Chap­ter 14 of the book opens with a behind-the-scenes look at the rou­tine of inter­na­tion­al sum­mits, high­light­ing the chore­o­graphed entrances of world lead­ers, the set­up of the con­fer­ence room, and the long hours spent lis­ten­ing and dis­cussing glob­al mat­ters. The nar­ra­tive quick­ly tran­si­tions to the author’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence at his first G20 sum­mit in Lon­don, empha­siz­ing his sen­sa­tions of being the new par­tic­i­pant on the glob­al stage and his inter­ac­tions with key glob­al fig­ures, includ­ing British Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Brown, Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel, and French Pres­i­dent Nico­las Sarkozy. Their dis­tinct per­son­al­i­ties and polit­i­cal predilec­tions are detailed, with Brown described as thought­ful but lack­lus­ter com­pared to his pre­de­ces­sor Tony Blair, Merkel as method­i­cal and skep­ti­cal of emo­tion­al out­bursts, and Sarkozy as dri­ven by charm and impulse.

The dis­cus­sions at the G20 sum­mit encom­pass top­ics like the fight against pro­tec­tion­ism, fis­cal stim­u­lus, and tack­ling eco­nom­ic crises, reveal­ing the intri­ca­cies of inter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy and the chal­lenges of reach­ing a con­sen­sus among diverse nations. The author acknowl­edges the strate­gic impor­tance of BRICS coun­tries (Brazil, Rus­sia, India, Chi­na, and South Africa) and shares his impres­sions of their lead­ers, cast­ing a light on the geopo­lit­i­cal dynam­ics and their bear­ing on glob­al eco­nom­ic poli­cies.

The nar­ra­tive also delves into the author’s efforts to fos­ter coop­er­a­tion on nuclear non­pro­lif­er­a­tion and dis­ar­ma­ment, specif­i­cal­ly with Rus­sia, under­lin­ing the com­plex­i­ties of U.S.-Russia rela­tions and the strate­gic con­sid­er­a­tions sur­round­ing mis­sile defense in Europe.

The author reflects on broad­er trends affect­ing glob­al democ­ra­cy and the rise of nation­al­ism, high­light­ing his con­cerns about the dura­bil­i­ty of demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues in var­i­ous regions, includ­ing Europe and Turkey. An encounter with Czech dis­si­dent and for­mer Pres­i­dent Václav Hav­el pro­vides a sober­ing reminder of the ongo­ing strug­gle for main­tain­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples and free­doms in the face of ris­ing autoc­ra­cy and nation­al­ism.

Final­ly, the chap­ter con­cludes on an unex­pect­ed note, with the author learn­ing about a con­tem­po­rary pira­cy issue off the coast of Soma­lia, indi­cat­ing the wide range of chal­lenges faced by world lead­ers.

This chap­ter offers an insight­ful glimpse into the world of inter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics, the per­son­al dynam­ics among glob­al lead­ers, and the myr­i­ad chal­lenges encoun­tered on the world stage, from eco­nom­ic crises to the foun­da­tion­al strug­gle for democ­ra­cy and rule of law.

ven­ture into the woods at night. Do not leave the pro­tec­tion of the manor’s mag­ic. The blight you
speak of comes from beyond the bor­ders of Pry­thi­an, a dark­ness that start­ed seep­ing in years ago,
slow­ly at first, but increas­ing­ly more aggres­sive. It is a dark­ness that feeds on mag­ic, twist­ing
and con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing it. The High Lords are aware, fight­ing it in their own ways, but its source remains
elu­sive. Be care­ful what you ask of the night, and of the stranger shad­ows it brings.”
As the Suriel’s voice fad­ed into the chill of the approach­ing evening, I cut it free from the snare.
With a nod that felt like a bene­dic­tion or maybe a warn­ing, it turned, its dark robes meld­ing with the
shad­ows among the birch trees, and then it was as if it had nev­er been there at all. The woods felt
denser now, heavy with secrets and the weight of my new knowl­edge. Tam­lin, a High Lord, not just some
lord of a small ter­ri­to­ry but one of the might­i­est in Pry­thi­an. The threat of a blight steal­ing and alter­ing
mag­ic, its ori­gin a mys­tery even to such an ancient crea­ture as the Suriel. My mind raced with the
impli­ca­tions, and for the first time since my arrival in this enchant­ed land, the scale of what I faced—
and what I could pos­si­bly lose—began to sink in.
I began my jour­ney back to the manor, each step weight­ed with the bur­den of my new knowl­edge. I
knew I could not flee, not with­out endan­ger­ing myself and my fam­i­ly fur­ther. But per­haps, if I stayed,
if I learned more about the mag­ic and the secrets of this land, there might still be hope. Not just for
my sur­vival, but for what­ev­er lay beyond this bat­tle against the blight. As the sun dipped low­er,
cast­ing long shad­ows through the woods, I real­ized that despite the dan­gers, despite the fear, I was
not alone. I had the pro­tec­tion of the High Lord, and per­haps, just per­haps, that would be enough to
sur­vive what­ev­er chal­lenges lay ahead.

Chap­ter 14 fol­lows Dan­ny’s jour­ney from an inex­pe­ri­enced prop­er­ty own­er to a suc­cess­ful real estate mogul, explor­ing the dynam­ics with­in his fam­i­ly and the impact of his career on his rela­tion­ships. After sell­ing his ini­tial prop­er­ties at a prof­it, Dan­ny buys a mixed-use build­ing on Broad­way, which intro­duces him to the array of chal­lenges that come with prop­er­ty man­age­ment. The build­ing, fraught with issues rang­ing from ille­gal garbage dis­pos­als to an uncon­trol­lable steam heat sys­tem, becomes a learn­ing ground for Dan­ny. He hires a super­in­ten­dent, starts a man­age­ment com­pa­ny, and learns the val­ue of man­ag­ing a prop­er­ty before decid­ing to pur­chase it.

The nar­ra­tive also delves into Dan­ny’s per­son­al life, par­tic­u­lar­ly his mar­riage to Celeste and the ten­sion that aris­es with his sis­ter Maeve’s involve­ment in his busi­ness. Celeste resents Maeve’s close involve­ment, fear­ing an inva­sion of their pri­va­cy, while Dan­ny sees Maeve’s help as invalu­able, espe­cial­ly giv­en her exper­tise in finance, which becomes a source of con­tention in their mar­riage. Maeve, on the oth­er hand, prefers her job at Otterson’s, despite Dan­ny’s sug­ges­tions to pur­sue fur­ther edu­ca­tion, high­light­ing her con­tent­ment and their con­trast­ing per­spec­tives on suc­cess and ambi­tion.

The chap­ter also revis­its the emo­tion­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal impact of the loss of their fam­i­ly home, the Dutch House, on Dan­ny and Maeve. Their attach­ment to the house and its mem­o­ries encap­su­lates the com­plex­i­ties of loss, nos­tal­gia, and the search for iden­ti­ty apart from their child­hood trau­mas. The inter­ac­tions between Maeve, Dan­ny, and var­i­ous char­ac­ters from their past, includ­ing Celeste and Fluffy, under­score the deep-seat­ed con­flicts and bonds that shape their adult lives.

As Dan­ny reflects on his jour­ney from a poten­tial med­ical pro­fes­sion­al to a real estate own­er and the dif­fer­ences in his and Celeste’s view of fam­i­ly and suc­cess, the nar­ra­tive crafts a mul­ti­fac­eted view of ambi­tion, famil­ial loy­al­ty, and the quest for per­son­al ful­fill­ment. Despite their mate­r­i­al suc­cess, Dan­ny and Maeve’s lives are still pro­found­ly influ­enced by their expul­sion from the Dutch House, a sym­bol of lost inno­cence and the irrev­o­ca­ble change in their fam­i­ly dynam­ics. Through the explo­ration of these themes, the chap­ter presents a poignant look at how the past informs the present and the com­plex rela­tion­ships that define our sense of self and home.

Through­out the harsh win­ter months, librar­i­ans of the Pack­horse Library donned heavy lay­ers to bat­tle the chill­ing moun­tain air. Engulfed in a cocoon of cloth­ing com­pris­ing two vests, a flan­nel shirt, a thick sweater, a jack­et, and occa­sion­al­ly an addi­tion­al scarf or two, their appear­ances were near­ly indis­tin­guish­able. Their hands were pro­tect­ed by thick leather gloves, heads cov­ered with hats pulled down low, and faces bare­ly vis­i­ble, masked by scarves to retain the warmth of their breath against the skin. With­in the con­fines of their homes, they would hes­i­tant­ly dis­robe, spar­ing their skin from the cold air only briefly as they tran­si­tioned into the warmth of their blan­kets. This rou­tine allowed them to sel­dom observe their own skin, as chang­ing clothes and wash­ing fab­rics were the only moments skin was exposed.

