Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 26 show­cas­es a ten­sion-filled lun­cheon turned con­fronta­tion at the Spring Court, pri­mar­i­ly involv­ing Tam­lin, Lucien, Feyre, and Rhysand, a pow­er­ful High Lord from the Night Court. The chap­ter begins with Lucien shar­ing grim news about a dead­ly blight rav­aging the faerie realms, killing chil­dren and tear­ing apart the mag­ic and minds of its vic­tims. The joy and warmth of Tam­lin and Feyre’s bud­ding romance quick­ly evap­o­rate with the dis­cus­sion of this blight and its dev­as­tat­ing effects.

Just as the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion sinks in, the atmos­phere shifts dras­ti­cal­ly with the arrival of Rhysand, who enters with an air of dark charis­ma and men­ace. The dia­logue reveals Rhysand’s com­plex rela­tion­ship with both Lucien and Tam­lin, high­light­ing Tam­lin’s past with Rhysand and hint­ing at the deep scars left by those inter­ac­tions. Rhysand’s ven­omous pres­ence brings a pal­pa­ble ten­sion, espe­cial­ly as he notices the place set­ting for Feyre and deduces some­one else is present.

Rhysand’s inter­ac­tions with the group are fraught with pow­er plays and veiled threats, dis­play­ing his dom­i­nance and bring­ing to light the pre­car­i­ous bal­ance of pow­er with­in the faerie courts. His focus shifts to Feyre, reveal­ing his aware­ness of her human iden­ti­ty, and sub­jects her to a vile form of men­tal manip­u­la­tion, show­cas­ing his abil­i­ty to con­trol and ter­ri­fy with ease.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in Rhysand insist­ing Tam­lin and Lucien grov­el before him, a dis­play of sub­mis­sion and des­per­a­tion that cements Rhysand’s posi­tion of pow­er. The humil­i­a­tion of Tam­lin and Lucien, com­pound­ed by Rhysand’s dark inten­tions towards Feyre, sets a chill­ing prece­dent for the dynam­ics between the char­ac­ters and fore­shad­ows a com­plex web of alliances, enmi­ties, and pow­er strug­gles.

This chap­ter delves deep into the polit­i­cal and per­son­al ten­sions with­in and between the faerie courts, set­ting the stage for future con­flicts and reveal­ing the intri­cate rela­tion­ships that define the faerie realm’s land­scape. The emo­tion­al and polit­i­cal stakes are raised sig­nif­i­cant­ly, hint­ing at the broad­er impli­ca­tions of these inter­ac­tions for the storyline’s pro­gres­sion.

Alice, stressed and sleep-deprived, arrives first at the cour­t­house, hav­ing attempt­ed to feed Margery corn­bread in jail, which she refused. The absence of their friends Kath­leen and Fred height­ens the ten­sion, but Izzy and Beth’s pres­ence offers some sup­port. The court­room fills with a sense of antic­i­pa­tion and wor­ry, espe­cial­ly with the sur­prise arrival of Kath­leen, who inter­rupts with a new wit­ness, Ver­na McCul­lough, offer­ing a dra­mat­ic turn in the tri­al.

Ver­na’s tes­ti­mo­ny reveals she and her sis­ter lived in seclu­sion, fol­low­ing their father, Clem McCul­lough’s, strict rules. He van­ished days before Christ­mas, last men­tion­ing he was return­ing a library book, “Lit­tle Women.” This dis­clo­sure links back to the book found near a dead body, pre­vi­ous­ly impli­cat­ing Margery in a mur­der. Ver­na’s appear­ance, preg­nant and ner­vous, con­trasts sharply with the court­room’s skep­ti­cal atmos­phere. Her evi­dence shifts the nar­ra­tive, sug­gest­ing Clem’s death was an acci­dent pos­si­bly caused by the harsh win­ter con­di­tions rather than foul play.

The judge, influ­enced by Ver­na’s tes­ti­mo­ny and the improb­a­bil­i­ty of the mur­der charge, declares the case evi­dence insuf­fi­cient for con­vic­tion and dis­miss­es the charges against Margery. The court­room bursts into chaot­ic relief, with Margery being sup­port­ed phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly by her friends and Sven, indi­cat­ing her frag­ile state after the ordeal.

Out­side the court­room dra­ma, Ver­na’s mut­tered “Good rid­dance” sug­gests com­plex, unspo­ken fam­i­ly dynam­ics and a sense of clo­sure over her father’s death. The chap­ter clos­es on a note of com­mu­nal sup­port for Margery, sym­bol­ic of their vic­to­ry and sol­i­dar­i­ty against the town’s judg­ment. Sven’s arrival with the baby in a joy­ous meet­ing with Margery hints at a new begin­ning and the redemp­tion of famil­ial bonds, encap­su­lat­ing themes of com­mu­ni­ty resilience and the tri­umph of truth and jus­tice under immense soci­etal pres­sure.

