Chap­ter 36 presents a thrilling dive into a dark and fan­tas­ti­cal tri­al faced by Feyre, nar­rat­ed with a puls­ing sense of urgency and fear. The chap­ter opens with Feyre being escort­ed into a vast, torch-lit are­na filled with a cacoph­o­ny of sounds from a teem­ing crowd of High Fae and less­er faeries. Their ethe­re­al faces and wide grins reflect their excite­ment and cru­el­ty, set­ting a fore­bod­ing scene for Feyre’s first task set by the Faerie Queen, Ama­ran­tha. Feyre finds her­self before Ama­ran­tha and Tam­lin, atop a plat­form over­look­ing a labyrinthine net­work of mud-slicked trench­es below.

The sus­pense height­ens as Feyre, unshack­led but close­ly watched, is thrown into the are­na’s trench­es to face a mon­strous, worm-like crea­ture in a lethal game of hunt and be hunt­ed. With her life on the line, Feyre’s instincts as a huntress kick in, mak­ing quick, strate­gic deci­sions to out­ma­neu­ver her pur­suer. The task is a har­row­ing tri­al by fire, test­ing not just her phys­i­cal agili­ty but her men­tal for­ti­tude and her will to sur­vive against seem­ing­ly insur­mount­able odds.

Dis­play­ing a quick wit and resource­ful­ness, Feyre con­structs a trap using her sur­round­ings and her knowl­edge of the crea­ture’s weak­ness­es. Her plan hinges on a dual strat­e­gy of cam­ou­flage and lure, uti­liz­ing mud to mask her scent and makeshift weapons craft­ed from bones to lay a dead­ly trap for the worm. Feyre’s strug­gle for sur­vival is pal­pa­ble, filled with moments of des­per­a­tion, deter­mi­na­tion, and defi­ance against the cru­el whims of Ama­ran­tha and the sav­age delight of the onlook­ing faeries.

Ulti­mate­ly, Feyre’s cun­ning and brav­ery turn the tables on her mon­strous adver­sary, lead­ing to a breath­tak­ing cli­max where she suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cutes her plan, result­ing in the crea­ture’s demise. The chap­ter clos­es with Feyre, bat­tered but unbowed, mak­ing a bold state­ment of defi­ance against Ama­ran­tha, affirm­ing her resilience and her unwa­ver­ing resolve to with­stand the tri­als and pro­tect those she loves at all costs.

This chap­ter throws the read­er into a vis­cer­al, vivid­ly described tri­al of wills, where Feyre’s char­ac­ter is fur­ther devel­oped through her actions and deci­sions under extreme pres­sure. It encap­su­lates themes of endurance, courage, and the pow­er of human will against the back­drop of a cru­el and fan­tas­ti­cal world.

Chap­ter Thir­ty-Six of the nov­el unfolds with the pro­tag­o­nist con­tend­ing with a blend of dis­ap­point­ment and unease. Ini­tial­ly set for a roman­tic din­ner mir­ror­ing a cher­ished mem­o­ry with Andrew, her antic­i­pa­tion dis­solves into soli­tude as he’s detained by work oblig­a­tions, leav­ing her to dine alone. This per­son­al moment diverges into a deep­er nar­ra­tive of iso­la­tion and unease, pre­dom­i­nant­ly pro­lif­er­at­ed by the lin­ger­ing pres­ence of Nina, Andrew’s ex, whose spec­tral influ­ence per­me­ates the house­hold.

Nina’s intru­sive essence is not mere­ly sensed through lin­ger­ing scents despite the pro­tag­o­nist’s thor­ough clean­ing attempts but esca­lates to a vir­tu­al inva­sion of pri­va­cy, dis­cov­ered through a track­ing app hid­den on her phone. This rev­e­la­tion ampli­fies her feel­ings of being watched and intrudes on her sense of secu­ri­ty. More­over, an enig­mat­ic warn­ing from Enzo, affirm­ing the real and present dan­ger Nina pos­es, exac­er­bates these fears, insin­u­at­ing Nina’s reach extends beyond mere psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare.

As the night pro­gress­es, her soli­tary mus­ings are crude­ly inter­rupt­ed by a men­ac­ing phone call from an anony­mous, mechan­i­cal­ly dis­tort­ed voice, com­mand­ing her to stay away from Andrew. This chill­ing encounter, devoid of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion yet brim­ming with hos­til­i­ty, pro­pels the pro­tag­o­nist into deci­sive action. Resolv­ing to reclaim domin­ion over her liv­ing space and her life, she plans to alter the locks, sym­bol­i­cal­ly sev­er­ing Nina’s lin­ger­ing hold and mark­ing a piv­otal moment of reclaim­ing agency against unseen threats.