Alice found her­self embroiled in a silent con­flict with the Van Cleves, who had momen­tar­i­ly ceased their dis­tur­bances. She spent her days in the seclu­sion of the woods, hon­ing her marks­man­ship with Fred’s old gun, its echoes pierc­ing the tran­quil air. Izzy, shad­ow­ing her moth­er through­out town, dis­played an air of mis­ery, vis­i­ble only in fleet­ing moments. Beth, pre­oc­cu­pied with the lim­i­ta­tions her arm imposed, failed to notice the sub­tle shifts in her com­mu­ni­ty, such as Margery’s slight weight gain—a change unno­ticed by all but Sven. Inti­mate­ly famil­iar with Margery’s physique, Sven under­stood the nat­ur­al vari­a­tions in a wom­an’s body with­out the need for explic­it acknowl­edg­ment.

As the cold weath­er per­sist­ed, life in the moun­tains dic­tat­ed a rhythm of sur­vival and adap­ta­tion, woven into the dai­ly lives of those bound by duty to the Pack­horse Library. Their exis­tence, marked by soli­tude and per­son­al bat­tles, con­tin­ued under the vast, indif­fer­ent sky, occa­sion­al­ly bro­ken by the sound of a gun­shot or the silent obser­va­tion of change with­in one’s self and among peers.

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.

