hitler was just a dirty fascist. But Andrew Fleming insisted that sloping off to fascist countries was not something that the mother of a newborn did; his wife accused him of being a fascist sympathizer. She went to Reno for a quickie divorce and then directly to the Herald Tribune, a betrayal that smarted much more than when she subsequently took up with her photographer in Berlin. This left Andrew Fleming with an infant and a paper to run. Only one of those required his personal attention and it wasn’t the baby. When Margaret Kelly returned to the States, she scooped the child up and deposited him in an apartment on the Upper East Side with a succession of housekeepers. She then went back to Berlin, and then to Prague and London and Paris. She was there for the liberation of Dachau. As a woman, she didn’t have official press credentials, so she made her own access, and in doing so made herself something of a legend. The first words Andy remembers reading were his mother’s reporting on the fall of Paris. Every few months she returned to New York with stories and presents and new scars and more gray hair, and he almost felt guilty for wondering why she wasn’t around more, because he was so proud of her. She went to Nuremberg. She went to Moscow and East Berlin, and then to Korea. She came back to
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Emma.txt
| 43 |
could not doubt his having a decidedly warm admiration, a conscious preference of herself; and this persuasion, joined to all the rest, made her think that she must be a little in love with him, in spite of every previous determination against it. "I certainly must," said she. "This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of every thing's being dull and insipid about the house!-- I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not--for a few weeks at least. Well! evil to some is always good to others. I shall have many fellow-mourners for the ball, if not for Frank Churchill; but Mr. Knightley will be happy. He may spend the evening with his dear William Larkins now if he likes." Mr. Knightley, however, shewed no triumphant happiness. He could not say that he was sorry on his own account; his very cheerful look would have contradicted him if he had; but he said, and very steadily, that he was sorry for the disappointment of the others, and with considerable kindness added, "You, Emma, who have so few opportunities of dancing, you are really out of luck; you are very much out of luck!" It was some days before she saw Jane Fairfax, to judge of her honest regret in this woeful change; but when they did meet, her composure was odious. She had been particularly unwell, however, suffering from headache to a degree, which made her aunt declare, that had the ball taken place, she did not think Jane could have attended it; and it was charity to impute some of her unbecoming indifference to the languor of ill-health. CHAPTER XIII Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good deal; and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing Frank Churchill talked of; and, for his sake, greater pleasure than ever in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of him, and quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, how were his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his coming to Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she could not admit herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and, pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his side was that she refused him. Their affection was always to subside into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their parting; but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this,
| 1 |
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Kate-Alice-Marshall-What-Lies-in-the-Woods.txt
| 24 |
house again. It was a lurching process, steps forward followed by frantic backsliding, but Dad was still trying. The sun beat down, a rare day without a cloud in the sky. I tossed the trash bag I was carrying onto the pile by the front steps and peeled off my gloves. Dad was already outside, hands on hips, squinting at the old Chevy. “I think I could get this running again,” he said as I made my way over. “But you won’t,” I told him. “But I won’t,” he agreed. He sighed and scrubbed at his patchy scalp. “You think we could burn it all down and start over?” “We could do that,” I replied amiably. It was only about the thirtieth time we’d had this conversation and that he’d suggested that particular remedy. “But then you’d always wonder what you’d left buried.” “You really think there’s anything worth saving?” “You asking about the house, or about you?” I asked. He snorted. “I get enough of that crap from my shrink, I don’t need it from you, too.” Wheels crunched on gravel. I shaded my eyes with my hand. We didn’t have much in the way of visitors these days, and I didn’t recognize the car. “Expecting someone?” I asked. “Hell, no,” Dad said. The car parked. The door opened, and Ethan stepped out, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. “Should I get the shotgun?” Dad asked. “Dad.” I gave him a look. “Maybe the baseball bat. Just in case.” He chuckled. Ethan hadn’t moved, standing by the car with one hand on the door. I approached slowly, arms crossed. “Hey,” he said. He’d lost weight since I last saw him, the hollows of his cheeks deeper. He was holding a little stuffed hedgehog, which he held out to me. “I got you this,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “When you were in the hospital, at the gift shop, but then I never … Anyway, it made me think of you.” I stepped forward, just close enough to snag it with the tips of my fingers. The hedgehog was clutching a heart between its paws that said “Get Well Soon.” “It made you think of me,” I said. “Because I’m prickly?” “No, see, I have a subtle and insightful metaphor that proves I know you deeply,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. I raised an eyebrow. “It’s because I’m prickly.” “It’s because you’re prickly,” he confirmed, wincing. “You didn’t come. At the hospital. Or after,” I said. “You didn’t call. I never heard from you at all.” “I wasn’t sure you wanted to,” he said. “The way we left things…” “I don’t know if I would have wanted to see you, either,” I said. The question hung in the air between us—was it different now? I didn’t know the answer to that, either. When I’d thought I was dying, I’d wanted to forgive him. Now I wasn’t sure. Anger and relief and affection and betrayal fought tooth and claw for dominance. I shook my head. “I want it to
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Riley-Sager-The-Only-One-Left.txt
| 29 |
out and grab me. She notices, of course, and nods for me to hit the typewriter’s return bar. I do, quickly and abruptly, making sure there’s no contact between us. In response, Lenora types out three small but meaningful words. dont be scared Another nod from her. Another swift swipe of the return bar from me, allowing Lenora to type another line. i cant hurt you If the goal was to put me at ease, then Lenora has failed miserably. I won’t hurt you. Now that would have calmed my nerves. What Lenora ended up typing does the opposite. That insidious, apostrophe-less can’t suggests a lack of capability, not willingness. And that Lenora would hurt me if she could. SEVEN We eat dinner in silence, something I’ve become quite used to in the past six months. I sit facing Lenora, making sure our knees don’t touch. Since we left the typewriter, I’ve kept physical contact to a minimum. Our plates sit on the wooden tray I attached to Lenora’s wheelchair. Roasted chicken and glazed carrots for me, mashed acorn squash seasoned with crushed pills for Lenora. Since I don’t know who to feed first, me or her, I decide to alternate bites. One mouthful for Lenora and one for me until both plates are cleaned. After dinner is dessert. I get chocolate cake. Lenora gets pudding. After dessert, it’s time for Lenora’s evening circulation exercises. Something I’m not looking forward to because it means our limited contact must come to an end. For the rest of the evening, Lenora and I are going to be uncomfortably close. I use the Hoyer lift to get her out of the wheelchair and onto the bed. It requires sliding the sling under her, raising her out of the wheelchair, moving the whole contraption while she dangles like a kid on a swing, lowering her onto the bed, then pulling the sling out from under her. It’s easier in theory than in practice, especially because Lenora is heavier than she looks. A surprising sturdiness hides inside her birdlike frame. On the bed, I lift Lenora’s right leg before bending it, pushing the knee toward her chest. Lenora stares at the ceiling while I do it, seemingly bored. I think about how many times—with how many different nurses—she’s had to do this. Thousands, most likely. Morning and evening, day after day after day. When I move on to her left leg, Lenora lolls her head to the side, as if trying to see past me to the window. Even though it’s dark now and there’s not much to see, I understand why. It’s better than looking at the ceiling. At least there’s variety out there, even in the darkness. The full moon sits so low on the horizon it looks like it’s bobbing on the ocean’s surface. Clouds as thin as fingers drift in front of it. In the distance, a ship cruises through the night, its lights as bright as stars. I glance down at Lenora and notice longing in her eyes. I can relate. All
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Rachel-Lynn-Solomon-Business-or-Pleasure.txt
| 72 |
time. “I might like to hear you beg,” he says. Finally, finally, he takes a break only to slick the vibe with lube, and when he settles it between my legs, I let out a sigh of relief. Followed immediately by a gasp. He kicks the speed up a notch. A stream of obscenities falls from my mouth as he alternates speed, pressure, location. All of it incredible. “Don’t stop,” I say when he finds exactly the right spot. “God— please—” “No way in hell,” he’s quick to reassure me, his own breaths coming faster. Shallower. I feel it, the heat building at the base of my spine. It’s going to happen this time, with him—I’m certain of it. I bury a fist in the sheets. He seems to read my mind and ups the speed once more, until nothing exists except my body and this feeling and the way his brow furrows with determination as he adjusts his weight so he can lean into me harder. Faster. Yes. Something rips open inside me, a moan tearing from my chest. It’s an exquisite release, one that makes me shake and whimper and clutch his hair. He loosens his grip on the vibrator, riding out the aftershocks with me. I’m utterly spent. Speechless. And maybe he’s not sure what to say, either, because his mouth tips upward into this lazy smile and he reaches for my face again, just like he did before. This time, there’s almost a reverence in the way he cradles my jaw, something I’m certain I must be imagining. It’s natural to feel closer after orgasm. He may have just made a woman come for the first time—with a little help from the Memphis Erotic Boutique. “Chandler,” he says quietly. Only, I never get to hear what’s on the other side of my name. He blinks a few times and I’m close enough to see the pattern of freckles on his eyelids. After weeks of watching Oliver Huxley, I find that Finnegan Walsh still has some expressions I can’t read. He crooks a finger under my chin, bringing me closer. When our mouths meet, I’m surprised by the sudden softness in the way he kisses me. The gentleness in the way he brushes his lips against mine, so slowly before he draws away. And then, from somewhere beneath our mountain of clothes, a phone rings. Finn’s. He doesn’t make a move to answer it. “They’ll leave a message,” he says. Still, it’s jolted us apart, my lips still tingling with the memory of his. The phone stops—only for mine to start buzzing immediately afterward. “I should—” I say, and he nods his agreement. I stumble out of bed, riffling through our shirts and belts and underwear. Did I really have to wedge it into my pocket that tightly, and it’s a crime that women’s jeans are made with pockets that can feasibly fit only one-third of a cell phone and— “It’s our editor,” I say. Finn scurries to the edge of the bed, racing to tug on his boxers
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What-Dreams-May-Come.txt
| 66 |
go, with your skills at commanding a man’s focus like you do.” Lucy’s face burned with heat, as she was unsure what his comment might have meant. She had never commanded anything, but she liked thinking she had managed to capture attention from someone far better than Mr. Granger. Clearing her throat of a sudden swelling of fear, she tried to sound perfectly unaffected. “I haven’t been to a social function in my life, sir, and I resent the fact that you think me incapable of being just as awkward as you.” Simon opened his eyes at that and leaned up on one elbow, turning to face her fully now that he was a little farther away. “You’ve never gone out in Society?” Lucy shrugged a shoulder. “I was a governess for the last five years, and before that I was only a child, the daughter of a tailor. I’ve never had a reason to go out.” “But surely you have gone places with William.” His thick eyebrows pulled together, his expression making Lucy nervous. “He must have courted you.” Sighing, she tried to find the best way to explain. She didn’t want to lie to Simon any more than she already had, particularly in a place that was so special to him. Neither did she want to ruin this place for him by admitting the truth or speaking of Mr. Granger. “I have always lived an unconventional life, and nothing has changed.” “Ordinary lives are for ordinary people, Lucy. I may not know you well yet, but you are certainly extraordinary. Anyone can see that.” Heat filled Lucy’s face yet again when she realized he was perfectly serious. No one had ever called her extraordinary before. Not even Mr. Granger. That man was determined to marry her, and he had never even told her she was anything but pretty. How was this man, who thought she was his future sister-in-law, far more romantic than the one who planned to make her his wife in truth, whether she wanted it or not? That question reminded her that she had only two days before she would have to give Simon up. Not that he had been hers to begin with, but a part of her wished she could keep him forever. She wished she could tell him everything without him immediately using his limited time and energy to help her fix something beyond his responsibility. “You have to call me extraordinary because that is how you would treat your future sister-in-law,” she said, hoping she sounded casual and unhurt by the thought. “You need not say that out of obligation.” Clenching his jaw, Simon looked away, but not before Lucy caught the flash of anger in his eyes. “I say that because it is true.” He paused, then said, “Thank you, by the way.” “For what?” “For making me come out here. It doesn’t change the amount of work I have to do, but I can breathe again.” He was thinking about his work again, and that was the opposite of what Lucy
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What-Dreams-May-Come.txt
| 68 |
