In the epi­logue, a man is depict­ed at dawn, labo­ri­ous­ly pro­gress­ing over the plain by dig­ging holes in the ground with a two-han­dled imple­ment. His process involves strik­ing the rock with his tool, cre­at­ing sparks and ignit­ing the stones with­in the holes. Behind him, fig­ures wan­der in search of bones, some active­ly search­ing while oth­ers sim­ply move through the light with a mechan­i­cal, almost robot­ic qual­i­ty. Their halt­ing move­ments sug­gest a sem­blance of thought­ful­ness or cau­tion, though it is indi­cat­ed that this reflects no gen­uine inner life.

As these wan­der­ers tra­verse the plain, they fol­low a series of holes that stretch to the hori­zon. This jour­ney appears less a pur­suit of con­ti­nu­ity and more an affir­ma­tion of a deep­er principle—one of val­i­da­tion through sequence and causal­i­ty. Each hole, per­fect­ly round, seems to owe its exis­tence to the one pri­or, embed­ded in a desert land­scape scat­tered with bones and the rem­nants of those who gath­er or choose not to gath­er. The man, after ignit­ing the stones, reclaims his steel and joins the oth­ers in a con­tin­ued jour­ney across the land.

The text con­veys a cycli­cal nature of exis­tence and the rela­tion­ship between cre­ation and decay, with the act of dig­ging serv­ing as both a lit­er­al and metaphor­i­cal quest. The rep­e­ti­tion of motions and the con­nec­tion between the gath­er­ers and the ground beneath them sug­gest a deep con­tin­u­um where every action is influ­enced by the rem­nants of what came before it. Thus, the epi­logue ends with this image of con­ti­nu­ity, and as the char­ac­ters progress, it echoes the relent­less for­ward motion of life itself—their jour­ney goes on, dri­ven by the same prin­ci­ples of exis­tence.

In this way, the nar­ra­tive con­cludes, leav­ing behind a lin­ger­ing sense of quest and exis­tence, encap­su­lat­ed by the sim­ple yet pro­found imagery of the plain, the holes, and the beings that tra­verse them.

THE END.

In the epi­logue “Be Ready When the Luck Hap­pens,” the author reflects on a piv­otal moment when she was approached by *60 Min­utes* for an inter­view, prompt­ing mem­o­ries of her ear­ly influ­ences and aspi­ra­tions. Raised on the icon­ic show since its debut in 1968, she expressed sur­prise at being part of such a cel­e­brat­ed pro­gram. Pro­duc­er Michael Karzis and his team con­duct­ed exten­sive research, which made her anx­ious about por­tray­ing her life accu­rate­ly dur­ing the film­ing.

As the inter­view began, she recalled her approach to mak­ing guests com­fort­able dur­ing her own show, *Be My Guest*. Emmy Award-win­ning cor­re­spon­dent Sharyn Alfonsi’s obser­va­tions on her suc­cess chal­lenged the author’s self-per­cep­tion. While she had always viewed her achieve­ments as a result of good for­tune, Sharyn attrib­uted it to hard work, strate­gic busi­ness acu­men, and metic­u­lous plan­ning.

Fol­low­ing her on-stage remarks at a Matrix Award event, includ­ing influ­en­tial fig­ures like Oprah, the author was sur­prised by their feed­back regard­ing her belief in luck. Oprah empha­sized the impor­tance of cre­at­ing one’s luck, while Les­ley Stahl prompt­ed her to ques­tion why women often attribute their suc­cess to luck com­pared to men’s empha­sis on tal­ent.

The dia­logue with Oprah and Stahl led her to pon­der the real bal­ance between luck and effort in achiev­ing suc­cess. A con­ver­sa­tion with Rob Mar­shall rein­forced this notion, as he recount­ed advice from Liza Min­nel­li to “be ready when the luck hap­pens.” This res­onat­ed deeply, lead­ing to the real­iza­tion that her jour­ney com­prised both hard work and an open­ness to oppor­tu­ni­ties when they arose.