FOURTEEN
I’ve been liv­ing with the Win­ches­ters for about three weeks when I have my
first parole offi­cer meet­ing. I wait­ed to sched­ule it for my day off. I don’t
want them to know where I’m going.
I’m down to month­ly meet­ings with my offi­cer, Pam, a stocky mid­dle-
aged woman with a strong jaw. Right after I got out, I was liv­ing in hous­ing
sub­si­dized by the prison, but after Pam helped me get that wait­ress­ing job, I
moved out and got my own place. Then after I lost the wait­ress­ing job, I
nev­er exact­ly told Pam about it. Also, I nev­er told her about my evic­tion. At
our last meet­ing a lit­tle over a month ago, I lied through my teeth.
Lying to a parole offi­cer is a vio­la­tion of parole. Not hav­ing a res­i­dence
and liv­ing out of your car is also a vio­la­tion of parole. I don’t like to lie, but
I didn’t want to have my parole revoked and go right back to prison to serve
the last five years of my sen­tence. I couldn’t let that hap­pen.
But things have turned around. I can be hon­est with Pam today. Well,
almost.
Even though it’s a breezy spring day, Pam’s small office is like a
hun­dred degrees. Half the year, her office is a sauna, and the oth­er half of
the year it’s freez­ing. There’s no in-between. She’s got the small win­dow
wrenched open, and there’s a fan blow­ing the dozens of papers around her
desk. She has to keep her hands on them to keep them from blow­ing away.
“Mil­lie.” She smiles at me when I come in. She’s a nice per­son and
gen­uine­ly seems like she wants to help me, which made me feel all the
worse about how I lied to her. “Good to see you! How is it going?”
I set­tle down into one of the wood­en chairs in front of her desk.
“Great!” That’s a bit of a lie. But it’s going fine. Good enough. “Noth­ing to
report.”
Pam rifles through the papers on her desk. “I got your mes­sage about
the address change. You’re work­ing for a fam­i­ly in Long Island as a
house­keep­er?”
“That’s right.”
“You didn’t like the job at Charlie’s?”
I chew on my lip. “Not real­ly.”
This is one of the things I lied to her about. Telling her that I quit the job
at Charlie’s. When the real­i­ty is that they fired me. But it was com­plete­ly
unfair.
At least I was lucky enough that they qui­et­ly fired me and didn’t get the
police involved. That was part of the deal—I go qui­et­ly and they don’t
involve the cops. I didn’t have much of a choice. If they had gone to the
police about what hap­pened, I would’ve been right back in prison.
So I didn’t tell Pam I got fired, because if I did, she would have called
them to find out why. And then when I lost my apart­ment, I couldn’t tell her
about that either.
But it’s fine now. I have a new job and a place to live. I’m not in dan­ger
of being locked up again. At my last appoint­ment with Pam, I was sit­ting on
the edge of my seat, but I feel okay this time.
“I’m proud of you, Mil­lie,” Pam says. “Some­times it’s hard for peo­ple
to adjust when they have been incar­cer­at­ed since they were teenagers, but
you’ve done great.”
“Thank you.” No, she def­i­nite­ly doesn’t need to know about that month
when I was liv­ing in my car.
“So how is the new job?” she asks. “How are they treat­ing you?”
“Um…” I rub my knees. “It’s fine. The woman I work for is a
bit… eccen­tric. But I’m just clean­ing. It’s not a big deal.”
Anoth­er thing that’s a slight lie. I don’t want to tell her that Nina
Win­ches­ter has been mak­ing me increas­ing­ly uncom­fort­able. I searched
online to see if she her­self had any kind of record. Noth­ing popped up, but I
didn’t pay for the actu­al back­ground check. Any­way, Nina is rich enough to
keep her nose clean.
“Well, that’s great,” Pam says. “And how is your social life?”
That’s not tech­ni­cal­ly an area a parole offi­cer is sup­posed to be ask­ing
about, but Pam and I have become friend­ly, so I don’t mind the ques­tion.
“Nonex­is­tent.”
She throws back her head and laughs so that I can see a shiny fill­ing in
the back of her mouth. “I under­stand if you don’t feel ready to date yet. But
you should try to make some friends, Mil­lie.
“Yeah,” I say, even though I don’t mean it.
“And when you do start dat­ing,” she says, “don’t just set­tle for any­one.
Don’t date a jerk just because you’re an ex-con. You deserve some­one who
treats you right.”
“Mmm….”
For a moment, I allow myself to think about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of dat­ing a
man in the future. I close my eyes, try­ing to imag­ine what he might look
like. Unbid­den, the image of Andrew Win­ches­ter fills my head, with his
easy charm and hand­some smile.
My eyes fly open. Oh no. No way. I can’t even think it.
“Also,” Pam adds, “you’re beau­ti­ful. You shouldn’t set­tle.”
I almost laugh out loud. I’ve been doing every­thing I can to look as
unat­trac­tive as I pos­si­bly can. I wear bag­gy cloth­ing, I always keep my hair
in a bun or a pony­tail, and I haven’t put on even one scrap of make­up. But
Nina still looks at me like I’m some kind of vamp.
“I’m just not ready to think about that yet,” I say.
“That’s fine,” Pam says. “But remem­ber, hav­ing a job and shel­ter is
impor­tant, but human con­nec­tions are even more impor­tant.”
She might be right, but I’m just not ready for that right now, I have to
focus on keep­ing my nose clean. The last thing I want is to end up back in
prison. That’s all that mat­ters.
I have trou­ble sleep­ing at night.
When you’re in prison, you’re always sleep­ing with one eye open. You
don’t want things to be going on around you with­out you know­ing about it.
And now that I’m out, the instinct hasn’t left me. When I first got an actu­al
bed, I was able to sleep real­ly well for a while, but now my old insom­nia
has come back full force. Espe­cial­ly because my bed­room is so unbear­ably
stuffy.
My first pay­check has been deposit­ed in my bank account, and the next
chance I have, I’m going to go out and buy myself a tele­vi­sion for my
bed­room. If I turn on the tele­vi­sion, I might be able to drift off to sleep with
it on. The sound will mim­ic the noise at night in the prison.
Up until now, I’ve been hes­i­tant to use the Win­ches­ters’ tele­vi­sion. Not
the huge home the­ater, obvi­ous­ly, but their “nor­mal” TV in the liv­ing room.
It doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal, con­sid­er­ing Nina and Andrew
go to bed ear­ly. They have a very spe­cif­ic rou­tine every night. Nina goes
upstairs to put Cecelia to bed at pre­cise­ly 8:30. I can hear her read­ing a
bed­time sto­ry, then she sings to her. Every night she sings the same song:
“Some­where Over the Rain­bow” from The Wiz­ard of Oz. Nina doesn’t
sound like she has any vocal train­ing, but there’s some­thing strange­ly,
haunt­ing­ly beau­ti­ful about the way she sings to Cecelia.
After Cecelia goes to sleep, Nina reads or watch­es tele­vi­sion in the
bed­room. Andrew fol­lows upstairs not long after. If I come down­stairs after
ten o’clock, the first floor is com­plete­ly emp­ty.
So this par­tic­u­lar night I decid­ed to take advan­tage.
This is why I’m sprawled out on the sofa, watch­ing an episode of
Fam­i­ly Feud. It’s near­ly one in the morn­ing, so the high ener­gy lev­el of the
con­tes­tants seems almost bizarre. Steve Har­vey is jok­ing around with them,
and despite how tired I am, I laugh out loud when one of the con­tes­tants
gets up to demon­strate his tap-danc­ing skills. I used to watch the show
when I was a kid, and I always imag­ined going on it myself; I’m not sure
who I would’ve invit­ed to go with me. My par­ents, me—that’s three. Who
else could I have invit­ed?
“Is that Fam­i­ly Feud?”
I jerk my head up. Even though it’s the mid­dle of the night, Andrew
Win­ches­ter is some­how stand­ing behind me, as wide awake as the peo­ple
on the tele­vi­sion screen.
Damn. I knew I should have stayed in my room.
“Oh!” I say. “I, uh… I’m sor­ry. I didn’t mean to…”
He arch­es an eye­brow. “What are you sor­ry for? You live here, too. You
have every right to watch the tele­vi­sion.”
I grab a pil­low from the couch to con­ceal my flim­sy gym shorts that
I’ve been sleep­ing in. Also, I’m not wear­ing a bra. “I was going to buy a set
for my room.”
“It’s fine to use our mon­i­tor, Mil­lie. You prob­a­bly won’t get much
recep­tion up there any­way.” The whites of his eyes glow in the light of the
tele­vi­sion. “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute. I’m just grab­bing a glass of
water.”
I sit on the couch, clutch­ing the pil­low to my chest, debat­ing if I should
go upstairs. I’m nev­er going to fall asleep now because my heart is rac­ing.
He said he was just get­ting some water, so maybe I can stay. I watch him
shuf­fle into the kitchen and I hear the tap run­ning.
He comes back into the liv­ing room, sip­ping from his water glass.
That’s when I notice he’s only got on a white under­shirt and box­ers. But at
least he’s not shirt­less.
“How come you poured water from the sink?” I can’t help but ask him.
He plops down next to me on the sofa, even though I wish he wouldn’t.
“What do you mean?”
It would be rude to jump off the sofa, so I just scoot down as far as I
can. The last thing I need is for Nina to see the two of us get­ting cozy
togeth­er on the sofa in our under­wear. “Like, you didn’t use the water fil­ter
in the refrig­er­a­tor.”
He laughs. “I don’t know. I’ve always just got­ten water from the sink.
Like, is it poi­son?”
“I don’t know. I think it has chem­i­cals in it.”
He runs a hand through his dark hair until it sticks up a bit. “I’m hun­gry
for some rea­son. Any left­overs from din­ner in the fridge?”
“No, sor­ry.”
“Hmm.” He rubs his stom­ach. “Would it be real­ly bad man­ners if I eat
some peanut but­ter right out of the jar?”
I cringe at the men­tion of peanut but­ter. “As long as you’re not eat­ing in
front of Cecelia.”
He tilts his head. “Why?”
“You know. Because she’s aller­gic.” They real­ly don’t seem very
respect­ful of Cecelia’s dead­ly peanut aller­gy in this house­hold.
Even more sur­pris­ing, Andrew laughs. “No, she’s not.”
“Yes, she is. She told me she is. The first day I was here.”
“Um, I think I would know if my daugh­ter were aller­gic to peanuts.” He
snorts. “Any­way, do you think we would keep a big jar of it in the pantry if
she were aller­gic?”
That was exact­ly what I thought when Cecelia told me about her aller­gy.
Was she just mak­ing it up to tor­ture me? I wouldn’t put it past her. Then
again, Nina also said Cecelia had a peanut aller­gy. What’s going on here?
But Andrew makes the most valid point: the fact that there’s a big jar of
peanut but­ter in the pantry indi­cates nobody here has a dead­ly peanut
aller­gy.
“Blue­ber­ries,” Andrew says.
I frown. “I don’t think there are any blue­ber­ries in the refrig­er­a­tor.”
“No.” He nods at the tele­vi­sion screen, where Fam­i­ly Feud has entered
the sec­ond round. “They sur­veyed a hun­dred peo­ple and asked them to
name a fruit you can fit in your mouth whole.”
The con­tes­tant on the screen answers blue­ber­ries, and it’s the num­ber
one answer. Andrew pumps his fist. “See? I knew it. I would be great on
this show.”
“The top answer is always easy to get,” I say. “The tricky part is get­ting
the more obscure answers.”
“Okay, smar­ty pants.” He grins at me. “Name a fruit you can fit in your
mouth whole.”
“Um…” I tap a fin­ger against my chin. “A grape.”
Sure enough, the next con­tes­tant answers “grape” and is cor­rect.
“I stand cor­rect­ed,” he says. “You’re good at this, too. Okay, what about
a straw­ber­ry?”
“It’s prob­a­bly up there,” I say, “even though you wouldn’t real­ly want to
put a whole straw­ber­ry in your mouth because it has the stem and all that.”
The con­tes­tants man­age to name straw­ber­ries and cher­ries, but they get
stuck on the last answer. Andrew is crack­ing up when one of them says a
peach.
“A peach!” he cries. “Who could fit a peach in their mouth? You’d have
to unhinge your jaw!”
I gig­gle. “Bet­ter than a water­mel­on.”
“That’s prob­a­bly the answer! I bet any­thing.”
The final answer on the board turns out to be a plum. Andrew shakes his
head. “I don’t know about that. I’d like to see a pic­ture of the con­tes­tants
who said they could fit a plum in their mouth whole.”
“That should be part of the show,” I say. “You get to hear from the
hun­dred peo­ple sur­veyed and get the ratio­nale behind their answers.”
“You should write to Fam­i­ly Feud and sug­gest that,” he says sober­ly.
“You could rev­o­lu­tion­ize the whole show.”
I gig­gle again. When I first met Andrew, I assumed he was a stuffy rich
guy. But he’s not like that at all. Nina is cer­ti­fi­able, but Andrew is nice. He’s
com­plete­ly down-to-earth, and he’s fun­ny. And it seems like he’s a real­ly
good dad to Cecelia.
The truth is, I feel a bit sor­ry for him some­times.
I shouldn’t think that. Nina is my boss. She gives me pay­checks and a
place to live. My loy­al­ty is to her. But at the same time, she’s awful. She’s a
slob, she’s con­stant­ly telling me con­flict­ing infor­ma­tion, and she can be
incred­i­bly cru­el. Even Enzo, who’s got to be two hun­dred pounds of sol­id
mus­cle, seems afraid of her.
Of course, I might not feel that way if Andrew wasn’t so incred­i­bly
attrac­tive. Even though I have sat as far away from him as I pos­si­bly can
with­out falling off the side of the couch, I can’t help but think about the fact
that he is wear­ing his under­wear right now. He’s in his freak­ing box­ers. And
his under­shirt mate­r­i­al is thin enough that I can see the out­line of some very
sexy mus­cles. He could do a lot bet­ter than Nina.
I won­der if he knows it.
Just as I’m start­ing to relax and feel glad that Andrew joined me down
here, a screechy voice breaks into my thoughts: “Gosh, what’s the big joke
you’re laugh­ing about down here?”
I whip my head around. Nina is stand­ing at the foot of the stairs, star­ing
at us. When she’s in her heels, I can hear her com­ing a mile away, but she’s
sur­pris­ing­ly light-foot­ed in her bare feet. She’s wear­ing a white night­gown
that falls to her ankles, and her arms are fold­ed across her chest.
“Hey, Nina.” Andrew yawns and climbs off the sofa. “What are you
doing up?”
Nina is glar­ing at us. I don’t know how he isn’t pan­ick­ing right now.
I’m one sec­ond away from pee­ing in my pants. But he seems total­ly
cav­a­lier about the fact that his wife just caught the two of us alone in the
liv­ing room at one in the morn­ing, both of us in our under­wear. Not that we
were doing any­thing, but still.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Nina retorts. “You two seem to be
hav­ing a lot of fun. What’s the joke?”
Andrew lifts a shoul­der. “I came down to get some water and Mil­lie was
here watch­ing tele­vi­sion. I got dis­tract­ed by Fam­i­ly Feud.”
“Mil­lie.” Nina turns her atten­tion to me. “Why don’t you get a
tele­vi­sion for your own room? This is the fam­i­ly room.”
“I’m sor­ry,” I say quick­ly. “I’m going to buy a tele­vi­sion next chance I
get.”
“Hey.” Andrew rais­es his eye­brows. “What’s so wrong with Mil­lie
watch­ing a lit­tle tele­vi­sion down here if nobody’s around?”
“Well, you’re around.”
“And she wasn’t both­er­ing me.”
“Don’t you have a meet­ing first thing in the morn­ing?” Nina’s eyes bore
into him. “Should you real­ly be awake watch­ing tele­vi­sion at one in the
morn­ing?”
He sucks in a breath. I hold my own breath, hop­ing for a minute that
he’s going to stand up to her. But then his shoul­ders sag. “You’re right,
Nina. I bet­ter turn in.”
Nina stands there, her arms fold­ed across her ample chest, watch­ing
Andrew trudge up the stairs, like he’s a child she’s send­ing up with­out
sup­per. It’s unset­tling to see the extent of her jeal­ousy.
I get up from the couch as well and shut off the tele­vi­sion. Nina is still
lin­ger­ing at the base of the stairs. Her eyes rake over my gym shorts and
tank top. My lack of a bra. Again, it strikes me how bad this looks. But I
thought I would be all alone down here.
“Mil­lie,” Nina says, “in the future, I expect you to wear appro­pri­ate
attire around the house.”
“I’m so sor­ry,” I say for the sec­ond time. “I didn’t think any­one would
be awake.”
“Real­ly?” She snorts. “Would you just wan­der around any stranger’s
house in the mid­dle of the night because you assume they won’t be
around?”
I don’t know what to say to that. This is not a stranger’s house. I live
here, albeit up in the attic. “No…”
“Please stay up in the attic after bed­time,” she says. “The rest of the
house is for my fam­i­ly. Do you under­stand?”
“I under­stand.”
She shakes her head. “Hon­est­ly, I’m not even sure how much we need a
maid. Maybe this was a mis­take…”
Oh no. Is she fir­ing me at one in the morn­ing because I was watch­ing
tele­vi­sion in her liv­ing room? This is bad. And there’s no chance Nina is
going to give me a good rec­om­men­da­tion for anoth­er job. She seems more
like the sort of per­son who would call every poten­tial employ­er to tell them
how much she hat­ed me.
I’ve got to fix this.