Chap­ter Twen­ty-Six recounts a piv­otal evening where the pro­tag­o­nist and Andrew share an enjoy­able din­ner, inten­tion­al­ly steer­ing clear of dis­cussing Nina and allow­ing the con­ver­sa­tion to flow with ease, enhanced by the con­sump­tion of wine. The nar­ra­tive cap­tures a moment where both char­ac­ters, thor­ough­ly ine­bri­at­ed, are faced with the deci­sion of how to safe­ly end their night giv­en Andrew’s inabil­i­ty to dri­ve back to Long Island due to intox­i­ca­tion. Acknowl­edg­ing the risk, Andrew sug­gests uti­liz­ing their reser­va­tion at The Plaza, a pro­pos­al fraught with ten­sion and unspo­ken pos­si­bil­i­ties due to their drunk­en state, his wife’s absence, and the under­ly­ing sex­u­al ten­sion.

Despite the pro­tag­o­nist’s ini­tial reluc­tance, cit­ing the sit­u­a­tion as a “huge mis­take,” and her admis­sion of mis­trust pri­mar­i­ly in her­self, Andrew assures her of his gen­tle­man­ly inten­tions by propos­ing they get sep­a­rate rooms at The Plaza to avoid any indis­cre­tion. His offer momen­tar­i­ly eas­es the sit­u­a­tion, over­shad­owed by the prac­ti­cal con­cern of their inabil­i­ty to safe­ly return to the island and Andrew’s casu­al dis­missal of the expense, lever­ag­ing his busi­ness rela­tions to secure a ‘deal’.

The ensu­ing taxi ride to the hotel becomes a charged scene as Andrew’s atten­tion to the pro­tag­o­nist’s attire evokes a play­ful yet tense inter­ac­tion, reveal­ing his attrac­tion to her under the guise of ine­bri­at­ed frank­ness. This moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty between them is fur­ther inten­si­fied when Andrew open­ly admires her beau­ty, a com­pli­ment that stirs an emo­tion­al response from both par­ties. The chap­ter deft­ly cap­tures the com­plex inter­play of desire, loy­al­ty, and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of deci­sions made under the influ­ence of alco­hol, leav­ing their rela­tion­ship at a pre­car­i­ous cross­roads. Amidst this, the pro­tag­o­nist is caught between her attrac­tion to Andrew and the moral impli­ca­tions of their poten­tial actions, high­light­ing the ongo­ing strug­gle with per­son­al desires ver­sus pro­fes­sion­al and eth­i­cal bound­aries.

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
26
The Attor had van­ished in the moments after Ama­ran­tha died, sus­pect­ed to
have fled for the King of Hybern. And if it was here, in the mor­tal lands—
I went pli­ant in its arms, buy­ing a wisp of time to scan for some­thing,
any­thing to use against it.
“Good,” it hissed in my ear. “Now tell me—”
Night explod­ed around us.
The Attor screamed—screamed—as that dark­ness swal­lowed us, and I
was wrenched from its spindly, hard arms, its nails slic­ing into my leather. I
col­lid­ed face-first with packed, icy snow.
I rolled, flip­ping back, whirling to get my feet under me—
The light returned as I rose into a crouch, knife angled.
And there was Rhysand, bind­ing the Attor to a snow-shroud­ed oak with
noth­ing but twist­ing bands of night. Like the ones that had crushed Ianthe’s
hand. Rhysand’s own hands were in his pock­ets, his face cold and beau­ti­ful
as death. “I’d been won­der­ing where you slith­ered off to.”
The Attor pant­ed as it strug­gled against the bonds.
Rhysand mere­ly sent two spears of night shoot­ing into its wings. The
Attor shrieked as those spears met flesh—and sank deep into the bark
behind it.
“Answer my ques­tions, and you can crawl back to your mas­ter,” Rhys
said, as if he were inquir­ing about the weath­er.
“Whore,” the Attor spat. Sil­very blood leaked from its wings, hiss­ing as
it hit the snow.
Rhys smiled. “You for­get that I rather enjoy these things.” He lift­ed a
fin­ger.
The Attor screamed, “No!” Rhys’s fin­ger paused. “I was sent,” it pant­ed,
“to get her.”
“Why?” Rhys asked with that casu­al, ter­ri­fy­ing calm.
“That was my order. I am not to ques­tion. The king wants her.”
My blood went as cold as the woods around us.
“Why?” Rhys said again. The Attor began screaming—this time beneath
the force of a pow­er I could not see. I flinched.
“Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know.” I believed it.
“Where is the king cur­rent­ly?”
“Hybern.”
“Army?”
“Com­ing soon.”
“How large?”
“End­less. We have allies in every ter­ri­to­ry, all wait­ing.”
Rhys cocked his head as if con­tem­plat­ing what to ask next. But he
straight­ened, and Azriel slammed into the snow, send­ing it fly­ing like water
from a pud­dle. He’d flown in so silent­ly, I hadn’t even heard the beat of his
wings. Cass­ian must have stayed at the house to defend my sis­ters.
There was no kind­ness on Azriel’s face as the snow settled—the
immov­able mask of the High Lord’s shad­owsinger.
The Attor began trem­bling, and I almost felt bad for it as Azriel stalked
for him. Almost—but didn’t. Not when these woods were so close to the
chateau. To my sis­ters.
Rhys came to my side as Azriel reached the Attor. “The next time you try
to take her,” Rhys said to the Attor, “I kill first; ask ques­tions lat­er.”
Azriel caught his eye. Rhys nod­ded. The Siphons atop his scarred hands
flick­ered like rip­pling blue fire as he reached for the Attor. Before the Attor
could scream, it and the spy­mas­ter van­ished.
I didn’t want to think about where they’d go, what Azriel would do. I
hadn’t even known Azriel pos­sessed the abil­i­ty to win­now, or what­ev­er
pow­er he’d chan­neled through his Siphons. He’d let Rhys win­now us both
in the oth­er day—unless the pow­er was too drain­ing to be used so light­ly.
“Will he kill him?” I said, my puffs of breath uneven.
“No.” I shiv­ered at the raw pow­er glaz­ing his taut body. “We’ll use him
to send a mes­sage to Hybern that if they want to hunt the mem­bers of my
court, they’ll have to do bet­ter than that.”
I started—at the claim he’d made of me, and at the words. “You knew—
you knew he was hunt­ing me?”
“I was curi­ous who want­ed to snatch you the first moment you were
alone.”
I didn’t know where to start. So Tam­lin was right—about my safe­ty. To
some degree. It didn’t excuse any­thing. “So you nev­er planned to stay with
me while I trained. You used me as bait—”
“Yes, and I’d do it again. You were safe the entire time.”
“You should have told me! ”
“Maybe next time.”
“There will be no next time! ” I slammed a hand into his chest, and he
stag­gered back a step from the strength of the blow. I blinked. I’d for­got­ten
—for­got­ten that strength in my pan­ic. Just like with the Weaver. I’d
for­got­ten how strong I was.
“Yes, you did,” Rhysand snarled, read­ing the sur­prise on my face, that
icy calm shat­ter­ing. “You for­got that strength, and that you can burn and
become dark­ness, and grow claws. You for­got. You stopped fight­ing.”
He didn’t just mean the Attor. Or the Weaver.
And the rage rose up in me in such a mighty wave that I had no thought
in my head but wrath: at myself, what I’d been forced to do, what had been
done to me, to him.
“So what if I did?” I hissed, and shoved him again. “So what if I did?”
I went to shove him again, but Rhys win­nowed away a few feet.
I stormed for him, snow crunch­ing under­foot. “It’s not easy.” The rage
ran me over, oblit­er­at­ed me. I lift­ed my arms to slam my palms into his
chest—
And he van­ished again.
He appeared behind me, so close that his breath tick­led my ear as he said,
“You have no idea how not easy it is.”
I whirled, grap­pling for him. He van­ished before I could strike him,
pound him.
Rhys appeared across the clear­ing, chuck­ling. “Try hard­er.”
I couldn’t fold myself into dark­ness and pock­ets. And if I could—if I
could turn myself into smoke, into air and night and stars, I’d use it to
appear right in front of him and smack that smile off his face.

