In Chap­ter 2 of “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” we delve into the mind­set of Advokat Nils Erik Bjur­man, who is con­sumed by thoughts of Lis­beth Salan­der, the woman who has humil­i­at­ed him and left a scar — both phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal. Bjur­man reflects on how he once held pow­er over her as her guardian, a posi­tion he exploit­ed for his sadis­tic desires. His rec­ol­lec­tion of their first encounter sig­nals the start of a twist­ed obses­sion. Despite his moral decay, he can­not resist Salander’s allure, per­ceiv­ing her as a per­fect object of dom­i­na­tion due to her child­hood-like appear­ance and trou­bled his­to­ry.

Bjurman’s aggres­sion towards her esca­lates after she retal­i­ates against him, not only phys­i­cal­ly but also by assert­ing pow­er over his life. This con­fronta­tion marks a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point; he becomes a shad­ow of his for­mer self, plagued by guilt and fear. Hav­ing lost pro­fes­sion­al con­trol and retreat­ed from deal­ings with clients, he exists in a state of para­noia, over­whelmed by the tat­too she left on him as a bru­tal reminder of their encounter.

His inter­nal strug­gle inten­si­fies when he con­tem­plates ways to elim­i­nate the threat Salan­der pos­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly the incrim­i­nat­ing video of their encounter. He finds solace in his obses­sion with her life his­to­ry, col­lect­ing doc­u­ments and reports to bet­ter under­stand and poten­tial­ly under­mine her. This leads him to Palm­gren’s detailed note­books, which reveal Salander’s com­plex­i­ties and past trau­mas, although many of her secrets remain locked away.

As Bjur­man plots his revenge, his life inter­twines inad­ver­tent­ly with Mikael Blomkvist, a jour­nal­ist unaware of the dark and per­son­al his­to­ry that con­nects him to Salan­der. The chap­ter con­cludes with Bjur­man meet­ing a mys­te­ri­ous ally who could help him in his quest for vengeance against Salan­der.

This chap­ter paints a grim por­trait of Bjur­man’s dual­i­ty, where his des­per­a­tion for pow­er leads him deep­er into a web of deceit, obses­sion, and the pul­sat­ing need for ret­ri­bu­tion against the woman who shat­tered his domin­ion.

In the open­ing chap­ter of “Their Eyes Were Watch­ing God,” Janie reflects on her life, per­ceiv­ing it as a grand tree with branch­es rich in expe­ri­ences, both joy­ful and painful. She recounts her child­hood, raised by her grand­moth­er Nan­ny and the white Wash­burn fam­i­ly in West Flori­da. While her white play­mates accept­ed her, Janie only learned about her race at six, upon see­ing a pho­to­graph that revealed her iden­ti­ty as a Black girl among her peers. This rev­e­la­tion prompt­ed laugh­ter from every­one, mark­ing her first under­stand­ing of her dif­fer­ences.

Janie shares her child­hood mem­o­ries, describ­ing the teas­ing she endured at school, espe­cial­ly from anoth­er girl named Mayrel­la, who resent­ed Janie’s close­ness to the Wash­burn fam­i­ly. Nan­ny, aware of the chal­lenges Janie faced, aspired for her to have a bet­ter life away from the racism and prej­u­dice that marked their real­i­ty. Nanny’s desire was for Janie to even­tu­al­ly have her own home, which she facil­i­tat­ed by acquir­ing land.

As the nar­ra­tive pro­gress­es, Janie’s thoughts turn toward a sig­nif­i­cant moment in her life at her grand­moth­er’s gate. On a fate­ful spring after­noon, she had been drawn to a blos­som­ing pear tree, sym­bol­iz­ing awak­en­ing and desire. It was under this tree that Janie first tast­ed love when John­ny Tay­lor kiss­es her. This kiss sig­ni­fies the end of her child­hood, prompt­ing a con­fronta­tion with Nan­ny, who, upon awak­en­ing, express­es her con­cern for Janie’s bud­ding wom­an­hood.

Nan­ny insists that Janie must mar­ry soon, fear­ing the dan­gers that unguard­ed fem­i­nin­i­ty might bring. She is adamant that Janie not end up like her moth­er, who faced a trag­ic fate. Nan­ny intro­duces Logan Kil­licks as a poten­tial hus­band, which Janie rejects vehe­ment­ly, feel­ing the weight of Nanny’s past strug­gles. The con­ver­sa­tion reveals the gen­er­a­tional ten­sion between Janie’s desire for free­dom and Nanny’s pro­tec­tive instincts forged by hard­ship.

Janie’s protes­ta­tions reflect her yearn­ing for auton­o­my and love that tran­scends mere neces­si­ty. The chap­ter clos­es with Nan­ny recount­ing her own past, shar­ing the pain and dreams that shape her deci­sions for Janie, weav­ing a deep emo­tion­al con­nec­tion between them amidst Janie’s resis­tance to a life laid out for her by Nan­ny’s wor­ries and sac­ri­fices.

In Chap­ter 2 of “1984,” Win­ston awak­ens restrained in a room where he is con­front­ed by O’Brien and a man in a white coat equipped with a hypo­der­mic syringe. He grad­u­al­ly pieces togeth­er that he has been pulled from a dark and dis­ori­ent­ing place, marked by con­tin­u­ous tor­ture since his arrest. The chap­ter explores his har­row­ing mem­o­ries of bru­tal inter­ro­ga­tions involv­ing a relent­less bar­rage of phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal vio­lence, deliv­ered by both black-uni­formed guards and more cere­bral, men­ac­ing Par­ty intel­lec­tu­als. Winston’s resis­tance begins to crum­ble as he is sub­ject­ed to threats and a sys­tem­at­ic break­down of his will, where every con­fes­sion he once fought to hide now pours forth under duress.

As the beat­ings sub­side, they are replaced by mer­ci­less ques­tion­ing, aimed at dis­man­tling Winston’s very iden­ti­ty and beliefs. He recalls expe­ri­ences in a bleak cell, high­light­ing the util­i­tar­i­an and dehu­man­iz­ing nature of his cap­tors. O’Brien emerges as both his tor­men­tor and a sin­is­ter pater­nal fig­ure, embody­ing the Party’s manip­u­la­tive strate­gies. Win­ston’s con­fes­sions blur the line between fact and imag­ined trans­gres­sions, as he pleads for mer­cy in a state of despair, ulti­mate­ly betray­ing his loy­al­ty to the Par­ty.

The chap­ter fur­ther dives into an odd depth of psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion from O’Brien, who insists that the Party’s con­trol over real­i­ty defines truth. Win­ston grap­ples with the essen­tial dif­fer­ence between his mem­o­ries and the Par­ty’s narratives—disillusionment deep­ens as he wres­tles with the con­cept of exis­tence itself. The men­tal ordeal inten­si­fies with O’Brien’s relent­less insis­tence on con­for­mi­ty of thought, embody­ing the Par­ty’s dic­tate where real­i­ty is sub­jec­tive­ly shaped.

In a cli­mac­tic moment, O’Brien’s manip­u­la­tions cul­mi­nate in the pow­er­ful notion that sur­ren­der­ing one’s men­tal auton­o­my to the Par­ty is not just a tac­tic for sur­vival but also a per­verse form of sal­va­tion. The chap­ter clos­es with Win­ston’s frag­ile grasp on real­i­ty becom­ing evident—his belief that free­dom lies in the recog­ni­tion of objec­tive truths is sup­plant­ed by O’Brien’s chill­ing asser­tion that non­con­for­mi­ty to Par­ty doc­trine equates to nonex­is­tence. This sets the stage for an intense psy­cho­log­i­cal con­flict as Win­ston nav­i­gates between hope for resis­tance and the encroach­ing shad­ow of the Par­ty’s over­whelm­ing pow­er.

In Chap­ter 2 of “1984,” Win­ston Smith nav­i­gates through a sun­lit lane, filled with the sounds and scents of spring, eager to meet a girl who has sparked his inter­est. The jour­ney is tinged with tension—a reflec­tion of the repres­sive soci­ety in which he lives. Though he feels ner­vous, he trusts the girl’s expe­ri­ence to lead them to a seclud­ed spot, know­ing that the absence of tele­screens does not guar­an­tee safe­ty from sur­veil­lance.

As he arrives at their meet­ing point, Win­ston’s heart races with a mix­ture of anx­i­ety and antic­i­pa­tion. When the girl appears, she offers him a warn­ing about poten­tial hid­den micro­phones, indi­cat­ing the con­stant threat of being mon­i­tored. Their ini­tial inter­ac­tions are awk­ward yet charged, filled with unspo­ken ten­sion and pal­pa­ble relief when they real­ize they can be togeth­er in rel­a­tive safe­ty.

The girl, Julia, engages Win­ston in con­ver­sa­tion, prompt­ing rev­e­la­tions about their lives under the Party’s oppres­sive regime. Despite his self-dep­re­cat­ing thoughts, she appears unfazed by his advanced age and phys­i­cal short­com­ings. Their inter­ac­tion quick­ly evolves from timid exchanges to pas­sion­ate embraces, ignit­ing feel­ings of desire and defi­ance against their society’s strin­gent norms.

As their con­nec­tion deep­ens, they share inti­mate secrets about their pasts, expos­ing their rebel­lious spir­its against the Par­ty’s con­trol. Julia demon­strates her dis­dain for Par­ty ide­ol­o­gy, reveal­ing her own facade with­in it, includ­ing her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Junior Anti-Sex League. She offers Win­ston a piece of black-mar­ket choco­late, sym­bol­iz­ing the small acts of rebel­lion that he craves.

Win­ston’s past feel­ings of resent­ment towards Julia trans­form into admi­ra­tion for her spir­it­ed defi­ance. When he learns that she has had many lovers, it height­ens his feel­ings of affec­tion and desire. They even­tu­al­ly find com­fort in each oth­er’s arms and share a pro­found­ly inti­mate moment that tran­scends polit­i­cal oppres­sion, mark­ing both a phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal rebel­lion against the Par­ty’s con­straints.

In this chap­ter, the com­plex­i­ties of human emo­tion inter­twine with the over­ar­ch­ing ten­sion of a soci­ety gov­erned by fear and con­trol. What begins as a mere encounter evolves into a crit­i­cal explo­ration of free­dom, inti­ma­cy, and the desire to resist a dehu­man­iz­ing regime.

In Chap­ter 2 of “1984,” Win­ston Smith is con­sumed by anx­i­ety after real­iz­ing he left his diary open, open­ly con­demn­ing Big Broth­er. He steps out of his flat to find Mrs. Par­sons, a neigh­bor, who requests his help with a blocked kitchen sink. Though she refers to him as “com­rade,” she instinc­tive­ly uses “Mrs.” out of habit, hint­ing at the oppres­sive con­ven­tions set by the Par­ty. The Par­sons’ apart­ment, larg­er but more chaot­ic than Win­ston’s, is lit­tered with children’s toys and pro­pa­gandic posters, filled with the unpleas­ant odors typ­i­cal of their build­ing, Vic­to­ry Man­sions.

Win­ston reluc­tant­ly helps Mrs. Par­sons with the sink, not­ing her com­ments on her hus­band, Tom, an enthu­si­as­tic Par­ty mem­ber who is sur­pris­ing­ly good with his hands. Decid­ing to address the block­age, Win­ston resents the man­u­al work as he bends down, his phys­i­cal dis­com­fort mir­rored by the state of their liv­ing con­di­tions. The apart­ment is filled with the pal­pa­ble ten­sion of the children’s frus­tra­tions, espe­cial­ly when Tom isn’t home to prop­er­ly man­age them.

Sud­den­ly, the Par­sons’ chil­dren burst in, play­ing a game where they accuse Win­ston of being a trai­tor, mim­ic­k­ing the Party’s lan­guage as they threat­en him with toy weapons. Their wild ener­gy is unset­tling; they embody the Party’s indoc­tri­na­tion, reveal­ing the fear sur­round­ing chil­dren and their poten­tial to betray their par­ents.