This chap­ter metic­u­lous­ly nar­rates a tale of psy­cho­log­i­cal unrest, the strug­gle for auton­o­my, and the specter of past rela­tion­ships infring­ing upon the present, weav­ing a nar­ra­tive rich in sus­pense and emo­tion­al depth. Through a series of unset­tling events, it effec­tive­ly cap­tures the pro­tag­o­nist’s resolve to con­front the shad­ows cast by Nina, set­ting a stage for con­fronta­tion and empow­er­ment.

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
36
The fol­low­ing day was tor­ture. Slow, unend­ing, hot-as-hell tor­ture.
Feign­ing inter­est in the main­land as I walked with Tar­quin, met his
peo­ple, smiled at them, grew hard­er as the sun mean­dered across the sky,
then final­ly began inch­ing toward the sea. Liar, thief, deceiver—that’s what
they’d call me soon.
I hoped they’d know—that Tar­quin would know—that we’d done it for
their sake.
Supreme arro­gance, per­haps, to think that way, but … it was true. Giv­en
how quick­ly Tar­quin and Cres­sei­da had glanced at each oth­er, guid­ed me
away from that tem­ple … I’d bet that they wouldn’t have hand­ed over that
book. For what­ev­er rea­sons of their own, they want­ed it.
Maybe this new world of Tarquin’s could only be built on trust … But he
wouldn’t get a chance to build it if it was all wiped away beneath the King
of Hybern’s armies.
That’s what I told myself over and over as we walked through his city—
as I endured the greet­ings of his peo­ple. Per­haps not as joy­ous as those in
Velaris, but … a ten­ta­tive hard-won warmth. Peo­ple who had endured the
worst and tried now to move beyond it.
As I should be mov­ing beyond my own dark­ness.
When the sun was at last slid­ing into the hori­zon, I con­fessed to Tar­quin
that I was tired and hungry—and, being kind and accom­mo­dat­ing, he took
me back, buy­ing me a baked fish pie on the way home. He’d even eat­en a
fried fish at the docks that after­noon.
Din­ner was worse.
We’d be gone before breakfast—but they didn’t know that. Rhys
men­tioned return­ing to the Night Court tomor­row after­noon, so per­haps an
ear­ly depar­ture wouldn’t be so sus­pi­cious. He’d leave a note about urgent
busi­ness, thank­ing Tar­quin for his hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and then we’d van­ish home—
to Velaris. If it went accord­ing to plan.
We’d learned where the guards were sta­tioned, how their rota­tions
oper­at­ed, and where their posts were on the main­land, too.
And when Tar­quin kissed my cheek good night, say­ing he wished that it
was not my last evening and per­haps he would see about vis­it­ing the Night
Court soon … I almost fell to my knees to beg his for­give­ness.
Rhysand’s hand on my back was a sol­id warn­ing to keep it togeth­er—
even as his face held noth­ing but that cool amuse­ment.
I went to my room. And found Illyr­i­an fight­ing leathers wait­ing for me.
Along with that belt of Illyr­i­an knives.
So I dressed for bat­tle once again.
Rhys flew us in close to low tide, drop­ping us off before tak­ing to the skies,
where he’d cir­cle, mon­i­tor­ing the guards on the island and main­land, while
we hunt­ed.
The muck reeked, squelch­ing and squeez­ing us with every step from the
nar­row cause­way road to the lit­tle tem­ple ruin. Bar­na­cles, sea­weed, and
limpets clung to the dark gray stones—and every step into the sole inte­ri­or
cham­ber had that thing in my chest say­ing where are you, where are you,
where are you?
Rhys and Amren had checked for wards around the site—but found none.
Odd, but for­tu­nate. Thanks to the open door­way, we didn’t dare risk a light,
but with the cracks in the stone over­head, the moon­light pro­vid­ed enough
illu­mi­na­tion.
Knee-deep in muck, the tidal water slink­ing out over the stones, Amren
and I sur­veyed the cham­ber, bare­ly more than forty feet wide.
“I can feel it,” I breathed. “Like a clawed hand run­ning down my spine.”
Indeed, my skin tin­gled, hair stand­ing on end beneath my warm leathers.
“It’s—sleeping.”
“No won­der they hid it beneath stone and mud and sea,” Amren
mut­tered, the muck squelch­ing as she turned in place.
I shiv­ered, the Illyr­i­an knives on me now feel­ing as use­ful as tooth­picks,
and again turned in place. “I don’t feel any­thing in the walls. But it’s here.”
Indeed, we both looked down at the same moment and cringed.
“We should have brought a shov­el,” she said.