trailed behind them on the short walk to the front door. “He pays a steward to look after his lands and maintain his income, but that is about all this house is good for.” “Until now,” Simon offered, feeling rather useless as he followed Rebecca. Forester glanced back but didn’t acknowledge the addition. Nor did Lucy. “It doesn’t look like anyone is here, does it?” she said, peering through the nearest window. Forester shrugged. “Like you confirmed, William planned for only a few days here in Oxfordshire, and the Park is far more comfortable for such a short visit.” Thinking back on the conversation in the carriage, Simon tried to remember what Lucy had said about William’s plans. Had she said anything? The look in Forester’s eyes as he turned back to Simon didn’t ease his uncertainty, and Simon feared he was the butt of some joke he hadn’t heard. It wouldn’t be the first time. “Simon,” Forester said, “I suppose you’d better open up the house if we are to let the lovely Lucy see her future here. Then again, perhaps we—” His words stopped when the door opened, revealing William’s laughably young butler, Mason, in the entryway. “Lord Calloway!” Mason said, clearly surprised by the sight of visitors. “Mr. Forester.” But then his eyes landed on Lucy, and recognition set in. “And the future Mrs. Calloway!” He bowed low before opening the door wider to let them all inside. Whatever confusion Simon was feeling, he wasn’t the only one. For once, Forester was speechless, and even Lucy looked ready to run for half a second before she plastered on a smile and stepped into the house. Even the maid frowned at the reception, and she seemed to have far more answers than Lucy did. “Forgive our unpreparedness, miss,” Mason said once everyone was inside. “We didn’t expect you for a couple of days yet. Mrs. Hughsley!” The old housekeeper had been coming up the entry hall, but at the sight of guests she shuffled her feet faster until she arrived at the little gathering. “Lord Calloway,” she said, though slightly out of breath, and she sank into a curtsy as low as her geriatric legs would allow. Mrs. Hughsley was practically as old as the house itself. “And Mr. Forester, I didn’t expect to see you away from Town.” Forester flashed the woman a smile. “And miss coming to see you? My dear Mrs. Hughsley, you are always my favorite part of coming to see the Calloways, and you know it.” Miraculously, the housekeeper blushed a deep red at the flattery, though Simon had been sure she was no longer capable of such a thing. Then her eyes fell on Lucy, and though she wasn’t as confident as Mason had been, she still said, “And you must be William’s beloved. We’ve been so eager to meet you, Miss . . . ?” Simon frowned. They didn’t know her name? But he held his breath, waiting to see which name Lucy chose to give. Staley or Hayes? He had almost forgotten
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93 |
The-Silver-Ladies-Do-Lunch.txt
| 65 |
should have introduced him properly before all the others started to make ghastly comments – they hadn’t realised he was a New Yorker. Melvyn told me afterwards that he’d tried to change the subject twice but – oh, I felt so dreadful, all that stuff about artists and playwrights. I apologised to Jensen before he left, but he didn’t mind at all. In fact, he found it quite humorous.’ ‘I bet he did,’ Minnie agreed with a smile. ‘He was very taken with you too…’ ‘Oh?’ Minnie tried to make her face appear surprised. ‘I’m not sure we had much in common…’ ‘He said he loved talking to you about theatre and literature over dessert. Minnie, he asked if you were single and if I had your phone number. Of course, I didn’t give it to him, not without asking you first.’ ‘Quite right too,’ Minnie said, a cat-with-the-cream expression on her face. If Jensen Callahan wanted to meet her again, he’d have to try harder than that. ‘But we must have another dinner party soon and, of course, you’ll be invited…’ ‘Thank you – that would be lovely.’ Minnie inclined her head graciously. ‘And now summer is coming, I might have a soirée in the garden.’ ‘Melvyn and I will be there – and we could ask Jensen.’ ‘I’ll look at my diary.’ Minnie was being deliberately enigmatic. ‘Oh, is that Melvyn waving?’ ‘It is – I must go.’ Francine kissed the air twice. ‘I just wanted to thank you for saving my dinner party – it could have gone so horribly wrong and you said all the right things. We’ll meet soon.’ ‘My pleasure,’ Minnie replied, remembering how much she’d enjoyed the Eton Mess, glancing into Jensen’s twinkling eyes and bantering with him about the arts. Minnie turned away from the heaving procession, the jangling bells and trumpeting music, and strolled along the banks of the Cherwell, the grounds of St Hilda’s to her left. As they often did, Minnie’s thoughts drifted back to her first term as an Oxford student. She’d been eighteen, skinny, all wild hair, second-hand clothes and books, a third-hand bicycle, edgily conscious of every sarcastic comment from those who were affronted by her presence at the university. But there were the others who supported her too, good friends, rebels, admirers, boyfriends, and one particular lecturer who had championed Minnie, reminding her very much of Miss Hamilton, the first person to believe that she had first class brains in her head. Minnie always marvelled at how far she’d come. As she walked past the gleaming river, ice-blue, dappled in sunlight, daffodils clustered on the banks, she felt thankful. She had won life’s lottery ticket: an education that led to independence and more. Most importantly, she had friends, books and an unshakeable confidence in her own mind. She was lucky; she was healthy, happy. She needed nothing more than this beautiful May Day in Oxford. Then from nowhere Jensen Callahan flickered into her thoughts, and she saw his bright eyes and the fascinating mind that lurked behind
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Divine Rivals.txt
| 79 |
not to hope. I thought she wouldn’t return for a long while. She had always been a roaming sort of soul, never prone to stay in one place too long. But she came back not a week later, and she chose to stay with me, and I knew she was the one, as silly as that might sound.” Attie was smiling, dimples flaring as she leaned on her shovel. “Not silly at all. Although I cannot even imagine you saying a cross word, Marisol. You’re like a saint.” Marisol laughed. “Oh, trust me. I have a temper.” “I can believe it,” Iris teased, to which Marisol tossed a weed at her in playful reproach. They returned to their work, Iris watching the ground soften and crumble beneath her efforts. She spoke before she could stop herself. “I hope we get to meet Keegan soon.” “As do I, Iris. She will love you both,” Marisol said, but her voice was suddenly tremulous, as if she were swallowing tears. And Iris realized Keegan must have been gone for quite some time now, if the garden had fallen into this much disarray again. Iris, full of nerves, wrote to him that night: Would you ever want to meet me? He replied, swiftly: YES. But you’re also six hundred kilometers away from me. Iris countered: If I had wings, I would fly home for a day. Since I don’t, it’ll have to be whenever I return to Oath. He asked: You’re returning? When? Do you know, or will you wait for the end of the war? P.S. You truly don’t have wings? I’m shocked. She paused, uncertain how to respond. It suddenly felt as if she had a host of butterflies within her, and she typed: I’ll return most likely when the war is over. I want to see you. I want to hear your voice. P.S. I most certainly don’t have wings. She sent that confession over the portal, and her mind added, I want to touch you. It took him a minute to answer, which had her biting her nails and fervently wishing she had kept those things to herself. Until he wrote: I want the same. Perhaps we could go irritate the librarians of Oath with our quest for missing myths, or I could take you to meet my nan over tea and biscuits. I think she would take a shine to you. You could also settle the debate about my chin being too pointy and sharp, and if I look more like a knight errant or a rogue. Or maybe we could even just walk the park together. Anything you would like, I would too. I’ll be here, waiting for whenever you’re ready to see me. She read it twice before hiding her smile in the crease of the paper. Dear Ms. Winnow, We have on record that one private Forest M. Winnow of Oath enlisted for Enva’s cause on the first day of Shiloh, nearly six months prior to your query. He was sorted into Second E Battalion, Fifth Landover Company,
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Emma.txt
| 13 |
her, to the advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly follies--her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a subject.--She could not enter on it.-- Harriet was very seldom mentioned between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy, and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on Isabella's letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to the pain of having made Harriet unhappy. Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted; but, since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet different from what she had known her before.-- Isabella, to be sure, was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing with the children, it would not have escaped her. Emma's comforts and hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet's being to stay longer; her fortnight was likely to be a month at least. Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain till they could bring her back. "John does not even mention your friend," said Mr. Knightley. "Here is his answer, if you like to see it." It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her friend was unmentioned. "John enters like a brother into my happiness," continued Mr. Knightley, "but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have, likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes." "He writes like a sensible man," replied Emma, when she had read the letter. "I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different construction, I should not have believed him." "My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means--" "He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two," interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile--"much less, perhaps, than he is aware of, if we could
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Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt
| 44 |
of a prophecy was ridiculous. She scratched at the chipped paint of the windowsill. “I, um, have to tell you something.” “There’s more? Gods, girl, I left you at boring and found you at spine-tingling.” After a bit of pouting, Io said, “Edei is my fate-thread.” Plastering a mischievous smile on her lips, Rosa knocked Io’s shoulder with her own. “You sought him out at last! Good for you.” Io shushed her, dropping her voice extra low. “He doesn’t know! Bianca Rossi ordered me to investigate the wraiths with him.” “Did Bianca order you to cuddle him to sleep?” A snort escaped Io. “You’re such a meddler.” “And you’re such a chicken!” A smile was blooming on Io’s face. Small, tentative, but there. Always sharp-eyed, Rosa noticed it. “Oh, baby girl, how bad is it? His-initials-in-your-diary bad or your-chest-feels-like-it’s-about-to-explode bad?” Io would not be answering that. This was real life, not a radio drama. “You have been pining after him for years—” “Well, it’s a fate-thread! But I didn’t even know who he was.” “And now that you do?” Io shrugged. “He has a girlfriend.” “Does his girlfriend know Bianca ordered you to cuddle him to sleep?” “Will you stop? It’s not—” She paused and considered. “It’s not right to force this fate on him.” Rosa’s face scrunched up, like she was about to say something horrible. “You know, one day you’ll need to grow the hell up and let other people decide for themselves if they like you or not.” There it was. The horrible thing. Rosa had stabbed her right at the chip in her armor. The pain was twofold: first, because it reminded Io that she was a coward. It was safe to love people from afar, to dream of kisses but never seek them. We Ora sisters don’t kiss other people’s boyfriends—no matter how much Io might have wanted to. And second, because it reverberated deep into Io’s core to the numbing, inescapable fear that even if she did risk it all, if she did tell him about the fate-thread and how she felt, then the love would turn sour, soiled and corrupted, like Thais’s love had. Thais: the first, the deepest, the most important of all of Io’s unrequited love stories. They came together: the fear and the longing. Io dreaded that her love was doomed to be rejected, or tricked, or manipulated. And at the same time, she wanted desperately to be loved. She let her head drop on her friend’s shoulder. The words spilled out of her mouth before she could shape them into a more modest form: “I’m trying. I swear, Rosa, I’m trying.” “Oh, baby,” her friend said softly. Rosa’s arms came around her, enveloping Io in her best friend’s familiar scent. “I wish you wouldn’t push me away. I’ve missed you, and I know you’ve missed me.” Io glanced up. “I’m not pushing you away. We just got busy.” But that wasn’t true. Io remembered that time at the Cellar Club, where they had met up to celebrate Rosa’s new job. She
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Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt
| 48 |
responsibilities. It’s bigger than me and my feelings.” “Look at this character growth. Five stars,” she says, grinning. Pushing back to stand, she says, “I’m going to order coffee. Need a refill?” “I’m good.” I’m so close to finishing this terrible document. I’ll probably never show it to another human, but it isn’t even about that. Two hours ago, my agent called to let me know she expects several of my backlist titles to hit the bestseller lists this week. Apparently new readers have been discovering my books, and posting photos and hilarious challenges, videos, and reviews. She sent me a few and I laughed through teary eyes as I watched. Writers can work for years and never know how a story will land with an audience. Being reminded that my words really affect readers made me want to get back to it immediately. Book people are just better, I swear by it. She also scolded me for avoiding her calls (valid), but said that she cares about me first, and if I never want to write another book, that’s fine. I won’t be letting her down, and she won’t take it personally. I have to do what’s best for me. Four months ago, the idea of hearing that would have been a relief, a weight lifted, but the moment Amaya said I could quit if I wanted, all I felt was a devastating bleakness. It made me realize I’m not ready to give up writing. I did the show to find myself, not for fame, and if I have to give up Connor, I want to at least hold on to what makes me me. And what I am is a writer. So even if every word in this doc is garbage, I’m not quitting. And tomorrow, I will put on my mental blinders and sit down and try to make a diamond out of a hunk of coal. Because tomorrow, I will do everything I can not to think about Connor and the show and how in just over four days I will be expected to embark on a trip with a man who isn’t the man I want. When my phone buzzes on the table, my immediate hope is that it’s him. I need to work on that. But then it buzzes again. And again. I turn it over and my heart takes off in a gallop for a very different reason. It’s a text from Alice. Fizzy. Fizzy oh my god Meet us at the hospital I’m in labor * * * Everyone says newborns are ugly, that they look like grumpy old men or tiny, unfurled leaves. They’re wrinkled and red-faced; fuzzy and grouchy. They do nothing but sleep and eat and cry and poop. That might be true for other babies, but at only six hours old, Helena Ying Kwok is already, hands down, the most beautiful and entertaining human ever to grace this planet. Baby Lena—I chose the nickname—has her mother’s tiny button nose and her father’s permafrown. She has her maternal grandmother’s full lips,
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Hell Bent.txt
| 93 |