After endur­ing the boys’ threats and leav­ing the Par­sons’ flat, Win­ston feels the sting of one child’s cat­a­pult. He reflects on the Par­son­’s life, bur­dened by chil­dren who are loy­al to the Par­ty and primed to report any sign of non-con­for­mi­ty. This leaves him feel­ing iso­lat­ed, as he enig­mat­i­cal­ly con­nects this to his mem­o­ry of O’Brien and a cryp­tic state­ment about meet­ing in “the place where there is no dark­ness.”

His thoughts turn bleak, con­sid­er­ing the Par­ty’s over­whelm­ing sur­veil­lance, sym­bol­ized by cur­ren­cy stamped with slo­gans. The chap­ter clos­es with Win­ston writ­ing his thoughts in his diary, assert­ing that he is already dead in the eyes of the Par­ty, con­clud­ing with a chill­ing acknowl­edg­ment that “thought­crime is death.” This marks a piv­otal reflec­tion on his exis­tence and the oppres­sive soci­ety he inhab­its .

In a hum­ble house resem­bling a pale cube of stuc­coed con­crete, adorned with small win­dows and cov­ered by a steep, red-tiled roof, lives a young cou­ple amidst the sub­ur­ban sprawl of Mul­house, an indus­tri­al city in east­ern France. The house, sur­round­ed by sim­i­lar homes, offers lit­tle aes­thet­ic appeal typ­i­cal of the broad­er nation. Most of the liv­ing space is on the ground floor, but a nar­row stair­way leads to a low-ceilinged liv­ing area and bed­room tucked under the rafters, kept locked with per­ma­nent­ly closed shut­ters.

The cou­ple’s bed­room fea­tures a majes­tic four-poster bed, draped in opu­lent gold velour cur­tains and sur­round­ed by plush red satin sheets and cush­ions. Upon wak­ing, Bre­itwieser often gazes at his prized ivory carv­ing of *Adam and Eve*, show­cas­ing the artist’s intri­cate detail­ing. He also trea­sures addi­tion­al ivory fig­urines: Diana, the Roman god­dess, and Cather­ine of Alexan­dria, each crowned by a lumi­nous spark that bright­ens his morn­ings.

The bed­side table boasts remark­able items, includ­ing a pol­ished gold­en tobac­co box com­mis­sioned by Napoleon and a pris­mat­ic flower vase craft­ed by Émile Gal­lé, each hold­ing sto­ries from the past. A lav­ish sil­ver gob­let, along­side an array of tobac­co tins, bronzes, and porce­lain fig­urines, trans­forms his night­stand into a minia­ture muse­um.

On Anne-Catherine’s side of the bed lies anoth­er night table, com­ple­ment­ed by a large armoire, a desk, and a dress­er, all over­flow­ing with sil­ver plat­ters, gild­ed tea sets, and eclec­tic weapon­ry. The sec­ond room hous­es a broad­er col­lec­tion: a wood­en altar­piece, stained-glass win­dow, and var­i­ous musi­cal instruments—each piece illus­trat­ing the cou­ple’s unquench­able thirst for art and his­to­ry.

Over­flow­ing with trea­sures, the couple’s haven extends to arm­chairs, win­dowsills, and clos­ets filled with wrist­watch­es, tapes­tries, and medieval arti­facts. Joy­ful chaos sur­rounds them, yet the true mar­vel resides in their art col­lec­tion. The walls are adorned with oil paint­ings from the six­teenth and sev­en­teenth cen­turies by renowned mas­ters like Cranach and Dür­er, cre­at­ing a vibrant tapes­try of col­or and life that engulfs the small space.

Art jour­nal­ists esti­mate their entire trea­sure trove to be worth as much as two bil­lion dol­lars, pre­sent­ing a real­i­ty that tran­scends mere fan­ta­sy. In the con­fines of their dis­creet attic, they have built a remark­able world filled with beau­ty, a lit­er­al trea­sure chest of art and his­to­ry tucked away in a non­de­script house.

In this chap­ter of “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the pro­tag­o­nist reflects on his recent loss while man­ag­ing his respon­si­bil­i­ties as a UPS dri­ver. An hour after receiv­ing con­do­lences from his super­vi­sor, he choos­es to return to work, believ­ing it might help him cope with his daugh­ter Mag­gie’s grief. Unbe­knownst to him, a severe heat wave is grip­ping the region, prompt­ing local may­ors to issue warn­ings for res­i­dents to stay indoors and take care of one anoth­er. His usu­al prepa­ra­tion for deliv­er­ies is over­looked; instead of pack­ing cool­ing snacks, he grabs a stan­dard lunch.

Upon arriv­ing at the pack­age facil­i­ty, he quick­ly real­izes the inten­si­ty of the heat when the man­agers dis­trib­ute sun hats and extra water bot­tles. Work­ing with­out air con­di­tion­ing, the dri­vers are warned to take fre­quent breaks. The nar­ra­tor’s day takes a chal­leng­ing turn as he dis­cov­ers he has an unusu­al­ly heavy load, includ­ing many dog food deliv­er­ies and air con­di­tion­ers pur­chased by cus­tomers to com­bat the heat. As he strug­gles through the swel­ter­ing con­di­tions, sweat pours down his face, and symp­toms of heat exhaus­tion begin to man­i­fest. He takes a brief respite at McDon­ald’s, hop­ing to recov­er before con­tin­u­ing his route, which still has 139 parcels left to deliv­er.

Amidst his phys­i­cal strug­gles, his mind is pre­oc­cu­pied with thoughts about Mag­gie’s well-being and the uncer­tain future with­out Aidan. The weight of his wor­ries dis­tracts him enough that he miss­es a turn, adding time to his already stren­u­ous work­day. As the jour­ney con­tin­ues, he begins expe­ri­enc­ing severe cramp­ing and dis­ori­en­ta­tion while dri­ving through a famil­iar but dis­tort­ed land­scape that feels for­eign to him.

Sud­den­ly, he spots a parked car on the road­side, with two famil­iar fig­ures, Dawn Tag­gart and Aidan Gard­ner, chang­ing a tire. Despite rec­og­niz­ing them, his atten­tion fal­ters, lead­ing to a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. As he drifts off the road and into a ravine, pan­ic ensues. In a split sec­ond, the world around him spi­rals in chaos, and as his truck begins to flip, he braces him­self for the inevitable impact, amidst the falling pack­ages that cre­ate hav­oc inside the vehi­cle.

In this chap­ter of “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the nar­ra­tor reflects on their tumul­tuous rela­tion­ship with their daugh­ter, Mag­gie. After Mag­gie moves to Boston post-col­lege, the nar­ra­tor co-signs her lease for a base­ment stu­dio apart­ment and agrees to help with her rent for the first year. Despite their inten­tions, ten­sion builds as Mag­gie works at Dr. Cell Phone, owned by Oliv­er Ding­ham, a man seem­ing­ly infat­u­at­ed with her. The nar­ra­tor fears for Maggie’s safe­ty and her poten­tial roman­tic involve­ment with Oliv­er, push­ing her to find a dif­fer­ent job, but Mag­gie dis­miss­es these con­cerns, believ­ing any tech-relat­ed job would bol­ster her résumé.

One fate­ful Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Mag­gie arrives unex­pect­ed­ly, express­ing home­sick­ness after dri­ving all night. Her vis­it brings a brief respite filled with fam­i­ly activ­i­ties, but a sense of anx­i­ety lingers. Lat­er, Mag­gie sub­tly asks the nar­ra­tor to lie about what time she arrived, insist­ing on an ali­bi that con­tra­dicts the truth. When con­front­ed, she insists it isn’t lying, cre­at­ing an atmos­phere of dis­trust between them. Their rela­tion­ship fur­ther dete­ri­o­rates, lead­ing to Mag­gie speed­ing away after an unset­tling exchange.

The fol­low­ing days are tense as the nar­ra­tor attempts to pre­pare for an impend­ing cri­sis sur­round­ing a fire at Dr. Cell Phone, linked to Oliv­er Ding­ham. The nar­ra­tor is approached by Leonard Sum­mers, an inves­ti­ga­tor who reveals the fire was no acci­dent and rais­es con­cerns about Maggie’s job and her con­nec­tion to Oliv­er. He sug­gests that Mag­gie may be impli­cat­ed in the inci­dent, includ­ing insin­u­a­tions about her char­ac­ter and past behav­iors. The nar­ra­tor strug­gles with the real­i­ty of Mag­gie’s choic­es while feel­ing a press­ing oblig­a­tion to pro­tect her.

The nar­ra­tive cap­tures the com­plex­i­ty of parental love, trust, and the painful deci­sions par­ents must make for their chil­dren. As Mag­gie’s choic­es become increas­ing­ly ques­tion­able, the nar­ra­tor faces a moral dilem­ma: whether to lie to save her from the con­se­quences of her actions or to con­front the painful truth of what has occurred. The chap­ter con­cludes with an immi­nent clash between famil­ial loy­al­ty and the con­se­quences of deceit, leav­ing an emo­tion­al weight that sug­gests future con­flicts to resolve.

At sev­en-thir­ty, I rose to the entic­ing aro­ma of a sump­tu­ous break­fast spread laid out silent­ly in our cot­tage’s kitchen. On the island sat muffins, bagels, pas­tries, oat­meal, yogurt, and a plen­ti­ful cof­fee urn, which I grate­ful­ly poured myself a cup of before step­ping out onto the porch. My sis­ter, Tam­my, sat bun­dled in a robe, enjoy­ing the serene sun­rise over the lake while sip­ping hot tea. Our morn­ing ban­ter was light, with Tam­my excit­ed­ly recount­ing her delight­ful con­ver­sa­tion with Errol Gard­ner, a wealthy acquain­tance she found sur­pris­ing­ly down-to-earth. Express­ing her admi­ra­tion for him, she not­ed how he had offered to teach her fos­ter daugh­ter Abi­gail how to water-ski, show­cas­ing his gen­eros­i­ty amidst the high-pro­file par­ty atmos­phere.

As we chat­ted over break­fast, I relayed Errol’s odd offer to find me a “com­pan­ion,” which Tam­my play­ful­ly respond­ed to, sug­gest­ing he must know some pleas­ant wid­ows. I dis­missed the idea, insist­ing I sim­ply want­ed qual­i­ty time with my daugh­ter, Mag­gie, and her fam­i­ly. As we enjoyed our meal, Abi­gail, in pecu­liar paja­mas, shuf­fled out­doors, reveal­ing her itch­i­ness from what turned out to be a lice infes­ta­tion. Tammy’s uncon­ven­tion­al rem­e­dy involv­ing may­on­naise soon stank up our break­fast nook, leav­ing me appalled as she slathered it into Abigail’s hair.

Real­iz­ing I was late for a canoe ride with Mag­gie, I declined Abigail’s eager request to join, pri­or­i­tiz­ing my time with her moth­er instead. After a brief dis­cus­sion, I reas­sured both Tam­my and Abi­gail I would take her out lat­er that day.

When I final­ly met Mag­gie, she sur­prised me with cof­fee before we launched our canoe. Pad­dling, she guid­ed the boat toward Cor­morant Point, a scenic spot where oth­er campers would meet for lunch. Dur­ing our out­ing, I couldn’t help but wor­ry about Maggie’s fiancée, Aidan, and their dynam­ics, espe­cial­ly giv­en my past with the fam­i­ly. Though Abi­gail had been left behind due to her lice prob­lem, Mag­gie assured me of her moth­er Catherine’s care back at the lodge.

Mag­gie insist­ed that adven­ture await­ed us, brush­ing off my wor­ries regard­ing Aidan. Yet, my con­cerns didn’t fade eas­i­ly, espe­cial­ly against the back­drop of a group of guests await­ing us upon our return, sens­ing some­thing unusu­al stir­ring at Osprey Lodge. As we neared the shore, guards wad­ed toward us, urg­ing us to dock, and a star­tling dis­cov­ery awaited—a fig­ure float­ing in the water, an omi­nous sight break­ing the tran­quil atmos­phere of our morn­ing .

In the morn­ing light, I arrived at my sis­ter Tam­my’s con­do at the Pre­serve at Sad­dle Brook Cross­ing, where she lived with a col­lec­tion of her fos­ter kids. I had told her to be ready by six, but upon ring­ing the door­bell, I was greet­ed by a quirky lit­tle girl named Abi­gail Grimm, who had been left in Tammy’s care with­out a suit­case. Abi­gail, sport­ing an army-style hair­cut and an endear­ing smile, informed me that we were wait­ing for Tam­my.