“No time to get one.” The tide was ful­ly out now. Every minute count­ed.
Not just for the return­ing water—but the sun­rise that was not too far off.
Every step an effort through the firm grip of the mud, I honed in on that
feel­ing, that call. I stopped in the cen­ter of the room—dead cen­ter. Here,
here, here, it whis­pered.
I leaned down, shud­der­ing at the icy muck, at the bits of shell and debris
that scraped my bare hands as I began haul­ing it away. “Hur­ry.”
Amren hissed, but stooped to claw at the heavy, dense mud. Crabs and
skit­ter­ing things tick­led my fin­gers. I refused to think about them.
So we dug, and dug, until we were cov­ered in salty mud that burned our
count­less lit­tle cuts as we pant­ed at a stone floor. And a lead door.
Amren swore. “Lead to keep its full force in, to pre­serve it. They used to
line the sar­copha­gi of the great rulers with it—because they thought they’d
one day awak­en.”
“If the King of Hybern goes unchecked with that Caul­dron, they might
very well.”
Amren shud­dered, and point­ed. “The door is sealed.”
I wiped my hand on the only clean part of me—my neck—and used the
oth­er to scrape away the last bit of mud from the round door. Every brush
against the lead sent pangs of cold through me. But there—a carved whorl
in the cen­ter of the door. “This has been here for a very long time,” I
mur­mured.
Amren nod­ded. “I would not be sur­prised if, despite the imprint of the
High Lord’s pow­er, Tar­quin and his pre­de­ces­sors had nev­er set foot here—
if the blood-spell to ward this place instant­ly trans­ferred to them once they
assumed pow­er.”
“Why cov­et the Book, then?”
“Wouldn’t you want to lock away an object of ter­ri­ble pow­er? So no one
could use it for evil—or their own gain? Or per­haps they locked it away for
their own bar­gain­ing chip if it ever became nec­es­sary. I had no idea why
they, of all courts, was grant­ed the half of the Book in the first place.”
I shook my head and laid my hand flat on the whorl in the lead.
A jolt went through me like light­ning, and I grunt­ed, bear­ing down on the
door.
My fin­gers froze to it, as if the pow­er were leech­ing my essence, drink­ing
as Amren drank, and I felt it hes­i­tate, ques­tion—
I am Tar­quin. I am sum­mer; I am warmth; I am sea and sky and plant­ed
field.
I became every smile he’d giv­en me, became the crys­talline blue of his
eyes, the brown of his skin. I felt my own skin shift, felt my bones stretch
and change. Until I was him, and it was a set of male hands I now
pos­sessed, now pushed against the door. Until the essence of me became
what I had tast­ed in that inner, men­tal shield of his—sea and sun and brine.
I did not give myself a moment to think of what pow­er I might have just
used. Did not allow any part of me that wasn’t Tar­quin to shine through.
I am your mas­ter, and you will let me pass.
The lock pulled hard­er and hard­er, and I could bare­ly breathe—
Then a click and groan.
I shift­ed back into my own skin, and scram­bled into the piled mud right
as the door sank and swung away, tuck­ing beneath the stones to reveal a
spi­ral stair­case drift­ing into a pri­mor­dial gloom. And on a wet, salty breeze
from below came the ten­drils of pow­er.
Across the open stair, Amren’s face had gone paler than usu­al, her sil­ver
eyes glow­ing bright. “I nev­er saw the Caul­dron,” she said, “but it must be
ter­ri­ble indeed if even a grain of its pow­er feels … like this.”
Indeed, that pow­er was fill­ing the cham­ber, my head, my lungs—
smoth­er­ing and drown­ing and seduc­ing—
“Quick­ly,” I said, and a small ball of fae­light shot down the curve of the
stairs, illu­mi­nat­ing gray, worn steps slick with slime.
I drew my hunt­ing knife and descend­ed, one hand braced on the freez­ing
stone wall to keep from slip­ping.
I made it one rota­tion down, Amren close behind, before fae­light danced
on waist-deep, putrid water. I scanned the pas­sage at the foot of the stairs.
“There’s a hall, and a cham­ber beyond that. All clear.”
“Then hur­ry the hell up,” Amren said.
Brac­ing myself, I stepped into the dark water, bit­ing down my yelp at the
near-freez­ing tem­per­a­ture, the oili­ness of it. Amren gagged, the water
near­ly up to her chest.
“This place no doubt fills up swift­ly once the tide comes back in,” she
observed as we sloshed through the water, frown­ing at the many drainage
holes in the walls.
We went only slow enough for her to detect any sort of ward or trap, but
—there was none. Noth­ing at all. Though who would ever come down here,
to such a place?
Fools—desperate fools, that’s who.