Ulti­mate­ly, the author con­clud­ed that there’s no sin­gu­lar route to suc­cess but rather a com­bi­na­tion of ded­i­ca­tion to her pas­sion and a pre­pared­ness to embrace for­tu­itous moments when they mate­ri­al­ize. She empha­sized con­cen­trat­ing on the present and enjoy­ing the work she loves, thus ensur­ing she is ready when luck strikes.

In the epi­logue, we delve into a piv­otal moment for Mil­lie, a char­ac­ter stand­ing on the thresh­old of a new begin­ning while car­ry­ing the weight of her past. Mil­lie finds her­self in a pris­tine, new­ly ren­o­vat­ed kitchen, engag­ing in a con­ver­sa­tion with Lisa Kill­ef­fer about a poten­tial house­keep­ing job. This oppor­tu­ni­ty comes near­ly a year after a series of upheavals marked by her time at the Win­ches­ter house and the sub­se­quent death of Andrew, which Nina, a for­mer employ­er, ruled acci­den­tal. Nina’s gen­er­ous deposit into Mil­lie’s account has kept her afloat until this moment.

Mil­lie, orig­i­nal­ly from Brook­lyn, has a var­ied back­ground of domes­tic work, some­thing she high­lights to Lisa. Beyond house­work, Mil­lie’s love for chil­dren stands out as a key aspect of her resume. The job’s allure is unde­ni­able, giv­en the evi­dent wealth sur­round­ing it, from the high-tech kitchen appli­ances to the over­all opu­lence of the house.

Lisa’s inter­est in Mil­lie is unex­pect­ed, giv­en that she reached out direct­ly to Mil­lie after find­ing her ad for clean­ing and nan­ny­ing ser­vices. The job would involve stan­dard house­keep­ing duties—cleaning, laun­dry, and light cook­ing. Despite appear­ing ide­al, Mil­lie’s hes­i­ta­tion is root­ed in her past legal issues and prison record, hur­dles that have yet to dimin­ish in sig­nif­i­cance.

As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, Lisa casu­al­ly han­dles a knife, her actions unwit­ting­ly height­en­ing Mil­lie’s sense of unease. The nar­ra­tive takes a turn when Lisa reveals that it was Nina Win­ches­ter who high­ly rec­om­mend­ed Mil­lie for the posi­tion. This rev­e­la­tion sur­pris­es Mil­lie, as Nina had moved to Cal­i­for­nia with Cecelia post-Andrew’s death, main­tain­ing min­i­mal con­tact aside from an appre­cia­tive text show­ing Nina and Cecelia on a beach.

The epi­logue con­cludes on a tense note, with Lisa’s manip­u­la­tion of the knife and an unset­tling shift in her demeanor as Mil­lie observes some­thing alarm­ing, hint­ed at but left unspec­i­fied. This scene encap­su­lates a moment filled with poten­tial and per­il, with Mil­lie’s future hang­ing in the bal­ance, poised between an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a fresh start and the shad­ows of her past that con­tin­ue to loom large.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