Inside, the con­do was typ­i­cal of Tammy’s warm but clut­tered style, filled with sen­ti­men­tal decor and the com­fort­ing scents of baked goods. As we set­tled into the liv­ing room, the news played in the back­ground, show­cas­ing a trag­ic house fire that left two broth­ers dead. Abi­gail, seem­ing­ly unfazed, turned off the tele­vi­sion at my request and tried to engage me with a humor­ous joke involv­ing pi, reveal­ing a delight­ful inno­cence amid the dark tone of the world out­side.

Even­tu­al­ly, Tam­my joined us, bring­ing her cheer­ful pres­ence into the room, dressed in refresh­ing new attire, hav­ing made muffins for break­fast. How­ev­er, amidst the cheer­ful atmos­phere, I felt a surge of frus­tra­tion about her deci­sion to bring Abi­gail along to Maggie’s wed­ding with­out prop­er notice. It was clear from Tam­my’s expla­na­tions that Abi­gail was fac­ing chal­lenges, includ­ing head lice, and the thought of her accom­pa­ny­ing us made me uneasy.

Despite my reser­va­tions, Tam­my pas­sion­ate­ly defend­ed the deci­sion. She empha­sized that Abi­gail was just a sweet girl caught in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. I was remind­ed of times when Tam­my had stood by me dur­ing my own hard­ships, mak­ing it hard to argue against her kind­ness.

In an effort to con­vince her, I point­ed out the com­pli­ca­tions of tak­ing a fos­ter child out of state, but thought­ful as she was, she had already secured the nec­es­sary approvals. I knew I could­n’t say no to Tam­my, giv­en her unwa­ver­ing sup­port in the past, and after a moment of reflec­tion, I relent­ed. Thus, I found myself on board with the unex­pect­ed addi­tion to our jour­ney, despite the chal­lenges it pre­sent­ed .

In the chap­ter from “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the pro­tag­o­nist expe­ri­ences a surge of antic­i­pa­tion as they final­ly have a way to reach their daugh­ter, Mag­gie. Despite the excite­ment, repeat­ed attempts to call her yield busy sig­nals, indi­cat­ing that she is try­ing to call back. Anx­ious­ly wait­ing in Mag­gie’s child­hood bed­room, the pro­tag­o­nist is sur­round­ed by rem­nants of the past—old posters, tro­phies, and a sense of nos­tal­gia for the moments shared as a fam­i­ly.

When Mag­gie final­ly calls, her famil­iar voice brings a wave of emo­tions. The pro­tag­o­nist express­es con­cern for her well-being, but she reas­sures him that every­thing is fine and men­tions she is in her apart­ment in Boston. An awk­ward silence fol­lows as both strug­gle to nav­i­gate their con­ver­sa­tion. Hav­ing long rehearsed this moment, the pro­tag­o­nist feels the weight of the sit­u­a­tion and asks if she received the many cards he sent her. Mag­gie affirms this but quick­ly diverts the con­ver­sa­tion, express­ing a reluc­tance to dis­cuss their fam­i­ly issues.

Seek­ing more pos­i­tive ground, the pro­tag­o­nist shifts to Mag­gie’s job, express­ing pride in her three-year anniver­sary at Capac­i­ti, a once small start-up that has now turned into a tech giant. How­ev­er, the mood shifts abrupt­ly when Mag­gie announces that she is get­ting mar­ried. She shares details about her fiancé, Aidan, and the upcom­ing wed­ding planned by his fam­i­ly in New Hamp­shire. The infor­ma­tion hits the pro­tag­o­nist like a sur­prise rev­e­la­tion, over­whelm­ing him as he process­es the news of her engage­ment.

Amid the excite­ment, Mag­gie express­es a desire for her father to be present at the wed­ding despite past dif­fi­cul­ties in their rela­tion­ship. This moment marks a turn­ing point in their com­mu­ni­ca­tion, reveal­ing both the dis­tance and the con­nec­tion that still exist between them as she nav­i­gates new begin­nings in her life.

In Chap­ter 2 of James, the pro­tag­o­nist grap­ples with the painful real­i­ty of his sit­u­a­tion, haunt­ed by the con­cept of an under­ground rail­road that sym­bol­izes hope for free­dom, even as he rec­og­nizes the lim­i­ta­tions imposed by his skin col­or. The chap­ter opens with his yearn­ing for escape, under­scor­ing how he feels teth­ered to a life devoid of agency, where the pres­ence of a white per­son alone affords him the sem­blance of safe­ty and val­i­da­tion.

As he observes the beach from his hid­ing spot, a stark scene unfolds; while sur­vivors con­gre­gate, the dead remain unmoved, includ­ing a life­less woman and the unex­pect­ed sight of his lost note­book, caught beneath a deceased body. Dri­ven by a mix of absent-mind­ed­ness and des­per­a­tion, he ven­tures onto the beach, only to be met with hos­tile shouts that reveal the risk to his life. The chaos of accu­sa­tions ensues, with one man, Daniel Emmett, reveal­ing he rec­og­nizes the pro­tag­o­nist, turn­ing the sit­u­a­tion per­ilous­ly per­son­al. Yet, luck is on his side as the onlook­ers, too exhaust­ed to act, pro­vide him an oppor­tu­ni­ty to escape back into the woods.

Stum­bling through the under­brush, he regains com­po­sure, only to real­ize Huck, a boy he saved ear­li­er, has been trail­ing him. Huck­’s grat­i­tude leads to a piv­otal con­ver­sa­tion about their future; how­ev­er, the pro­tag­o­nist is deter­mined to pur­sue his own path to free­dom. Huck insists on accom­pa­ny­ing him, high­light­ing their bond, but the pro­tag­o­nist doubts the wis­dom of trust­ing him, even sug­gest­ing that Huck could feign own­er­ship to pro­tect him from white scruti­ny.

Despite ini­tial­ly intend­ing to part ways, the pro­tag­o­nist acknowl­edges Huck­’s prac­ti­cal­i­ty, rec­og­niz­ing that Huck­’s sto­ry could pro­vide cru­cial cov­er as they nav­i­gate a dan­ger­ous world togeth­er. The chap­ter clos­es with the two walk­ing along the riv­er, the pro­tag­o­nist caught between his desire for free­dom and the reluc­tant accep­tance of Huck­’s pres­ence, which com­pli­cates his quest but may also offer a glim­mer of hope amidst the per­il.

In Chap­ter 2, the nar­ra­tor reflects on his sta­tus and expe­ri­ences as a slave, reveal­ing the com­plex­i­ties of his inter­ac­tions with the peo­ple around him. He plays into the role, draw­ing atten­tion to his bare feet and the small shoes he car­ries as he drags them through the dirt, empha­siz­ing his sit­u­a­tion. Nor­man, his com­pan­ion, appears disheveled, which con­trasts with the nar­ra­tor’s scars—mere reminders of a rel­a­tive­ly mild treat­ment from Judge Thatch­er, who had pun­ished him for speak­ing to a white woman. The pain from the whip is tinged with unex­pect­ed plea­sure, illus­trat­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal com­plex­i­ty of his predica­ment.

As Nor­man encoun­ters Frank McHart, the local con­sta­ble, the con­ver­sa­tion shifts to mun­dane top­ics, like trav­el and the nature of their small com­mu­ni­ty. McHart describes his var­i­ous respon­si­bil­i­ties, estab­lish­ing his iden­ti­ty as a mul­ti­fac­eted char­ac­ter who runs a school and an egg busi­ness. Nor­man smooth­ly engages him while sub­tly dri­ving the con­ver­sa­tion toward a poten­tial sale of the nar­ra­tor, whom he refers to as “the slave.” The ten­sion esca­lates as the nar­ra­tor fears being sold to the law­man, aware that he might be rec­og­nized as a run­away.

Nor­man sug­gests that McHart could ben­e­fit from hav­ing a slave to help with his many jobs. The con­sta­ble seems intrigued but cau­tious, dis­cussing the prac­ti­cal­i­ty and cost of own­ing a slave. The nar­ra­tor feels despair at the prospect of being sold under a name that might be asso­ci­at­ed with want­ed notices, but Nor­man con­tin­ues to exag­ger­ate the nar­ra­tor’s qual­i­ties in a bid to sell him. McHart, while ini­tial­ly resis­tant due to the cost, shows signs of inter­est, prompt­ing Nor­man to low­er the price to $500.

As the inter­ac­tions reach a cli­max, the con­sta­ble pro­pos­es seek­ing out a local farmer known for keep­ing slaves, illus­trat­ing the pre­vail­ing atti­tudes of the time. After­ward, the nar­ra­tor express­es admi­ra­tion for Nor­man’s abil­i­ty to pass as white in this tense social con­text, reveal­ing the intri­cate dynam­ics of race and iden­ti­ty they nav­i­gate. The chap­ter clos­es with Nor­man acknowl­edg­ing the chal­lenges of his role, hint­ing at deep­er themes of sur­vival and com­plic­i­ty in the face of sys­temic oppres­sion.

In Chap­ter 2, the nar­ra­tor, sit­ting in a cab­in with Lizzie and six oth­er chil­dren, con­ducts an essen­tial lan­guage les­son that reflects their real­i­ty as slaves. The chil­dren gath­er on the dirt floor while the nar­ra­tor sits on a stool, smoke from a fire fill­ing the space due to a hole in the roof. The dis­cus­sion begins with a child ques­tion­ing the neces­si­ty of learn­ing how to speak in a man­ner expect­ed by white folks. The nar­ra­tor explains that mas­ter­ing lan­guage is cru­cial to avoid feel­ing infe­ri­or, as it is a tool for sur­vival in a racial­ly strat­i­fied soci­ety.

As the les­son pro­gress­es, the chil­dren share learned rules about com­mu­ni­cat­ing with whites, like avoid­ing direct eye con­tact and nev­er speak­ing first. They engage in sit­u­a­tion­al trans­la­tions, dis­cussing how they would alert a white woman, Mrs. Hol­i­day, if her kitchen were on fire. Rachel’s enthu­si­as­tic phrase, “Lawdy, mis­sum! Looky dere,” exem­pli­fies their need to frame mes­sages in ways that appease the sen­si­bil­i­ties of white peo­ple, illus­trat­ing their expe­ri­ence of manip­u­la­tion in soci­etal inter­ac­tions.

The con­ver­sa­tion turns to the top­ic of God; Rachel asks why God estab­lished such a pow­er imbal­ance between races. The nar­ra­tor dis­miss­es the exis­tence of the white God, argu­ing that faith is mere­ly a tool for con­trol, though he acknowl­edges the pow­er of talk­ing about God to main­tain a sem­blance of safe­ty. The chil­dren echo the sen­ti­ment that the more white peo­ple feel com­fort­able, the safer they are.

Lat­er, the nar­ra­tor encoun­ters Huck, who grap­ples with the mean­ing of prayer. Jim acknowl­edges the impor­tance of prayer while pro­vid­ing insight into the real­i­ties of their lives as slaves. Huck shares a trou­bling sto­ry about a man named McIn­tosh, who faced a bru­tal end for defend­ing him­self against whites. The chap­ter ends with a dark reflec­tion on the nature of vio­lence and indif­fer­ence in a soci­ety built on oppres­sion, mixed with a moment of lev­i­ty between Jim and a friend regard­ing the absur­di­ties of life in bondage. They share laugh­ter and con­tem­plate their fates, under­scor­ing the blend of hope and despair in their exis­tence.

In Chap­ter 2, titled “We Solve Mur­ders,” we find our­selves in a sun­lit pool­side set­ting where two con­trast­ing char­ac­ters, Amy Wheel­er and Rosie D’Antonio, engage in a can­did con­ver­sa­tion. Rosie, com­fort­ably ensconced in a pool chair, pos­es the intro­spec­tive ques­tion, “What don’t you like about your­self?” to Amy, who sits alert with her gun near­by, a body­guard in a world where dan­ger lurks.