The long stone hall end­ed in a sec­ond lead door. Behind it, that pow­er
coiled, over­lay­ing Tarquin’s imprint. “It’s in there.”
“Obvi­ous­ly.”
I scowled at her, both of us shiv­er­ing. The cold was deep enough that I
won­dered if I might have already been dead in my human body. Or well on
my way to it.
I laid my palm flat on the door. The suck­ing and ques­tion­ing and drain­ing
were worse this time. So much worse, and I had to brace my tat­tooed hand
on the door to keep from falling to my knees and cry­ing out as it ran­sacked
me.
I am sum­mer, I am sum­mer, I am sum­mer.
I didn’t shift into Tar­quin this time—didn’t need to. A click and groan,
and the lead door rolled into the wall, water merg­ing and splash­ing as I
stum­bled back into Amren’s wait­ing arms. “Nasty, nasty lock,” she hissed,
shud­der­ing not just from the water.
My head was spin­ning. Anoth­er lock and I might very well pass out.
But the fae­light bobbed into the cham­ber beyond us, and we both halt­ed.
The water had not merged with anoth­er source—but rather halt­ed against
an invis­i­ble thresh­old. The dry cham­ber beyond was emp­ty save for a round
dais and pedestal.
And a small, lead box atop it.
Amren waved a ten­ta­tive hand over the air where the water just—
stopped. Then, sat­is­fied there were no wait­ing wards or tricks, she stepped
beyond, drip­ping onto the gray stones as she stood in the cham­ber, winc­ing
a bit, and beck­oned.

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 NOMINATED FOR BEST Actress for Car­oli­na Sun­set.
The only prob­lem was that Celia was nom­i­nat­ed that year, too.
I showed up on the red car­pet with Har­ry. We were engaged. He’d
giv­en me a dia­mond and emer­ald ring. It stood out against the black
bead­ed dress I wore that night. Two slits on either side of the skirt
went up to my mid-thigh. I loved that dress.
And so did every­one else. I’ve noticed that when peo­ple do
ret­ro­spec­tives of my career, pho­tos of me in that dress always make it
in some­how. I made sure it would be includ­ed in the auc­tion. I think it
could raise a lot of mon­ey.
It makes me hap­py that peo­ple love that dress as much as I do. I lost
an Oscar, but it end­ed up being one of the great­est nights of my life.
Celia arrived just before the show began. She was wear­ing a pale
blue strap­less gown with a sweet­heart neck­line. The col­or of her hair
against the dress was strik­ing. When my eyes set on her, for the first
time in near­ly five years, I found myself breath­less.
I’d gone to see every sin­gle one of Celia’s movies, even though I
was loath to admit it. So I had seen her.
But no medi­um can cap­ture what it is to be in someone’s pres­ence,
cer­tain­ly not some­one like her. Some­one who makes you feel
impor­tant sim­ply because she’s choos­ing to look at you.
There was some­thing state­ly about her, at the age of twen­ty-eight.
She was mature and dig­ni­fied. She looked like the kind of per­son who
knew exact­ly who she was.
She stepped for­ward and took John Braverman’s arm. In a tux that
seemed to strain at his broad shoul­ders, John looked as all-Amer­i­can
as a husk of corn. They were a gor­geous cou­ple. No mat­ter how false it
all was.
“Ev, you’re star­ing,” Har­ry said as he pushed me into the the­ater.
“Sor­ry,” I said. “Thank you.”
As we took our seats, we smiled and waved to every­one seat­ed
around us. Joy and Rex were a few rows behind us, and I waved
polite­ly, know­ing peo­ple were watch­ing, know­ing that if I ran up and
hugged them, peo­ple might be con­fused.
When we sat down, Har­ry said, “If you win, will you talk to her?”
I laughed. “And gloat?”
“No, but you’d have the upper hand that you seem to so des­per­ate­ly
want.”
“She left me.”
“You slept with some­one.”
“For her.”
Har­ry frowned at me as if I was miss­ing the point.
“Fine, if I win, I’ll talk to her.”
“Thank you.”
“Why are you thank­ing me?”
“Because I want you to be hap­py, and it appears I have to reward
you for doing things in your own favor.”
“Well, if she wins, I’m not say­ing a sin­gle word to her.”
“If she wins,” Har­ry said del­i­cate­ly, “which is a big if, and she
comes and talks to you, I will hold you down and force you to lis­ten
and speak back.”
I couldn’t look direct­ly at him. I was feel­ing defen­sive.
“It’s a moot point any­way,” I said. “Every­one knows they’re going to
give it to Ruby, because they feel bad she didn’t get it last year for The
Dan­ger­ous Flight.”