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
14
“Wel­come to my home,” Rhysand said.
A city—a world lay out there.
Morn­ing sun­light streamed through the win­dows lin­ing the front of the
town house. The ornate­ly carved wood door before me was inset with
fogged glass that peeked into a small antecham­ber and the actu­al front door
beyond it, shut and sol­id against what­ev­er city lurked beyond.
And the thought of set­ting foot out into it, into the leer­ing crowds, see­ing
the destruc­tion Ama­ran­tha had like­ly wreaked upon them … A heavy
weight pressed into my chest.
I hadn’t dredged up the focus to ask until now, hadn’t giv­en an ounce of
room to con­sid­er that this might be a mis­take, but … “What is this place?”
Rhys leaned a broad shoul­der against the carved oak thresh­old that led
into the sit­ting room and crossed his arms. “This is my house. Well, I have
two homes in the city. One is for more … offi­cial busi­ness, but this is only
for me and my fam­i­ly.”
I lis­tened for any ser­vants but heard none. Good—maybe that was good,
rather than have peo­ple weep­ing and gawk­ing.
“Nuala and Cer­rid­wen are here,” he said, read­ing my glance down the
hall behind us. “But oth­er than that, it’ll just be the two of us.”
I tensed. It wasn’t that things had been any dif­fer­ent at the Night Court
itself, but—this house was much, much small­er. There would be no
escap­ing him. Save for the city out­side.
There were no cities left in our mor­tal ter­ri­to­ry. Though some had sprung
up on the main con­ti­nent, full of art and learn­ing and trade. Elain had once
want­ed to go with me. I didn’t sup­pose I’d ever get that chance now.
Rhysand opened his mouth, but then the sil­hou­ettes of two tall, pow­er­ful
bod­ies appeared on the oth­er side of the front door’s fogged glass. One of
them banged on it with a fist.
“Hur­ry up, you lazy ass,” a deep male voice drawled from the
antecham­ber beyond. Exhaus­tion drugged me so heav­i­ly that I didn’t
par­tic­u­lar­ly care that there were wings peek­ing over their two shad­owy
forms.
Rhys didn’t so much as blink toward the door. “Two things, Feyre
dar­ling.”
The pound­ing con­tin­ued, fol­lowed by the sec­ond male mur­mur­ing to his
com­pan­ion, “If you’re going to pick a fight with him, do it after break­fast.”
That voice—like shad­ows giv­en form, dark and smooth and … cold.
“I wasn’t the one who hauled me out of bed just now to fly down here,”
the first one said. Then added, “Busy­body.”
I could have sworn a smile tugged on Rhys’s lips as he went on, “One, no
one—no one—but Mor and I are able to win­now direct­ly inside this house.
It is ward­ed, shield­ed, and then ward­ed some more. Only those I wish—and
you wish—may enter. You are safe here; and safe any­where in this city, for
that mat­ter. Velaris’s walls are well pro­tect­ed and have not been breached in
five thou­sand years. No one with ill intent enters this city unless I allow it.
So go where you wish, do what you wish, and see who you wish. Those two
in the antecham­ber,” he added, eyes sparkling, “might not be on that list of
peo­ple you should both­er know­ing, if they keep bang­ing on the door like
chil­dren.”
Anoth­er pound, empha­sized by the first male voice say­ing, “You know
we can hear you, prick.”
“Sec­ond­ly,” Rhys went on, “in regard to the two bas­tards at my door, it’s
up to you whether you want to meet them now, or head upstairs like a wise
per­son, take a nap since you’re still look­ing a lit­tle peaky, and then change
into city-appro­pri­ate cloth­ing while I beat the hell out of one of them for
talk­ing to his High Lord like that.”
There was such light in his eyes. It made him look … younger, some­how.
More mor­tal. So at odds with the icy rage I’d seen ear­li­er when I’d awok­en
…
Awok­en on that couch, and then decid­ed I wasn’t return­ing home.
Decid­ed that, per­haps, the Spring Court might not be my home.
I was drown­ing in that old heav­i­ness, claw­ing my way up to a sur­face
that might not ever exist. I’d slept for the Moth­er knew how long, and yet
… “Just come get me when they’re gone.”
That joy dimmed, and Rhys looked like he might say some­thing else, but
a female voice—crisp and edged—now sound­ed behind the two males in
the antecham­ber. “You Illyr­i­ans are worse than cats yowl­ing to be let in the
back door.” The knob jan­gled. She sighed sharply. “Real­ly, Rhysand? You
locked us out?”
Fight­ing to keep that immense heav­i­ness at bay a bit longer, I made for
the stairs—at the top of which now stood Nuala and Cer­rid­wen, winc­ing at
the front door. I could have sworn Cer­rid­wen sub­tly ges­tured me to hur­ry
up. And I might have kissed both twins for that bit of nor­mal­cy.
I might have kissed Rhys, too, for wait­ing to open the front door until I
was halfway down the cerulean-blue hall­way on the sec­ond lev­el.
All I heard was that first male voice declare, “Wel­come home, bas­tard,”
fol­lowed by the shad­owy male voice say­ing, “I sensed you were back. Mor
filled me in, but I—”
That strange female voice cut him off. “Send your dogs out in the yard to
play, Rhysand. You and I have mat­ters to dis­cuss.”
That mid­night voice said with qui­et cold that licked down my spine, “As
do I.”
Then the cocky one drawled to her, “We were here first. Wait your turn,
Tiny Ancient One.”
On either side of me, Nuala and Cer­rid­wen flinched, either from hold­ing
in laugh­ter or some ves­tige of fear, or per­haps both. Def­i­nite­ly both as a
fem­i­nine snarl sliced through the house—albeit a bit half­heart­ed­ly.
The upstairs hall was punc­tu­at­ed with chan­de­liers of swirled, col­ored
glass, illu­mi­nat­ing the few pol­ished doors on either side. I won­dered which
belonged to Rhysand—and then won­dered which one belonged to Mor as I
heard her yawn amid the fray below:
“Why is every­one here so ear­ly? I thought we were meet­ing tonight at
the House.”
Below, Rhysand grumbled—grumbled—“Trust me, there’s no par­ty.
Only a mas­sacre, if Cass­ian doesn’t shut his mouth.”
“We’re hun­gry,” that first male—Cassian—complained. “Feed us.
Some­one told me there’d be break­fast.”
“Pathet­ic,” that strange female voice quipped. “You idiots are pathet­ic.”
Mor said, “We know that’s true. But is there food?”
I heard the words—heard and processed them. And then they float­ed into
the black­ness of my mind.
Nuala and Cer­rid­wen opened a door, lead­ing to a fire-warmed, sun­lit
room. It faced a walled, win­ter-kissed gar­den in the back of the town house,
the large win­dows peer­ing over the sleep­ing stone foun­tain in its cen­ter,
drained for the sea­son. Every­thing in the bed­room itself was of rich wood
and soft white, with touch­es of sub­tle sage. It felt, strange­ly enough, almost
human.
And the bed—massive, plush, adorned in quilts and duvets of cream and
ivory to keep out the win­ter chill—that looked the most wel­com­ing of all.
But I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t ask a few basic questions—to at
least give myself the illu­sion of car­ing a bit about my own wel­fare.
“Who was that?” I man­aged to say as they shut the door behind us.
Nuala head­ed for the small attached bathing room—white mar­ble, a
claw-foot tub, more sun­ny win­dows that over­looked the gar­den wall and the
thick line of cypress trees that stood watch behind it. Cer­rid­wen, already
stalk­ing for the armoire, cringed a bit and said over a shoul­der, “They’re
Rhysand’s Inner Cir­cle.”
The ones I’d heard men­tioned that day at the Night Court—who Rhys
kept going to meet. “I wasn’t aware that High Lords kept things so casu­al,”
I admit­ted.
“They don’t,” Nuala said, return­ing from the bathing room with a brush.
“But Rhysand does.”
Appar­ent­ly, my hair was a mess, because Nuala brushed it as Cer­rid­wen
pulled out some ivory sleep­ing clothes—a warm and soft lace-trimmed top
and pants.
I took in the clothes, then the room, then the win­ter gar­den and the
slum­ber­ing foun­tain beyond, and Rhysand’s ear­li­er words clicked into
place.
The walls of this city have not been breached for five thou­sand years.
Mean­ing Ama­ran­tha …
“How is this city here?” I met Nuala’s gaze in the mir­ror. “How—how
did it sur­vive?”