As they delve into inti­mate dis­cus­sions about appear­ances, Amy express­es dis­sat­is­fac­tion with her nose, hair, ears, and legs, describ­ing them with dis­con­tent. Rosie, effort­less­ly glam­orous and unde­terred by age, encour­ages Amy to embrace change and sug­gests quick fix­es for her per­ceived flaws. But amid the light-heart­ed ban­ter, the con­ver­sa­tion reveals deep­er layers—Rosie chal­lenges Amy to reflect on what she does like about her­self, lead­ing Amy to acknowl­edge her loy­al­ty and fight­ing capa­bil­i­ties. This inter­ac­tion show­cas­es the bond form­ing between them as they nav­i­gate per­son­al inse­cu­ri­ties against the back­drop of Amy’s pro­tec­tive role.

Rosie’s can­did­ness con­trasts with Amy’s more reserved dis­po­si­tion, high­light­ing Amy’s strug­gle with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to Rosie’s noto­ri­ety as a best­selling nov­el­ist, which sparks Amy’s mem­o­ries of her own past, includ­ing her admi­ra­tion for strong women like Rosie, who shaped her resilience. Despite the under­ly­ing ten­sion from poten­tial threats against Rosie’s life—fueled by a wealthy adversary—there’s an under­tone of famil­iar­i­ty and cama­raderie. Amy’s recall of past dan­gers she has faced solid­i­fies her con­vic­tion to pro­tect Rosie at all costs, even dis­miss­ing Rosie’s jest about not jump­ing in front of a bul­let.

The chap­ter unfolds with glimpses of humor and dark­er under­tones, reveal­ing Amy’s thoughts as she tries to keep her past from over­whelm­ing her present. As they dis­cuss life choic­es, fam­i­ly, and career, Rosie’s play­ful irrev­er­ence and Amy’s more seri­ous nature cre­ate a live­ly dynam­ic.

Ulti­mate­ly, they are con­fined to their seclud­ed island, wait­ing to see if the ten­sion with Rosie’s antag­o­nist will cul­mi­nate in vio­lence. With Amy instinc­tive­ly tak­ing on the role of a bodyguard—and pos­si­bly babysitter—the sense of impend­ing chaos along­side days of bore­dom evokes a duty bound by loy­al­ty and a quest for per­son­al iden­ti­ty in tur­bu­lent times.

In Chap­ter 2 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds with a sense of urgency as Joseph races to the door, eager for news from his school. How­ev­er, his moth­er, Ivy, inter­cepts him, kiss­ing the let­ter with a nos­tal­gic touch sig­naled by its St. Louis post­mark. A month ear­li­er, she had inter­viewed at the botan­i­cal gar­den, while Joseph silent­ly observed the world around him, par­tic­u­lar­ly the sym­met­ri­cal fam­i­lies gath­ered under the shade of Tow­er Grove House.

Their liv­ing sit­u­a­tion in Mon­ta Clare has begun to feel like home despite its tran­si­to­ry nature. Ivy’s attempts to assert her­self in a chang­ing world man­i­fest through her dec­la­ra­tions of women’s lib­er­a­tion and her loud plays of Dylan. Joseph reflects on resilience, cit­ing the leg­endary pirate Black Bart Roberts, who thrived even after being cap­tured. His moth­er often views him as a reminder of her strug­gles; every evening, Joseph lifts dumb­bells until his arms ache, sym­bol­i­cal­ly grind­ing away at his child­hood.

Ivy’s con­cern is pal­pa­ble as she notices the bruise on Joseph’s cheek­bone, a tes­ta­ment to the fights he’s had. She ten­der­ly adjusts his cloth­ing and reminds him of his impor­tance to her, urg­ing him to avoid trou­ble. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals a pro­tec­tive­ness as Ivy instructs him to start fresh at his new school, plead­ing with him to promise no more trouble—particularly after an unset­tling vis­it from a cer­tain woman who had giv­en Ivy a dis­ap­prov­ing look.

Although Joseph is sup­port­ive and light­heart­ed, jok­ing about pirates and their tumul­tuous lives, he also inter­nal­ly grap­ples with the weight of his cir­cum­stances. As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Ivy pre­pares to face the author­i­ties regard­ing their tumul­tuous life, know­ing that neglect­ing the shad­ows of dan­ger might cost her dear­ly. In this moment, there’s an under­ly­ing ten­sion as Ivy con­tem­plates how much of Joseph’s life she has tru­ly seen and under­stood, hint­ing at the chal­lenges that lie ahead for their frac­tured fam­i­ly dynam­ic.

In Chap­ter 2, Phoebe and her hus­band, Matt, nav­i­gate the after­math of a failed preg­nan­cy. They search online for a vaca­tion des­ti­na­tion to escape their recent heart­break, dri­ven by a long­ing for indul­gence and fun after the dis­ap­point­ment of their fer­til­i­ty strug­gles. Phoebe finds a Vic­to­ri­an hotel, the Corn­wall Inn, which offers entic­ing activ­i­ties like hot tubs, yoga, and pad­dle­board­ing. Despite her metic­u­lous plan­ning, Mat­t’s reac­tion to her detailed spreadsheet—one she cre­at­ed to orga­nize the fun they hope to have—reflects his grow­ing impa­tience with her need to quan­ti­fy every aspect of their lives, par­tic­u­lar­ly their attempts to con­ceive.

While con­tem­plat­ing their vaca­tion, Phoebe reflects on her aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suit, her ana­lyt­i­cal nature, and her com­plex feel­ings towards her husband’s suc­cess­es, which stark­ly con­trast against her stag­nant career as an adjunct pro­fes­sor. The nar­ra­tive reveals under­ly­ing ten­sions in their mar­riage as they face soci­etal expec­ta­tions of child­bear­ing and pro­fes­sion­al accom­plish­ments. Matt wins an award at work, which height­ens Phoe­be’s feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy. Her friends and col­leagues cel­e­brate him, yet she strug­gles to feel joy amidst her own pro­fes­sion­al stag­na­tion.

The cou­ple’s dynam­ics become strained as Phoebe grap­ples with her iden­ti­ty out­side moth­er­hood and begins to ques­tion what being “nor­mal” means in their lives. Mean­while, hints of infi­deli­ty emerge as Phoe­be’s inse­cu­ri­ties inten­si­fy. Their inter­ac­tions are laced with a blend of humor and sad­ness, show­cas­ing their attempts to recon­nect while being bur­dened by both per­son­al and soci­etal expec­ta­tions. Ulti­mate­ly, Chap­ter 2 depicts a cou­ple in cri­sis, vac­il­lat­ing between hope and despair, as they con­front the real­i­ties of their choic­es and ambi­tions against the back­drop of their tumul­tuous rela­tion­ship.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

reward­ed for it.

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.

TWO
When you live in your car, you have to keep things sim­ple.
You’re not going to be host­ing any major gath­er­ings, for one thing. No
wine and cheese par­ties, no pok­er nights. That’s fine, because I don’t have
any­one I want to see. The big­ger prob­lem is where to take a show­er. Three
days after I was evict­ed from my stu­dio, which was three weeks after I got
fired from my job, I dis­cov­ered a rest stop that had show­ers. I almost cried
with joy when I saw it. Yes, the show­ers have very lit­tle pri­va­cy and smell
faint­ly of human waste, but at that point, I was des­per­ate to be clean.
Now I’m enjoy­ing my lunch in the back seat of the car. I do have a hot
plate that I can plug into the cig­a­rette lighter for spe­cial occa­sions, but
most­ly I eat sand­wich­es. Lots and lots of sand­wich­es. I’ve got a cool­er
where I store the cold cuts and cheese, and I’ve got a loaf of white bread—
nine­ty-nine cents at the super­mar­ket. And then snacks, of course. Bags of
chips. Crack­ers with peanut but­ter. Twinkies. The unhealthy options are
end­less.
Today I’m eat­ing ham and Amer­i­can cheese, with a dol­lop of
may­on­naise. With every bite I take, I try not to think about how sick I am of
sand­wich­es.
After I’ve forced down half my sand­wich, my phone rings in my
pock­et. I have one of those pre­paid flip phones that peo­ple only use if
they’re going to com­mit a crime or else they’ve trav­eled back fif­teen years
in the past. But I need a phone and this is all I can afford.
“Wil­helmi­na Cal­loway?” a woman’s clipped voice says on the oth­er
line.
I wince at the use of my full name. Wil­helmi­na was my father’s moth­er,
who is long gone. I don’t know what sort of psy­chopaths would name their
child Wil­helmi­na, but I don’t speak to my par­ents any­more (and like­wise,
they don’t speak to me), so it’s a lit­tle late to ask. Any­way, I’ve always just
been Mil­lie, and I try to cor­rect peo­ple as quick­ly as I can. But I get the
feel­ing that who­ev­er is call­ing me isn’t some­body I’m going to be on a first-
name basis with any­time soon. “Yes…?”
“Ms. Cal­loway,” the woman says. “This is Don­na Stan­ton from Munch
Burg­ers.”
Oh right. Munch Burgers—the greasy fast-food joint that grant­ed me an
inter­view a few days ago. I would be flip­ping burg­ers or else man­ning the
cash reg­is­ter. But if I worked hard, there was some oppor­tu­ni­ty for
advance­ment. And bet­ter yet, an oppor­tu­ni­ty to have enough mon­ey to
move out of my car.
Of course, the job I real­ly would’ve loved was at the Win­ches­ter
house­hold. But it’s been a whole week since I met with Nina Win­ches­ter.
It’s safe to say I didn’t get my dream job.
“I just want­ed to let you know,” Ms. Stan­ton goes on, “that we have
already filled the posi­tion at Munch Burg­ers. But we wish you luck with
your job search.”
The ham and Amer­i­can cheese in my stom­ach churn. I had read online
that Munch Burg­ers didn’t have very strict hir­ing prac­tices. That even if I
had a record, I might have a chance. This is the last inter­view I’ve man­aged
to book, ever since Mrs. Win­ches­ter failed to call me back—and I’m
des­per­ate. I can’t eat one more sand­wich in my car. I just can’t.
“Ms. Stan­ton,” I blurt out. “I’m just won­der­ing if you might be able to
hire me at any oth­er loca­tion. I’m a real­ly hard work­er. I’m very reli­able. I
always…”
I stop talk­ing. She’s already hung up.
I clutch my sand­wich in my right hand as I grip my phone in my left.
This is hope­less. Nobody wants to hire me. Every poten­tial employ­er looks
at me in the exact same way. All I want is a fresh start. I’ll work my butt off
if I have to. I’ll do what­ev­er it takes.
I fight back tears, although I don’t know why I’m both­er­ing. Nobody
will see me cry­ing in the back­seat of my Nis­san. There isn’t any­body who
cares about me any­more. My par­ents wiped their hands of me more than ten
years ago.
My phone rings again, star­tling me out of my pity par­ty. I wipe my eyes
with the back of my hand and click the green but­ton to take the call.
“Hel­lo?” I croak.
“Hi? Is this Mil­lie?”
The voice sounds vague­ly famil­iar. I squeeze the phone to my ear, my
heart leap­ing. “Yes…”
“This is Nina Win­ches­ter. You inter­viewed with me last week?”
“Oh.” I bite down hard on my low­er lip. Why is she call­ing back now? I
assumed she had already hired some­body and decid­ed not to inform me.
“Yes, of course.”
“So if you’re inter­est­ed, we would be delight­ed to offer you the job.”
I feel a rush of blood to my head that makes me almost dizzy. We would
be delight­ed to offer you the job. Is she seri­ous? It was con­ceiv­able that
Munch Burg­ers might hire me, but it seemed out­right impos­si­ble that a
woman like Nina Win­ches­ter might invite me into her home. To live.
Is it pos­si­ble she didn’t check my ref­er­ences? Didn’t do a sim­ple
back­ground check? Maybe she’s just so busy, she nev­er got around to it.
Maybe she’s one of those women who prides her­self on gut feel­ings.
“Mil­lie? Are you there?”
I real­ize I’ve been com­plete­ly silent on the oth­er line. I’m that stunned.
“Yes. I’m here.”
“So are you inter­est­ed in the posi­tion?”
“I am.” I’m try­ing not to sound too ridicu­lous­ly eager. “I def­i­nite­ly am.
I would love to work for you.”
“Work with me,” Nina cor­rects me.
I let out a stran­gled laugh. “Right. Of course.”
“So when can you start?”
“Um, when would you like me to start?”
“As soon as pos­si­ble!” I’m jeal­ous of Nina’s easy laugh that sounds so
dif­fer­ent from my own. If only I could snap my fin­gers and trade places
with her. “We have a ton of laun­dry that needs fold­ing!”
I swal­low. “How about tomor­row?”
“That would be won­der­ful! But don’t you need time to get your stuff
packed?”
I don’t want to tell her that every­thing I own is already in the trunk of
my car. “I’m a fast pack­er.”