“They might not,” Har­ry said.
“Yeah, yeah,” I told him. “And I’ve got a bridge in Brook­lyn to sell
you.”
But when the lights dimmed and the host came out, I was not
think­ing that my chances were slim. I was just delu­sion­al enough to
think the Acad­e­my might final­ly give me a god­damn Oscar.
When they called out the nom­i­nees for Best Actress, I scanned the
audi­ence for Celia. I spot­ted her the very same moment she spot­ted
me. We locked eyes. And then the pre­sen­ter didn’t say “Eve­lyn” or
“Celia.” He said “Ruby.”
When my heart sank into my chest, aching and heavy, I was mad at
myself for believ­ing I had a chance. And then I won­dered if Celia was
OK.
Har­ry held my hand and squeezed it. I hoped John was squeez­ing
Celia’s. I excused myself to the bath­room.
Bon­nie Lake­land was wash­ing her hands as I came in. She gave me
a smile, and then she left. And I was alone. I sat in a stall and closed
the door. I let myself cry.
“Eve­lyn?”
You don’t spend years pin­ing away for one voice not to notice it
when it final­ly appears.
“Celia?” I said. My back was to the stall door. I wiped my eyes.
“I saw you come in here,” she said. “I thought it might be a sign that
you weren’t . . . that you were upset.”
“I’m try­ing to be hap­py for Ruby,” I said, laugh­ing just a lit­tle bit as I
used a piece of toi­let paper to care­ful­ly dry my eyes. “But it’s not
exact­ly my style.”
“Mine either,” she said.
I opened the door. And there she was. Blue dress, red hair, small
stature with a pres­ence that filled the whole room. And when her eyes
set on me, I knew she still loved me. I could see it in the way her pupils
widened and soft­ened.
“You are as gor­geous as ever,” she said as she leaned against the
sink, her arms hold­ing her weight behind her. There was always
some­thing intox­i­cat­ing about the way Celia looked at me. I felt like a
rare steak in front of a tiger.
“You’re not so bad your­self,” I said.
“We prob­a­bly shouldn’t be caught in here togeth­er,” Celia said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because I sus­pect more than a few peo­ple seat­ed in there know
what we once got up to,” she said. “I know you’d hate for them to think
we were up to it again.”
This was a test.
I knew it. She knew it.
If I said the right thing, if I told her I didn’t care what they thought,
if I told her I’d make love to her in the mid­dle of the stage in front of all
of them, I just might be able to have her back.
I let myself think about it for a moment. I let myself think about
wak­ing up tomor­row to her cig­a­rette-and-cof­fee breath.
But I want­ed her to admit it wasn’t all me. That she had played a
part in our demise. “Or maybe you just don’t want to be seen with a . . .
what was the word you used, I believe it was whore?”
Celia laughed and looked down at the floor and then back up at me.
“What do you want me to say? That I was wrong? I was. I want­ed to
hurt you like you hurt me.”
“But I nev­er meant to hurt you,” I said. “Nev­er once would I have
done a sin­gle thing to hurt you on pur­pose.”
“You were ashamed to love me.”
“Absolute­ly not,” I said. “That is absolute­ly untrue.”
“Well, you cer­tain­ly went to great lengths to hide it.”
“I did what had to be done to pro­tect both of us.”
“Debat­able.”
“So debate it with me,” I said. “Instead of run­ning away again.”
“I didn’t run far, Eve­lyn. You could have caught up with me, if you
want­ed to.”
“I don’t like being played, Celia. I told you that the first time we
went out for milk shakes.”
She shrugged. “You play every­one else.”
“I have nev­er claimed that I wasn’t a hyp­ocrite.”
“How do you do that?” Celia said.
“Do what?”
“Act so cav­a­lier about things that are sacred to oth­er peo­ple?”
“Because oth­er peo­ple have got noth­ing to do with me.”
Celia scoffed, some­what gen­tly, and looked down at her hands.
“Except you,” I said.
I was reward­ed with the sight of her look­ing up at me.
“I care about you,” I said.
“You cared about me.”
I shook my head. “No, I didn’t mis­s­peak.”
“You cer­tain­ly moved on fast enough with Rex North.”
I frowned at her. “Celia, you know bet­ter than that.”
“So it was fake.”
“Every moment.”
“Have you been with any­one else? Any men?” she asked. She was
always jeal­ous of the men, wor­ried she couldn’t com­pete. I was jeal­ous
of the women, wor­ried I wouldn’t com­pare.
“I’ve had a good time,” I said. “As I’m sure you’ve had.”
“John isn’t—”
“I’m not talk­ing about John. But I’m sure you haven’t kept chaste.” I
was fish­ing for infor­ma­tion that might break my heart, a flaw of the
human con­di­tion.