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 WAS SENT AN INVITATION to see Mick Riva per­form at the
Hol­ly­wood Bowl that fall. I decid­ed to go, not because I cared about
see­ing Mick Riva but because an evening out­side sound­ed fun. And I
wasn’t above court­ing the tabloids.
Celia, Har­ry, and I decid­ed to go togeth­er. I would nev­er have gone
with just Celia, not with that many eyes on us. But Har­ry was a per­fect
buffer.
That night, the air in L.A. was cool­er than I had antic­i­pat­ed. I was
wear­ing capri pants and a short-sleeved sweater. I had just got­ten
bangs and had start­ed sweep­ing them to the side. Celia had on a blue
shift dress and flats. Har­ry, dap­per as ever, was wear­ing slacks and a
short-sleeved oxford shirt. He held a camel-col­ored knit cardi­gan with
over­sized but­tons in his hand, ready for any of us who were too cold.
We sat in the sec­ond row with a cou­ple of Harry’s pro­duc­er friends
from Para­mount. Across the aisle, I saw Ed Bak­er with a young woman
who appeared as if she could be his daugh­ter, but I knew bet­ter. I
decid­ed not to say hi, not only because he was still a part of the Sun­set
machine but also because I nev­er liked him.
Mick Riva took the stage, and the women in the crowd start­ed
cheer­ing so loud­ly that Celia actu­al­ly put her hands over her ears. He
was wear­ing a dark suit with a loose tie. His jet-black hair was combed
back but just slight­ly disheveled. If I had to guess, I’d say he’d had a
drink or two back­stage. But it didn’t seem to slow him down in the
slight­est.
“I don’t get it,” Celia said to me as she leaned in to my ear. “What do
they see in this guy?”
I shrugged. “That he’s hand­some, I sup­pose.”
Mick walked up to the micro­phone, the spot­light fol­low­ing him. He
grabbed the mic stand with both pas­sion and soft­ness, as if it were one
of the many girls yelling his name.
“And he knows what he’s doing,” I said.
Celia shrugged. “I’d take Brick Thomas over him any day.”
I shook my head, cring­ing. “No, Brick Thomas is a heel. Trust me.
If you met him, with­in five sec­onds, you’d be gag­ging.”
Celia laughed. “I think he’s cute.”
“No, you don’t,” I said.
“Well, I think he’s cuter than Mick Riva,” she said. “Har­ry?
Thoughts?”
Har­ry leaned in from the oth­er side. He whis­pered so soft­ly I
almost didn’t hear him. “I’m embar­rassed to admit I have some­thing in
com­mon with these shriek­ing girls,” he said. “I would not kick Mick
out of bed for eat­ing crack­ers.”
Celia laughed.
“You are too much,” I said as I watched Mick walk from one end of
the stage to the oth­er, croon­ing and smol­der­ing. “Where are we eat­ing
after this?” I asked them both. “That’s the real ques­tion.”
“Don’t we have to go back­stage?” Celia asked. “Isn’t that the polite
thing to do?”
Mick’s first song end­ed, and every­one start­ed clap­ping and
cheer­ing. Har­ry leaned over me as he clapped so Celia could hear
him.
“You won an Oscar, Celia,” he said. “You can do what­ev­er the hell
you want.”
She threw her head back and laughed as she clapped. “Well, then I
want to go get a steak.”
“Steak it is,” I said.
I don’t know whether it was the laugh­ing or the cheer­ing or the
clap­ping. There was so much noise around me, so much chaos from
the crowd. But for one fleet­ing moment, I for­got myself. I for­got where
I was. I for­got who I was. I for­got who I was with.
And I grabbed Celia’s hand and held it.
She looked down, sur­prised. I could feel Harry’s gaze on our hands,
too.