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.

CHAPTER
2
“I want to go.”
“No.”
I crossed my arms, tuck­ing my tat­tooed hand under my right bicep, and
spread my feet slight­ly fur­ther apart on the dirt floor of the sta­bles. “It’s
been three months. Nothing’s hap­pened, and the vil­lage isn’t even five
miles—”
“No.” The mid­morn­ing sun stream­ing through the sta­ble doors bur­nished
Tamlin’s gold­en hair as he fin­ished buck­ling the ban­dolier of dag­gers across
his chest. His face—ruggedly hand­some, exact­ly as I’d dreamed it dur­ing
those long months he’d worn a mask—was set, his lips a thin line.
Behind him, already atop his dap­ple-gray horse, along with three oth­er
Fae lord-sen­tries, Lucien silent­ly shook his head in warn­ing, his met­al eye
nar­row­ing. Don’t push him, he seemed to say.
But as Tam­lin strode toward where his black stal­lion had already been
sad­dled, I grit­ted my teeth and stormed after him. “The vil­lage needs all the
help it can get.”
“And we’re still hunt­ing down Amarantha’s beasts,” he said, mount­ing
his horse in one flu­id motion. Some­times, I won­dered if the hors­es were just
to main­tain an appear­ance of civility—of nor­mal­cy. To pre­tend that he
couldn’t run faster than them, didn’t live with one foot in the for­est. His
green eyes were like chips of ice as the stal­lion start­ed into a walk. “I don’t
have the sen­tries to spare to escort you.”
I lunged for the bri­dle. “I don’t need an escort.” My grip tight­ened on the
leather as I tugged the horse to a stop, and the gold­en ring on my fin­ger—
along with the square-cut emer­ald glit­ter­ing atop it—flashed in the sun.
It had been two months since Tam­lin had proposed—two months of
endur­ing pre­sen­ta­tions about flow­ers and clothes and seat­ing arrange­ments
and food. I’d had a small reprieve a week ago, thanks to the Win­ter Sol­stice,
though I’d trad­ed con­tem­plat­ing lace and silk for select­ing ever­green
wreaths and gar­lands. But at least it had been a break.
Three days of feast­ing and drink­ing and exchang­ing small presents,
cul­mi­nat­ing in a long, rather odi­ous cer­e­mo­ny atop the foothills on the
longest night to escort us from one year to anoth­er as the sun died and was
born anew. Or some­thing like that. Cel­e­brat­ing a win­ter hol­i­day in a place
that was per­ma­nent­ly entrenched in spring hadn’t done much to improve
my gen­er­al lack of fes­tive cheer.
I hadn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly lis­tened to the expla­na­tions of its origins—and the
Fae them­selves debat­ed whether it had emerged from the Win­ter Court or
Day Court. Both now claimed it as their holi­est hol­i­day. All I real­ly knew
was that I’d had to endure two cer­e­monies: one at sun­set to begin that
end­less night of presents and danc­ing and drink­ing in hon­or of the old sun’s
death; and one at the fol­low­ing dawn, bleary-eyed and feet aching, to
wel­come the sun’s rebirth.
It was bad enough that I’d been required to stand before the gath­ered
courtiers and less­er faeries while Tam­lin made his many toasts and salutes.
Men­tion­ing that my birth­day had also fall­en on that longest night of the
year was a fact I’d con­ve­nient­ly for­got­ten to tell any­one. I’d received
enough presents, anyway—and would no doubt receive many, many more
on my wed­ding day. I had lit­tle use for so many things.
Now, only two weeks stood between me and the cer­e­mo­ny. If I didn’t get
out of the manor, if I didn’t have a day to do some­thing oth­er than spend
Tamlin’s mon­ey and be grov­eled to—
“Please. The recov­ery efforts are so slow. I could hunt for the vil­lagers,
get them food—”
“It’s not safe,” Tam­lin said, again nudg­ing his stal­lion into a walk. The
horse’s coat shone like a dark mir­ror, even in the shade of the sta­bles.
“Espe­cial­ly not for you.”
He’d said that every time we had this argu­ment; every time I begged him
to let me go to the near­by vil­lage of High Fae to help rebuild what
Ama­ran­tha had burned years ago.
I fol­lowed him into the bright, cloud­less day beyond the sta­bles, the
grass­es coat­ing the near­by foothills undu­lat­ing in the soft breeze. “Peo­ple
want to come back, they want a place to live—”
“Those same peo­ple see you as a blessing—a mark­er of sta­bil­i­ty. If
some­thing hap­pened to you … ” He cut him­self off as he halt­ed his horse at
the edge of the dirt path that would take him toward the east­ern woods,
Lucien now wait­ing a few yards down it. “There’s no point in rebuild­ing
any­thing if Amarantha’s crea­tures tear through the lands and destroy it
again.”
“The wards are up—”
“Some slipped in before the wards were repaired. Lucien hunt­ed down
five naga yes­ter­day.”
I whipped my head toward Lucien, who winced. He hadn’t told me that
at din­ner last night. He’d lied when I’d asked him why he was limp­ing. My
stom­ach turned over—not just at the lie, but … naga. Some­times I dreamed
of their blood show­er­ing me as I killed them, of their leer­ing ser­pen­tine
faces while they tried to fil­let me in the woods.
Tam­lin said soft­ly, “I can’t do what I need to if I’m wor­ry­ing about
whether you’re safe.”
“Of course I’ll be safe.” As a High Fae, with my strength and speed, I’d
stand a good chance of get­ting away if some­thing hap­pened.
“Please—please just do this for me,” Tam­lin said, stroking his stallion’s
thick neck as the beast nick­ered with impa­tience. The oth­ers had already
moved their hors­es into easy can­ters, the first of them near­ly with­in the
shade of the woods. Tam­lin jerked his chin toward the alabaster estate
loom­ing behind me. “I’m sure there are things to help with around the
house. Or you could paint. Try out that new set I gave for you for Win­ter
Sol­stice.”
There was noth­ing but wed­ding plan­ning wait­ing for me in the house,
since Alis refused to let me lift a fin­ger to do any­thing. Not because of who
I was to Tam­lin, what I was about to become to Tam­lin, but … because of
what I’d done for her, for her boys, for Pry­thi­an. All the ser­vants were the
same; some still cried with grat­i­tude when they passed me in the halls. And
as for paint­ing …
“Fine,” I breathed. I made myself look him in the eye, made myself
smile. “Be care­ful,” I said, and meant it. The thought of him going out
there, hunt­ing the mon­sters that had once served Ama­ran­tha …
“I love you,” Tam­lin said qui­et­ly.
I nod­ded, mur­mur­ing it back as he trot­ted to where Lucien still wait­ed,
the emis­sary now frown­ing slight­ly. I didn’t watch them go.
I took my time retreat­ing through the hedges of the gar­dens, the spring
birds chirp­ing mer­ri­ly, grav­el crunch­ing under my flim­sy shoes.
I hat­ed the bright dress­es that had become my dai­ly uni­form, but didn’t
have the heart to tell Tamlin—not when he’d bought so many, not when he
looked so hap­py to see me wear them. Not when his words weren’t far from
the truth. The day I put on my pants and tunics, the day I strapped weapons
to myself like fine jew­el­ry, it would send a mes­sage far and clear across the
lands. So I wore the gowns, and let Alis arrange my hair—if only so it
would buy these peo­ple a mea­sure of peace and com­fort.
At least Tam­lin didn’t object to the dag­ger I kept at my side, hang­ing
from a jew­eled belt. Lucien had gift­ed both to me—the dag­ger dur­ing the
months before Ama­ran­tha, the belt in the weeks after her down­fall, when
I’d car­ried the dag­ger, along with many oth­ers, every­where I went. You
might as well look good if you’re going to arm your­self to the teeth, he’d
said.
But even if sta­bil­i­ty reigned for a hun­dred years, I doubt­ed I’d ever
awak­en one morn­ing and not put on the knife.
A hun­dred years.
I had that—I had cen­turies ahead of me. Cen­turies with Tam­lin, cen­turies
in this beau­ti­ful, qui­et place. Per­haps I’d sort myself out some­time along
the way. Per­haps not.
I paused before the stairs lead­ing up into the rose-and-ivy-cov­ered house,
and peeked toward the right—toward the for­mal rose gar­den and the
win­dows just beyond it.
I’d only set foot in that room—my old paint­ing studio—once, when I’d
first returned.
And all those paint­ings, all the sup­plies, all that blank can­vas wait­ing for
me to pour out sto­ries and feel­ings and dreams … I’d hat­ed it.
I’d walked out moments lat­er and hadn’t returned since.
I’d stopped cat­a­loging col­or and feel­ing and tex­ture, stopped notic­ing it. I
could bare­ly look at the paint­ings hang­ing inside the manor.
A sweet, female voice trilled my name from inside the open doors of the
manor, and the tight­ness in my shoul­ders eased a bit.
Ianthe. The High Priest­ess, as well as a High Fae noble and child­hood
friend of Tamlin’s, who had tak­en it upon her­self to help plan the wed­ding
fes­tiv­i­ties.
And who had tak­en it upon her­self to wor­ship me and Tam­lin as if we
were new­ly mint­ed gods, blessed and cho­sen by the Caul­dron itself.
But I didn’t complain—not when Ianthe knew every­one in the court and
out­side of it. She’d linger by my side at events and din­ners, feed­ing me
details about those in atten­dance, and was the main rea­son why I’d sur­vived
the mer­ry whirl­wind of Win­ter Sol­stice. She’d been the one pre­sid­ing over
the var­i­ous cer­e­monies, after all—and I’d been more than hap­py to let her
choose what man­ner of wreaths and gar­lands should adorn the manor and
grounds, what sil­ver­ware com­ple­ment­ed each meal.
Beyond that … while Tam­lin was the one who paid for my every­day
clothes, it was Ianthe’s eye that select­ed them. She was the heart of her
peo­ple, ordained by the Hand of the God­dess to lead them from despair and
dark­ness.
I was in no posi­tion to doubt. She hadn’t led me astray yet—and I’d
learned to dread the days when she was busy at her own tem­ple on the
grounds, over­see­ing pil­grims and her acolytes. Today, though—yes,
spend­ing time with Ianthe was bet­ter than the alter­na­tive.
I bunched the gauzy skirts of my dawn-pink gown in a hand and
ascend­ed the mar­ble steps into the house.
Next time, I promised myself. Next time, I’d con­vince Tam­lin to let me
go to the vil­lage.
“Oh, we can’t let her sit next to him. They’d rip each oth­er to shreds, and
then we’d have blood ruin­ing the table linens.” Beneath her pale, blue-gray
hood, Ianthe fur­rowed her brow, crin­kling the tat­too of the var­i­ous stages of
a moon’s cycle stamped across it. She scrib­bled out the name she’d dashed
onto one of the seat­ing charts moments before.
The day had turned warm, the room a bit stuffy even with the breeze
through the open win­dows. And yet the heavy hood­ed robe remained on.
All the High Priest­esses wore the bil­low­ing, art­ful­ly twist­ed and lay­ered
robes—though they cer­tain­ly were far from matron­ly. Ianthe’s slim waist
was on dis­play with a fine belt of sky-blue, limpid stones, each per­fect­ly
oval and held in shin­ing sil­ver. And atop her hood sat a match­ing circlet—a
del­i­cate band of sil­ver, with a large stone at its cen­ter. A pan­el of cloth had
been fold­ed up beneath the cir­clet, a built-in swath meant to be pulled over
the brow and eyes when she need­ed to pray, beseech the Caul­dron and
Moth­er, or just think.
Ianthe had shown me once what the pan­el looked like when down: only
her nose and full, sen­su­ous mouth vis­i­ble. The Voice of the Caul­dron. I’d
found the image unsettling—that mere­ly cov­er­ing the upper part of her face
had some­how turned the bright, cun­ning female into an effi­gy, into
some­thing Oth­er. Mer­ci­ful­ly, she kept it fold­ed back most of the time.
Occa­sion­al­ly, she even took the hood off entire­ly to let the sun play in her
long, gen­tly curl­ing gold­en hair.
Ianthe’s sil­ver rings gleamed atop her man­i­cured fin­gers as she wrote
anoth­er name down. “It’s like a game,” she said, sigh­ing through her pert
nose. “All these pieces, vying for pow­er or dom­i­nance, will­ing to shed
blood, if need be. It must be a strange adjust­ment for you.”
Such ele­gance and wealth—yet the sav­agery remained. The High Fae
weren’t the tit­ter­ing nobil­i­ty of the mor­tal world. No, if they feud­ed, it
would end with some­one being ripped to bloody rib­bons. Lit­er­al­ly.
Once, I’d trem­bled to share breath­ing space with them.
I flexed my fin­gers, stretch­ing and con­tort­ing the tat­toos etched into my
skin.
Now I could fight along­side them, against them. Not that I’d tried.
I was too watched—too mon­i­tored and judged. Why should the bride of
the High Lord learn to fight if peace had returned? That had been Ianthe’s
rea­son­ing when I’d made the mis­take of men­tion­ing it at din­ner. Tam­lin, to
his cred­it, had seen both sides: I’d learn to pro­tect myself … but the rumors
would spread.
“Humans aren’t much bet­ter,” I told her at last. And because Ianthe was
about the only one of my new com­pan­ions who didn’t look par­tic­u­lar­ly
stunned or fright­ened by me, I tried to make con­ver­sa­tion and said, “My
sis­ter Nes­ta would like­ly fit right in.”
Ianthe cocked her head, the sun­light set­ting the blue stone atop her hood
glim­mer­ing. “Will your mor­tal kin be join­ing us?”
“No.” I hadn’t thought to invite them—hadn’t want­ed to expose them to
Pry­thi­an. Or to what I’d become.
She tapped a long, slen­der fin­ger on the table. “But they live so close to
the wall, don’t they? If it was impor­tant for you to have them here, Tam­lin
and I could ensure their safe jour­ney.” In the hours we’d spent togeth­er, I’d
told her about the vil­lage, and the house my sis­ters now lived in, about
Isaac Hale and Tomas Man­dray. I hadn’t been able to men­tion Clare Bed­dor
—or what had hap­pened to her fam­i­ly.
“For all that she’d hold her own,” I said, fight­ing past the mem­o­ry of that
human girl, and what had been done to her, “my sis­ter Nes­ta detests your
kind.”
“Our kind,” Ianthe cor­rect­ed qui­et­ly. “We’ve dis­cussed this.”
I just nod­ded.
But she went on, “We are old, and cun­ning, and enjoy using words like
blades and claws. Every word from your mouth, every turn of phrase, will
be judged—and pos­si­bly used against you.” As if to soft­en the warn­ing, she
added, “Be on your guard, Lady.”
Lady. A non­sense name. No one knew what to call me. I wasn’t born
High Fae.
I’d been Made—resurrected and giv­en this new body by the sev­en High