“No,” she said. “You’re right about that.”
“Men?” I asked, hop­ing the answer was yes. If it was men, I knew it
didn’t mean any­thing to her.
She shook her head, and my heart broke just a lit­tle bit more, like a
tear that deep­ens from strain.
“Any­one I know?”
“None of them were famous,” she said. “None of them meant
any­thing to me. I touched them and thought of what it felt like to touch
you.”
My heart both ached and swelled to hear it.
“You shouldn’t have left me, Celia.”
“You shouldn’t have let me leave.”
And with that, I had no more fight in me. My heart cried out the
truth through my throat. “I know. I know that. I know.”
Some­times things hap­pen so quick­ly you aren’t sure when you even
real­ized they were about to begin. One minute she was lean­ing against
the sink, the next her hands were on my face, her body pressed
against me, her lips between mine. She tast­ed like the musky
creami­ness of thick lip­stick and the sharp, spiced sting of rum.
I was lost in her. In the feel of her on me once again, the sheer joy of
her atten­tion, the glo­ry of know­ing she loved me.
And then the door was flung open, and the wives of two pro­duc­ers
walked in. We broke apart. Celia pre­tend­ed she had been wash­ing her
hands, and I moved to one of the mir­rors and fixed my make­up. The

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.

36
One thing that brought me solace and hope dur­ing the time when I was in Vegas
was teach­ing dance to kids at a stu­dio once a month, and I loved it. I taught a
group of forty kids. Then back in LA, not far from my house, I taught once
every two months.
That was one of the most fun things in my life. It was nice to be in a room
with kids who had no judg­ment. In the con­ser­va­tor­ship, peo­ple were always
judg­ing every­thing I did. The joy and trust of kids the age of the ones I taught—
between �ve and twelve—is con­ta­gious. Their ener­gy is so sweet. They want to
learn. I �nd it 100 per­cent heal­ing to be around chil­dren.
One day there, I did a turn and acci­den­tal­ly bonked a tiny lit­tle girl in the
head with my hand.
“Baby! I am so sor­ry!” I said.
I felt so bad that I got on my knees in front of her. I pulled a ring o� my
�nger, one of my favorite rings, and gave it to her while beg­ging her for­give­ness.
“Miss Brit­ney, it’s �ne!” she said. “You didn’t even hurt me.”
I want­ed to do any­thing I could to let her know that I cared if she was in pain
and that I would do what­ev­er it took to make it up to her.
Look­ing up at her from my knees on the dance stu­dio �oor, I thought, Wait
a minute. Why are the peo­ple who are charged—by the state—with my care not
half as inter­est­ed in my well-being as I am in this lit­tle girl’s?
I decid­ed to make a push to get out of the con­ser­va­tor­ship. I went to court in
2014 and men­tioned my father’s alco­holism and errat­ic behav­ior, ask­ing that
they drug-test him. After all, he was con­trol­ling my mon­ey and my life. But my
case didn’t go any­where. The judge just didn’t lis­ten.
What fol­lowed was a cloak-and-dag­ger e�ort to get my own lawyer. I even
men­tioned the con­ser­va­tor­ship on a talk show in 2016, but some­how, that part
of the inter­view didn’t make it to the air. Huh. How inter­est­ing.
That feel­ing of being trapped con­tributed to the col­lapse of my roman­tic life.
After a stu­pid �ght, Char­lie and I got so pride­ful that we stopped speak­ing to
each oth­er. It was the dumb­est thing. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him, and
he had too much pride to talk to me.
That’s when I start­ed work­ing with two great song­writ­ers, Julia Michaels and
Justin Tran­ter. We’d sit and write every­thing togeth­er. I had pas­sion about it. It
was the one thing in the thir­teen years of the con­ser­va­tor­ship that I real­ly put my
heart into. I worked hard on the songs, which gave me con�dence. You know
when you’re good at some­thing and can feel it? You start doing some­thing and
think, I got this? Writ­ing that album gave me my con�dence back.
When it was done, I played it for my sons.
“What should I name the album?” I asked. My kids are real­ly smart about
music.
“Just name it Glo­ry,” Sean Pre­ston said.
And so I did. See­ing the kids so proud of that album meant a lot to me—I
thought, I’m proud of this, too! It was a feel­ing I hadn’t had in a long time.
I released the video for “Make Me,” and I went on the 2016 VMAs to
per­form in sup­port of it for the �rst time since 2007.
The �rst time I saw Hesam Asghari on the set of my video for “Slum­ber Par­ty,” I
knew I want­ed him in my life imme­di­ate­ly. I was instant­ly smit­ten. The
chem­istry with us in the begin­ning was insane. We couldn’t keep our hands o�
each oth­er. He called me his lioness.