she leapt out of bed and pulled on the only clean clothes she had—Lethe sweats. “Now?” “I was making lunch when he called. I told Mercy to stay upstairs. He wants to go over preparations for the wolf run. Didn’t you email him?” “I did!” She’d sent her notes, links to her research, along with a fourhundred-word apology for being unprepared at their last meeting and a declaration of her loyalty to Lethe. Maybe she’d overdone it. “Where’s Darlington?” “He and Turner went to Tripp’s apartment.” Alex drew her fingers through her hair, trying to make it respectable. “And?” “No one answered the door, but the salt knot at the entry was still undisturbed.” “That’s good, right? Maybe he’s just hunkering down with his family or —” “If we don’t have Tripp, we won’t be able to lure his demon back to hell.” They would have to face that problem later. They were halfway down the stairs when they heard the front door open. Professor Walsh-Whiteley entered whistling. He set his cap and coat on the rack by the door. “Miss Stern!” he said. “Oculus said you might be late. Are you … in your pajamas?” “Just doing some chores,” Alex said with a bright smile. “Old houses need so much maintenance.” The step beneath her creaked mightily as if Il Bastone was joining the charade. “She’s a grand old thing,” said the Praetor, strolling into the parlor. “I was hoping to find Oculus had stocked the larder.” Oculus. Whom he hadn’t bothered to greet. No wonder his Virgil and his Dante had hated him. But they had more serious worries than a throwback professor with no manners. “Call Darlington,” Alex whispered. “I did!” “Try again. Tell him not to come back until—” The front door swung open and Darlington strode in. “Morning,” he said. “Turner—” Alex and Dawes waved frantically at him to shut up. But it was too late. “Do we have guests?” the Praetor asked, craning his neck around the corner. Darlington stood frozen with his coat in his hands. Walsh-Whiteley stared at him. “Mr. Arlington?” Darlington managed a nod. “I … Yes.” Alex could lie as easily as she could speak, but at that moment, she was at a loss for any words, let alone believable fictions. She hadn’t even thought about how they were going to explain Darlington’s reappearance. Instead she and Dawes were standing there looking like they’d just been doused with ice water. Well, if she was already playing shocked, she might as well lean into it. Alex summoned all her will and burst into tears. “Darlington!” she cried. “You’re back!” She threw her arms around him. “Yes,” Darlington said too loudly. “I am back.” “I thought you were dead!” Alex wailed at the top of her lungs. “Good God,” said the Praetor. “It’s really you? I’d been given to understand that, well, you were dead.” “No, sir,” Darlington said as he disentangled himself from Alex, his hand at the small of her back like a hot coal. “I had just slipped into a pocket
| 0 |
22 |
Lord of the Flies.txt
| 57 |
away from him, Roger bumped, fumbled with a hiss of breath, and passed onwards. He heard them whispering. "Can you see anything?" "There--" In front of them, only three or four yards away, was a rock-like hump where no rock should be. Ralph could hear a tiny chattering noise coming from somewhere-- perhaps from his own mouth. He bound himself together with his will, fused his fear and loathing into a hatred, and stood up. He took two leaden steps forward. Behind them the silver of moon had drawn clear of the horizon. Before them, something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head between its knees. Then the wind roared in the forest, there was confusion in the darkness and the creature lifted its head, holding toward them the ruin of a face. Ralph found himself taking giant strides among the ashes, heard other creatures crying out and leaping and dared the impossible on the dark slope; presently the mountain was deserted, save for the three abandoned sticks and the thing that bowed. CHAPTER EIGHT Gift for the Darkness Piggy looked up miserably from the dawn-pale beach to the dark mountain. "Are you sure? Really sure, I mean?" I told you a dozen times now," said Ralph, "we saw it." "D'you think we're safe down here?" "How the hell should I know?" Ralph jerked away from him and walked a few paces along the beach. Jack was kneeling and drawing a circular pattern in the sand with his forefinger. Piggy's voice came to them, hushed. "Are you sure? Really?" "Go up and see," said Jack contemptuously, "and good riddance." "No fear." "The beast had teeth," said Ralph, "and big black eyes." He shuddered violently. Piggy took off his one round of glass and polished the surface. "What we going to do?" Ralph turned toward the platform. The conch glimmered among the trees, a white blob against the place where the sun would rise. He pushed back his mop. "I don't know." He remembered the panic flight down the mountainside. "I don't think we'd ever fight a thing that size, honestly, you know. We'd talk but we wouldn't fight a tiger. We'd hide. Even Jack 'ud hide." Jack still looked at the sand. "What about my hunters?" Simon came stealing out of the shadows by the shelters. Ralph ignored Jack's question. He pointed to the touch of yellow above the sea. "As long as there's light we're brave enough. But then? And now that thing squats by the fire as though it didn't want us to be rescued--" He was twisting his hands now, unconsciously. His voice rose. "So we can't have a signal fire. . . . We're beaten." A point of gold appeared above the sea and at once all the sky lightened. "What about my hunters?" "Boys armed with sticks." Jack got to his feet. His face was red as he marched away. Piggy put on his one glass and looked at Ralph. "Now you done it. You been rude about his hunters." "Oh shut up!" The
| 1 |
19 |
Hound of the Baskervilles.txt
| 81 |
certain, and that is that Mr. James Desmond, who is the next heir, is an elderly gentleman of a very amiable disposition, so that this persecution does not arise from him. I really think that we may eliminate him entirely from our calculations. There remain the people who will actually surround Sir Henry Baskerville upon the moor." "Would it not be well in the first place to get rid ofl this Barrymore couple?" "By no means. You could not make a greater mistake. If they are innocent it would be a cruel injustice, and if they are guilty we should be giving up all chance of bringing it home to them. No, no, we will preserve them upon our list of suspects. Then there is a groom at the Hall, if I remember right. There are two moorland farmers. There is our friend Dr. Mortimer, whom I believe to be entirely honest, and there is his wife, of whom we know nothing. There is this naturalist, Stapleton, and there is his sister, who is said to be a young lady of attractions. There is Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, who is also an unknown factor. and there are one or two other neighbours. These are the folk who must be your very special study." "I will do my best." "You have arms, I suppose?" "Yes, I thought it as well to take them." "Most certainly. Keep your revolver near you night and day, and never relax your precautions." Our friends had already secured a first-class carriage and were waiting for us upon the platform. "No, we have no news of any kind," said Dr. Mortimer in answer to my friend's questions. "I can swear to one thing, and that is that we have not been shadowed during the last two days. We have never gone out without keeping a sharp watch, and no one could have escaped our notice." "You have always kept together, I presume?" "Except yesterday afternoon. I usually give up one day to pure amusement when I come to town, so I spent it at the Museum of the College of Surgeons." "And I went to look at the folk in the park," said Baskerville. "But we had no trouble of any kind." "It was imprudent, all the same," said Holmes, shaking his head and looking very grave. "I beg, Sir Henry, that you will not go about alone. Some great misfortune will befall you if you do. Did you get your other boot?" "No, sir, it is gone forever." "Indeed. That is very interesting. Well, good-bye," he added as the train began to glide down the platform. "Bear in mind, Sir Henry, one of the phrases in that queer old legend which Dr. Mortimer has read to us and avoid the moor in those hours of darkness when the powers of evil are exalted." I looked back at the plafform when we had left it far behind and saw the tall, austere figure of Holmes standing motionless and gazing after us. The journey was a swift and pleasant
| 1 |
29 |
Tarzan of the Apes.txt
| 64 |
for the following day when they should be on shore with the sailors who would have to accompany them with their belongings. Once out of Black Michael's sight any of the men might strike them down, and still leave Black Michael's conscience clear. And even should they escape that fate was it not but to be faced with far graver dangers? Alone, he might hope to survive for years; for he was a strong, athletic man. But what of Alice, and that other little life so soon to be launched amidst the hardships and grave dangers of a primeval world? The man shuddered as he meditated upon the awful gravity, the fearful helplessness, of their situation. But it was a merciful Providence which prevented him from foreseeing the hideous reality which awaited them in the grim depths of that gloomy wood. Early next morning their numerous chests and boxes were hoisted on deck and lowered to waiting small boats for transportation to shore. There was a great quantity and variety of stuff, as the Claytons had expected a possible five to eight years' residence in their new home. Thus, in addition to the many necessities they had brought, there were also many luxuries. Black Michael was determined that nothing belonging to the Claytons should be left on board. Whether out of compassion for them, or in furtherance of his own self-interests, it would be difficult to say. There was no question but that the presence of property of a missing British official upon a suspicious vessel Chapter 2 16 would have been a difficult thing to explain in any civilized port in the world. So zealous was he in his efforts to carry out his intentions that he insisted upon the return of Clayton's revolvers to him by the sailors in whose possession they were. Into the small boats were also loaded salt meats and biscuit, with a small supply of potatoes and beans, matches, and cooking vessels, a chest of tools, and the old sails which Black Michael had promised them. As though himself fearing the very thing which Clayton had suspected, Black Michael accompanied them to shore, and was the last to leave them when the small boats, having filled the ship's casks with fresh water, were pushed out toward the waiting Fuwalda. As the boats moved slowly over the smooth waters of the bay, Clayton and his wife stood silently watching their departure--in the breasts of both a feeling of impending disaster and utter hopelessness. And behind them, over the edge of a low ridge, other eyes watched--close set, wicked eyes, gleaming beneath shaggy brows. As the Fuwalda passed through the narrow entrance to the harbor and out of sight behind a projecting point, Lady Alice threw her arms about Clayton's neck and burst into uncontrolled sobs. Bravely had she faced the dangers of the mutiny; with heroic fortitude she had looked into the terrible future; but now that the horror of absolute solitude was upon them, her overwrought nerves gave way, and the reaction came. He did not
| 1 |
35 |
The Da Vinci Code.txt
| 43 |
May & Pinska, the building contains over one hundred bedrooms, six dining rooms, libraries, living rooms, meeting rooms, and offices. The second, eighth, and sixteenth floors contain chapels, ornamented with mill-work and marble. The seventeenth floor is entirely residential. Men enter the building through the main doors on Lexington Avenue. Women enter through a side street and are "acoustically and visually separated" from the men at all times within the building. Earlier this evening, within the sanctuary of his penthouse apartment, Bishop Manuel Aringarosa had packed a small travel bag and dressed in a traditional black cassock. Normally, he would have wrapped a purple cincture around his waist, but tonight he would be traveling among the public, and he preferred not to draw attention to his high office. Only those with a keen eye would notice his 14-karat gold bishop's ring with purple amethyst, large diamonds, and hand-tooled mitre-crozier appliqu. Throwing the travel bag over his shoulder, he said a silent prayer and left his apartment, descending to the lobby where his driver was waiting to take him to the airport. Now, sitting aboard a commercial airliner bound for Rome, Aringarosa gazed out the window at the dark Atlantic. The sun had already set, but Aringarosa knew his own star was on the rise. Tonight the battle will be won, he thought, amazed that only months ago he had felt powerless against the hands that threatened to destroy his empire. As president-general of Opus Dei, Bishop Aringarosa had spent the last decade of his life spreading the message of "God's Work"-literally, Opus Dei. The congregation, founded in 1928 by the Spanish priest Josemara Escriv, promoted a return to conservative Catholic values and encouraged its members to make sweeping sacrifices in their own lives in order to do the Work of God. Opus Dei's traditionalist philosophy initially had taken root in Spain before Franco's regime, but with the 1934 publication of Josemara Escriv's spiritual book The Way- 999 points of meditation for doing God's Work in one's own life-Escriv's message exploded across the world. Now, with over four million copies of The Way in circulation in forty-two languages, Opus Dei was a global force. Its residence halls, teaching centers, and even universities could be found in almost every major metropolis on earth. Opus Dei was the fastest-growing and most financially secure Catholic organization in the world. Unfortunately, Aringarosa had learned, in an age of religious cynicism, cults, and televangelists, Opus Dei's escalating wealth and power was a magnet for suspicion. "Many call Opus Dei a brainwashing cult," reporters often challenged. "Others call you an ultraconservative Christian secret society. Which are you?" "Opus Dei is neither," the bishop would patiently reply. "We are a Catholic Church. We are a congregation of Catholics who have chosen as our priority to follow Catholic doctrine as rigorously as we can in our own daily lives." "Does God's Work necessarily include vows of chastity, tithing, and atonement for sins through self-flagellation and the cilice?" "You are describing only a small portion of the Opus Dei population," Aringarosa said.
| 1 |
82 |
Robyn-Harding-The-Drowning-Woman.txt
| 59 |
asleep, as I wheel the two suitcases across the dimly lit parking lot toward my sedan. My car is at the side of the building, invisible from the main road. Even the highway is quiet at this hour. But soon it will fill with big trucks and commuters, and I will feel less alone. I lift the heavy bags into the trunk and close the lid gently, conscious of my slumbering neighbors. Opening the locks with a beep, I move to the driver’s side. My hand is on the door handle when a calm voice slithers over my shoulder. “Hello, Missy.” He has found me. Like I knew he would. I never had a chance. I turn to see my husband—handsome in a casual outfit, still perfectly pressed—smiling at me. The menace in his grin is evident as he moves toward me. I should run. I should attack. But all I do is cower away, press myself up against the car. When he stops, he is so close I can feel his breath. “I like your hair,” he says, reaching out to touch it, but I jerk my head away. There is derision in his voice, and in his cold gray eyes. He is toying with me. Enjoying my fear. The false compliment is all part of the game. “It’s a bit light for your complexion, but I’m sure you look better with makeup on.” I grit my teeth to keep from lashing out. I will not be goaded. I will not play. “You made a valiant effort to escape,” he says, taking a step back, allowing me to breathe. “But did you really think you could just walk away from me, Hazel? That I would just let you go after you planned to kill me?” “You planned to kill me,” I snap. Benjamin laughs darkly. “It’s comical, isn’t it?” “Hilarious,” I growl. And I have to ask, “How did you find me?” “You gave your new phone number to the nursing home. The nursing home I pay for. It was easy to get access to your mother’s updated records.” “She’s dead,” I tell him, my voice trembling only slightly. And though I have convinced myself my mother’s death was peaceful, natural, and on her own terms, I must be sure. “Did you take her, Benjamin? Did you hurt her?” “For God’s sake, Hazel.” He rolls his eyes. “Do you think I’m a monster?” “I do, actually.” “I had nothing to do with the crazy old lady’s demise,” he says flatly. “But it played into my hands nicely.” “How so?” “Your accusations were the rantings of a delusional woman. I’ve paid for your mother’s care for our entire marriage. Why on earth would I hurt her?” Behind him, a light flicks on in one of the motel rooms. The chunky blinds block out all but the slimmest shards, but I know someone is awake in there. They have heard us. They will intervene if things get violent. I just need to keep my husband talking. “You’d hurt my mom to hurt me.”