Lords of Pry­thi­an. I wasn’t Tamlin’s mate, as far as I knew. There was no
mat­ing bond between us—yet.
Hon­est­ly … Hon­est­ly, Ianthe, with her bright gold hair, those teal eyes,
ele­gant fea­tures, and sup­ple body, looked more like Tamlin’s mate. His
equal. A union with Tamlin—a High Lord and a High Priestess—would
send a clear mes­sage of strength to any pos­si­ble threats to our lands. And
secure the pow­er Ianthe was no doubt keen on build­ing for her­self.
Among the High Fae, the priest­esses over­saw their cer­e­monies and
rit­u­als, record­ed their his­to­ries and leg­ends, and advised their lords and
ladies in mat­ters great and triv­ial. I hadn’t wit­nessed any mag­ic from her,
but when I’d asked Lucien, he’d frowned and said their mag­ic was drawn
from their cer­e­monies, and could be utter­ly lethal should they choose it. I’d
watched her on the Win­ter Sol­stice for any signs of it, mark­ing the way
she’d posi­tioned her­self so that the ris­ing sun filled her uplift­ed arms, but
there had been no rip­ple or thrum of pow­er. From her, or the earth beneath
us.
I didn’t know what I’d real­ly expect­ed from Ianthe—one of the twelve
High Priest­esses who togeth­er gov­erned their sis­ters across every ter­ri­to­ry
in Pry­thi­an. Ancient, celi­bate, and qui­et had been the extent of my
expec­ta­tions, thanks to those whis­pered mor­tal leg­ends, when Tam­lin had
announced that an old friend was soon to occu­py and ren­o­vate the
crum­bling tem­ple com­plex on our lands. But Ianthe had breezed into our
house the next morn­ing and those expec­ta­tions had imme­di­ate­ly been
tram­pled. Espe­cial­ly the celi­bate part.
Priest­esses could mar­ry, bear chil­dren, and dal­ly as they would. It would
dis­hon­or the Cauldron’s gift of fer­til­i­ty to lock up their instincts, their
inher­ent female mag­ic in bear­ing life, Ianthe had once told me.
So while the sev­en High Lords ruled Pry­thi­an from thrones, the twelve
High Priest­esses reigned from the altars, their chil­dren as pow­er­ful and
respect­ed as any lord’s off­spring. And Ianthe, the youngest High Priest­ess
in three cen­turies, remained unmar­ried, child­less, and keen to enjoy the
finest males the land has to offer.
I often won­dered what it was like to be that free and so set­tled with­in
your­self.
When I didn’t respond to her gen­tle rep­ri­mand, she said, “Have you
giv­en any thought to what col­or ros­es? White? Pink? Yel­low? Red—”
“Not red.”
I hat­ed that col­or. More than any­thing. Amarantha’s hair, all that blood,
the welts on Clare Beddor’s bro­ken body, spiked to the walls of Under the
Moun­tain—
“Rus­set could be pret­ty, with all the green … But maybe that’s too
Autumn Court.” Again, that fin­ger tapped on the table.
“What­ev­er col­or you want.” If I were being blunt with myself, I’d admit
that Ianthe had become a crutch. But she seemed will­ing to do it—caring
when I couldn’t bring myself to.
Yet Ianthe’s brows lift­ed slight­ly.
Despite being a High Priest­ess, she and her fam­i­ly had escaped the
hor­rors of Under the Moun­tain by run­ning. Her father, one of Tamlin’s
strongest allies amongst the Spring Court and a cap­tain in his forces, had
sensed trou­ble com­ing and packed off Ianthe, her moth­er, and two younger
sis­ters to Val­la­han, one of the count­less faerie ter­ri­to­ries across the ocean.
For fifty years, they’d lived in the for­eign court, bid­ing their time while
their peo­ple were butchered and enslaved.
She hadn’t once men­tioned it. I knew bet­ter than to ask.
“Every ele­ment of this wed­ding sends a mes­sage to not only Pry­thi­an, but
the world beyond,” she said. I sti­fled a sigh. I knew—she’d told me this
before. “I know you are not fond of the dress—”
Under­state­ment. I hat­ed the mon­stros­i­ty of tulle she’d select­ed. Tam­lin
had, too—though he’d laughed him­self hoarse when I showed him in the
pri­va­cy of my room. But he’d promised me that though the dress was
absurd, the priest­ess knew what she was doing. I’d want­ed to push back
about it, hat­ing that though he agreed with me, he had sided with her, but …
it took more ener­gy than it was worth.
Ianthe went on, “But it makes the right state­ment. I’ve spent time
amongst enough courts to know how they oper­ate. Trust me in this.”
“I do trust you,” I said, and waved a hand toward the papers before us.
“You know how to do these things. I don’t.”
Sil­ver tin­kled at Ianthe’s wrists, so like the bracelets the Chil­dren of the
Blessed wore on the oth­er side of the wall. I some­times won­dered if those
fool­ish humans had stolen the idea from the High Priest­esses of Pry­thi­an—
if it had been a priest­ess like Ianthe who had spread such non­sense among
humans.
“It’s an impor­tant moment for me as well,” Ianthe said care­ful­ly,
adjust­ing the cir­clet atop her hood. Teal eyes met mine. “You and I are so
alike—young, untest­ed amongst these … wolves. I am grate­ful to you, and
to Tam­lin, to allow me to pre­side over the cer­e­mo­ny, to be invit­ed to work
with this court, be a part of this court. The oth­er High Priest­esses do not
par­tic­u­lar­ly care for me, nor I for them, but … ” She shook her head, the
hood sway­ing with her. “Togeth­er,” she mur­mured, “the three of us make a
for­mi­da­ble unit. Four, if you count Lucien.” She snort­ed. “Not that he
par­tic­u­lar­ly wants any­thing to do with me.”
A lead­ing state­ment.
She often found ways to bring him up, to cor­ner him at events, to touch
his elbow or shoul­der. He ignored it all. Last week, I’d final­ly asked him if
she’d set her sights on him, and Lucien had mere­ly giv­en me a look,
snarling soft­ly, before stalk­ing off. I took that as a yes.
But a match with Lucien would be near­ly as ben­e­fi­cial as one with
Tam­lin: the right hand of a High Lord and anoth­er High Lord’s son … Any
off­spring would be pow­er­ful, cov­et­ed.
“You know it’s … hard for him, where females are involved,” I said
neu­tral­ly.
“He has been with many females since the death of his lover.”
“Per­haps it’s dif­fer­ent with you—perhaps it’d mean some­thing he’s not
ready for.” I shrugged, search­ing for the right words. “Per­haps he stays
away because of it.”
She con­sid­ered, and I prayed she bought my half lie. Ianthe was
ambi­tious, clever, beau­ti­ful, and bold—but I did not think Lucien for­gave
her, or would ever for­give her, for flee­ing dur­ing Amarantha’s reign.
Some­times I hon­est­ly won­dered if my friend might rip her throat out for it.
Ianthe nod­ded at last. “Are you at least excit­ed for the wed­ding?”
I fid­dled with my emer­ald ring. “It’ll be the hap­pi­est day of my life.”
The day Tam­lin had asked me to mar­ry him, I’d cer­tain­ly felt that way.
I’d wept with joy as I told him yes, yes, a thou­sand times yes, and made
love to him in the field of wild­flow­ers where he’d brought me for the
occa­sion.
Ianthe nod­ded. “The union is Caul­dron-blessed. Your sur­vival of the
hor­rors Under the Moun­tain only proves it.”
I caught her glance then—toward my left hand, the tat­toos.
It was an effort not to tuck my hand beneath the table.
The tat­too on her brow was of mid­night-blue ink—but some­how still fit,
still accent­ed the fem­i­nine dress­es, the bright sil­ver jew­el­ry. Unlike the
ele­gant bru­tal­i­ty of mine.
“We could get you gloves,” she offered casu­al­ly.
And that would send anoth­er message—perhaps to the per­son I so
des­per­ate­ly hoped had for­got­ten I exist­ed.
“I’ll con­sid­er it,” I said with a bland smile.
It was all I could do to keep from bolt­ing before the hour was up and
Ianthe float­ed to her own per­son­al prayer room—a gift from Tam­lin upon
her return—to offer mid­day thanks to the Caul­dron for our land’s lib­er­a­tion,
my tri­umph, and Tamlin’s ensured dom­i­nance over this land.
I some­times debat­ed ask­ing her to pray for me as well.
To pray that I’d one day learn to love the dress­es, and the par­ties, and my
role as a blush­ing, pret­ty bride.
I was already in bed when Tam­lin entered my room, silent as a stag through
a wood. I lift­ed my head, going for the dag­ger I kept on the night­stand, but
relaxed at the broad shoul­ders, at the hall­way can­dle­light gild­ing his tan
skin and veil­ing his face in shad­ow.
“You’re awake?” he mur­mured. I could hear the frown in his voice. He’d
been in his study since din­ner, sort­ing through the pile of paper­work Lucien
had dumped on his desk.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said, watch­ing his mus­cles shift as he moved to the
bathing room to wash up. I’d been try­ing to sleep for an hour now—but
each time I closed my eyes, my body locked up, the walls of the room
pushed in. I’d gone so far as to throw open the win­dows, but … It was
going to be a long night.
I lay back on the pil­lows, lis­ten­ing to the steady, effi­cient sounds of him
prepar­ing for bed. He kept his own quar­ters, deem­ing it vital for me to have
my own space.
But he slept in here every night. I’d yet to vis­it his bed, though I
won­dered if our wed­ding night would change that. I prayed I wouldn’t
thrash awake and vom­it on the sheets when I didn’t rec­og­nize where I was,
when I didn’t know if the dark­ness was per­ma­nent.
Maybe that was why he hadn’t pushed the issue yet.
He emerged from the bathing room, sling­ing off his tunic and shirt, and I
propped myself on my elbows to watch as he paused at the edge of the bed.
My atten­tion went right to the strong, clever fin­gers that unfas­tened his
pants.
Tam­lin let out a low snarl of approval, and I bit my bot­tom lip as he
removed his pants, along with his under­gar­ments, reveal­ing the proud, thick
length of him. My mouth went dry, and I dragged my gaze up his mus­cled
tor­so, over the panes of his chest, and then—
“Come here,” he growled, so rough­ly the words were bare­ly dis­cern­able.
I pushed back the blan­kets, reveal­ing my already naked body, and he
hissed.
His fea­tures turned rav­en­ous while I crawled across the bed and rose up
on my knees. I took his face in my hands, the gold­en skin framed on either
side by fin­gers of ivory and of swirling black, and kissed him.
He held my gaze through the kiss, even as I pushed myself clos­er, bit­ing
back a small noise when he brushed against my stom­ach.
His cal­lused hands grazed my hips, my waist, then held me there as he
low­ered his head, seiz­ing the kiss. A brush of his tongue against the seam of
my lips had me open­ing ful­ly for him, and he swept in, claim­ing me,
brand­ing me.
I moaned then, tilt­ing my head back to give him bet­ter access. His hands
clamped on my waist, then moved—one going to cup my rear, the oth­er
slid­ing between us.
This—this moment, when it was him and me and noth­ing between our
bod­ies …
His tongue scraped the roof of my mouth as he dragged a fin­ger down the
cen­ter of me, and I gasped, my back arch­ing. “Feyre,” he said against my
lips, my name like a prayer more devout than any Ianthe had offered up to
the Caul­dron on that dark sol­stice morn­ing.
His tongue swept my mouth again, in time to the fin­ger that he slipped
inside of me. My hips undu­lat­ed, demand­ing more, crav­ing the full­ness of
him, and his growl rever­ber­at­ed in my chest as he added anoth­er fin­ger.
I moved on him. Light­ning lashed through my veins, and my focus
nar­rowed to his fin­gers, his mouth, his body on mine. His palm pushed
against the bun­dle of nerves at the apex of my thighs, and I groaned his
name as I shat­tered.
My head thrown back, I gulped down night-cool air, and then I was being
low­ered to the bed, gen­tly, del­i­cate­ly, lov­ing­ly.
He stretched out above me, his head low­er­ing to my breast, and all it took
was one press of his teeth against my nip­ple before I was claw­ing at his
back, before I hooked my legs around him and he set­tled between them.
This—I need­ed this.
He paused, arms trem­bling as he held him­self over me.
“Please,” I gasped out.
He just brushed his lips against my jaw, my neck, my mouth.
“Tam­lin,” I begged. He palmed my breast, his thumb flick­ing over my
nip­ple. I cried out, and he buried him­self in me with a mighty stroke.
For a moment, I was noth­ing, no one.
Then we were fused, two hearts beat­ing as one, and I promised myself it
always would be that way as he pulled out a few inch­es, the mus­cles of his
back flex­ing beneath my hands, and then slammed back into me. Again and
again.
I broke and broke against him as he moved, as he mur­mured my name
and told me he loved me. And when that light­ning once more filled my
veins, my head, when I gasped out his name, his own release found him. I
gripped him through each shud­der­ing wave, savor­ing the weight of him, the
feel of his skin, his strength.
For a while, only the rasp of our breath­ing filled the room.
I frowned as he with­drew at last—but he didn’t go far. He stretched out
on his side, head propped on a fist, and traced idle cir­cles on my stom­ach,
along my breasts.
“I’m sor­ry about ear­li­er,” he mur­mured.
“It’s fine,” I breathed. “I under­stand.”
Not a lie, but not quite true.
His fin­gers grazed low­er, cir­cling my bel­ly but­ton. “You are—you’re
every­thing to me,” he said thick­ly. “I need … I need you to be all right. To
know they can’t get to you—can’t hurt you any­more.”
“I know.” Those fin­gers drift­ed low­er. I swal­lowed hard and said again,
“I know.” I brushed his hair back from his face. “But what about you? Who
gets to keep you safe?”
His mouth tight­ened. With his pow­ers returned, he didn’t need any­one to
pro­tect him, shield him. I could almost see invis­i­ble hack­les raising—not at
me, but at the thought of what he’d been mere months ago: prone to
Amarantha’s whims, his pow­er bare­ly a trick­le com­pared to the cas­cade
now cours­ing through him. He took a steady­ing breath, and leaned to kiss
my heart, right between my breasts. It was answer enough.
“Soon,” he mur­mured, and those fin­gers trav­eled back to my waist. I
almost groaned. “Soon you’ll be my wife, and it’ll be fine. We’ll leave all
this behind us.”
I arched my back, urg­ing his hand low­er, and he chuck­led rough­ly. I
didn’t quite hear myself speak as I focused on the fin­gers that obeyed my
silent com­mand. “What will every­one call me, then?” He grazed my bel­ly
but­ton as he leaned down, suck­ing the tip of my breast into his mouth.