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.

26
Flail­ing those weeks with­out my chil­dren, I lost it, over and over again. I didn’t
even real­ly know how to take care of myself. Because of the divorce, I’d had to
move out of the home I loved and was liv­ing in a ran­dom Eng­lish-style cot­tage in
Bev­er­ly Hills. The paparazzi were cir­cling extra-excit­ed­ly now, like sharks when
there’s blood in the water.
When I �rst shaved my head, it felt almost reli­gious. I was liv­ing on a lev­el of
pure being.
For when I want­ed to go out into the world, I bought sev­en wigs, all short
bobs. But if I couldn’t see my sons, I didn’t want to see any­body.
A few days after I shaved my head, my cousin Alli drove me back to Kevin’s. At
least I’d thought there’d be no paparazzi to see it this time. But appar­ent­ly
some­one tipped one of the pho­tog­ra­phers o�, and he called his bud­dy.
When we stopped at a gas sta­tion, the pair of them came for me. They kept
tak­ing �ash pic­tures with a giant cam­era and video­tap­ing me through the
win­dow as I sat, heart­bro­ken, in the pas­sen­ger seat, wait­ing for Alli to come
back. One of them was ask­ing ques­tions: “How are you doing? You doing okay?
I’m con­cerned about you.”
We drove on to Kevin’s. The two paparazzi kept fol­low­ing us, tak­ing pic­tures
as I was, once again, denied entry to Kevin’s. Turned away, try­ing to see my own
chil­dren.
After we left, Alli pulled over so we could �gure out what to do next. The
video­g­ra­ph­er was right there at my win­dow again.
“What I’m going to do, Britney—all I’m going to do—is I’m going to ask you
a few ques­tions,” one of them said with that mean look on his face. He wasn’t
ask­ing if he could. He was telling me what he was going to do to me. “And then
I’m going to leave you alone.”
Alli start­ed beg­ging the men to go away. “Please, guys. Don’t, guys. Please,
please…”
She was being so polite, and she was plead­ing with them as if she was ask­ing
them to spare our lives, which it sort of felt like she was.
But they wouldn’t stop. I screamed.
They liked that—when I react­ed. One guy wouldn’t go away until he got
what he want­ed. He kept smirk­ing, kept ask­ing me the same ter­ri­ble ques­tions,
over and over, try­ing to get me to react again. There was so much ugli­ness in his
voice—such a lack of human­i­ty.
This was one of the worst moments of my whole life, and he kept after me.
Couldn’t he treat me like a human being? Couldn’t he back o�? But he
wouldn’t. He just kept com­ing. He kept ask­ing me, over and over again, how I
felt not being able to see my kids. He was smil­ing.
Final­ly, I snapped.
I grabbed the only thing with­in reach, a green umbrel­la, and jumped out of
the car. I wasn’t going to hit him, because even at my worst, I am not that kind
of per­son. I hit the next clos­est thing, which was his car.
Pathet­ic, real­ly. An umbrel­la. You can’t even do any dam­age with an
umbrel­la. It was a des­per­ate move by a des­per­ate per­son.
I was so embar­rassed by what I’d done that I sent the pho­to agency an
apol­o­gy note, men­tion­ing that I’d been in the run­ning for a dark �lm role, which
was true, and that I wasn’t quite myself, which was also true.
Lat­er, that paparaz­zo would say in an inter­view for a doc­u­men­tary about me,
“That was not a good night for her… But it was a good night for us—’cause we
got the mon­ey shot.”
Now my hus­band, Hesam, tells me that it’s a whole thing for beau­ti­ful girls to
shave their heads. It’s a vibe, he says—a choice not to play into ideas of