| 0 |
15 |
Frankenstein.txt
| 73 |
failure. Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually deemed marvellous. Were we among the tamer scenes of nature I might fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your ridicule; but many things will appear possible in these wild and mysterious regions which would provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with the ever- varied powers of nature; nor can I doubt but that my tale conveys in its series internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it is composed." You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the offered communication, yet I could not endure that he should renew his grief by a recital of his misfortunes. I felt the greatest eagerness to hear the promised narrative, partly from curiosity and partly from a strong desire to ameliorate his fate if it were in my power. I expressed these feelings in my answer. "I thank you," he replied, "for your sympathy, but it is useless; my fate is nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event, and then I shall repose in peace. I understand your feeling," continued he, perceiving that I wished to interrupt him; "but you are mistaken, my friend, if thus you will allow me to name you; nothing can alter my destiny; listen to my history, and you will perceive how irrevocably it is determined." He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when I should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has related during the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make notes. This manuscript will doubtless afford you the greatest pleasure; but to me, who know him, and who hear it from his own lips--with what interest and sympathy shall I read it in some future day! Even now, as I commence my task, his full- toned voice swells in my ears; his lustrous eyes dwell on me with all their melancholy sweetness; I see his thin hand raised in animation, while the lineaments of his face are irradiated by the soul within. Strange and harrowing must be his story, frightful the storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it--thus! Chapter 1 I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a husband and the father of a family. As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot refrain from relating them. One of his
| 1 |
95 |
USS-Lincoln.txt
| 76 |
unlike the scorpion-flies they had encountered prior. Composed of billions of nanites, they apparently could effortlessly dissipate into a vaporous cloud, rendering their Arrows’ conventional weapons useless. The Arrows’ Phazon Pulsar bolts, known for their devastating power, would probably have little or no effect on these elusive alien craft. A small squad of five dragonflies had broken away and was coming right for them. And with that, the battle commenced. J-Dog’s mind raced, searching for a strategy to outmaneuver and defeat the enemy. His eyes darted across the holographic display, tracking the erratic movements of the dragonflies. He knew he had to think outside the box, to embrace the unpredictable nature of the battlefield. Quintos had made it clear he needed to buy some time … Without explicitly saying the words, he was throwing Ryder and this ragtag lot of pilots up as sacrificial lambs, while doing so without excuses, no apologies offered. Quintos had asked for an hour, two, if possible. This was the nature of war, but perhaps more importantly, of friendship. With a swift flick of his wrist, J-Dog initiated a daring evasive maneuver, sending his Arrow into a dizzying spin. The starry backdrop blurred as he weaved through the enemy formation, narrowly evading incoming plasma fire. His senses heightened, he anticipated the dragonflies’ next move, reacting with split-second precision. The dance in space intensified as the Arrows engaged in a fierce ballet of evasion and retaliation. J-Dog led his squadron, orchestrating their maneuvers with strategic finesse. He guided his pilots through intricate corkscrew spins, barrel rolls, and abrupt direction changes, exploiting the agility of their Arrow fighters. But the dragonflies proved elusive adversaries, their nanite-based composition granting them an unnerving advantage. Phazon Pulsar bolts streaked through the void, barely grazing their insectile forms before they dissipated into mist. The frustration mounted as, one by one, the Arrows succumbed to the onslaught, their explosions casting mournful glimmers against the backdrop of distant stars. The battlefield transformed into a deadly ballet of destruction. Arrows erupted in fiery bursts, their once-mighty composite frames crumbling under the merciless assault of the dragonflies’ plasma fire. Pained screams of fellow pilots reverberated through J-Dog’s comms, a haunting reminder of the stakes at hand. Guilt suddenly hung heavy within his cockpit, J-Dog realizing the Symbios were being taken out at nearly three times the number of his human pilots. Determination burned in J-Dog’s eyes as he pushed his Arrow to its limits, searching for a breakthrough. His mind raced, analyzing every nuance of the enemy’s behavior. And then, an idea sparked within him—a calculated risk that could turn the tide. With a resolute nod, J-Dog signaled his squadron to follow. He executed a daring maneuver, plunging his Arrow directly into the heart of the enemy formation. The dragonflies swarmed, their ghostly forms engulfing his ship. It was a high-stakes gamble—one that demanded split-second timing. As the dragonflies converged, J-Dog’s finger hovered over the trigger. His heartbeat thundered in his ears as he unleashed a barrage of Phazon Pulsar bolts, saturating the air with radiant energy.
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78 |
Pineapple Street.txt
| 32 |
I was immature. I knew Thalia because she played tennis, and she messed up her elbow a few times. I’m out there at matches, but that was back in the fall. I haven’t seen her all winter. It’s not like she’s coming in to lift, right? They ask for a hair sample, a saliva sample. I do that, and they let me go. Actually—wait—I should explain this. You know what they do? They have to get something like a hundred hairs. This lady stands over me with rubber gloves pulling hairs out by the root from every part of my head, and then from my arm and leg. It’s torture. Then that Friday, I’m in my office at school and they come arrest me. I don’t even think anything’s up when they come in. I got used to them poking around the building. But they have me stand up, they do the cuffs and my Miranda, and all I can do is laugh. It’s a weird response, I know. Not laughing hysterically, I mean I’m just sort of laughing in disbelief. It felt like a movie. But then yeah, two years later in court, the one officer testifies that when they came and got me I was laughing. I sound like a maniac. What they had on me, what they thought they had, was a very small piece of my hair in Thalia’s mouth and my DNA on the bathing suit. I don’t know what to say here because either it was shit luck or, I gotta suggest, maybe they gave themselves a little help. They do what they can to strengthen their case because they’re under a metric shit ton of pressure to solve this thing. And I’m a solution that makes the school happy. I’m not a student, I’m not a teacher. I’m not some huge part of the community. They probably think they’ve figured it out, and they just need that little bit of extra help. Or maybe it’s legit. I swam in that pool a lot of mornings. I’d lift, rinse off, go for a swim, shower, get to work. So sure, maybe some of my hair is in the pool. The bathing suit, I have no idea. I touched a lot of shit in that gym. They say “DNA” and it sounds so definite, like it must be my blood or semen. And DNA evidence was this new, exciting thing back then—like this was something juries had maybe heard about on TV but just barely. They hear DNA and, wow, that’s official. But what you’ve got is a quarter-million gallons of water in a pool with fuck knows what floating in it, and one of those things is a piece of my hair. The thing is, the cops don’t tell me it’s a hair and some trace stuff on a bathing suit. They tell me my DNA was all over this girl, and they say the only explanation is either I killed her or I was sleeping with her. They say this at about three in the
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36 |
The House of the Seven Gables.txt
| 75 |
gentleman was, he evidently took her to be a young person serving for wages), "I am a cousin of Miss Hepzibah, on a visit to her." "Her cousin?--and from the country? Pray pardon me, then," said the gentleman, bowing and smiling, as Phoebe never had been bowed to nor smiled on before; "in that case, we must be better acquainted; for, unless I am sadly mistaken, you are my own little kinswoman likewise! Let me see,--Mary?--Dolly?--Phoebe? --yes, Phoebe is the name! Is it possible that you are Phoebe Pyncheon, only child of my dear cousin and classmate, Arthur? Ah, I see your father now, about your mouth! Yes, yes! we must be better acquainted! I am your kinsman, my dear. Surely you must have heard of Judge Pyncheon?" As Phoebe curtsied in reply, the Judge bent forward, with the pardonable and even praiseworthy purpose--considering the nearness of blood and the difference of age--of bestowing on his young relative a kiss of acknowledged kindred and natural affection. Unfortunately (without design, or only with such instinctive design as gives no account of itself to the intellect) Phoebe, just at the critical moment, drew back; so that her highly respectable kinsman, with his body bent over the counter and his lips protruded, was betrayed into the rather absurd predicament of kissing the empty air. It was a modern parallel to the case of Ixion embracing a cloud, and was so much the more ridiculous as the Judge prided himself on eschewing all airy matter, and never mistaking a shadow for a substance. The truth was,--and it is Phoebe's only excuse,--that, although Judge Pyncheon's glowing benignity might not be absolutely unpleasant to the feminine beholder, with the width of a street, or even an ordinary-sized room, interposed between, yet it became quite too intense, when this dark, full-fed physiognomy (so roughly bearded, too, that no razor could ever make it smooth) sought to bring itself into actual contact with the object of its regards. The man, the sex, somehow or other, was entirely too prominent in the Judge's demonstrations of that sort. Phoebe's eyes sank, and, without knowing why, she felt herself blushing deeply under his look. Yet she had been kissed before, and without any particular squeamishness, by perhaps half a dozen different cousins, younger as well as older than this dark-browned, grisly-bearded, white-neck-clothed, and unctuously-benevolent Judge! Then, why not by him? On raising her eyes, Phoebe was startled by the change in Judge Pyncheon's face. It was quite as striking, allowing for the difference of scale, as that betwixt a landscape under a broad sunshine and just before a thunder-storm; not that it had the passionate intensity of the latter aspect, but was cold, hard, immitigable, like a day-long brooding cloud. "Dear me! what is to be done now?" thought the country-girl to herself." He looks as if there were nothing softer in him than a rock, nor milder than the east wind! I meant no harm! Since he is really my cousin, I would have let him kiss me, if I could!" Then,
| 1 |
58 |
Confidence_-a-Novel.txt
| 90 |
by. Orson’s mother separated from me to help set up more chairs. I was left in the center of the room, trying to decide my next move, when I saw a man galloping toward me, a massive camera of the kind used on reality TV shows attached to his chest. “You must be Ezra!” he shouted. “Welcome to the hive.” He looked me up and down. “I’m Joseph Rhyno with a y, but you can call me Rhyno. I’m the cameraman for this event.” I asked him if he was getting good footage and he leaned toward me conspiratorially. “Actually, I was hoping to get some help with a few shots. Do you think maybe you could follow me into the kitchen here?” I stumbled after Rhyno into the kitchen, where at least twelve NuLifers were at work on plates of hors d’oeuvres, a giant turkey sculpted out of tofu, and a four-tiered cake topped with plastic figurines that, on very close inspection, looked exactly like Orson and Emily. “Could you, um, not get too close?” said one of the NuLifers, a man with a deeply lined face whose forehead was obscured by a white bandanna. “It’s kind of a delicate operation.” “Of course,” I said, stepping back as carefully as I could. “Everyone, a quick announcement,” Rhyno said. “I need to get an establishing shot of the kitchen here. I’m going to step back a few feet, and I want you all to pretend I’m not here.” He walked backward and beckoned to me as well. Then he framed the shot with his hands. “What do you think, Ez?” I couldn’t see anything. “Looks good,” I said. We wandered around the house and the property, getting footage of NuLifers attesting to how Orson had changed their lives. We got footage of the Enners toasting the happy couple. We got footage of children running through the fields, playing a game of tag. Rhyno asked for my opinion on every shot, and I never told him that I couldn’t see what he was talking about. Eventually he sat me down on the patio and turned the camera on me. “Ezra Green,” he said. “CFO and best man and best friend. What words do you have for Orson on his wedding day?” Rhyno’s face was in a blind spot. I tried not to squint. “Good luck,” I said. “On everything.” Rhyno stopped recording. I could tell he was disappointed. “Can we maybe make it a little longer?” he asked. “Like a preview of your speech?” “Sure,” I said. I hadn’t written a speech. “Okay, let’s try it again.” He stepped back and announced that he was rolling. But before I could say anything, a bridesmaid was springing toward us out of the house. “Ez!” she called. Rhyno groaned and shut off his camera. “It’s Emily,” she said breathlessly. “She wants to talk to you.” The sun was glaring directly above the bridesmaid’s head, making it all the more difficult to see her. “Are you sure?” “Yeah. She said it would be quick and sorry
| 0 |
55 |
Blowback.txt
| 21 |
including law-enforcement officers, lawyers, compliance personnel, and technical staff. Those protective layers might not be in place in a second go-round. The Trump advisors who were charged with hunting down the disloyalists are involved in efforts to shape the next Republican presidential administration. And they are hell-bent on weakening or eliminating the peskiest guardrail in the executive branch: the careerists. In the name of countering the Deep State, MAGA forces plan to take a hammer to the government’s career civil service. The tone of government is set at the top and then echoed by midlevel enforcers. Nevertheless, the real action happens on the front lines. Almost 3 million civilian employees do the daily work of federal agencies—disbursing Social Security checks, managing hurricane recovery, conducting highway maintenance, researching life-saving vaccines, and much more. Strict regulations forbid government employees from taking politically motivated actions or allowing their work to be influenced by any particular political candidate or party. A president cannot order these millions of employees to do whatever he or she wants. Since the 1800s, the American system has been built atop the notion of an independent civil service. When Congress passes laws, they do so with the expectation that the executive branch—regardless of who is in charge—will faithfully execute those laws, rather than wipe away statutes it doesn’t like and enforce the ones that it does. But a corrupt chief executive can try to skirt these protections. He or she might ignore the recommendations of the career civil service or badger employees and experts to act in ways contrary to their reasoned judgment. The Trump administration regularly pursued both strategies to bend the federal government to its will, frustrated by what they ruefully labeled the “Deep State.” MAGA leaders intend to destroy the civil service next time, and they have plenty of case studies to use. The ex-president’s hostility toward careerists was best captured in what became known as “Sharpiegate.” In September 2019, Hurricane Dorian was bearing down on the United States, and Donald Trump tweeted that Alabama and other states would “most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated.” It was true that the Category 5 hurricane was looking bad; the only problem was that Trump was wrong about where it would hit. He was basing his claim on an outdated storm forecast from the National Weather Service (NWS), which days earlier had predicted a slight possibility Alabama could be impacted by winds. But the state wasn’t in the cross hairs anymore. “Trump was following an old spaghetti chart.… He hadn’t looked at a recent forecast in forty-eight hours,” explained Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, who was the Trump administration’s number two official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the time, which oversaw NWS. NOAA leaders were concerned the president was tweeting false information amid a public safety crisis. An NWS branch in Alabama quickly corrected the president with a tweet: “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian.” The issue could have died right then, but it didn’t. According to Gallaudet, the White House was “angry that the
| 0 |
8 |
David Copperfield.txt
| 12 |