EPILOGUE
RHYS
Six months lat­er
“Do you solemn­ly promise and swear to gov­ern the Peo­ple of El-
dor­ra accord­ing to their respec­tive laws and cus­toms?”
“I solemn­ly promise so to do.” Brid­get sat in the coro­na­tion chair,
her face pale but her hand steady on the King’s Book as she took her
offi­cial oath. Her grand­fa­ther stood beside her, his face solemn but
proud, and the rest of the cathe­dral was so qui­et I could feel the
weight of the occa­sion press­ing into my skin.
After months of plan­ning, the big day was final­ly here. In a few
min­utes, Brid­get would be crowned Queen of Eldor­ra, and I, as her
fiancé, would offi­cial­ly be the Prince Con­sort in wait­ing.
It wasn’t some­thing I’d ever dreamed of or thought I want­ed, but
I would fol­low Brid­get any­where, from the small­est, shit­ti­est town to
the grand­est church. As long as I was with her, I was hap­py.
I stood with Niko­lai, Sab­ri­na, Andreas, and the oth­er von As-
chebergs in the front row, clos­est to the coro­na­tion. The cer­e­mo­ny
took place in the sprawl­ing Athen­berg Cathe­dral, which was packed
with thou­sands of high-pro­file guests. Heads of state, for­eign roy­als,
celebri­ties, bil­lion­aires, they were all there.
I clasped my hands in front of me, wish­ing the arch­bish­op would
speed things up. I hadn’t talked to Brid­get all day, and I was itch­ing
to get to the coro­na­tion ball so we could have some alone time.
“Will you to your pow­er cause Law and Jus­tice, in Mer­cy, to be
exe­cut­ed in all your judg­ments?” the arch­bish­op asked.
“I will.”
Pride seeped through me at Bridget’s strong, clear voice.
She com­plet­ed her oath, and a col­lec­tive hush fell over the cathe-
dral when the arch­bish­op lift­ed the crown from Edvard’s head and
placed it on hers.
“Her Majesty Queen Brid­get of Eldor­ra,” the arch­bish­op de-
clared. “Long may she reign!”
“Long may she reign!” I repeat­ed the words along with the rest of
the guests, my chest tight. Beside me, Niko­lai dipped his head, his
face shin­ing with emo­tion; next to Brid­get, Edvard stood ram­rod
straight, his eyes sus­pi­cious­ly bright.
The arch­bish­op fin­ished the cer­e­mo­ny with a few vers­es from the
King’s Book, and it was done.
Eldor­ra offi­cial­ly had a new ruler and its first female monarch in
over a cen­tu­ry.
A low, elec­tric hum replaced the hush. It skit­tered through the
soar­ing hall and over my skin as Brid­get rose for the exit pro­ces­sion;
judg­ing by the way the oth­er guests shift­ed and mur­mured, I wasn’t
the only one who felt it.
It was the feel­ing of watch­ing his­to­ry being made.
I caught Bridget’s eye dur­ing her pro­ces­sion, and I flashed her a
quick grin and a wink. Her mouth curved into a smile before she
tamped it down, and I fought back a laugh at her over­ly seri­ous ex-
pres­sion as she left the church.
“That was the longest cer­e­mo­ny ever.” Andreas yawned. “I’m
glad I wasn’t the one who had to sit up there.”
“Good thing you’ll nev­er sit up there, then.” My rela­tion­ship
with Andreas had devel­oped into some­thing resem­bling gen­uine
friend­ship over the months, but his per­son­al­i­ty still left a lot to be
desired.
He shrugged. “C’est la vie. Let Brid­get shoul­der the bur­den of a
nation while I live like a prince with none of the respon­si­bil­i­ties.”
Niko­lai and I exchanged glances and shook our heads. While An-
dreas and I nev­er missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sneak a dig at the oth­er, I
had a much eas­i­er rela­tion­ship with Niko­lai. Anoth­er broth­er, albeit
by mar­riage rather than blood, and I didn’t want to mur­der him half
the time.
After the for­mal exit pro­ces­sion, the guests filed out of the cathe-
dral, and soon, I found myself in the palace ball­room, impa­tient­ly
wait­ing for Brid­get to arrive.
Only five hun­dred peo­ple received invites to the coro­na­tion ball
com­pared to the thou­sands at the cer­e­mo­ny, but that was still too
many peo­ple. All of them want­ed to shake my hand and say hi, and
I indulged them half-heart­ed­ly while eye­ing the door. At least my