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.

I ’VE SPENT THE PAST FEW days research­ing every­thing I can about
Eve­lyn Hugo. I was nev­er a big film buff, let alone inter­est­ed in any old
Hol­ly­wood stars. But Evelyn’s life—at least the ver­sion on record as of
now—is enough for ten soap operas.
There’s the ear­ly mar­riage that end­ed in divorce when she was
eigh­teen. Then the stu­dio-set­up courtship and tumul­tuous mar­riage to
Hol­ly­wood roy­al­ty Don Adler. The rumors that she left him because he
beat her. Her come­back in a French New Wave film. The quick­ie
Vegas elope­ment with singer Mick Riva. Her glam­orous mar­riage to
the dap­per Rex North, which end­ed in both of them hav­ing affairs.
The beau­ti­ful love sto­ry of her life with Har­ry Cameron and the birth
of their daugh­ter, Con­nor. Their heart­break­ing divorce and her very
quick mar­riage to her old direc­tor Max Girard. Her sup­posed affair
with the much younger Con­gress­man Jack Eas­t­on, which end­ed her
rela­tion­ship with Girard. And final­ly, her mar­riage to financier Robert
Jami­son, rumored to have at least been inspired by Evelyn’s desire to
spite for­mer costar—and Robert’s sister—Celia St. James. All of her
hus­bands have passed away, leav­ing Eve­lyn as the only one with
insight into those rela­tion­ships.
Suf­fice it to say, I have my work cut out for me if I want to get her to
talk about any of it.
After stay­ing late at the office this evening, I final­ly make my way
home a lit­tle before nine. My apart­ment is small. I believe the most
appro­pri­ate term is tee­ny-tiny sar­dine box. But it’s amaz­ing how vast a
small place can feel when half of your things are gone.
David moved out five weeks ago, and I still haven’t man­aged to
replace the dish­es he took with him or the cof­fee table his moth­er
gave us last year as a wed­ding present. Jesus. We didn’t even make it
to our first anniver­sary.
As I walk in my front door and put my bag on the sofa, it strikes me
again just how need­less­ly pet­ty it was of him to take the cof­fee table.
His new San Fran­cis­co stu­dio came ful­ly fur­nished cour­tesy of the
gen­er­ous relo­ca­tion pack­age offered with his pro­mo­tion. I sus­pect he
put the table in stor­age, along with the one night­stand he insist­ed was
right­ful­ly his and all of our cook­books. I don’t miss the cook­books. I
don’t cook. But when things are inscribed to “Monique and David, for
all your many years of hap­pi­ness,” you think of them as half yours.
I hang up my coat and won­der, not for the first time, which ques­tion
gets clos­er to the truth: Did David take the new job and move to San
Fran­cis­co with­out me? Or did I refuse to leave New York for him? As I
take off my shoes, I resolve once again that the answer is some­where
in the mid­dle. But then I come back to the same thought that always
stings afresh: He actu­al­ly left.
I order myself pad thai and then get in the show­er. I turn the water
to near­ly scald­ing hot. I love water so hot it almost burns. I love the
smell of sham­poo. My hap­pi­est place might just be under a
show­er­head. It is here in the steam, cov­ered in suds, that I do not feel
like Monique Grant, woman left behind. Or even Monique Grant,
stalled writer. I am just Monique Grant, own­er of lux­u­ry bath prod­ucts.
Well after I’ve pruned, I dry myself off, put on my sweat­pants, and
pull my hair away from my face, just in time for the deliv­ery­man to
make his way to my door.
I sit with the plas­tic con­tain­er, try­ing to watch TV. I attempt to zone
out. I want to make my brain do some­thing, any­thing, oth­er than think
about work or David. But once my food is gone, I real­ize it’s futile. I
might as well work.
This is all very intimidating—the idea of inter­view­ing Eve­lyn Hugo,
the task of con­trol­ling her nar­ra­tive, of try­ing to make sure she doesn’t
con­trol mine. I’m often inclined to over­pre­pare. But more to the point,
I’ve always been a bit like an ostrich, will­ing to bury my head in the
sand to avoid what I don’t want to face.
So, for the next three days, I do noth­ing but research Eve­lyn Hugo.
I spend my days pulling up old arti­cles about her mar­riages and her
scan­dals. I spend my evenings watch­ing her old movies.
I watch clips of her in Car­oli­na Sun­set, Anna Karen­i­na, Jade
Dia­mond, and All for Us. I watch the GIF of her com­ing out of the
water in Boute-en-Train so many times that when I fall asleep, it plays
over and over in my dreams.
And I start to fall in love with her, just the lit­tlest bit, as I watch her
films. Between the hours of eleven P.M. and two A.M., while the rest of
the world is sleep­ing, my lap­top flick­ers with the sight of her, and the
sound of her voice fills my liv­ing room.
There is no deny­ing that she is a stun­ning­ly beau­ti­ful woman.
Peo­ple often talk about her straight, thick eye­brows and her blond
hair, but I can’t take my eyes off her bone struc­ture. Her jaw­line is
strong, her cheek­bones are high, and all of it comes to a point at her
ever-so-swollen lips. Her eyes are huge but not so much round as an
over­sized almond shape. Her tanned skin next to her light hair looks
beachy but also ele­gant. I know it’s not natural—hair that blond with
skin that bronze—and yet I can’t shake the feel­ing that it should be,
that humans should be born look­ing like this.
I have no doubt that’s part of the rea­son film his­to­ri­an Charles
Red­ding once said that Evelyn’s face felt “inevitable. So exquis­ite, so
near­ly per­fect, that when look­ing at her, you get the sense that her
fea­tures, in that com­bi­na­tion, in that ratio, were bound to hap­pen
soon­er or lat­er.”
I pin images of Eve­lyn in the ’50s wear­ing tight sweaters and bul­let
bras, press pho­tos of her and Don Adler on the Sun­set Stu­dios lot
short­ly after they were mar­ried, shots of her from the ear­ly ’60s with
long, straight hair and soft, thick bangs and wear­ing short-shorts.
There is a pho­to of her in a white one-piece, sit­ting on the shore­line
of a pris­tine beach, with a large, flop­py black hat cov­er­ing most of her
face, her white-blond hair and the right side of her face illu­mi­nat­ed by
the sun.
One of my per­son­al favorites is a black-and-white shot from the
Gold­en Globes in 1967. She is seat­ed on the aisle, her hair pulled into a
loose updo. She is wear­ing a light-col­ored lace gown with a deep scoop
neck­line, her cleav­age con­trolled but on full dis­play and her right leg
escap­ing through the high slit of the skirt.