Traddles, as if he desired to have his opinion. 'Why, the plain state of the case, Mrs. Micawber,' said Traddles, mildly breaking the truth to her. 'I mean the real prosaic fact, you know -' 'Just so,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'my dear Mr. Traddles, I wish to be as prosaic and literal as possible on a subject of so much importance.' '- Is,' said Traddles, 'that this branch of the law, even if Mr. Micawber were a regular solicitor -' 'Exactly so,' returned Mrs. Micawber. ('Wilkins, you are squinting, and will not be able to get your eyes back.') '- Has nothing,' pursued Traddles, 'to do with that. Only a barrister is eligible for such preferments; and Mr. Micawber could not be a barrister, without being entered at an inn of court as a student, for five years.' 'Do I follow you?' said Mrs. Micawber, with her most affable air of business. 'Do I understand, my dear Mr. Traddles, that, at the expiration of that period, Mr. Micawber would be eligible as a Judge or Chancellor?' 'He would be ELIGIBLE,' returned Traddles, with a strong emphasis on that word. 'Thank you,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'That is quite sufficient. If such is the case, and Mr. Micawber forfeits no privilege by entering on these duties, my anxiety is set at rest. I speak,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'as a female, necessarily; but I have always been of opinion that Mr. Micawber possesses what I have heard my papa call, when I lived at home, the judicial mind; and I hope Mr. Micawber is now entering on a field where that mind will develop itself, and take a commanding station.' I quite believe that Mr. Micawber saw himself, in his judicial mind's eye, on the woolsack. He passed his hand complacently over his bald head, and said with ostentatious resignation: 'My dear, we will not anticipate the decrees of fortune. If I am reserved to wear a wig, I am at least prepared, externally,' in allusion to his baldness, 'for that distinction. I do not,' said Mr. Micawber, 'regret my hair, and I may have been deprived of it for a specific purpose. I cannot say. It is my intention, my dear Copperfield, to educate my son for the Church; I will not deny that I should be happy, on his account, to attain to eminence.' 'For the Church?' said I, still pondering, between whiles, on Uriah Heep. 'Yes,' said Mr. Micawber. 'He has a remarkable head-voice, and will commence as a chorister. Our residence at Canterbury, and our local connexion, will, no doubt, enable him to take advantage of any vacancy that may arise in the Cathedral corps.' On looking at Master Micawber again, I saw that he had a certain expression of face, as if his voice were behind his eyebrows; where it presently appeared to be, on his singing us (as an alternative between that and bed) 'The Wood-Pecker tapping'. After many compliments on this performance, we fell into some general conversation; and as I was too full of my desperate intentions
| 1 |
51 |
A Spell of Good Things.txt
| 70 |
Dr. Ali nor Dr. Fidelis stopped to eat, she drank more water and kept going, gripping her pen to stop her fingers from trembling. Finally, around five, two hours after the clinic was supposed to have ended, Dr. Fidelis capped her pen and turned to Dr. Ali. “Whoever is still out there must have arrived terribly late. Let them come next week. I can’t, I can’t do anymore today, Ali.” “Okay ma,” Dr Ali said. Dr. Fidelis slid her handbag over her shoulder and stood up. “Have a lovely night ma,” Wúràọlá said. Dr. Fidelis pursed her lips and left the room. “Don’t worry about her,” Dr. Ali said after Dr. Fidelis’s footsteps faded away. “I can’t believe I forgot.” “It’s not you, it’s something else that is worrying her today. Two of her residents in Ifẹ̀ passed their exams, and she was pushing for them to be retained as consultants. Last last, sha, it is not going to happen, because there’s no allocation for that from Abuja or something. The usual nonsense. She’s really mad about it.” Dr. Ali opened his laptop bag and brought out a pack of Beloxxi crackers. “Do you want? Oh, you ate well in the morning? Then take it now, chop something before you faint.” “Thank you.” “And you know what is going to happen? Both of those residents are my guys. One has an offer from like four private hospitals in Lagos. By next week, he should decide on which offer he’ll take.” “Good for him.” They began walking towards the corridor, matching each other’s pace. “Yeah, but terrible for us here. You know how many consultant neurologists we have in this country?” Wúràọlá shook her head and bit into another cracker. “Not up to one hundred in the whole fucking country. We’re well over a hundred million people now, that’s one neurologist to over one million people.” Dr. Ali laughed. “And we’re not even retaining the ones in training. You know my other guy who just passed his exams? He has written USMLE already. Small time now, he will leave this country. If we’re not careful, ehn, all these public hospitals will become glorified hospices. Give it ten to fifteen years.” Wúràọlá unzipped her bag and pulled out her phone. “And there are people like your brother who just say fuck it to the whole thing.” “Oh, you know Láyí? Did you finish from Ifẹ̀ too?” She checked her notifications. Four messages from Mọ́tárá, two missed calls from Kúnlé, five from her mother. She switched the settings from silent mode to vibrate only. “We were classmates.” “I’m never leaving medicine.” “Just leave Nigeria, that’s what you need to do.” Her phone began vibrating as they stepped into the corridor. Kúnlé. “I’ll see you tomorrow, sha, take care.” Dr. Ali waved as he headed towards the car park. “Thank you so much sir.” Wúràọlá held up the pack of crackers before continuing down the corridor. She finished another cracker before dialling Kúnlé’s number. He picked up immediately. “Sorry, I’ve been in the consulting room since
| 0 |
19 |
Hound of the Baskervilles.txt
| 53 |
you there is no reason why I should not be perfectly frank. "The moor is very sparsely inhabited, and those who live near each other are thrown very much together. For this reason I saw a good deal of Sir Charles Baskerville. With the exception of Mr. Frankland, of Lafter Hall, and Mr. Stapleton, the naturalist, there are no other men of education within many miles. Sir Charles was a retiring man, but the chance of his illness brought us together, and a community of interests in science kept us so. He had brought back much scientific information from South Africa, and many a charming evening we have spent together discussing the comparative anatomy of the Bushman and the Hottentot. "Within the last few months it became increasingly plain to me that Sir Charles's nervous system was strained to the break- ing point. He had taken this legend which I have read you exceedingly to heart -- so much so that, although he would walk in his own grounds, nothing would induce him to go out upon the moor at night. Incredible as it may appear to you, Mr. Holmes, he was honestly convinced that a dreadful fate overhung his family, and certainly the records which he was able to give of his ancestors were not encouraging. The idea of some ghastly presence constantly haunted him, and on more than one occasion he has asked me whether I had on my medical journeys at night ever seen any strange creature or heard the baying of a hound. The latter question he put to me several times, and always with a voice which vibrated with excitement. "I can well remember driving up to his house in the evening some three weeks before the fatal event. He chanced to be at his hall door. I had descended from my gig and was standing in front of him, when I saw his eyes fix themselves over my shoulder and stare past me with an expression of the most dreadful horror. I whisked round and had just time to catch a glimpse of something which I took to be a large black calf passing at the head of the drive. So excited and alarmed was he that I was compelled to go down to the spot where the animal had been and look around for it. It was gone, however, and the incident appeared to make the worst impression upon his mind. I stayed with him all the evening, and it was on that occasion, to explain the emotion which he had shown, that he confided to my keeping that narrative which I read to you when first I came. I mention this small episode because it assumes some importance in view of the tragedy which followed, but I was convinced at the time that the matter was entirely trivial and that his excite- ment had no justification. "It was at my advice that Sir Charles was about to go to London. His heart was, I knew, affected, and the constant anxi- ety in which he
| 1 |
59 |
Costanza-Casati-Clytemnestra.txt
| 48 |
“They weave and dance,” Teucer says, still cackling, “and fuck every once in a while.” This makes the men laugh more. Diomedes’s face is red again, this time with amusement. “My father didn’t even see his bride until the wedding day,” he says. “She had never left the house.” Again, a roar of laughter. Clytemnestra doesn’t understand the joke. Though she has grown up among vulgar warriors, she has never heard men speak like this. They usually joke about fucking goats and pigs or challenge each other out of nothing. Tyndareus doesn’t join in with the laughter, but he does nothing to stop it. “How old was she?” Penelope asks politely. “Twelve.” Diomedes shrugs. Timandra stirs next to Tyndareus, suddenly aware of her own age. After a while, the fire burns out and the lights flicker feebly, like stars in a cloudy sky. Leda seems asleep on her chair, and Helen has to help her out of the room when the dinner is over. Helen doesn’t reappear from her mother’s room, so when the soldiers start leaving the hall, their foreheads greasy and their eyes tired, Clytemnestra and Penelope go to sleep together. When they reach the entrance to the gynaeceum, Penelope mumbles something about forgetting her cloak and runs back to the hall. Clytemnestra waits for her in the room, opening the windows to let in some air. The wind is colder than a blade, cutting her skin, but she enjoys it after hours spent in the crowded hall. She takes off her blue dress and curls up under the thick blankets. Penelope bursts in, panting. She is holding up her tunic to avoid tripping, and the fabric is now crumpled around her waist. “What is it?” Clytemnestra sits up. “Prince Odysseus was talking to your father—I heard them,” she says, breathless. “What about?” “About me, but I couldn’t hear properly.” She frowns. “I think they were making a kind of agreement.” “An agreement?” Penelope shakes her head. She paces the room briefly, then jumps onto the bed next to Clytemnestra. “I like that prince,” Clytemnestra says. Penelope chortles. “I do too. He sounds like your husband.” “You think so? He gave me the same impression.” “Yes, they are different from the others. They have something dark about them, though it’s hard to say what.” She thinks for a moment, then adds with a smile, “Talking to them is like entering a cave.” Clytemnestra knows the feeling—moving in the darkness and feeling each stone, finding each secret with your hands, step by step. “They draw you in with questions about yourself,” Penelope continues. Clytemnestra laughs. “That is Tantalus’s specialty.” Penelope moves closer to her, warming her feet under the blankets. She has goose bumps on her arms. “And what did you think of that man, Diomedes?” “Disgusting,” Clytemnestra says. “Even worse than Menelaus.” “I thought so too.” “And Ajax the Great. He looks like an oversized boar, hairs and all.” Penelope laughs. “He does! And when he talked of women moaning—” “If I hadn’t been pregnant, I would have challenged him
| 0 |
83 |
Romantic-Comedy.txt
| 96 |
I was a bad fit for the fraternity-sorority/country club vibe of the campus. I almost never went to parties and barely had friends until I joined the staff of the student newspaper my sophomore year. First I was one of the copy editors, and eventually I was the copy chief. This meant I stayed late, read practically every article that was filed, and was fairly invisible in a way that suited me. (Nigel says that TNO isn’t a place for perfectionists or lone wolves, and because I’m naturally both, working there has taught me to fight those tendencies.) Anyway, the sports editor of the newspaper my senior year was a guy named Mike. He’d also worked his way up, so we’d interacted tons of times (while I copyedited his articles about, say, men’s tennis) without really getting to know each other. At a staff happy hour on Halloween, a columnist named Derrick got falling down drunk, and Mike and I ended up walking him back to his dorm room and putting him to bed. It was only maybe eight o’clock on a Friday, and campus was filled with people in all kinds of crazy costumes planning all kinds of wild nights, but both Mike and I were worried that Derrick was going to throw up, choke on it, and die, so we parked ourselves in his room, with the lights low, to keep an eye on him. We sat on the floor and talked for a few hours, until we decided it was safe to leave. I honestly don’t think we’d have gotten together if not for babysitting Derrick (though I think this is true for plenty of relationships, that they’re random at least as often as they’re inevitable), but we quickly became a serious couple (in every sense). Mike was applying to law schools then, and he ended up deciding on Chapel Hill, which is just 20 minutes from Duke. He was (is? Because he’s still alive, if not still part of my life) from Charlotte, NC, and it was already understood that when he finished law school, he’d go back there. In the spring of our senior year, we decided to get married. Neither of us was being pressured by our parents—his parents actually were religious, but not in a way where they’d have been upset if we lived together without getting married. My mom said that she had concerns because people can change a lot in their twenties and Mike and I might evolve out of wanting to be a couple, but that she also thought I had the right to make my own decisions. We got married at the Durham County Courthouse the Friday after our graduation, in front of Mike’s parents and brother, my mom and Jerry, and two of our friends from the newspaper. That Monday, I started my job as a writer at an in-house newsletter for a gigantic medical device company (AdlerWilliams). When I look back, I simultaneously think it’s fine that Mike and I got married, no animals were injured, etc., AND it
| 0 |
2 |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt
| 5 |
off. --O by the way, said Heron suddenly, I saw your governor going in. The smile waned on Stephen's face. Any allusion made to his father by a fellow or by a master put his calm to rout in a moment. He waited in timorous silence to hear what Heron might say next. Heron, however, nudged him expressively with his elbow and said: --You're a sly dog. --Why so? said Stephen. --You'd think butter wouldn't melt in your mouth said Heron. But I'm afraid you're a sly dog. --Might I ask you what you are talking about? said Stephen urbanely. --Indeed you might, answered Heron. We saw her, Wallis, didn't we? And deucedly pretty she is too. And inquisitive! AND WHAT PART DOES STEPHEN TAKE, MR DEDALUS? AND WILL STEPHEN NOT SING, MR DEDALUS? Your governor was staring at her through that eyeglass of his for all he was worth so that I think the old man has found you out too. I wouldn't care a bit, by Jove. She's ripping, isn't she, Wallis? --Not half bad, answered Wallis quietly as he placed his holder once more in a corner of his mouth. A shaft of momentary anger flew through Stephen's mind at these indelicate allusions in the hearing of a stranger. For him there was nothing amusing in a girl's interest and regard. All day he had thought of nothing but their leave-taking on the steps of the tram at Harold's Cross, the stream of moody emotions it had made to course through him and the poem he had written about it. All day he had imagined a new meeting with her for he knew that she was to come to the play. The old restless moodiness had again filled his breast as it had done on the night of the party, but had not found an outlet in verse. The growth and knowledge of two years of boyhood stood between then and now, forbidding such an outlet: and all day the stream of gloomy tenderness within him had started forth and returned upon itself in dark courses and eddies, wearying him in the end until the pleasantry of the prefect and the painted little boy had drawn from him a movement of impatience. --So you may as well admit, Heron went on, that we've fairly found you out this time. You can't play the saint on me any more, that's one sure five. A soft peal of mirthless laughter escaped from his lips and, bending down as before, he struck Stephen lightly across the calf of the leg with his cane, as if in jesting reproof. Stephen's moment of anger had already passed. He was neither flattered nor confused, but simply wished the banter to end. He scarcely resented what had seemed to him a silly indelicateness for he knew that the adventure in his mind stood in no danger from these words: and his face mirrored his rival's false smile. --Admit! repeated Heron, striking him again with his cane across the calf of the leg. The stroke was playful
| 1 |
22 |
Lord of the Flies.txt
| 62 |