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 26
Carter picked up Blue from James Harris’s house in the morn­ing.
“It’s all going to be fine, Pat­ty,” he said.
She didn’t argue. Instead she made Toast­er Strudel, and told Korey
she couldn’t wear a chok­er to school, and had to lis­ten while Korey
told her she was prac­ti­cal­ly a nun, and then her daugh­ter was gone,
and Patri­cia stood in her house, alone.
Even though it was Octo­ber, the sun warmed the rooms and made
her sleepy. Rag­tag found a patch of sun­light in the din­ing room and
col­lapsed onto it, ribs ris­ing and falling, eyes closed.
Patri­cia had so many projects—finish with the kitchen cab­i­nets,
pick up all the news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines on the sun porch, do
some­thing with the salt­wa­ter tank in the laun­dry room, vac­u­um the
garage room, clean out the clos­et in the den, change the sheets—she
didn’t know where to begin. She had a fifth cup of cof­fee and the
silence in the house pressed down on her, and the sun kept get­ting
hot­ter and warmer, thick­en­ing the air into a sleep-induc­ing fog.
The phone rang.
“Camp­bell res­i­dence,” she said.
“Did Blue get to school all right?” James Har­ris asked.
A thin sheen of sweat broke out across Patricia’s upper lip and she
felt stu­pid, like she didn’t know what to say. She took a breath. Carter
trust­ed James Har­ris. Blue trust­ed him. She had kept him at arm’s
length for three years and what had that achieved? He was impor­tant
to her son. He was impor­tant to her fam­i­ly. She need­ed to stop
push­ing him away.
“He did,” she said, and made her­self smile so he could hear it in
her voice. “Thank you for tak­ing him in last night.”
“He was pret­ty upset when he showed up,” James Har­ris said. “I’m
not even sure why he chose to come here.”
“I’m glad he thinks of it as a place he can go,” she made her­self say.
“I’d rather him be there than out wan­der­ing the streets. It’s not as
safe in the Old Vil­lage as it used to be.”
James Harris’s voice took on the relaxed qual­i­ty of some­one who
had plen­ty of time to chat. “He said he was scared you’d gone next
door and called the police, so he hid in the bush­es behind Alham­bra
for a while. I didn’t know if he’d eat­en, so I heat­ed up some of those
French bread piz­zas. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Is there some­thing going on at home?” James Har­ris asked.
The sun com­ing through the kitchen win­dows made Patricia’s eyes
ache, so she looked into the cool dark­ness of the den instead.
“He’s just turn­ing into a teenag­er,” she said.
“Patri­cia,” James Har­ris said, and she heard his voice shade
earnest. “I know you got a bad impres­sion of me when I moved here,
but what­ev­er you think, believe me when I say that I care about your
chil­dren. They’re good kids. Carter works so much and I wor­ry about
you doing this most­ly by your­self.”
“Well, his pri­vate prac­tice keeps him busy,” Patri­cia said.
“I’ve told him he doesn’t have to make every dol­lar in the world,”
James Har­ris said. “What’s the point of work­ing if you miss out on
your kids grow­ing up?”
She felt dis­loy­al talk­ing about Carter behind his back, but it was
also a relief.
“He puts a lot of pres­sure on him­self,” she said.
“You’re the one with pres­sure on you,” James Har­ris said. “Rais­ing
two teenagers prac­ti­cal­ly by your­self, it’s too much.”
“It’s hard­est on Blue,” she said. “He has such a hard time keep­ing
up at school. Carter thinks it’s atten­tion deficit dis­or­der.”
“His atten­tion is fine when it comes to World War II,” James
Har­ris said.
The famil­iar­i­ty of dis­cussing Blue with some­one who under­stood
him relaxed Patri­cia.
“He spray-paint­ed a dog,” she said.
“What?” James Har­ris laughed.
After a moment, she laughed, too.
“Poor dog,” she said, feel­ing guilty. “His name is Rufus and he’s
the school’s unof­fi­cial mas­cot. Blue and Slick Paley’s youngest spray-
paint­ed him sil­ver and now they’ve both got Sat­ur­day school for the
rest of the year.”
Just say­ing it out loud sound­ed absurd. She imag­ined it becom­ing
a fun­ny fam­i­ly sto­ry next year.
“Will the dog be okay?” James Har­ris asked.
“They say he will,” she said. “But how do you clean spray paint off
a dog?”
“I just bought a new CD chang­er,” James Har­ris said. “I’ll ask Blue
over to help me hook it up. If it comes up, I’ll ask him what hap­pened
and let you know what he says.”
“Would you?” Patri­cia asked. “I’d be grate­ful.”
“It’s good talk­ing this way again,” James said. “Would you like to
come over for some cof­fee? We can catch up.”
She almost said yes because her first instinct in every sit­u­a­tion was