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.

L ET’S PICK UP HERE TOMORROW,” Eve­lyn says. The sun set long
ago. As I look around, I notice the remains of break­fast, lunch, and
din­ner scat­tered across the room.
“OK,” I say.
“By the way,” she adds as I start to pack up. “My pub­li­cist got an e-
mail today from your edi­tor. Inquir­ing about a pho­to shoot for the June
cov­er.”
“Oh,” I say. Frankie has checked in on me a few times now. I know I
need to call her back, update her on this sit­u­a­tion. I’m just . . . not sure
of my next move.
“I take it you haven’t told them the plan,” Eve­lyn says.
I place my com­put­er in my bag. “Not yet.” I hate the slight tint of
sheep­ish­ness that comes out when I say it.
“That’s fine,” Eve­lyn says. “I’m not judg­ing you, if that’s what you’re
wor­ried about. God knows I’m no defend­er of the truth.”
I laugh.
“You’ll do what you need to do,” she says.
“I will,” I say.
I just don’t know what, exact­ly, that is yet.
  *  *  *  
WHEN I GET home, the pack­age from my moth­er is sit­ting just inside
my building’s door. I pick it up, only to real­ize that it’s incred­i­bly heavy.
I end up push­ing it across the tile floor with my foot. I pull it, one step
at a time, up the stairs. And then I drag it into my apart­ment.
When I open the box, it’s filled with some of my father’s pho­to
albums.
The front of each is embossed with “James Grant” in the bot­tom
right-hand cor­ner.
Noth­ing can stop me from sit­ting down, right on the floor where I
am, and look­ing through the pho­tos one by one.
On-set still pho­tos of direc­tors, famous actors, bored extras, ADs—
you name it, they are all in here. My dad loved his job. He loved tak­ing
pic­tures of peo­ple who weren’t pay­ing atten­tion to him.
I remem­ber once, about a year before he died, he took a two-month
job in Van­cou­ver. My mom and I went to vis­it him twice while he was
up there, but it was so much cold­er than L.A., and he was gone for
what felt like so long. I asked him why. Why couldn’t he just work at
home? Why did he have to take this job?
He told me he want­ed to do work that invig­o­rat­ed him. He said,
“You have to do that, too, Monique. When you’re old­er. You have to
find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of one that makes it
feel small. OK? You promise me that?” He put out his hand, and I
shook it, like we were mak­ing a busi­ness deal. I was six. By the time I
was eight, we’d lost him.
I always kept what he said in my heart. I spent my teenage years
with a burn­ing pres­sure to find a pas­sion, one that would expand my
soul in some way. It was no small task. In high school, long after we
had said good-bye to my father, I tried the­ater and orches­tra. I tried
join­ing the cho­rus. I tried soc­cer and debate. In a moment of what felt
like an epiphany, I tried pho­tog­ra­phy, hop­ing that the thing that
expand­ed my father’s heart might expand my own.
But it wasn’t until I was assigned to write a pro­file piece on one of
my class­mates in my com­po­si­tion class fresh­man year at USC that I
felt any­thing close to a swelling in my chest. I liked writ­ing about real
peo­ple. I liked find­ing evoca­tive ways of inter­pret­ing the real world. I
liked the idea of con­nect­ing peo­ple by shar­ing their sto­ries.
Fol­low­ing that part of my heart led me to J school at NYU. Which
led to my intern­ship at WNYC. I fol­lowed that pas­sion to a life of
free­lanc­ing for embar­rass­ing blogs, liv­ing check to check and hand to
mouth, and then, even­tu­al­ly, to the Dis­course, where I met David when
he was work­ing on the site’s redesign, and then to Vivant and now to
Eve­lyn.
One small thing my dad said to me on a cold day in Van­cou­ver has
essen­tial­ly been the basis of my entire life’s tra­jec­to­ry.
For a brief moment, I won­der if I would have lis­tened to him if he
hadn’t died. Would I have clung to his every word so tight­ly if his
advice had felt unlim­it­ed?
At the end of the last pho­to album, I come across can­dids that don’t
appear to be from a movie set. They were tak­en at a bar­be­cue. I
rec­og­nize my mom in the back­ground of some of them. And then, at
the very end, is one of me with my par­ents.
I can’t be more than four years old. I am eat­ing a piece of cake with
my hand, look­ing direct­ly into the cam­era, as my moth­er holds me and
my father has his arm around us. Most peo­ple still called me by my
first name, Eliz­a­beth, back then. Eliz­a­beth Monique Grant.
My mom assumed I’d grow up to be a Liz or a Lizzy. But my father
had always loved the name Monique and couldn’t help but call me by
it. I would often remind him that my name was Eliz­a­beth and he would
tell me that my name was what­ev­er I want­ed it to be. When he passed
away, it became clear to both my moth­er and me that I should be
Monique. It eased our pain ever so slight­ly to hon­or every last thing
about him. So my pet name became my real name. And my moth­er
often reminds me that my name was a gift from my father.
Look­ing at this pic­ture, I am struck by how beau­ti­ful my par­ents
were togeth­er. James and Angela. I know what it cost them to build a
life, to have me. A white woman and a black man in the ear­ly ’80s,
nei­ther of their fam­i­lies being par­tic­u­lar­ly thrilled with the
arrange­ment. We moved around a lot before my father died, try­ing to
find a neigh­bor­hood where my par­ents felt at ease, at home. My
moth­er didn’t feel wel­come in Bald­win Hills. My father didn’t feel
com­fort­able in Brent­wood.
I was in school before I met anoth­er per­son who looked like me.
Her name was Yael. Her father was Domini­can, and her moth­er was
from Israel. She liked to play soc­cer. I liked to play dress-up. We could
rarely agree on any­thing. But I liked that when some­one asked her if
she was Jew­ish, she said, “I’m half Jew­ish.” No one else I knew was
half some­thing.
For so long, I felt like two halves.

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.