and now this sweaty march along the blazing beach had given them the complexions of newly washed plums. The boy who controlled them was dressed in the same way though his cap badge was golden. When his party was about ten yards from the platform he shouted an order and they halted, gasping, sweating, swaying in the fierce light. The boy himself came forward, vaulted on to the platform with his cloak flying, and peered into what to him was almost complete darkness. "Where's the man with the trumpet?" Ralph, sensing his sun-blindness, answered him. "There's no man with a trumpet. Only me." The boy came close and peered down at Ralph, screwing up his face as he did so. What he saw of the fair-haired boy with the creamy shell on his knees did not seem to satisfy him. He turned quickly, his black cloak circling. "Isn't there a ship, then?" Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger. "Isn't there a man here?" Ralph spoke to his back. "No. We're having a meeting. Come and join in." The group of cloaked boys began to scatter from close line. The tall boy shouted at them. "Choir! Stand still!" Wearily obedient, the choir huddled into line and stood there swaying in the sun. None the less, some began to protest faintly. "But, Merridew. Please, Merridew . . . can't we?" Then one of the boys flopped on his face in the sand and the line broke up. They heaved the fallen boy to the platform and let him lie. Merridew, his eyes staring, made the best of a bad job. "All right then. Sit down. Let him alone." "But Merridew." "He's always throwing a faint," said Merridew. "He did in Gib.; and Addis; and at matins over the precentor." This last piece of shop brought sniggers from the choir, who perched like black birds on the criss-cross trunks and examined Ralph with interest. Piggy asked no names. He was intimidated by this uniformed superiority and the offhand authority in Merridew's voice. He shrank to the other side of Ralph and busied himself with his glasses. Merridew turned to Ralph. "Aren't there any grownups?" "No." Merridew sat down on a trunk and looked round the circle. "Then we'll have to look after ourselves." Secure on the other side of Ralph, Piggy spoke timidly. "That's why Ralph made a meeting. So as we can decide what to do. We've heard names. That's Johnny. Those two--they're twins, Sam 'n Eric. Which is Eric--? You? No--you're Sam--" "I'm Sam--" "'n I'm Eric." "We'd better all have names," said Ralph, "so I'm Ralph." "We got most names," said Piggy. "Got 'em just now." "Kids' names," said Merridew. "Why should I be Jack? I'm Merridew." Ralph turned to him quickly. This was the voice of one who knew
| 1 |
16 |
Great Expectations.txt
| 96 |
the times when I was a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me, vividly returned. But they returned with a gentle tone upon them that softened even the edge of Tickler. For now, the very breath of the beans and clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it would be well for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should be softened as they thought of me. At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had put in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black bandage - as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort to anybody - were posted at the front door; and in one of them I recognized a postboy discharged from the Boar for turning a young couple into a sawpit on their bridal morning, in consequence of intoxication rendering it necessary for him to ride his horse clasped round the neck with both arms. All the children of the village, and most of the women, were admiring these sable warders and the closed windows of the house and forge; and as I came up, one of the two warders (the postboy) knocked at the door - implying that I was far too much exhausted by grief, to have strength remaining to knock for myself. Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a wager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlour. Here, Mr. Trabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity of black pins. At the moment of my arrival, he had just finished putting somebody's hat into black long-clothes, like an African baby; so he held out his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, and confused by the occasion, shook hands with him with every testimony of warm affection. Poor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow under his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room; where, as chief mourner, he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent down and said to him, "Dear Joe, how are you?" he said, "Pip, old chap, you knowed her when she were a fine figure of a--" and clasped my hand and said no more. Biddy, looking very neat and modest in her black dress, went quietly here and there, and was very helpful. When I had spoken to Biddy, as I thought it not a time for talking I went and sat down near Joe, and there began to wonder in what part of the house it - she - my sister - was. The air of the parlour being faint with the smell of sweet cake, I looked about for the table of refreshments; it was scarcely visible until one had got accustomed to the
| 1 |
35 |
The Da Vinci Code.txt
| 46 |
God's Work necessarily include vows of chastity, tithing, and atonement for sins through self-flagellation and the cilice?" "You are describing only a small portion of the Opus Dei population," Aringarosa said. "There are many levels of involvement. Thousands of Opus Dei members are married, have families, and do God's Work in their own communities. Others choose lives of asceticism within our cloistered residence halls. These choices are personal, but everyone in Opus Dei shares the goal of bettering the world by doing the Work of God. Surely this is an admirable quest." 21 Reason seldom worked, though. The media always gravitated toward scandal, and Opus Dei, like most large organizations, had within its membership a few misguided souls who cast a shadow over the entire group. Two months ago, an Opus Dei group at a midwestern university had been caught drugging new recruits with mescaline in an effort to induce a euphoric state that neophytes would perceive as a religious experience. Another university student had used his barbed cilice belt more often than the recommended two hours a day and had given himself a near lethal infection. In Boston not long ago, a disillusioned young investment banker had signed over his entire life savings to Opus Dei before attempting suicide. Misguided sheep, Aringarosa thought, his heart going out to them. Of course the ultimate embarrassment had been the widely publicized trial of FBI spy Robert Hanssen, who, in addition to being a prominent member of Opus Dei, had turned out to be a sexual deviant, his trial uncovering evidence that he had rigged hidden video cameras in his own bedroom so his friends could watch him having sex with his wife. "Hardly the pastime of a devout Catholic," the judge had noted. Sadly, all of these events had helped spawn the new watch group known as the Opus Dei Awareness Network (ODAN). The group's popular website-www.odan.org- relayed frightening stories from former Opus Dei members who warned of the dangers of joining. The media was now referring to Opus Dei as "God's Mafia" and "the Cult of Christ." We fear what we do not understand, Aringarosa thought, wondering if these critics had any idea how many lives Opus Dei had enriched. The group enjoyed the full endorsement and blessing of the Vatican. Opus Dei is a personal prelature of the Pope himself. Recently, however, Opus Dei had found itself threatened by a force infinitely more powerful than the media... an unexpected foe from which Aringarosa could not possibly hide. Five months ago, the kaleidoscope of power had been shaken, and Aringarosa was still reeling from the blow. "They know not the war they have begun," Aringarosa whispered to himself, staring out the plane's window at the darkness of the ocean below. For an instant, his eyes refocused, lingering on the reflection of his awkward face-dark and oblong, dominated by a flat, crooked nose that had been shattered by a fist in Spain when he was a young missionary. The physical flaw barely registered now. Aringarosa's was a world of the soul, not of
| 1 |
87 |
The Foxglove King.txt
| 67 |
hair, a smooth, unlined face. And not a hint of rot. The last attack had been two days ago. Two days, with seventy-five victims. But there were far more than seventy-five bodies in this room, so these had to be corpses from all four attacked villages. But why were they divided by age? And how had they been so well preserved? “Lore.” Bastian’s voice was quiet, like he was afraid to disturb the dead. “Their palm.” One of the corpse’s hands had fallen from the plinth. Lore didn’t want to touch it; instead, she crouched and craned her neck to look. An eclipse was carved into the meat of the corpse’s palm. A sun across the top, its curve running beneath the fingers, rays stretching to where they began. A crescent moon across the bottom, completing the sun’s arc. “I don’t understand,” she murmured, straightening, closing her own scarred hand into a fist. “What does that mean?” “Only one way to find out,” Bastian said. Lore placed her fingers lightly on the stone plinth before her. She closed her eyes and found the death hiding deep in the body, tugged on it gently. The breath she took and held tasted of emptiness and mineral cold. Her fingertips grew cold and pale as strands of darkness eased from the corpse and into her, the world losing its color again. Something didn’t look right. She could see her own body, white light and gray and the mass of dark in her center. Bastian next to her, a light so bright it nearly throbbed. But right above the heart of every corpse, there was a knot of darkness, thickly tangled, the color of a sky devoid of moon or stars. It reminded her of the leak, of the door. Anton, again. What had the Priest Exalted done? Her heartbeat came slow, slower. Her limbs felt heavy. She’d taken in nearly as much Mortem as she could, and she slammed her palms down on the plinth, channeling it into the rock, feeling it grow porous and brittle. Her veins were sluggish; her lungs couldn’t pull in enough air to satisfy. She’d taken in more death than she should’ve been able to, in the short while she’d channeled. It was… was thicker than it should be, denser. Her knees wobbled, and Bastian rushed to her, a warm arm over her shoulders holding her up and keeping her steady. “What happened to you?” Lore murmured to the dead, her voice thin and reedy. “Who did this, and why?” But the corpse in front of her was still and silent. “I don’t understand.” Bastian’s eyes narrowed. “What did—” A creaking sound cut him off as every corpse in the cavern sat up. As every corpse in the cavern twisted to look at them with dead, blank eyes. Understanding crashed into Lore like a wave: When she’d pulled the death out of one of them, it’d somehow pulled death from them all. Those writhing knots of dark she’d seen over their hearts must connect them, somehow. Bastian shouldered in front
| 0 |
37 |
The Hunger Games.txt
| 88 |
away from me as I can. It crashes down through the lower branches, snagging temporarily on a few but then twisting free until it smashes with a thud on the ground. The nest bursts open like an egg, and a furious swarm of tracker jackers takes to the air. I feel a second sting on the cheek, a third on my neck, and their venom almost immediately makes me woozy. I cling to the tree with one arm while I rip the barbed stingers out of my flesh. Fortunately, only these three tracker jackers had identi- fied me before the nest went down. The rest of the insects have targeted their enemies on the ground. It’s mayhem. The Careers have woken to a full-scale tracker jacker attack. Peeta and a few others have the sense to drop everything and bolt. I can hear cries of “To the lake! To the lake!” and know they hope to evade the wasps by taking to the water. It must be close if they think they can outdistance the furious insects. Glimmer and another girl, the one from Dis- trict 4, are not so lucky. They receive multiple stings before they’re even out of my view. Glimmer appears to go complete- 189 ly mad, shrieking and trying to bat the wasps off with her bow, which is pointless. She calls to the others for help but, of course, no one returns. The girl from District 4 staggers out of sight, although I wouldn’t bet on her making it to the lake. I watch Glimmer fall, twitch hysterically around on the ground for a few minutes, and then go still. The nest is nothing but an empty shell. The wasps have va- nished in pursuit of the others. I don’t think they’ll return, but I don’t want to risk it. I scamper down the tree and hit the ground running in the opposite direction of the lake. The poi- son from the stingers makes me wobbly, but I find my way back to my own little pool and submerge myself in the water, just in case any wasps are still on my trail. After about five minutes, I drag myself onto the rocks. People have not exagge- rated the effects of the tracker jacker stings. Actually, the one on my knee is closer to an orange than a plum in size. A foul- smelling green liquid oozes from the places where I pulled out the stingers. The swelling. The pain. The ooze. Watching Glimmer twitching to death on the ground. It’s a lot to handle before the sun has even cleared the horizon. I don’t want to think about what Glimmer must look like now. Her body disfigured. Her swollen fingers stiffening around the bow . . . The bow! Somewhere in my befuddled mind one thought connects to another and I’m on my feet, teetering through the trees back to Glimmer. The bow. The arrows. I must get them. I haven’t heard the cannons fire yet, so perhaps Glimmer is in some sort of coma, her
| 1 |
4 |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.txt
| 59 |
Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. `Off with their heads!' and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection. `You shan't be beheaded!' said Alice, and she put them into a large flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others. `Are their heads off?' shouted the Queen. `Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!' the soldiers shouted in reply. `That's right!' shouted the Queen. `Can you play croquet?' The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently meant for her. `Yes!' shouted Alice. `Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering very much what would happen next. `It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at her side. She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face. `Very,' said Alice: `--where's the Duchess?' `Hush! Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered `She's under sentence of execution.' `What for?' said Alice. `Did you say "What a pity!"?' the Rabbit asked. `No, I didn't,' said Alice: `I don't think it's at all a pity. I said "What for?"' `She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little scream of laughter. `Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a frightened tone. `The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the Queen said--' `Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began. Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches. The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to
| 1 |
68 |
I-Have-Some-Questions-for-You.txt
| 74 |
back there because the fight had begun hours earlier. Maybe he was coasting on hours of rage. Maybe he knew exactly what he was planning. I slept, but my dreams only rehashed things. The photos on Geoff’s bed, the math problem of the bike in the woods. A train leaves Kansas City at 9:00 p.m., headed for the gym. How angry is the driver? In the morning, I texted Fran: I have a quest for Jacob and Max. Could they time themselves, I asked, riding bikes from the gym to the old mattress spot? Could they avoid any newer paths? I didn’t explain. Fran wrote back: Who on earth had a bike?? But sure! They need exercise! It was cold now, and muddy, only a little snow. The conditions were about the same. We had decided at the end of the night that Alder would fill in both Britt and the defense team. We knew it was a reach—we’d probably sound like lunatics—but Robbie had yet to testify, so maybe they could make something of it. And meanwhile, those of us who had nothing better to do could at least dig harder. I had ridiculous visions of finding a rusty bike in the woods, Robbie’s fingerprints and Thalia’s blood still on the handlebars. The image I kept returning to was of a tangled necklace chain. In one of the more normal moments of my later childhood, my mother taught me to rub a chain with olive oil, then take a long, straight pin and start working on the tiniest of gaps, the place with the most give. Once one thing loosened, another could loosen, another. I always felt claustrophobic at the start. But over time I’d learned patience, learned the reward of breathing through my discomfort. What I knew was that we’d found a gap in the knot. I didn’t know what else it would loosen up, and I didn’t want to pull too hard, but I knew if we finessed it, wiggled it gently, other things would follow. Midday, Geoff and I took our laptops to Aroma Mocha and sat looking through the 1995 interview records for any details of the mattress party timeline, any mention of Robbie being there the whole time or of who walked together. The kids who’d been there listed all nineteen students at the mattress party, confirmed that they’d been drinking, talked about when they’d last seen Thalia. Nothing about how scattered they’d been on the trail. The only time it came up, either as a question or an answer, was the State Police asking both Sakina and Bendt Jensen whether Robbie had been there the whole time. Sakina said that to the best of her recollection, he was. Bendt said that he assumed so. They asked Sakina if he could have left early and she said no, because she remembered him helping Stiles walk home on his bad leg. Mike Stiles, in his own interview, talked about Robbie and Dorian helping him back. “It’s amazing,” Geoff said, “that they thought to ask if he left