to be agree­able, but she smelled some­thing clean and cool and
med­ical and it took her out of her bright, sun­ny kitchen for a
moment and sud­den­ly it was four years ago and the garage door was
open and she could smell the plas­tic incon­ti­nence pads they used for
Miss Mary. For a moment she felt like the woman she had been all
those years ago, a woman who didn’t have to con­stant­ly apol­o­gize for
every­thing, and she said, “No, thank you. I have to fin­ish clean­ing out
the kitchen cab­i­nets.”
“Anoth­er day, then,” he said, and she won­dered if he’d heard the
change in her voice.
They hung up and Patri­cia looked at the locked garage room door.
She smelled the car­pet sham­poo she used to use in Miss Mary’s
room, and the pine-scent­ed Lysol Mrs. Greene sprayed after Miss
Mary had an acci­dent. Any minute she expect­ed to see the door
swing open and Mrs. Greene come up the steps in her white pants
and blouse, a balled-up bun­dle of sheets in her arms.
She made her­self stand up and walk to the door, the smell of Miss
Mary’s room get­ting stronger with every step. She took the key off
the hook by the door and watched her hand float out on the end of
her arm and insert the key into the dead­bolt. She twist­ed and the
door popped open and it swung wide and the garage room stood
emp­ty. She smelled noth­ing but cool air and dust.
Patri­cia locked the door and decid­ed to clean all the news­pa­pers
off the sun porch and then fin­ish the kitchen cab­i­nets. She walked
through the din­ing room, where Rag­tag lay sun­bathing, twitch­ing
one ear as she passed. On the sun porch, light bounced off
news­pa­pers and glossy mag­a­zine cov­ers, daz­zling her. She picked up
the papers Carter had left on the ottoman and walked back through
the din­ing room to the kitchen. As she stepped into the den, a voice
behind the din­ing room door said:
patri­cia
She turned. No one was there. And then, through the crack along
the hinges of the din­ing room door, she saw a star­ing blue eye
crowned by gray hair, and then noth­ing but the yel­low wall behind
the door.
Patri­cia stood for a moment, skin crawl­ing, shoul­ders twitch­ing.
She felt a mus­cle trem­ble in one cheek. There was noth­ing there.
She’d had some kind of olfac­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tion and it made her
believe she’d heard Miss Mary’s voice. That was all.
Rag­tag sat up, eyes focused on the open din­ing room door. Patri­cia
put the papers in the garbage and made her­self walk back through
the din­ing room to the sun porch.
She picked up copies of Red­book and Ladies’ Home Jour­nal and
Time and hes­i­tat­ed briefly, then walked back through the din­ing
room to the den. As she passed the open din­ing room door again,
Miss Mary whis­pered from behind it:
patri­cia
Her breath stopped in her throat. Her knuck­les cramped around
the mag­a­zines. She could not move. She felt Miss Mary’s eyes bor­ing
into the back of her neck. She felt Miss Mary stand­ing behind the
din­ing room door, star­ing mad­ly through the crack, and then came a
tor­rent of whis­pers.
he’s com­ing for the chil­dren, he’s tak­en the child, he’s tak­en my
grand­child, he’s come for my grand­child, the night­walk­ing man,
hoyt pick­ens suck­les on the babies, on the sweet fat babies with their
fat lit­tle legs, he’s dug in like a tick, he’s dug in like a tick and he’s
suck­ing every­thing out of you patri­cia, he’s come for my
grand­child, wake up patri­cia, wake up, the night­walk­ing man is in
your house, he’s on my grand­child, wake up patri­cia, patri­cia wake
up, wake up, wake up…
Dead words, a lunatic riv­er of syl­la­bles hiss­ing from between cold
lips.
“Miss Mary?” Patri­cia said, but her tongue felt thick and her words
were bare­ly a whis­per.
he’s the devil’s son the night­walk­ing man and he’s tak­ing my
grand­child, wake up wake up wake up, go to ursu­la, she has my
pho­to­graph, it’s in her house, go to ursu­la…
“I can’t,” Patri­cia said, and this time she had enough strength to
make her voice echo off the den walls.
The whis­pers stopped. Patri­cia turned and the crack in the door
stood emp­ty. She jumped at the sound of fin­ger­nails tap­ping, but it
was only Rag­tag get­ting up and trot­ting out of the room.
Patri­cia didn’t believe in ghosts. She had always con­sid­ered Miss
Mary’s kitchen-table mag­ic some­thing that might be inter­est­ing to a
soci­ol­o­gist from a local col­lege. When women she knew said
Grand­ma­ma appeared in their dreams and told them where to find a
lost wed­ding ring or that Cousin Eddie had just died, she got
irri­tat­ed. It wasn’t real.