14
Even though the last thing I want­ed to do was per­form, I still had tour dates left
in my con­tract, so I went back out to �nish them. All I want­ed was to get o� the
road: To have days and nights all to myself. To walk out onto the San­ta Mon­i­ca
Pier and breathe in the salt air, lis­ten to the rat­tle of the roller coast­er, stare out at
the ocean. Instead, every day was a grind. Load in. Load out. Sound check. Pho­to
shoot. Ask­ing, “What town are we even in?”
I’d loved the Dream With­in a Dream Tour when it start­ed, but it had become
a slog. I was tired in mind and body. I want­ed to shut it all down. I had begun
fan­ta­siz­ing about open­ing a lit­tle shop in Venice Beach with Feli­cia and quit­ting
show busi­ness com­plete­ly. With the gift of hind­sight, I can see that I hadn’t
giv­en myself enough time to heal from the breakup with Justin.
In late July 2002, at the very end of the tour, we head­ed south to do a show in
Mex­i­co City. But get­ting there was almost a dis­as­ter.
We were trav­el­ing in vans, and once we’d crossed the bor­der, we came to a
sud­den halt. We’d been stopped by a bunch of guys hold­ing the biggest guns I’d
ever seen. I was terri�ed; it felt like we were being ambushed. It just didn’t make
sense to me, but all I knew was we were sur­round­ed by these angry-look­ing men.
Every­one in my van was so tense; I had secu­ri­ty with me, but who knew what
was going to hap­pen. After what felt like for­ev­er, there seemed to be some kind
of peace talks happening—it was like in a movie. It’s still a mys­tery to me what
actu­al­ly hap­pened, but in the end, we were allowed to car­ry on, and we got to
play to �fty thou­sand peo­ple (though the sec­ond show, on the fol­low­ing day,
had to be can­celed halfway through because of a mas­sive thun­der­storm).
That thun­der­storm-can­celed show was the last date of the Dream With­in a
Dream Tour, but when I told peo­ple after �nish­ing the tour that I want­ed to
rest, every­one seemed ner­vous. When you’re suc­cess­ful at some­thing, there’s a
lot of pres­sure to keep right on doing it, even if you’re not enjoy­ing it any­more.
And, as I would quick­ly �nd out, you real­ly can’t go home again.
I did an inter­view with Peo­ple mag­a­zine back in Louisiana, for rea­sons that
seemed ridicu­lous to me: I wasn’t pro­mot­ing any­thing, but my team thought I
should show that I was doing well and “just tak­ing a lit­tle break.”
The pho­tog­ra­ph­er shot me out­side, and then inside with the dogs and my
mom on the couch. They had me emp­ty out my purse to reveal that I wasn’t
car­ry­ing drugs or cig­a­rettes: all they found was Juicy Fruit gum, vanil­la per­fume,
mints, and a lit­tle bot­tle of St. John’s wort. “My daugh­ter is doing beau­ti­ful­ly,”
my mom told the reporter con�dently. “She’s nev­er, ever been close to a
break­down.”
Part of what made that peri­od of time so di�cult is that Justin’s fam­i­ly had
been the only real, lov­ing fam­i­ly I had. For hol­i­days, the only fam­i­ly I would go
to was his. I knew his grand­moth­er and his grand­fa­ther, and I loved them so
much. I thought of them as home. My mom would come out and vis­it us every
once in a while, but she’s not who I went home to, ever.
My mom was try­ing to recov­er from her divorce from my dad, which she’d
�nal­ly gone through with; depressed and self-med­icat­ing, she could bare­ly get up
o� the couch. My dad was nowhere to be found. And my lit­tle sister—well,
when I tell you she was a total bitch, I’m not exag­ger­at­ing.
I had always been the work­er bee. While I was doing my thing on the road
with Feli­cia, I hadn’t been pay­ing atten­tion to what was hap­pen­ing in
Kent­wood. But when I came home, I saw how things had changed. My mom
would serve Jamie Lynn while she watched TV, bring­ing her lit­tle choco­late
milk­shakes. It was clear that girl ruled the roost.
Mean­while, it was like I was a ghost child. I can remem­ber walk­ing into the
room and feel­ing like no one even saw me. Jamie Lynn only saw the TV. My
moth­er, who at one time had been the per­son I was clos­est to in the world, was
on anoth­er plan­et.