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.

2
When they got mar­ried, my par­ents lived in a small home in Kent­wood. My
moth­er was no longer sup­port­ed by her fam­i­ly, so my par­ents were very poor.
They were young, too—my mom was twen­ty-one and my father was twen­ty-
three. In 1977, they had my big broth­er, Bryan. When they left that �rst small
place, they bought a lit­tle three-bed­room ranch house.
After Bryan was born, my mom went back to school to become a teacher. My
dad, who worked as a welder at oil re�neries—hard jobs that would last a month
or some­times three—started to drink heav­i­ly, and before too long, that was
tak­ing its toll on the fam­i­ly. The way my mom tells it, a cou­ple of years into the
mar­riage, my grand­fa­ther Bar­ney, my mom’s dad, died in a car acci­dent, and in
the after­math, my dad went on a ben­der, miss­ing Bryan’s �rst birth­day par­ty.
When Bryan was a tod­dler, my father got drunk at a Christ­mas par­ty and went
AWOL on Christ­mas morn­ing. That time my moth­er said she’d had enough.
She went to stay with Lily. That March of 1980, she �led for divorce. But June
and June’s new wife begged her to take him back, and she did.
For a while, appar­ent­ly, every­thing was calm. My dad stopped weld­ing and
start­ed a con­struc­tion busi­ness. Then, after a lot of strug­gle, he got a gym
busi­ness going, too. It was called Total Fit­ness and it trans­formed some of the
men in town, includ­ing my uncles, into body­builders. He ran it in a detached
stu­dio space on our prop­er­ty, next door to the house. An end­less string of
mus­cu­lar men streamed in and out of the gym, �exing their mus­cles in the
mir­rors under the �uores­cent lights.
My dad start­ed doing real­ly well. In our lit­tle town he became one of the
most well‑o� men. My fam­i­ly threw big back­yard craw�sh boils. They had crazy
par­ties, with danc­ing all night long. (I’ve always assumed their secret ingre­di­ent
for stay­ing up all night was speed, since that was the drug of choice back then.)
My mom opened a day­care cen­ter with her sis­ter, my aunt San­dra. To cement
their mar­riage, my par­ents had a sec­ond baby—me. I was born on Decem­ber 2,
1981. My moth­er nev­er missed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to recall that she was in
excru­ci­at­ing labor with me for twen­ty-one hours.
I loved the women in my fam­i­ly. My aunt San­dra, who already had two sons, had
a sur­prise baby at thirty-�ve: my cousin Lau­ra Lynne. Just a few months apart,
Lau­ra Lynne and I were like twins, and we were best friends. Lau­ra Lynne was
always like a sis­ter to me, and San­dra was a sec­ond moth­er. She was so proud of
me and so encour­ag­ing.
And even though my grand­moth­er Jean was gone long before I was born, I
was lucky enough to know her moth­er, my great-grand­moth­er Lex­ie Pierce.
Lex­ie was wicked beau­ti­ful, always made up with a white, white face and red, red
lip­stick. She was a badass, more and more so as she got old­er. I was told, and had
no trou­ble believ­ing, that she’d been mar­ried sev­en times. Sev­en! Obvi­ous­ly, she
dis­liked her son-in-law June, but after her daugh­ter Jean died, she stuck around
and took care of my father and his sib­lings, and then her great-grand­chil­dren,
too.
Lex­ie and I were very close. My most vivid and joy­ful mem­o­ries of being a
lit­tle girl are of times spent with her. We’d have sleep­overs, just the two of us. At
night, we’d go through her make­up cab­i­net. In the morn­ing, she would make me
a huge break­fast. Her best friend, who lived next door, would come over to vis­it
and we’d lis­ten to slow 1950s bal­lads from Lexie’s record col­lec­tion. Dur­ing the
day, Lex­ie and I would nap togeth­er. I loved noth­ing more than drift­ing o� to
sleep by her side, smelling her face pow­der and her per­fume, lis­ten­ing as her
breath­ing grew deep and reg­u­lar.
One day, Lex­ie and I went to rent a movie. As we drove away from the video
rental place, she ran into anoth­er car, then got stuck in a hole. We couldn’t get
out. A tow truck had to come res­cue us. That acci­dent scared my moth­er. From
then on, I wasn’t allowed to hang out with my great-grand­moth­er.

In Chap­ter 2, the school day ends at Albe­mar­le Acad­e­my, releas­ing a wave of chil­dren bur­dened with heavy book bags, among them, Patri­ci­a’s daugh­ter, Korey. Patri­cia sur­pris­es Korey with plans to buy new soc­cer cleats and treats, only for the day to take a turn when Patri­cia brings up a humil­i­at­ing inci­dent involv­ing Korey’s class­mate, Chelsea, that deeply unset­tles Korey. Despite Patri­ci­a’s inten­tions to sup­port her daugh­ter, Korey’s with­draw­al deep­ens her feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy as a moth­er.

Upon arriv­ing home, their inter­ac­tion is inter­rupt­ed by Kit­ty Scrug­gs, a neigh­bor who, in stark con­trast to Patri­ci­a’s approach, offers Korey revenge advice against Chelsea, much to Patri­ci­a’s hor­ror. Yet, Kit­ty’s words unex­pect­ed­ly cheer Korey up, lead­ing Patri­cia to feel a begrudg­ing grat­i­tude towards Kit­ty. This inci­dent intro­duces Patri­cia to a side of par­ent­ing she had­n’t expect­ed, one that requires nav­i­gat­ing her daugh­ter’s feel­ings with a mix of sup­port, under­stand­ing, and some­times, uncon­ven­tion­al advice from neigh­bors.

The chap­ter then tran­si­tions, focus­ing on Patri­ci­a’s new­found escape: a book club with Kit­ty and oth­er neigh­bor­hood women. The club, which delves into true crime sto­ries, pro­vides Patri­cia a much-need­ed out­let from her dai­ly life, allow­ing her to explore her fas­ci­na­tions with­in a safe, com­mu­nal set­ting. This in turn injects an ele­ment of thrill and cama­raderie into her oth­er­wise rou­tine exis­tence, high­light­ing Patri­ci­a’s yearn­ing for some­thing more beyond her house­hold respon­si­bil­i­ties.

The nar­ra­tive takes a poignant turn with the intro­duc­tion of Patri­ci­a’s moth­er-in-law, Miss Mary, whose declin­ing health neces­si­tates her mov­ing in with Patri­ci­a’s fam­i­ly. This sit­u­a­tion strains the fam­i­ly dynam­ic, espe­cial­ly as Miss Mary’s con­di­tion wors­ens, affect­ing every­one’s life sig­nif­i­cant­ly. It’s with­in this chal­leng­ing set­ting that Patri­cia learns of the sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port from her book club friends, par­tic­u­lar­ly Kit­ty, who steps in to pro­vide prac­ti­cal help, and Grace, who arranges for addi­tion­al care through Mrs. Greene, a care­giv­er.

This chap­ter deft­ly explores themes of moth­er­hood, the com­plex­i­ties of fam­i­ly dynam­ics, and the search for iden­ti­ty and com­mu­ni­ty out­side of fam­i­ly respon­si­bil­i­ties. Patri­ci­a’s inter­ac­tions and chal­lenges reflect a deep­er nar­ra­tive of resilience and the often-under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed emo­tion­al labor inher­ent in par­ent­ing and care­giv­ing, all while she nav­i­gates her per­son­al desires and the expec­ta­tions placed upon her as a moth­er and wife in a close­ly-knit com­mu­ni­ty.

sur­round­ing. Bear tugs at the leash again, as if alert­ing me, but my gaze is fix­at­ed on the man who now, for a moment, takes off his sun­glass­es reveal­ing sharp, con­cerned eyes.

“My car,” he starts, gaze shift­ing from me to the crum­pled met­al of his sports car lean­ing against the street­light. “Are you sure you’re okay?” His con­cern seems gen­uine, but there’s an under­ly­ing ten­sion, a silent acknowl­edg­ment of the cost of the acci­dent.

I scram­ble to my feet, brush­ing off the rain-soaked debris, feel­ing a twinge of embar­rass­ment mixed with anx­i­ety. “I think so. I’m sor­ry about your car,” I man­age to say, voice shaky. Bear, sens­ing the change in tone, qui­ets down but stays alert.

“It’s just a car,” he replies, but his eyes linger on the dam­aged vehi­cle with a hint of regret. “The impor­tant thing is you’re not hurt.” Despite his reas­sured words, the seri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion hangs between us like the rain-soaked air.

We exchange a few more words, an awk­ward dance of apolo­gies and reas­sur­ances. He intro­duces him­self as Alex, a name that feels out of place in Thorn­field Estates, too sim­ple, too nor­mal.

As we stand there, the dif­fer­ence between us could­n’t be more glaring—the lux­u­ry and excess of Thorn­field Estates and my sim­ple exis­tence just out­side its reach. Yet, here Alex stands, amidst the wreck­age of his expen­sive car, con­cerned more about my well-being than the mate­r­i­al loss.

Before we part, he brush­es off the inci­dent with a non­cha­lance that belies the expen­sive taste evi­dent in his attire and dam­aged car. “These things hap­pen,” he says with a half-smile. “Let me know if you need any­thing. And please be more care­ful next time.”

As he dri­ves away, his car now emit­ting a sad, uneven hum, I’m left stand­ing in the rain, Bear by my side, pon­der­ing the unex­pect­ed encounter. It’s a glimpse into the com­plex­i­ties and con­tra­dic­tions with­in Thorn­field Estates, a place of lux­u­ry SUVs and care­ful­ly man­i­cured lawns, yet also of gen­uine con­cern in unex­pect­ed cir­cum­stances.

After Tarzan and his guide van­ished into the dark­ness at the wharf, a veiled woman hur­ried down an alley towards a pub they had just left. Inside, she asked about a tall, well-dressed man who met anoth­er and left. A sailor men­tioned see­ing two men walk towards the wharf. The woman, deter­mined, fol­lowed and saw a small boat near a steam­er, the Kin­caid, prepar­ing to sail. Des­per­ate­ly, she paid a man to row her to the steam­er, where she climbed aboard only to find it desert­ed. She searched for her hus­band and child, open­ing doors to emp­ty rooms until she was cap­tured by Niko­las Rokoff, a man from her past.

For days, Jane Clay­ton was impris­oned in a cab­in, her meals brought by Sven Ander­ssen, the ship’s cook. Mean­while, Tarzan, locked in a cell below, sensed his fam­i­ly might be near­by but could­n’t con­firm. Days mor­phed into weeks with the Kin­caid at sea, stop­ping only for coal. Nei­ther Jane nor Tarzan knew of each oth­er’s pres­ence aboard.

Rokoff, bat­tling sea­sick­ness, vis­it­ed Jane to demand a cheque for her and her fam­i­ly’s release. She refused unless assured of their safe­ty. Rokoff threat­ened her with the well-being of her child but even­tu­al­ly obtained a large cheque from her, despite her reser­va­tions about his sin­cer­i­ty.

Tarzan was then brought up, con­front­ed by Paul­vitch who demand­ed a hefty ran­som, lever­ag­ing Tarzan’s fam­i­ly’s safe­ty. See­ing land and believ­ing it to be Africa, Tarzan, des­per­ate to save his son, wrote a cheque for more than his account held. As he hand­ed it over, Paul­vitch ordered him to strip, telling him he’d be left here, cloth­ing unnec­es­sary.

This chap­ter show­cas­es deceit, the pri­mal instincts for fam­i­ly pro­tec­tion, and the strug­gle for pow­er between Tarzan and his cap­tors, set­ting a stark atmos­phere of ten­sion and deter­mi­na­tion amidst the uncer­tain­ty of iso­la­tion and cap­tiv­i­ty.