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.

26
The Bap­tist church where John works isn’t one of the big­ger con­gre­ga­tions in the area. In the South,
I’ve noticed, some church­es take up entire blocks.
John’s hard­ly looks like a church at all. It’s a squat, ugly brick build­ing, and only the stained-glass
win­dow of Jesus sur­round­ed by lambs tips you off to the fact that it’s a house of wor­ship.
I’ve dressed in one of my best out­fits today, a blue pleat­ed skirt with a white boat­neck blouse,
paired with blue-and-white-striped bal­let flats and sil­ver jew­el­ry. When I’d looked in the mir­ror this
morn­ing, I almost hadn’t rec­og­nized myself. I didn’t look like the Jane I’d been two months ago, but I
also didn’t look like I was try­ing to copy Emi­ly or Camp­bell.
Or Bea.
I looked like … me.
Who­ev­er that was turn­ing out to be.
My shoul­ders are back as I open the door, my head high, and when I step inside, the girl sit­ting at
the desk gives me a bright smile.
She prob­a­bly thinks I’m here to donate mon­ey.
She’s half-right.
“Hii­i­i­ii,” I drawl, slid­ing my sun­glass­es up on my head. “Is John Rivers here?”
I don’t miss it, the way her smile droops just the lit­tlest bit.
I feel you, girl.
“He’s in the music room,” she says, point­ing down the hall, and I thank her.
The church smells like burnt cof­fee and old paper, the linoleum squeak­ing under my shoes as I
make my way to a room at the end of the hall where I can already hear jan­gling gui­tar chords.
John is sit­ting on a ris­er in the mid­dle of the room, a music stand in front of him. I can see the
cov­er of his sheet music book. Praise Songs for Joy­ful Hearts.
Appro­pri­ate, because my heart is pret­ty fuck­ing joy­ful right now.
His fin­gers slide on the strings as he looks up and sees me there, and I reg­is­ter that beat, the
frac­tion­al moment before he rec­og­nizes me.
He’s wear­ing his navy polo today, the one with the church’s logo on the chest, and his hair has
been combed back from his face. He’s also wear­ing an awful­ly nice new pair of sneak­ers, and if I
doubt­ed it before, I now know that not all of Eddie’s mon­ey went to a new sound sys­tem.
“Jane.” John gets up, putting the gui­tar down, and I hold a hand up.
“I won’t be here long,” I tell him. “I just dropped in to let you know that I final­ly talked with your
mys­te­ri­ous Phoenix con­tact.”
The blood lit­er­al­ly drains from his face. I watch it, the way his cheeks fade from rud­dy pink to a
sick­ly sort of gray, and it almost makes the shit he put me through worth it.
But not quite.
“You know, he was actu­al­ly kind of a nice guy. Espe­cial­ly when I explained to him that any­thing
you had told him was bull­shit.”
I can still feel the shock, the sheer fuck­ing relief that had coursed through me as the voice on the
oth­er end of that mys­te­ri­ous phone num­ber told me that he was employed by a Georgie Smith, who
was look­ing for her sis­ter, Liz. That Georgie thought Liz had had a daugh­ter who had end­ed up in
fos­ter care in Ari­zona, that she might have gone by the name Helen Burns, and that Georgie would
like to meet her.
I’d made myself sound regret­ful, almost a lit­tle wist­ful as I’d con­firmed that I’d been in fos­ter
care with Helen, but that last I heard, she’d got­ten involved in drugs, and I thought she might have
head­ed even fur­ther west, Seat­tle, maybe? No, Port­land. One of those. But in any case, I hadn’t heard
from her or seen her in years, and—a low­ered voice here, a con­spir­a­to­r­i­al whisper—I wouldn’t
both­er talk­ing to John Rivers any fur­ther. John Rivers had a his­to­ry of con­ning old­er women like Mrs.
Smith—he’d string her along, promise he knew her niece, then he’d nev­er deliv­er. The pri­vate
inves­ti­ga­tor didn’t sound sur­prised, just said he knew the type and thanked me for my time.
When I’d hung up the phone, I’d wait­ed for real regret, know­ing I’d just snipped the one thin
thread still hold­ing me to any fam­i­ly. And a year ago, even a few months ago, know­ing my mom had
had a sis­ter who was look­ing for me would’ve made me feel almost pathet­i­cal­ly grate­ful. Aunt
Georgie.
Now, it was just anoth­er loose end to tie up. I’d made my choice, made my fam­i­ly, and I was
clos­ing the door on all of it.
And most impor­tant­ly, now I was cer­tain: no one knew what had real­ly hap­pened in Phoenix.
I’d got­ten away.
John is still star­ing at me, his throat work­ing, and I won­der if this is how good he felt when he
sur­prised me in the Home Depot park­ing lot.
If so, I almost don’t blame him for doing it.
“Any­way, I made sure he knew you were shady as fuck, and, just for a lit­tle extra fla­vor, I
might’ve implied you were also kind of per­vy and obsessed with me, so he will def­i­nite­ly not be
answer­ing any more of your calls.”
That part’s not true, but it’s too fun to watch him sweat.
Still, he’s not total­ly beat­en yet. “You did some­thing, Jane,” he says. “You ran from some­thing. Or
you nev­er would’ve paid me.” He steps for­ward. “You nev­er would’ve come to live with me in the
first place if you weren’t on the run. We were in the same group home for what? Two months? You
bare­ly knew me. But you need­ed some­where to hide. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I don’t have to tell you shit,” I say, and he glances at the door, winc­ing a lit­tle.
I look over my shoul­der, remem­ber­ing the girl at the desk, remem­ber­ing where we are, and almost
laugh. “Are you … wor­ried about me swear­ing? In this con­ver­sa­tion about you black­mail­ing me?”
I move clos­er, my new expen­sive hand­bag dan­gling in the crook of my elbow, Eddie’s ring
wink­ing on my fin­ger.
“You are smarter than I ever gave you cred­it for, I’ll allow that,” I tell him. “But this is over now.
You don’t call me, you don’t call Eddie, you for­get you ever knew me or that I ever exist­ed.”
His face is sullen, but he still says, “For­get you? Or for­get Helen Burns?”
My heart still thuds heav­i­ly in my chest when I hear that name.
It’s over.
She’s gone now.
“Get fucked, John,” I tell him sweet­ly, and then glance up at the pic­ture on the wall, anoth­er
por­trait of Jesus, this time with a bunch of kids around his feet instead of lambs.
“Sor­ry,” I mouth at him with an exag­ger­at­ed gri­mace, and then I walk out.
As I pass the desk again, I see the girl watch­ing me with obvi­ous curios­i­ty on her face, and I give
her anoth­er smile as I pull a check­book out of my purse.
“My fiancé and I had heard your church was in need of a new music sys­tem.”
I leave the church sev­er­al thou­sand dol­lars poor­er, but a truck­load smug­ger. Let John ever try shit
like this again now that his boss, the Rev­erend Ellis, came out to shake my hand and thank me
effu­sive­ly for my gen­eros­i­ty, promis­ing me that both Eddie and I will be thanked in every church
pro­gram from here on out.
I want John to see that every Sun­day.
Mr. Edward Rochester, and his wife, Mrs. Jane Rochester.
Okay, maybe I jumped the gun a lit­tle with the wife bit, but we are get­ting mar­ried. Eddie is
inno­cent. And I’m—free.
I get into the car, my hands wrapped around the steer­ing wheel, and I take a deep breath.
It isn’t like I killed Mr. Brock, after all. Killing some­one and let­ting them die are two dif­fer­ent
things.
He deserved it.
He let Jane die. The real Jane, the one I loved, the one who was the best friend I ever had, my
sis­ter, even if we didn’t share any blood. We’d shared a home, though. We’d shared a night­mare.
She was always puny, always small. Always get­ting what­ev­er cold or stom­ach bug went around
our school. Usu­al­ly, I could help. Vit­a­min C, orange juice. Tak­ing notes for her so she didn’t get
behind.
But that last time, she got sick and didn’t get bet­ter. The cough got wet­ter, deep­er. Her fever ran
high­er.
You have to take her to the doc­tor, you have to, I’d begged the Brocks, but they’d make excus­es,
like they always had.
She’s fine, she’s fak­ing, it’s not that bad.
Jane died in my bed, hud­dled next to me, her body glow­ing so hot I could hard­ly hold her.
But I did hold her. I held her as she gasped for breath and shook and final­ly went still.
Pneu­mo­nia. It might have killed her even if the Brocks had got­ten her to a hos­pi­tal. She was so
weak already.
I would nev­er know.
So it had felt like a kind of poet­ic jus­tice, that night that it was just me and Mr. Brock in the house.
Mrs. Brock was at bin­go, and by then, I was the only fos­ter kid in their care.
He’d been watch­ing TV, a base­ball game, and some call had pissed him off. Some­times that had
meant one of us got hit, but that night, he’d just stood up, scream­ing at the tele­vi­sion, his face red.
I’d been sit­ting at the kitchen table, fill­ing out paper­work for a shit­ty fast-food job when he’d
sud­den­ly gasped, clutched his chest.