lessons with Andreas came in handy—I remem­bered everyone’s ti-
tles and greet­ed them accord­ing­ly.
My pulse kicked up a notch when the Sergeant at Arms’ an-
nounce­ment final­ly rang through the ball­room. “Her Majesty Queen
Brid­get of Eldor­ra.”
Tri­umphal music played, the doors opened, and Brid­get swept
in. She wore a lighter gown than the ornate affair she’d donned for
the cer­e­mo­ny, and she’d replaced her crown with a more wear­able
tiara.
She waved to the crowd, her pub­lic smile firm­ly in place, but
when our eyes met, a hint of play­ful­ness crept in.
I excused myself from my con­ver­sa­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter
of Swe­den and made my way through the crowd. For once, I didn’t
need to use my height or build—everyone part­ed when they saw me
approach­ing.
The perks of being the future Prince Con­sort, I sup­posed.
By the time I reached Brid­get, she had half a dozen peo­ple fight-
ing for her atten­tion.
“Your Majesty.” I held out my hand, cut­ting off a woman who’d
been gush­ing over her dress. The crowd fell silent. “May I have this
dance?”
A grin played at the cor­ners of Bridget’s mouth. “Of course.
Ladies, gen­tle­men, if you’ll excuse me.”
She took my hand, and we walked away with six pairs of eyes
burn­ing into us.
Brid­get wait­ed until we were out of earshot before say­ing,
“Thank the Lord. If I had to lis­ten to Lady Feath­er­ton com­pli­ment
my out­fit one more time, I would’ve stabbed myself with the spikes
from my tiara.”
“We can’t have that, can we? I very much like you alive.” I rest­ed
my hand on the small of her back as I guid­ed her across the dance
floor. “So, you’re offi­cial­ly queen. How does it feel?”
“Sur­re­al, but also…right.” She shook her head. “I don’t know
how to explain it.”
“I under­stand.”
I did. I felt much the same way. I wasn’t the one who’d been
crowned, of course, but we’d wait­ed and planned for so long it was
strange to have the cer­e­mo­ny behind us. We’d also had time to get
used to the idea of Brid­get being queen, and now that she was, it felt
right.
We always end up where we’re meant to be.
“I know you do.” Bridget’s eyes glowed with emo­tion before she
made a face. “I can’t want to get out of this dress, though. It’s not as
bad as my coro­na­tion dress, but I swear it still weighs ten pounds.”
“Don’t wor­ry. I’ll rip it off you lat­er.” I low­ered my head and
whis­pered, “I’ve nev­er fucked a queen before.”
A chuck­le rose in my throat at the deep blush spread­ing over
Bridget’s face and neck.
“Do I have to stop call­ing you princess now?” I asked. “Queen
doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as nice.”
She nar­rowed her eyes. “Don’t you dare. By roy­al decree, you’re
nev­er allowed to stop call­ing me princess.”
“I thought you hat­ed the nick­name.”
I spun her around, and she wait­ed until she was in my arms
again before say­ing, “As much as you hate when I call you Mr.
Larsen.”
I used to. Not any­more.
“I was jok­ing.” My lips grazed her fore­head. “You’ll always be
my princess.”
Bridget’s eyes shone brighter. “Mr. Larsen, if you make me cry at
my own coro­na­tion ball, I’ll nev­er for­give you.”
My smile widened, and I kissed her, not car­ing if PDA was
against pro­to­col. “Then it’s a good thing I have the rest of our lives
to make it up to you.”
BRIDGET
Three months after my coro­na­tion, Rhys and I returned to the
Athen­berg Cathe­dral for our wed­ding.
It was as grand and lux­u­ri­ous as one would expect of a roy­al
wed­ding, but I worked with Fre­ja, the new com­mu­ni­ca­tions secre-
tary, to keep the recep­tion as small as pos­si­ble. As queen, I couldn’t
have a friends-and-fam­i­ly-only par­ty for diplo­mat­ic rea­sons, but we
cut the guest list from two thou­sand to two hun­dred. I con­sid­ered
that a major vic­to­ry.
“I’m jeal­ous,” Niko­lai said. “You only have two hun­dred peo­ple
to greet. My hands near­ly fell off at my recep­tion.”
I laughed. “You sur­vived.”
We stood near the dessert table while the rest of the guests ate,
drank, and danced. The actu­al wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny had gone off