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93 |
The-Silver-Ladies-Do-Lunch.txt
| 8 |
knew you had the sort of friendship that would withstand the changing years.’ ‘Come and sit down with us, Miss.’ Minnie patted the seat next to her, gazing at the teacher as she had done over sixty years ago. ‘I’d love to.’ Miss Hamilton eased herself slowly towards the table. ‘The scooter is parked outside. I don’t get around as well as I used to: my arthritis is very annoying, but I have a good doctor and she keeps an eye on me. That’s why I’ve moved here. I’ve just bought a nice bungalow on Tadderly Road.’ She sat down carefully, Minnie pushing out the chair, extending a hand. ‘Well, how pleasant. Just like old times.’ ‘You’re most welcome.’ Odile offered a wide smile. ‘What can I get you?’ ‘Tea…’ Miss Hamilton ignored the menu that Odile offered. ‘And did I overhear someone say carrot cake? A slice of that would be wonderful. With a dollop of cream, if you have it.’ She turned to the three former pupils who sat at the table looking at her, their eyes shining. ‘This is nice, isn’t it? It’s been quite a while…’ She leaned forwards, her voice soft with warmth. ‘Well, you must tell me about everything you’ve been doing over the last sixty years. It will be good to catch up with all the news.’ Then she stared across the café and she was suddenly stern. ‘Please do close your mouth, Jimmy Baker. You’re staring again, and you know it’s impolite to stare.’ ‘Yes, Miss,’ Jimmy replied automatically, and Dangerous Dave dug him in the ribs and began to laugh. Jimmy hung his head and Kenny looked around nervously. Miss Hamilton turned to the three friends at the table. ‘So, my girls,’ she purred. ‘I want to hear all about your lives since we last met. Every detail.’ She patted her silver hair. ‘Oh, I know so much has changed, but it’s good to be back in Middleton Ferris. I can’t wait to settle in and become part of the village. I know it’s going to be wonderful.’ 9 Florence sat on the edge of her bed fiddling with a bracelet, still in the green dress she had worn for work. Malia huddled next to her, legs crossed, shoes off, and Florence noticed how well she looked, all smiles and wild hair and torn jeans, her life open in front of her like an unwritten page. She sighed. ‘So, you’re going to London?’ ‘I want to work for a publisher – I’d love a marketing role.’ Malia leaned forwards. ‘It doesn’t take long from here to London by train.’ Florence nodded. ‘London’s a big place…’ ‘I’d love the bustle. I don’t want to be like Adam, living here, working with my dad. Or teaching forever, like poor Mum.’ Florence wasn’t sure what to say, so she took a breath. ‘Does Adam like living at home?’ ‘He’s saving for a mortgage; he’ll get a flat in Tadderly.’ Malia met her friend’s eyes. ‘He asked about you before I came out. He said to send
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19 |
Hound of the Baskervilles.txt
| 75 |
if I would promise for three months to let the matter rest and to be content with cultivating the lady's friendship during that time without claiming her love. This I promised, and so the matter rests." So there is one of our small mysteries cleared up. It is something to have touched bottom anywhere in this bog in which we are floundering. We know now why Stapleton looked with disfavour upon his sister's suitor -- even when that suitor was so eligible a one as Sir Henry. And now I pass on to another thread which I have extricated out of the tangled skein, the mystery of the sobs in the night, of the tear-stained face of Mrs. Barrymore, of the secret journey of the butler to the western lattice window. Congratulate me, my dear Holmes, and tell me that I have not disappointed you as an agent -- that you do not regret the confi- dence which you showed in me when you sent me down. All these things have by one night's work been thoroughly cleared. I have said "by one night's work," but, in truth, it was by two nights' work, for on the first we drew entirely blank. I sat up with Sir Henry in his rooms until nearly three o'clock in the morning, but no sound of any sort did we hear except the chiming clock upon the stairs. It was a most melancholy vigil and ended by each of us falling asleep in our chairs. Fortunately we were not discouraged, and we determined to try again. The next night we lowered the lamp and sat smoking cigarettes without making the least sound. It was incredible how slowly the hours crawled by, and yet we were helped through it by the same sort of patient interest which the hunter must feel as he watches the trap into which he hopes the game may wander. One struck, and two, and we had almost for the second time given it up in despair when in an instant we both sat bolt upright in our chairs with all our weary senses keenly on the alert once more. We had heard the creak of a step in the passage. Very stealthily we heard it pass along until it died away in the distance. Then the baronet gently opened his door and we set out in pursuit. Already our man had gone round the gallery and the corridor was all in darkness. Softly we stole along untii we had come into the other wing. We were just in time to catch a glimpse of the tall, black-bearded figure, his shoulders rounded as he tiptoed down the passage. Then he passed through the same door as before, and the light of the candle framed it in the darkness and shot one single yellow beam across the gloom of the corridor. We shuffled cautiously towards it, trying every plank before we dared to put our whole weight upon it. We had taken the precaution of leaving our boots behind us, but, even so, the
| 1 |
88 |
The-Housekeepers.txt
| 14 |
clear off.” “Did you take her last delivery, Mr. Champion?” said Mrs. King. His eyes swiveled to meet hers. A sneer. “I doubt it.” Winnie appeared troubled. “That’s not correct, Mr. Champion. I gave you my very best stock.” “I daresay you might have off-loaded some old handkerchiefs on me. I really can’t recall.” “I’m sure you have the receipts,” said Mrs. King. “I’m sure I don’t.” He looked like suet, a sick-making color. “Might I check?” she said. “Might you...” He paused, taking a breath, reddening further. “No, you may not. You can show yourself out.” His eyes rattled back and forth between them. “Here, what is this? Some job you’ve worked up between you? I said to clear off!” Winnie lifted her hands, alarmed. “Mr. Champion...” “Five guineas, Mr. Champion,” said Mrs. King. He stared at her. “What?” “Five guineas for the Navy. Or I want to see your order book.” Mr. Champion let out a scornful laugh. “Don’t make me send for the constable.” “Be my guest,” Mrs. King said in a congenial tone. “I’ll report exactly what I can see occurring here. You’re cheating ladies out of their dues.” “Say that again,” he said, voice dropping, “and you won’t be able to sell a stitch to any living body in town.” “Order book, please,” said Mrs. King, pressing her palms to the table. There was a long silence. Winnie was holding her breath. “Three guineas,” Mr. Champion said. Mrs. King sometimes wondered, How do I do it? How did she get people to capitulate, to bow? She didn’t exactly like it. It made her feel chilly and contemptuous of the world. But of course it was necessary. Somebody had to put things right in life. “Done,” she said, keeping her distance from Mr. Champion. He made a lot of noise, a lot of fuss, counting out the change. “You’re nothing more than a thief. You won’t be coming around here again. They’ll lock the doors on you two, that I can tell you for sure and certain—” But they got their three guineas. Winnie shoved the pram out into the road. “For heaven’s sake.” Mrs. King closed the shop door with a bang. “Here,” she said gravely, counting out shillings. Winnie gave her a long look, as if deciding whether to say thank you or not. She pressed her lips together. “I need a sherry,” she said. “Lead the way,” said Mrs. King, reaching for the perambulator. “I’ll mind Baby.” * * * They quick-marched to Bethnal Green, the perambulator listing and keeling all the way, men throwing them filthy looks as it ran over their toes. Mrs. King watched the sky changing. The sun drained away, as if giving up. It stirred her, the dusk: it put her in the hunting mood. And she was hungry for a very particular object. Mrs. King wasn’t the only housekeeper ever employed in that house on Park Lane. Winnie had held that illustrious title herself, only three years before. And she still held a most useful item in her possession.
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41 |
The Secret Garden.txt
| 35 |
think he was a whole Royal Family rolled into one--Prince Consort and all.". "Eh!" protested Mrs. Medlock, "we've had to let him trample all over every one of us ever since he had feet and he thinks that's what folks was born for." "Perhaps he'll grow out of it, if he lives," suggested Mr. Roach. "Well, there's one thing pretty sure," said Mrs. Medlock. "If he does live and that Indian child stays here I'll warrant she teaches him that thewhole orange does not belong to him, as Susan Sowerby says. And he'll be likely to find out the size of his own quarter." Inside the room Colin was leaning back on his cushions. "It's all safe now," he said. "And this afternoon I shall see it--this afternoon I shall be in it!" Dickon went back to the garden with his creatures and Mary stayed with Colin. She did not think he looked tired but he was very quiet before their lunch came and he was quiet while they were eating it. She wondered why and asked him about it. "What big eyes you've got, Colin," she said. "When you are thinking they get as big as saucers. What are you thinking about now?" "I can't help thinking about what it will look like," he answered. "The garden?" asked Mary. "The springtime," he said. "I was thinking that I've really never seen it before. I scarcely ever went out and when I did go I never looked at it. I didn't even think about it." "I never saw it in India because there wasn't any," said Mary. Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than she had and at least he had spent a good deal of time looking at wonderful books and pictures. "That morning when you ran in and said `It's come! It's come!, you made me feel quite queer. It sounded as if things were coming with a great procession and big bursts and wafts of music. I've a picture like it in one of my books--crowds of lovely people and children with garlands and branches with blossoms on them, everyone laughing and dancing and crowding and playing on pipes. That was why I said, `Perhaps we shall hear golden trumpets' and told you to throw open the window." "How funny!" said Mary. "That's really just what it feels like. And if all the flowers and leaves and green things and birds and wild creatures danced past at once, what a crowd it would be! I'm sure they'd dance and sing and flute and that would be the wafts of music." They both laughed but it was not because the idea was laughable but because they both so liked it. A little later the nurse made Colin ready. She noticed that instead of lying like a log while his clothes were put on he sat up and made some efforts to help himself, and he talked and laughed with Mary all the time. "This is one of his good days, sir," she said
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75 |
Lisa-See-Lady-Tan_s-Circle-of-Women.txt
| 17 |
nod sympathetically. I too spend many nights alone in my marriage bed. “May I listen to your pulse?” I ask. I’ve been studying medicine and treating women for years now. I feel confident, but I take my time, palpating to reach the three levels on both her wrists. Her pulse is as I expect. Thin, like fine thread, yet distinct and clear. I mull over her symptoms—the constant spotting, especially—and possibilities for treatment, knowing I can never ask Grandmother’s advice on this case. “You’re suffering from Spleen qi deficiency and injured Kidney yin caused by taxation from toil,” I offer. “This type of deep fatigue can come from too much work or from extreme mental doings like studying too hard.” “I sleep—” “A single night of sleep will not allow your body to catch up. Taxation from toil is deep. Look what it has already done to you. If I write you a prescription, will you be able to fill it?” “Oriole can go where she wants,” Meiling answers on behalf of the brickmaker. “Then here is what I would like you to do. First, please have the herbalist make you a Decoction to Supplement the Center and Boost Qi.” I don’t know if any of this will matter to Oriole, but I take the time to explain anyway. “This is a classic remedy from a book called Profound Formulas. My grandmother says she has the last copy in existence.” Oriole’s eyes widen as she absorbs this information. “The most important ingredient is one that we women rely on. Astragalus will help your fatigue and Blood prostration. I’m adding my own ideas to your prescription. Skullcap root purges Fire and inflammation. Nut grass rhizome not only has cooling properties, but it is well known to help with moon-water problems, weight loss, and sleep disorders. Japanese thistle is one of the best substances to stop runaway bleeding.” “Will it be expensive?” Oriole asks. “There are no extraordinary ingredients here,” I answer. “You will be fine,” Meiling adds soothingly. “When you’ve finished this remedy, I want you to take Pill to Greatly Supplement Yin,” I go on. “It includes among its many ingredients freshwater turtle shell and cork-tree bark.” “And I’ll get better?” “You will,” I answer. “I’ll send Young Midwife to make sure you’re recovering. If you have other problems, she will bring me here.” I make this offer because I’m confident enough in my treatment plan to be sure I won’t need to return. The pill is one I’ve used before. While it’s known to quell Fire in the yin and supplement the Kidney, it also helps with turbulent emotions. Oriole is polite and hospitable, but her bitterness about her life radiates from her as the entire brickyard radiates heat. Her anger is far more deep-seated and difficult to treat than her weeping womb, but my remedy will work on this too. Meiling and I say goodbye and retrace our steps to her home, where we’re able to sneak back upstairs unobserved. I’m exhausted, and my feet are in more pain than
| 0 |
97 |
What-Dreams-May-Come.txt
| 31 |
was a part of this place; she couldn’t picture Calloway Park without him, even if he spent most of his time in London or traveling elsewhere. They had reached the waiting coach, and now that they were within view of the driver, Simon pulled his arm free. Lucy felt his absence more acutely than she would have liked, under the circumstances, though she forced herself not to think about what her disappointment might mean. Nothing could happen between her and Simon, even if she wished it to. They were too far apart in station, and Simon would undoubtedly hate her once she told him the truth. She clung to the smallest hope that he would forgive her, even if they did not continue their tentative friendship. “What are you so deep in thought about?” Lucy glanced over at Simon, smiling at the curious look he gave her. If she pretended they had simply met in passing, while traveling perhaps, and were not from such different worlds, she could imagine him giving her this look quite often. “I am contemplating what will become of us when William wakes,” she said truthfully. Simon frowned, as if he hadn’t even considered the idea, and though he opened his mouth to say something, a different voice cut through the small space between them. “I am ready, miss!” Rebecca slid to a stop at Lucy’s side and dipped into an unsteady curtsy, her chest heaving as if she had run the length of the house. She probably had, now that Lucy thought about it, and she seemed all too pleased to interrupt their conversation. “You must be so excited to see your future home, Miss Lucy,” she added for good measure. Lucy groaned at the same time Simon raised an eyebrow. It was odd enough to have a maid be so outspoken and obvious, but calling her Miss Lucy was another reason for Simon to return to those suspicions he had only just relinquished. Lucy had only wanted a few more moments with the man before she admitted the truth, and she had just condemned herself to an afternoon of lying through her teeth as she tried to skirt around Rebecca’s unwavering insistence that she do so. “Well, I suppose we should . . . ,” Simon said, but though he offered his hand to assist Lucy and Rebecca into the carriage, he hadn’t stopped frowning yet. Lucy longed to smooth out the wrinkle that had formed between his eyebrows. “Shall we?” he added. “Yes, my lord!” Rebecca said, far too loudly for someone who should have remained silent. “Miss Lucy is most eager.” The wrinkle on Simon’s brow deepened, driving Lucy mad. “Yes, you’ve said.” “Yes,” Lucy agreed, trying to send Rebecca a look of warning. It might have succeeded if the maid had looked her direction. Instead, Rebecca grabbed hold of Simon’s waiting hand and hopped into the carriage. Lucy did not move as quickly, knowing the journey was going to be agonizing. Why on earth had she suggested Rebecca as their chaperone? It could
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43 |
The Turn of the Screw.txt
| 93 |