Chap­ter 26 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të delves into the com­plex dynam­ics of the char­ac­ters dur­ing the vis­it of Lord and Lady Low­bor­ough to the nar­ra­tor’s home. Lord Low­bor­ough appears sig­nif­i­cant­ly changed for the bet­ter since his mar­riage, though he still exhibits signs of dis­con­tent, which his wife skill­ful­ly man­ages with a mix of manip­u­la­tion and flat­tery, ensur­ing her pow­er over him. The chap­ter also high­lights her dan­ger­ous game of flirt­ing with Mr. Hunt­ing­ton, aimed at invok­ing jeal­ousy for her amuse­ment. The nar­ra­tor, pre­sum­ably Helen, observes this with a calm, deter­mined indif­fer­ence, focus­ing on main­tain­ing a serene demeanor to thwart both their inten­tions.

Helen con­fronts her own feel­ings of jeal­ousy, espe­cial­ly when Lady Low­bor­ough cap­ti­vates her hus­band with her musi­cal tal­ents, reveal­ing a stark con­trast to the cou­ple’s dynam­ic, where gen­uine delight is rare. She con­tem­plates rec­i­p­ro­cal flir­ta­tion with Mr. Har­grave, who shows her marked atten­tion, espe­cial­ly when her hus­band neglects her, but she resists this incli­na­tion out of respect for her mar­i­tal bond and the norms of hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

A vis­it to Mr. Har­grave’s home expos­es the soci­etal pres­sures and per­son­al van­i­ties that dri­ve much of the char­ac­ters’ behav­iors. Mrs. Har­grave, dri­ven by a desire to ascend the social lad­der, indulges in super­fi­cial grandeur at the expense of her fam­i­ly’s gen­uine com­fort, reveal­ing a broad­er cri­tique of soci­etal val­ues. The under­cur­rents of finan­cial impru­dence, the pur­suit of social sta­tus, and the moral com­pro­mis­es made in the name of rep­u­ta­tion are evi­dent in her han­dling of her fam­i­ly’s affairs. The chap­ter intri­cate­ly weaves indi­vid­ual sto­ries of desire, jeal­ousy, and soci­etal pres­sures, reflect­ing Bron­të’s keen obser­va­tion of human nature and social dynam­ics.