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 14
“We real­ly should get going,” Kit­ty said, putting her iced tea back on
the cof­fee table.
“Just a minute,” Patri­cia said. “What’s hap­pen­ing to the chil­dren?”
Kit­ty twist­ed around on the sofa and cracked the cur­tains, let­ting a
slash of harsh sun­light into the liv­ing room.
“That boy is still hang­ing around your car,” she informed Patri­cia,
let­ting go of the cur­tains.
“It’s noth­ing you ought to trou­ble your­self about,” Mrs. Greene
said. “I would just feel a whole lot safer with my babies away.”
For two months, ever since she’d been bit­ten, Patri­cia had felt
use­less and scared. The Old Vil­lage she’d lived in for six years had
always been some­place safe, where chil­dren left their bicy­cles in their
front yards, and only a few peo­ple ever locked their front doors, and
no one ever locked their back doors. It didn’t feel safe now. She
need­ed an expla­na­tion, some­thing she could solve that would make
every­thing go back to the way it was.
The check had been poor­ly judged and not near­ly enough. She’d
come out here to help and got­ten into trou­ble with those boys and
Mrs. Greene had had to help her out instead. But if there was some
trou­ble with her chil­dren, she could maybe do some­thing about that.
Here was some­thing tan­gi­ble. Patri­cia felt vic­to­ry at hand.
“Mrs. Greene,” Patri­cia said. “Tell me what’s wrong with Jesse and
Aaron. I want to help.”
“Nothing’s wrong with them,” Mrs. Greene said, pulling her­self to
the edge of her reclin­er, as close as she could get to Patri­cia so she
could talk low. “But I don’t want to have hap­pen to them what
hap­pened to the Reed boy, or the oth­ers.”
“What hap­pened to them?” Patri­cia asked.
“Since May,” Mrs. Greene said, “we’ve had two lit­tle boys turn up
dead and Francine has gone miss­ing.”
The room stayed silent as the Christ­mas tree lights cycled through
their col­ors.
“I haven’t read any­thing about it in the news­pa­per,” Kit­ty said.
“I’m a liar?” Mrs. Greene asked, and Patri­cia saw her eyes get hard.
“No one says you’re lying,” Patri­cia reas­sured her.
“She just did,” Mrs. Greene said. “Came right out and said it.”
“I read the paper every day,” Kit­ty shrugged. “I just haven’t heard
any­thing about chil­dren going miss­ing or get­ting killed.”
“Then I guess I made up a sto­ry,” Mrs. Greene said. “I guess those
lit­tle girls you heard singing out there made up their rhymes, too.
They call him the Boo Dad­dy because that’s what they say’s in the
woods. That’s why those boys were so ner­vous about strangers. We
all know someone’s out here sniff­ing after the chil­dren.”
“What about Francine?” Patri­cia asked.
“She’s gone,” Mrs. Greene said. “No one’s seen her car since May
fif­teen or so. The police say she’s run off with a man, but I know she
wouldn’t leave with­out her cat.”
“She left her cat?” Patri­cia asked.
“Had to get some­one from the church to sneak open her win­dow
and get it out before it starved,” Mrs. Greene said.
Next to her, Patri­cia felt Kit­ty turn and look through the cur­tains
again, and she want­ed to tell her to stop squirm­ing but she didn’t
want to break Mrs. Greene’s con­cen­tra­tion.
“And what about the chil­dren?” Patri­cia asked.
“The lit­tle Reed boy,” Mrs. Greene said. “He killed him­self. Eight
years old.”
Kit­ty stopped wig­gling.
“That’s not pos­si­ble,” she said. “Eight-year-old chil­dren don’t
com­mit sui­cide.”
“This one did,” Mrs. Greene said. “Got hit by a tow truck while he
was wait­ing for the school bus. The police say he was fool­ing around
and stum­bled in the road, but the oth­er chil­dren in line with him say
dif­fer­ent. They say Orville Reed stepped right out in front of that
truck delib­er­ate. It knocked him clean out of his shoes, threw him
fifty feet down the street. When they had his funer­al he looked like
he was just sleep­ing there in his cof­fin. Only thing dif­fer­ent was a
lit­tle tiny bruise on the side of his face.”
“But if the police think it was an acci­dent…,” Patri­cia began.
“The police think all kind of things,” Mrs. Greene said. “Doesn’t
nec­es­sar­i­ly make them true.”
“I haven’t seen any­thing in the paper,” Kit­ty protest­ed.
“The paper doesn’t talk about what hap­pens in Six Mile,” Mrs.
Greene said. “We’re not quite Mt. Pleas­ant, not quite Awen­daw, not
quite any­place. Cer­tain­ly not the Old Vil­lage. Besides, one lit­tle boy
has an acci­dent, an old lady runs away with some man, the police
fig­ure it’s just col­ored peo­ple being col­ored. It’d be like report­ing on
a fish for being wet. The only one that looks unnat­ur­al is what
hap­pened to that oth­er boy, Orville Reed’s cousin, Sean.”
Patri­cia felt caught up in a par­tic­u­lar­ly lurid and unstop­pable
bed­time sto­ry and now it was her turn to prompt the teller.
“What hap­pened to Sean?” she asked.
“Before he died, Orville’s moth­er and aun­tie say he got real
moody,” Mrs. Greene said. “They say he was irri­ta­ble and sleepy all
the time. His moth­er says he took long walks out in the woods every
day when the sun start­ed to go down, and came back gig­gling, and
then the next day he’d be sick and unhap­py again. He wouldn’t take
food, would hard­ly drink water, he’d just stare at the tele­vi­sion,
whether it was car­toons or com­mer­cials, and it was like he was
asleep while he was awake. He limped when he walked and cried
when she asked him what the mat­ter was. And she couldn’t keep him
out of those woods.”
“What was he doing out there?” Kit­ty asked, lean­ing for­ward.
“His cousin tried to find out,” Mrs. Greene said. “Tanya Reed
didn’t care for that boy, Sean. She put a pad­lock on her refrig­er­a­tor
because he kept steal­ing her gro­ceries. He used to come over when
she wasn’t home from work and smoke cig­a­rettes in her house and
watch car­toons with Orville. She tol­er­at­ed it because she thought
Orville need­ed a male role mod­el, even a bad one. She said Sean got
wor­ried about Orville going in the woods all the time. Sean told her
he thought some­one in the woods was doing some­thing to Orville.
Tanya wouldn’t lis­ten. Just threw him right out on his behind.
“One of the men who hangs around the bas­ket­ball court has a few
pis­tols and rents them to peo­ple. He says Sean couldn’t afford to rent
a gun, so he rent­ed him a ham­mer for three dol­lars, and he says Sean
told him he was going to fol­low his lit­tle cousin into the woods and
scare off who­ev­er was both­er­ing him. But the next time they saw
Sean he was dead. The man says he still had his ham­mer, too, for all
the good it did. Says Sean was found by a big live oak back in the
deep woods where some­one had picked him up and mashed his face
against the bark and scraped it right down to the skull. They couldn’t
have an open cas­ket at Sean’s funer­al.”
Patri­cia real­ized she wasn’t breath­ing. She care­ful­ly let out the air
in her lungs.
“That had to be in the papers,” she said.
“It was,” Mrs. Greene said. “The police called it ‘drug-relat­ed’
because Sean had been in that kind of trou­ble before. But no one out
here thinks it was and that’s why everyone’s real skit­tish about
strangers. Before he stepped in front of that truck, Orville Reed told
his moth­er he was talk­ing to a white man in the woods, but she
thought maybe he was talk­ing about one of his car­toons. No one
thinks that after what hap­pened to Sean. Some­times oth­er chil­dren
say they see a white man stand­ing at the edge of the woods, wav­ing
to them. Some peo­ple wake up and say they see a pale man star­ing in
through their win­dow screens, but that can’t be true because the last
one to say that was Becky Wash­ing­ton and she lives up on the sec­ond
floor. How’d a man get up there?”
Patri­cia thought about the hand van­ish­ing over the edge of the sun
porch over­hang, the foot­steps on the roof over Blue’s room, and she
felt her stom­ach con­tract.
“What do you think it is?” she asked.
Mrs. Greene set­tled back in her chair.
“I say it’s a man. One who dri­ves a van and used to live in Texas. I
even got his license plate num­ber.”
Kit­ty and Patri­cia looked at each oth­er and then at her.
“You got his license plate num­ber?” Kit­ty asked.
“I keep a pad by the front win­dow,” Mrs. Greene said. “If I see a
car dri­ving around I don’t know, I write down the license plate
num­ber in case some­thing hap­pens and the police need it lat­er for
evi­dence. Well, last week, I heard an engine buzzing late one night. I
got up and saw it turn­ing, leav­ing Six Mile, head­ing back for the state
road, but it was a white van and before it turned off I got most of its
license plate num­ber.”
She put her hands on the arms of her chair, pulled her­self up, and
limped to a lit­tle table by the front door. She picked up a spi­ral
note­book and opened it, scan­ning the pages, then she limped back to
Patri­cia, turned the note­book around, and pre­sent­ed it to her.
Texas, it read. — - X 13S.
“That’s all I had time to write,” Mrs. Greene said. “It was turn­ing
when I caught it. But I know it was a Texas plate.”
“Did you tell the police?” Patri­cia asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Greene said. “And they said thank you very
much and we’ll call if we have any fur­ther ques­tions but I guess they
didn’t because I nev­er got a call. So you can under­stand why peo­ple
out here don’t have much patience with strangers. Espe­cial­ly white
ones. Espe­cial­ly now with Des­tiny Tay­lor.”
“Who’s Des­tiny Tay­lor?” Kit­ty asked before Patri­cia could.
“Her moth­er goes to my church,” Mrs. Greene said. “She came to
me one day after ser­vices and want­ed me to see her lit­tle girl.”
“Why?” Patri­cia asked.

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.