Right away, the tabloids start­ed to say that he was cheat­ing on me. We’d been
dat­ing two weeks! We stayed with each oth­er. I start­ed to feel my spark return­ing.
Then my dad decid­ed he had to send me to treat­ment again because I’d snuck
my over-the-counter ener­gy sup­ple­ments. He thought that I had a prob­lem, but
he showed mer­cy and said I could be an out­pa­tient there so long as I’d go four
times a week to Alco­holics Anony­mous.
At �rst, I resist­ed, but the women I met there began to inspire me. I’d lis­ten
to them telling their sto­ries and I’d think, These women are bril­liant. Their
sto­ries were actu­al­ly very, very pro­found. I found a human con­nec­tion in those
meet­ings that I’d nev­er found any­where before in my life. And so at the
begin­ning, I real­ly liked it. But some of the girls didn’t always show up. They
could pick and choose meet­ings they want­ed to go to. I had no choice in the
mat­ter. Friends I met there might only go twice a week, or they’d go to a
morn­ing meet­ing one day and an evening meet­ing the next day. I wasn’t allowed
to switch it up at all.
I had the same meet­ings at the same time every week, no mat­ter what.
After an exhaust­ing run of shows, I came home, and my sons, my assis­tant, my
mom, and my dad were there.
“Time for your meet­ing,” my dad said.
“Is there a way I can just stay home right now and watch a movie with the
boys? I nev­er missed one meet­ing,” I said.
I had nev­er watched a movie with my kids at home in Vegas. I thought we
could pop pop­corn and have a nice time togeth­er.
“No, you have to go,” he said.
I looked at my mom, hop­ing she would stand up for me, but she looked away.
At that moment, I start­ed to feel like I was in a cult and my father was the
cult leader. They were treat­ing me like I was behold­en to him.
But I was so good, I thought, re�ecting on how hard I’d worked in those
shows. I wasn’t good, I was great. It was a line that would run through my mind
repeat­ed­ly over the next cou­ple years when I thought about the ways in which I
had not just met but exceed­ed the expec­ta­tions that had been set for me—and
how unfair it was that I still wasn’t free.

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 36
On Mon­day, tem­per­a­tures plunged around noon and dark clouds
start­ed pil­ing up over­head. Leaves skimmed the Old Village’s emp­ty
streets. On the bridge, sud­den gusts blew cars side­ways, forc­ing them
to abrupt­ly shift lanes. It got dark by four, and win­dows rat­tled in
their frames, doors blew open sud­den­ly, and the wind tore limbs
from live oaks and smashed them down in the mid­dle of the street.
The black wind pushed hard on the win­dows in Slick’s hos­pi­tal
room and the glass creaked, while inside, the air felt as cold as the
inside of a refrig­er­a­tor.
“Is this going to take long?” Maryellen asked. “Mon­i­ca has a Latin
project due tomor­row and I need to help her build a Parthenon out of
toi­let paper tubes.”
“I don’t like being away from home,” Kit­ty said, tuck­ing her hands
beneath her paper gown to keep them warm.
Kitty’s gown was tied slop­pi­ly, and Patri­cia could see her brown
sweater with two sil­ver sequined hand­prints on its chest through the
paper. Maryellen wore a ging­ham blouse and a neat­ly tied paper
gown. The over­head fix­ture had been turned off and the only light
came from flu­o­res­cent bars over Slick’s head­board and over the sink,
fill­ing the room with shad­ows. Slick sat up in bed, a navy cardi­gan
cov­ered in aqua­ma­rine tri­an­gles draped over her shoul­ders. Patri­cia
had done the best she could with her make­up, but Slick looked like a
skull wear­ing a fright wig.
Some­one tapped on the door, and Mrs. Greene came in.
“Thank you for com­ing,” Patri­cia said.
“Hello…Mrs. Greene.” Slick smiled.
It took Mrs. Greene a moment to rec­og­nize her, and Patri­cia saw
her eyes become strick­en with hor­ror, and then she wres­tled them
into a pleas­ant expres­sion.
“How are you, Mrs. Paley?” she said. “I’m sor­ry you’re feel­ing
poor­ly.”
“Thank you,” Slick said.
Mrs. Greene perched on a chair, purse in her lap, and a silence fell
over the room. The wind thumped at the win­dows.
“Slick,” Maryellen said. “You want­ed us to come see you, but I’m
get­ting a sink­ing feel­ing you have a secret agen­da.”
“I’m sor­ry, y’all,” Kit­ty said. “But can we hur­ry this up?”