with­out a hitch, and as much as I enjoyed see­ing my friends and
fam­i­ly let loose, I was count­ing down the min­utes until I could be
alone with Rhys, who was cur­rent­ly talk­ing to Chris­t­ian and a few of
his friends from the Navy.
He hadn’t expect­ed his mil­i­tary bud­dies to come, since he hadn’t
spo­ken to them in so long, but they’d all showed up. What­ev­er wor-
ries he might’ve had about see­ing them again, they seemed to have
dis­ap­peared. Rhys was smil­ing and laugh­ing and looked per­fect­ly at
peace.
“Bare­ly,” Niko­lai joked before his smile fad­ed. “I’m glad things
worked out for you and Rhys,” he added soft­ly. “You deserve it.
When I abdi­cat­ed, I didn’t think…I nev­er want­ed to put that kind of
pres­sure on you. And when I real­ized what it meant…what you had
to give up…”
“It’s okay.” I squeezed his hand. “You did what you had to do. I
was upset when you first told me, but it all worked out, and I enjoy
being queen…for the most part. Espe­cial­ly now that Erhall is no
longer Speak­er.”
Erhall had lost his seat by half a point. I’d be lying if I said the
news hadn’t giv­en me immense plea­sure.
I had, how­ev­er, wor­ried Niko­lai would be upset or jeal­ous about
the repeal. Would he be bit­ter I got to stay with Rhys and keep the
crown? But he’d been noth­ing but sup­port­ive, and he’d admit­ted he
enjoyed his new life more than he’d expect­ed. I think part of him
was actu­al­ly relieved.
Niko­lai had grown up think­ing he want­ed the throne because he
didn’t have a choice to not want it, and now that he was freed from
those expec­ta­tions, he was thriv­ing. Mean­while, I’d tak­en up the
man­tle and grown into the role.
Iron­ic, the way things turned out.
“Yes, he was a bit of a toad, wasn’t he?” Niko­lai grinned and
glanced over my shoul­der. “Ah, it seems my time is up. I’ll talk to
you lat­er. I need to save Sab­ri­na before Grand­fa­ther forces her to
name our baby Sig­mund after our great-great-uncle.” He hes­i­tat­ed.
“Are you hap­py, Brid­get?”
I squeezed his hand again, a messy clog of emo­tion tan­gling in
my throat. “I am.”
Did I feel like the weight of the world was on my shoul­ders
some­times? Yes. Did I get angry, frus­trat­ed, and stressed? Yes. But so
did a lot of peo­ple. The impor­tant thing was, I no longer felt trapped.
I’d learned to mas­ter my cir­cum­stances instead of let­ting them mas-
ter me, and I had Rhys by my side. No mat­ter how ter­ri­ble of a day I
had, I could go home to some­one I loved who loved me back, and
that made all the dif­fer­ence.
Niko­lai must’ve heard the sin­cer­i­ty in my voice, because his face
relaxed. “Good. That’s all I need to know.” He kissed my cheek be-
fore he bee­lined to where a five-months-preg­nant Sab­ri­na sat with
our grand­fa­ther, who’d spent his post-rul­ing days fuss­ing over his
future great-grand­child and try­ing to find a suit­able hob­by to fill his
time.
Edvard had forced Rhys to teach him how to draw for a few
weeks before it became clear his tal­ents did not lie in the artis­tic
realm. He’d since moved on to archery, and I’d had to add a haz­ard
pay bonus for the staff accom­pa­ny­ing him to prac­tice.
I turned to see what had made Niko­lai leave, and my face broke
into a smile when I saw Rhys approach­ing.
“Long time no see,” I teased. We’d only had one dance togeth­er
before we were pulled away by var­i­ous friends and fam­i­ly.
“Don’t remind me. My own wed­ding, and I bare­ly see my wife,”
he grum­bled, but his frown eased when he drew me into his arms.
“We should’ve eloped.”
“The palace would’ve had some­thing to say about that.”
“Fuck the palace.”
I sti­fled a laugh. “Rhys, you can’t say that. You’re the Prince Con-
sort now.” The King Con­sort title didn’t exist in Eldor­ra, so even
though I was the queen, he was called the Prince Con­sort.
“Which means I can say it even more than before.” Rhys grazed
my jaw with his lips, and goose­bumps of plea­sure dot­ted my arms.
“Speak­ing of Prince Consort…what ben­e­fits come with the
posi­tion?”
“Um.” I tried to think through the fog in my head as he caressed