than she caught herself up. "I mean that's HIS way--the master's." I was struck. "But of whom did you speak first?" She looked blank, but she colored. "Why, of HIM." "Of the master?" "Of who else?" There was so obviously no one else that the next moment I had lost my impression of her having accidentally said more than she meant; and I merely asked what I wanted to know. "Did SHE see anything in the boy--?" "That wasn't right? She never told me." I had a scruple, but I overcame it. "Was she careful--particular?" Mrs. Grose appeared to try to be conscientious. "About some things--yes." "But not about all?" Again she considered. "Well, miss--she's gone. I won't tell tales." "I quite understand your feeling," I hastened to reply; but I thought it, after an instant, not opposed to this concession to pursue: "Did she die here?" "No--she went off." I don't know what there was in this brevity of Mrs. Grose's that struck me as ambiguous. "Went off to die?" Mrs. Grose looked straight out of the window, but I felt that, hypothetically, I had a right to know what young persons engaged for Bly were expected to do. "She was taken ill, you mean, and went home?" "She was not taken ill, so far as appeared, in this house. She left it, at the end of the year, to go home, as she said, for a short holiday, to which the time she had put in had certainly given her a right. We had then a young woman-- a nursemaid who had stayed on and who was a good girl and clever; and SHE took the children altogether for the interval. But our young lady never came back, and at the very moment I was expecting her I heard from the master that she was dead." I turned this over. "But of what?" "He never told me! But please, miss," said Mrs. Grose, "I must get to my work." III Her thus turning her back on me was fortunately not, for my just preoccupations, a snub that could check the growth of our mutual esteem. We met, after I had brought home little Miles, more intimately than ever on the ground of my stupefaction, my general emotion: so monstrous was I then ready to pronounce it that such a child as had now been revealed to me should be under an interdict. I was a little late on the scene, and I felt, as he stood wistfully looking out for me before the door of the inn at which the coach had put him down, that I had seen him, on the instant, without and within, in the great glow of freshness, the same positive fragrance of purity, in which I had, from the first moment, seen his little sister. He was incredibly beautiful, and Mrs. Grose had put her finger on it: everything but a sort of passion of tenderness for him was swept away by his presence. What I then and there took him to my heart for
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Robyn-Harding-The-Drowning-Woman.txt
| 91 |
IT’S Randy, his tone cold and accusatory. Although… he always sounds like that. Default mode: asshole. “What?” I ask, filling a glass with Coke from the fountain. “What am I doing?” “You’re cheerful,” he says, pulling a toothpick from the dish near the cash register and peeling off the paper. “And nice. It’s not like you at all.” I snort and roll my eyes, hurrying away with the glass of soda. Randy’s not wrong. I’m happier than I’ve been since I came to Seattle. My prospects are slowly but surely improving. Hazel is getting me new identification. When I sell the netsuke, I’ll have a thousand bucks. And I have a spa day to look forward to. More importantly, I have a friend. And a boyfriend. Or a lover. Whatever Jesse is. He hasn’t come to see me since I spent the night with him, but I’m not concerned. It’s only been a few days. And I didn’t imagine our connection, the closeness between us. This sense of vulnerability is new to me, though. I’m used to having the power, holding the strings. I’ve never felt this way—not with André, my boyfriend of four years, not even in high school. I’m raw and needy. Is it because I’ve been stripped of my identity and everything I valued? Has my downfall opened me up, torn down my emotional walls? It is an odd feeling: heady, exciting, and terrifying. After my shift, I eat a burger in the kitchen, toying with my flip phone. It has been virtually useless to me. I’ve only made a handful of calls to auto glass repair shops. The phone has never rung. Not even once. Flicking through the contacts, I find Hazel’s number. And Teresa’s. I added it a couple of weeks ago, afraid I might forget it. But I’ll never call her. I know that now. I don’t have Jesse’s digits, but I know where he lives. I could show up at his apartment. It’s late, but he might appreciate the booty call. Or he might think it’s creepy. That I’m creepy. Because a call implies using a phone, not showing up in person. The old Lee would have gone to him, wouldn’t have worried about rejection, but I am different now. Softer. More fragile. The next time I see Jesse, I’ll ask him for his number. With a wave to the kitchen staff, I shuffle out the back door. The alley is dark, and quiet. A single bulb in a metal cage burns over the parking area. I am tired tonight, and the drive to the beach stretches long ahead of me. As I reach my car, I become aware of a figure in the shadows. I stop, my heart rabbiting in my chest. The knife is inside my car, next to the driver’s seat. Do I open the door and grab for it? Or run back into the diner? The figure is coming toward me, growing familiar. “Hey.” It’s Jesse, his voice husky. “Did I scare you?” “Uh… yeah.” “Shit. Sorry.” “Why didn’t you come
| 0 |
51 |
A Spell of Good Things.txt
| 47 |
heard you ma, I’ll do something about it.” Aunty Caro reached out to take Yèyé’s bags. “Good afternoon, Yèyé, let’s go to my sitting room.” “No, no, this place is fine. I’m leaving soon.” Aunty Caro led Yèyé to the only two-seater sofa in the shop, then pushed a mound of fabric that had been piled high onto it to a side, creating just enough room for Yèyé. “What should we get for you?” Aunty Caro asked as Yèyé sat down. “Coke or Fanta? Àbí zobo?” “I feel like taking something, but Wúràọlá has said I should stop taking sugary things. Because of my blood sugar kiníkan sha.” Yèyé sighed. “In this short life, these doctors don’t want us to manage the small enjoyment we can enjoy.” “One bottle won’t kill you,” Aunty Caro said. “Àbí? But, you know, I always tell her father o, since we are the ones who sent Wúràọlá to learn, we must suffer from the knowledge she now has. We are enjoying the money we spent.” Aunty Caro chuckled. “How is our young doctor? We’ve not even seen her shadow here for months.” “Someone that doesn’t have time for herself. She’s okay, it’s even because of her that—” Yèyé stopped midsentence. “Good evening o, what I was saying made me forget to greet you people. Maria? Ṣèyí? Ẹniọlá, àbí? And…Fúnkẹ́? Good evening, everybody, gbogbo riín ni mo kí o.” They all replied at once, their voices mingling with hers as she continued speaking to Aunty Caro. “Ehen, so it’s even because of Wúràọlá that I’m here. Can you imagine that this girl has not sewn the lace we picked for my birthday? Since three months ago that we chose this material, you’d think my child would have picked a good style for the day. Ótí o, maybe she’s waiting until two days before the ceremony, I don’t know. But I’ve brought.” Yèyé leaned over and picked up the golden paper bag she’d dropped beside her on the sofa. One side of the bag bore a large photo of Yèyé smiling, while the other sides had several smaller ones of her seated, standing, mid-dance. Embossed below the largest photo in bold green letters: Chief (Mrs.) Christianah Àlàkẹ́ Mákinwá. Yèyé Bọ́bajírò of Ìjẹ̀ṣàland @ 50. Yèyé thrust the bag towards Aunty Caro, who reached into it to bring out a bundle of green lace fabric, before setting it down on the floor beside Yèyé’s feet. “You can keep the bag,” Yèyé said. “That’s the souvenir we are giving out with the aṣọ-ebí. I’ve wanted to bring one for you since, but I keep forgetting.” “And it’s very fine.” Aunty Caro picked the bag up and examined it. “Àbí, Láyí had them made in Àkúrẹ́. Plenty, like one thousand o, and he brought them in time for me to use them to package the aṣọ-ebí. Very thoughtful boy. I like the finishing, very beautiful.” “Why won’t it be fine, when you’re this beautiful?” “Caro, this my wrinkled face.” “It’s your face that makes it beautiful, Yèyé, you look like a
| 0 |
99 |
spare.txt
| 28 |
it that way too. A reporter asked<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">him what he thought of my time in Las Vegas, and Christie vowed that if I<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">spent the whole day with him, “nobody’s going to get naked.” The line got a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">big laugh, because Christie is famously stout.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Before Jersey I’d gone to Washington, D.C., met with President Barack<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, visited Arlington National<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Cemetery, laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I'd laid<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">dozens of wreaths before, but the ritual was different in America. You didn’t<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">place the wreath on the grave yourself; a white-gloved soldier placed it with<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">you, and then you laid your hand singly, for one beat, upon the wreath. This<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">extra step, this partnering with another living soldier, moved me. Holding<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">my hand to the wreath for that extra second, I found myself a bit wobbly, my<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">mind flooding with images of all the men and women with whom I’d<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">served. I thought about death, injury, grief, from Helmand Province to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Hurricane Sandy to the Alma tunnel, and I wondered how other people just<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">got on with their lives, whereas I felt such doubt and confusion—and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">something else.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">What? I wondered.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Sadness?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Numbness?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I couldn’t name it. And without being able to give it a name, I felt a kind<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">of vertigo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">What was happening to me?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">The whole American tour lasted only five days—a true whirlwind. So<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">many sights, and faces, and remarkable moments. But on the flight home I<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">was thinking about only one part.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">A stop-off in Colorado. Something called the Warrior Games. A kind of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Olympiad for wounded soldiers, with two hundred men and women taking<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">237<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.:me/Afghansalarlibrary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">part, each of whom inspired me.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I watched them closely, saw them having the time of their lives, saw them<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">competing to the hilt, and I asked them...how?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Sport, they said. The most direct route to healing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Most were natural athletes, and
| 0 |
2 |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt
| 50 |
side. He saw the word LOTTS on the wall of the lane and breathed slowly the rank heavy air. That is horse piss and rotted straw, he thought. It is a good odour to breathe. It will calm my heart. My heart is quite calm now. I will go back. * * * * * Stephen was once again seated beside his father in the corner of a railway carriage at Kingsbridge. He was travelling with his father by the night mail to Cork. As the train steamed out of the station he recalled his childish wonder of years before and every event of his first day at Clongowes. But he felt no wonder now. He saw the darkening lands slipping away past him, the silent telegraph-poles passing his window swiftly every four seconds, the little glimmering stations, manned by a few silent sentries, flung by the mail behind her and twinkling for a moment in the darkness like fiery grains flung backwards by a runner. He listened without sympathy to his father's evocation of Cork and of scenes of his youth, a tale broken by sighs or draughts from his pocket flask whenever the image of some dead friend appeared in it or whenever the evoker remembered suddenly the purpose of his actual visit. Stephen heard but could feel no pity. The images of the dead were all strangers to him save that of uncle Charles, an image which had lately been fading out of memory. He knew, however, that his father's property was going to be sold by auction, and in the manner of his own dispossession he felt the world give the lie rudely to his phantasy. At Maryborough he fell asleep. When he awoke the train had passed out of Mallow and his father was stretched asleep on the other seat. The cold light of the dawn lay over the country, over the unpeopled fields and the closed cottages. The terror of sleep fascinated his mind as he watched the silent country or heard from time to time his father's deep breath or sudden sleepy movement. The neighbourhood of unseen sleepers filled him with strange dread, as though they could harm him, and he prayed that the day might come quickly. His prayer, addressed neither to God nor saint, began with a shiver, as the chilly morning breeze crept through the chink of the carriage door to his feet, and ended in a trail of foolish words which he made to fit the insistent rhythm of the train; and silently, at intervals of four seconds, the telegraph-poles held the galloping notes of the music between punctual bars. This furious music allayed his dread and, leaning against the windowledge, he let his eyelids close again. They drove in a jingle across Cork while it was still early morning and Stephen finished his sleep in a bedroom of the Victoria Hotel. The bright warm sunlight was streaming through the window and he could hear the din of traffic. His father was standing before the dressing-table, examining his hair and face
| 1 |
12 |
Fahrenheit 451.txt
| 44 |
in his parlour tonight, with the kernels blown out from under them by a neon wind, and his silly damned reading of a book to them. How like trying to put out fires with water-pistols, how senseless and insane. One rage turned in for another. One anger displacing another. When would he stop being entirely mad and be quiet, be very quiet indeed? "Here we go!" Montag looked up. Beatty never drove, but he was driving tonight, slamming the Salamander around corners, leaning forward high on the driver's throne, his massive black slicker flapping out behind so that he seemed a great black bat flying above the engine, over the brass numbers, taking the full wind. "Here we go to keep the world happy, Montag !" Beatty's pink, phosphorescent cheeks glimmered in the high darkness, and he was smiling furiously. "Here we are!" The Salamander boomed to a halt, throwing men off in slips and clumsy hops. Montag stood fixing his raw eyes to the cold bright rail under his clenched fingers. I can't do it, he thought. How can I go at this new assignment, how can I go on burning things? I can't go in this place. Beatty, smelling of the wind through which he had rushed, was at Montag's elbow. "All right, Montag?" The men ran like cripples in their clumsy boots, as quietly as spiders. At last Montag raised his eyes and turned. Beatty was watching his face. "Something the matter, Montag?" "Why," said Montag slowly, "we've stopped in front of my house." PART III BURNING BRIGHT LIGHTS flicked on and house-doors opened all down the street, to watch the carnival set up. Montag and Beatty stared, one with dry satisfaction, the other with disbelief, at the house before them, this main ring in which torches would be juggled and fire eaten. "Well," said Beatty, "now you did it. Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's burnt his damn wings, he wonders why. Didn't I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your place?" Montag's face was entirely numb and featureless; he felt his head turn like a stone carving to the dark place next door, set in its bright borders of flowers. Beatty snorted. "Oh, no! You weren't fooled by that little idiot's routine, now, were you? Flowers, butterflies, leaves, sunsets, oh, hell! It's all in her file. I'll be damned. I've hit the bullseye. Look at the sick look on your face. A few grass-blades and the quarters of the moon. What trash. What good did she ever do with all that?" Montag sat on the cold fender of the Dragon, moving his head half an inch to the left, half an inch to the right, left, right, left right, left .... "She saw everything. She didn't do anything to anyone. She just let them alone." "Alone, hell ! She chewed around you, didn't she? One of those damn do-gooders with their shocked, holier-than-thou silences, their one talent making others feel guilty. God damn, they rise like the midnight sun
| 1 |
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