14
For the next week, I try so hard not to think about Emi­ly or Camp­bell or any of that, try not to want
more than I have. What I have is, after all, like win­ning the fuck­ing lot­tery, and I’ve learned the hard
way that want­i­ng more is what fucks you in the end.
But it sits there under my skin, itching—the way they’d looked at me, the ques­tions, the insults
dis­guised as jokes.
And it’s not just the Thorn­field ladies. It’s John, it’s who­ev­er was call­ing him and ask­ing
ques­tions. I feel like he got what he want­ed that day in the Home Depot park­ing lot—to lord
some­thing over me, to watch my fear and anx­i­ety creep in, plus two hun­dred bucks out of the deal.
Sure­ly that was enough for him. And as weird as it sounds, I trust John.
Okay, trust is not the right word.
I know him, I guess. Peo­ple like him. All of us who stayed per­ma­nent fos­ter kids, who met at
group homes or shel­ters. John might fol­low me and maybe even call one of these days, mak­ing
insin­u­a­tions, but he’s not going to turn me over to the cops.
Or at least, I don’t think he will.
Being Mrs. Rochester feels like anoth­er brick in the wall between me and threats like that, like
maybe John wouldn’t even attempt it if he thought it would involve Eddie.
So that’s the plan. The new plan.
It’s not enough to live with Eddie. Being the girl­friend is not the way in. I have to be the wife.
Which means I have to be the fiancée first.
So, for the next few days, I study Eddie. I don’t know what the signs are that a man is think­ing of
propos­ing to you—I’ve actu­al­ly nev­er known any­one who got engaged. Peo­ple I’ve met are either
firm­ly sin­gle or already mar­ried, and not for the first time in my life, I wish I had an actu­al friend.
Some­one to talk to, just one per­son who knew the whole truth about every­thing.
But I’ve only got me.
About a week after the com­mit­tee meet­ing, Eddie comes home from work a lit­tle ear­ly and asks if I
want to take Adele to the Caha­ba Riv­er Walk.
It’s a park not too far from us, and one of the places he brought me when we first start­ed dat­ing. I
like the qui­et of it, the mean­der­ing trail along the water, the shade of the trees, and as soon as he
sug­gests it, my spir­its lift.
It’s a place he knows I like. It’s spe­cial to us because we’ve been there before.
And he nev­er comes home ear­ly.
The idea that maybe I won’t have to do any­thing at all to get him to pro­pose is dizzy­ing, and when
we get out of the car, I’m prac­ti­cal­ly bounc­ing on the balls of my feet.
Laugh­ing, Eddie takes my hand as Adele runs ahead of us, bark­ing at squir­rels. “You seem hap­py,”
he says, and I lean over to kiss his cheek.
“I am,” I reply.
And I real­ly am. Right until Eddie set­tles us both on a bench by the riv­er and pulls out his phone.
“Sor­ry,” he says as Adele flops at our feet, pant­i­ng. “I just have a few emails to send, and I need
to get them out before the end of the day.”
So much for our nice after­noon in the park. I sit there, sweat­ing and fum­ing, while he types and a
cou­ple of guys kayak on the riv­er.
There are also peo­ple walk­ing, and as two women move past us in their work­out shorts and fit­ted
tops, I see their eyes slide to Eddie, see one of them, a brunette with the same shiny hair and tiny
waist as Bea, look over to me like she’s think­ing, Huh. Won­der what that’s about.
My face is warm from more than the heat now, and I sit there, won­der­ing, too. What the fuck is
this about?
Eddie is still on his phone, and I decide to go for sub­tle.
“I need a man­i­cure,” I say on a sigh, wig­gling my fin­gers in front of my face. “When I was at
Emily’s the oth­er day, all I could see were everybody’s per­fect nails. Well, per­fect nails and a met­ric
fuck­ton of jew­el­ry. I’d be ner­vous wear­ing more than one ring.”
Okay, so that last lit­tle bit was maybe not as sub­tle as I could have been, but des­per­ate times and
all.
Eddie snorts at that, but doesn’t look up. “Bea always thought it was tacky how much jew­el­ry they
all wore. Espe­cial­ly when they’re most­ly just stay­ing home all day.”
“Okay, well, I don’t have to be drip­ping in dia­monds, but I should prob­a­bly take bet­ter care of my
nails.”
Still look­ing at his phone, Eddie catch­es my hand, absent­ly bring­ing my fin­gers to his lips.
I want him to say some­thing about not mind­ing my nails like that or not notic­ing, but instead he
says, “The place in the vil­lage is sup­posed to be good.”
Nod­ding, I take my hand back, twist­ing my fin­gers in the hem of my shirt. “Is that where Bea
went?” I ask, and final­ly, I have his atten­tion.
He looks up from the screen, blink­ing, before say­ing, “As far as I know, yeah. All the girls in the
neigh­bor­hood go there.”
“Women,” I say, and when he screws up his face, I sit up a lit­tle taller. “Just … they’re all in their
thir­ties at least. They’re not girls.”
His face clears, and he gives me a smile I haven’t seen before.
It’s not the sexy grin, or that delight­ed quirk of lips I get when I’ve said some­thing that charms
him. It’s … indul­gent.
Slight­ly pater­nal­is­tic.
It irri­tates me.
“Right, sor­ry,” he says, turn­ing back to his phone. “Women.”
“Look, I get that you’re old­er than me, and have, like, seen more of the world or what­ev­er, but you
don’t have to patron­ize me.” The words are out before I can stop them, before I can remem­ber to be
the Jane he wants, not the Jane I actu­al­ly am.
Then again, I’m remem­ber­ing, he some­times likes the Jane I actu­al­ly am.
He low­ers his phone and gives his full atten­tion to me. “I’m being a dick, aren’t I?”
“Lit­tle bit, yeah.”
There’s his real smile now, and he takes my hand again, squeez­ing it. “I’m sor­ry,” he says. “I’m
just swamped. But I want­ed to spend time with you today, and to get you out of the house for a lit­tle
bit. You’ve seemed out of sorts the past week or so.”
Ever since John.
I sit there, my mind work­ing, won­der­ing what I can say, how much I can share. There’s an open­ing
here, an oppor­tu­ni­ty, one of those chances to mix a lit­tle lie in with some actu­al truth, and it occurs to
me that it might get me what I want a lot faster than drop­ping hints about fin­gers and rings.
“I guess I’m just won­der­ing where all this is going,” I say, and he frowns, that crease deep­en­ing
between his eye­brows. On the riv­er, one of the kayak­ers calls to the oth­er, and anoth­er pair of women
jog by, glanc­ing down at me and Eddie.
“It’s not that I don’t love liv­ing with you,” I go on. “I do. I real­ly do. But when you’ve been a
char­i­ty case for most of your life, you start to real­ly resent that feel­ing.”
Eddie puts his phone down now and sits up straighter, his hands clasped between his knees.
“What does that mean?”
I keep my own eyes trained on the riv­er in front of me, on the fam­i­lies push­ing strollers around the
trail. The one cou­ple with their arms around each other’s waists.
“You saw where I used to live. You know what my life was like before I met you. I don’t … I
don’t belong here.”
He snorts at that. “Okay, again, I don’t know what that’s sup­posed to mean.”
Now I turn toward him, push­ing my sun­glass­es up on my head. “It means that I’m not Emi­ly or
Camp­bell or—”
“I don’t want you to be any of them,” he says, tak­ing my hand. “I love you because you’re not
them. Because you’re not…” He trails off, and I see his throat move as he swal­lows.
He wants to say because you’re not Bea. I know it, and he knows I know if the way he sud­den­ly
looks away is any indi­ca­tion. But for the first time, I’m left won­der­ing what that means. He had
obvi­ous­ly adored her, so why is being dif­fer­ent from her such a bonus to him?
“I’m sor­ry.” Eddie squeezes my fin­gers. “I’m sor­ry if I haven’t made it clear how much I want you
here. How much I need you and how, yes, you do belong here.”
Turn­ing to look at me, he ducks his head so that our fore­heads near­ly touch, his lips almost
brush­ing mine. “I am fuck­ing in love with you, Jane,” he mur­murs, the words send­ing an elec­tric spark
down my spine, his breath warm on my face. “That’s all that mat­ters. None of this shit with the
neigh­bor­hood, with Emi­ly, any of that. That’s all just noise. This.” He lifts our joined hands between
us, squeez­ing again. “This is real. This is what mat­ters.”
Eddie kiss­es my knuck­les, and I wait, prac­ti­cal­ly hold­ing my breath because if ever there were a
moment to pro­pose, it’s now, here in the park at sun­set, him look­ing at me like that, me not even
hav­ing to fake the wide-eyed swoony thing. How did I not real­ize soon­er that I want­ed this?
But then he drops our hands and turns away, sigh­ing. “I’ll try not to be gone so much, though,
okay? I’ll let Cait­lyn han­dle more things at South­ern Manors. Run­ning two busi­ness­es is too much, but
I can’t real­ly give up either of them right now. You under­stand that, right?”

In Chap­ter 14 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” Tarzan is led through the jun­gle by Tam­budza, an old woman, towards the camp of the Russ­ian, Rokoff. They move slow­ly due to Tambudza’s age and rheuma­tism. Mean­while, Rokoff learns of Tarzan’s approach through mes­sages from M’ganwazam’s run­ners and pre­pares to con­front him. Rokoff has already faced a tumul­tuous day; he dis­cov­ered Jane Clay­ton, his cap­tive, had escaped and in his fury, alien­at­ed his own camp. His reac­tion to Jane’s escape and his sub­se­quent aggres­sion towards his team lead to his iso­la­tion as his com­pan­ions, fear­ing both Rokoff’s wrath and Tarzan’s impend­ing vengeance, desert the camp, tak­ing valu­able items with them.

Con­front­ed by one of his own men, Rokoff flees into the jun­gle, just as Tarzan arrives at the desert­ed camp. Tarzan, miss­ing both Rokoff and Jane, decides to head back to M’ganwazam’s vil­lage. Unaware of Jane’s where­abouts, his jour­ney quick­ly becomes a race to find her before it’s too late.

Jane, sur­viv­ing alone, recalls Anderssen’s sac­ri­fice for her and reclaims a hid­den rifle for pro­tec­tion. As she nav­i­gates through the jun­gle, she encoun­ters a scene that shakes her under­stand­ing of the jun­gle’s hierarchy—a group of apes, a pan­ther, and a man (Tarzan, unknown to her at this moment) peace­ful­ly inter­act­ing. This encounter high­lights Tarzan’s unique posi­tion with­in the ani­mal king­dom and plants seeds of doubt about her per­ceived real­i­ty.

Jane even­tu­al­ly attempts to escape down a riv­er but finds her­self momen­tar­i­ly halt­ed by Rokoff, who sur­pris­ing­ly pleads to join her, fear­ing Tarzan’s ani­mals. As Jane man­ages to free the boat and escape, Rokoff’s des­per­a­tion under­scores his iso­la­tion and the turn­ing of tables—where once he held pow­er over Jane, he now finds him­self pow­er­less, his threats emp­ty as Jane sails away, leav­ing him behind.

This chap­ter melds sus­pense and rev­e­la­tion, por­tray­ing Tarzan’s relent­less pur­suit of Jane, Rokoff’s descent into des­per­a­tion, and Jane’s bur­geon­ing resilience and resource­ful­ness. The jun­gle, with its untold dan­gers and unex­pect­ed alliances, serves as a back­drop to this unfold­ing dra­ma, empha­siz­ing themes of sur­vival, pow­er dynam­ics, and the unpre­dictable nature of both human and ani­mal inter­ac­tions.