the nape of my neck. “A crown, a love­ly room in the palace, med­ical
ben­e­fits…”
“Bor­ing. Bor­ing. Even more bor­ing.”
I laughed. “What do you want then?”
Rhys lift­ed his head, his eyes gleam­ing. “I want to bend—”
“Hi guys, I’m so sor­ry for inter­rupt­ing.” Ava appeared beside us.
She looked love­ly in her mint green brides­maid dress, but her face
was etched with con­cern. “Have you seen Jules and Josh? I can’t find
them any­where.”
“She’s afraid they’ve mur­dered each oth­er,” Alex added, com­ing
up behind her.
Ava rolled her eyes. “You’re exag­ger­at­ing.”
“Not by much. I saw Jules with a knife ear­li­er.”
“I hope they haven’t. Bad press if there’s a mur­der at my wed-
ding,” I joked. “But no, I haven’t seen them. Sor­ry.”
Still, I swept my eyes around the room just in case.
Booth, whom I’d insist­ed attend as a guest instead of a guard,
was deep in con­ver­sa­tion with his wife and Emma, who’d flown in a
few days ago so we could catch up before the wed­ding. Appar­ent­ly,
she’d got­ten more attached to Meadow’s cud­dli­ness and Leather’s
foul mouth than expect­ed, and she’d adopt­ed both from the shel­ter. I
was delight­ed, espe­cial­ly when Emma promised to send me pic­tures
and videos of them often.
Stef­fan was danc­ing with Malin. I’d called him after my press
con­fer­ence to apol­o­gize for not giv­ing him a heads up, but he hadn’t
been upset at all. He said it’d giv­en him the courage to stand up to
his father, and con­sid­er­ing he was attend­ing the most pub­li­cized
event of the year with Malin, it must’ve all worked out.
Chris­t­ian stood in the shad­ows, chat­ting with Andreas, but his
eyes strayed to something—someone—on the dance floor. I fol­lowed
his gaze and winced when I saw Stel­la.
That’s not good. Or maybe I was read­ing too much into the
sit­u­a­tion.
Even Mikaela was in atten­dance, hang­ing out with some of our
old school friends. I’d invit­ed her as an olive branch, but it would
take a while before I trust­ed her again.
Almost every­one who played a major role in my life was there…
except Jules and Josh.
“I haven’t seen them either,” Rhys said.
Ava sighed. “Thanks. I just want­ed to check. Sor­ry for both­er­ing
you, and con­grats again!” She dragged Alex away, prob­a­bly to look
for her broth­er and Jules, even though Alex looked like he would
rather eat nails.
“Well, that ruined the mood,” Rhys said dry­ly. “We can’t even
have a con­ver­sa­tion with­out get­ting inter­rupt­ed.”
“Per­haps we should wait until after the recep­tion because that’ll
keep hap­pen­ing. I already see Fre­ja com­ing toward us. Unless…” I
low­ered my voice, a spark of mis­chief kin­dling inside me. “We
hide.”
We stared at each oth­er for a beat before a slow smile spread
across his face. “I like the way you think, princess.”
Rhys left first, slip­ping out under the aus­pices of using the re-
stroom, and I fol­lowed soon after. We couldn’t be gone long, but we
could steal a few moments for our­selves.
“Your Majesty!” Fre­ja called as I passed her. “Where are you go-
ing? We need to dis­cuss—”
“Ladies’ room. I’ll be back.” I quick­ened my steps and con­tained
my laugh­ter until I reached the small draw­ing room where Rhys was
wait­ing.
“It’s like we’re sneak­ing around again.” I shut the door behind
me, my heart rac­ing with the twin thrills of final­ly being alone with
him and doing some­thing we weren’t sup­posed to do.
“Just like old times,” he drawled. The lights were off, but enough
moon­light fil­tered through the cur­tains for me to see the carved
planes of his face and the ten­der heat in his eyes.
“So, tell me.” I looped my arms around his neck. “Was this where
you expect­ed to end up as a kid? Hid­ing in a roy­al draw­ing room
with your wife on the night of your wed­ding?”
“Not exact­ly.” Rhys brushed his thumb over my bot­tom lip. “But
some­one once told me we always end up where we’re meant to be,
and this is where I’m meant to be. With you.”
For­get but­ter­flies. An entire flock of birds took flight in my stom-
ach, soar­ing into the clouds and tak­ing me with them. “Mr. Larsen, I
do believe you’re a secret roman­tic after all.”

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

Epi­logue
I won­der about them some­times. Eddie and Bea.
Once, as I was load­ing gro­ceries into my trunk, I thought I saw them.
It couldn’t have been them, of course. By then, I’d left Moun­tain Brook behind me. Left the whole
state of Alaba­ma. I’d used Bea’s mon­ey to buy myself a lit­tle place—nothing as crazy as what I
could’ve afford­ed, but still—my own small, cozy cab­in in the moun­tains of North Car­oli­na.
Turns out I liked the South.
But there was no way the woman in the sun­glass­es in the big SUV that cruised past the Ingles
Mar­ket park­ing lot could’ve been Bea, no way the fig­ure slumped in the pas­sen­ger seat was Eddie. I
couldn’t even tell if it was a man, after all.
Adele had been in the car, and she’d giv­en a short, sharp bark at the car as it passed, and I thought
the per­son in the pas­sen­ger seat had turned a lit­tle to look back, but they were too far away by then for
me to be sure.
That was only a few months after the fire, though, so I’d been jumpi­er, primed to see ghosts
every­where.
I some­times think I might always be look­ing over my shoul­der.
I remind myself that when Bea opened the door to the pan­ic room, there was a whoosh and a wall
of flame. I remem­ber the scent of burned hair, and a worse, dark­er scent, dis­turbing­ly like bar­be­cue.
I remem­ber that they found Eddie’s teeth.
But I also remem­ber those teeth fly­ing out of his mouth when I hit him, and so …
I won­der.
I like to think that they both sur­vived. That they’re out there some­where.
Maybe they’ve gone back to Hawaii. Or a more remote island, their own lit­tle beach some­where.
I pic­ture them on white sand, palm trees sway­ing over­head, just like I used to pic­ture them when
Bea was a ghost and Eddie was mine.
She sits there, smil­ing in the sun­shine, her glossy hair pulled back from her face. Eddie is next to
her. Not near­ly as hand­some as he once was.
I see Bea reach for his hand, see his fingers—thick with scars, raised red welts criss­cross­ing his
skin—curl around hers.
We’re togeth­er now, she’ll say to him, that’s all that mat­ters. Not the mon­ey, not the life they’d
built, not the house that’s now just a black mark on all that green, green grass at Thorn­field Estates.
And it won’t be a lie when she says that they’re bet­ter off now with­out all that, bet­ter off just the
two of them, wher­ev­er they are.