The door opened again, and they all turned and saw Grace.
Every­thing inside Patri­cia squirmed and twist­ed away.
Grace nod­ded to Slick, then saw Mrs. Greene and Patri­cia.
“You called and asked me to drop by,” she told Slick. “But it seems
a lit­tle crowd­ed right this minute. I’ll come back anoth­er time.”
She turned to go and Patri­cia shout­ed, “No!”
Grace looked back, eyes blank.
“Don’t go,” Slick wheezed from where she sat. “Please…”
Caught between mak­ing a scene and doing some­thing she didn’t
want to do, Grace did some­thing she didn’t want to do. She thread­ed
her way between Maryellen and Kit­ty and took the only open seat,
which was the one clos­est to the bed. Slick and Patri­cia had decid­ed
it would be hard­er for her to leave that way.
“Well,” Grace said in the long silence.
“You know,” Maryellen said, “it’s like the old book club’s back
togeth­er again. Any minute someone’s going to pull an Ann Rule out
of her bag.”
Patri­cia leaned over and pulled Dead by Sun­set out of her bag.
Every­one laughed stiffly, except Grace and Mrs. Greene, who didn’t
get the joke. Slick’s laugh­ter turned into a cough­ing fit.
“I assume there’s a rea­son we’re here,” Kit­ty said to Slick.
Slick nod­ded to Patri­cia, giv­ing her the floor.
“We need to talk about James Har­ris,” Patri­cia began.
“I just remem­bered some­place I need to be,” Grace said, stand­ing.
“Grace, I need you to hear this,” Patri­cia said.
“I came because Slick called,” Grace said, loop­ing her purse over
one shoul­der. “I will not do this again. Now, excuse me.”
“I was wrong,” Patri­cia said. That stopped Grace. “I was wrong
about James Har­ris. I thought he was a drug deal­er and I mis­led all
of you. And I’m sor­ry.”
Grace’s body relaxed slight­ly, and she leaned back toward her
chair.
“That’s big of you,” Maryellen said. “But we were all respon­si­ble.
We let those books get to our head.”
“He isn’t a drug deal­er,” Patri­cia said. “He’s a vam­pire.”
Kit­ty looked like she was about to throw up. Grace’s face turned
dark and ugly. Maryellen uttered a sin­gle bark of laugh­ter and said,
“What?”
“Slick,” Patri­cia said. “Tell them what hap­pened.”
“I was…attacked,” Slick said, and instant­ly her eyes turned red and
wet. “By James Harris…Patricia and Mrs. Greene…had a pho­to­graph
that…belonged to Carter’s mother…It showed James Harris…in
1928…looking exact­ly the same…as he does now.”
“I do have to go,” Grace said.
“Grace,” Slick said. “If we were…ever friends…I need you to hear
me now.”
Grace didn’t say any­thing, but she stopped edg­ing toward the door.
“I had…the pho­to­graph and clippings…Mrs. Greene col­lect­ed,”
Slick con­tin­ued. “Patri­cia came to me…because she and Mrs. Greene
thought it proved…he was Satan’s agent…They want­ed to go into his
house…find evi­dence that he’d hurt children…but my pride was
great…and I went to him and tried to bargain…I told him if he left
town…I’d destroy the pho­to­graph and keep his secret…he attacked
me…he forced him­self on me…His…I’m sor­ry.” She tilt­ed her head
back so her tears didn’t cause her make­up to run. Patri­cia hand­ed
her a crum­pled tis­sue and Slick dabbed it beneath her eyes. “His
discharge…made me sick. No one knows what it’s doing inside me…
the doc­tors don’t know…I didn’t tell any­one what he did…because…
he said as long as I kept quiet…he wouldn’t hurt my chil­dren.”
“Mrs. Greene and I went into his house,” Patri­cia said, pick­ing up
from Slick. “We found Francine’s corpse packed in a suit­case and
shoved in his attic. I’m sure he’s got­ten rid of it by now.”
“This is in poor taste,” Grace said. “Francine was a human being.
To use her death as part of your fan­ta­sy is grotesque.”
Patri­cia pulled out the snap­shot she’d tak­en the night before. It
showed Korey’s thigh. The flash made the bruise and punc­ture mark
livid against her washed-out skin. She held it out to Grace.
“He did this to Korey,” she said.
“What’d he do to her?” Kit­ty asked, soft­ly, try­ing to see.
“He seduced her behind my back,” Patri­cia said. “For months he’s
been seduc­ing my daugh­ter, groom­ing her, feed­ing on her, and
mak­ing her think she liked it. He says he has a con­di­tion where he
has to use a per­son to clean his blood, like dial­y­sis. Appar­ent­ly it
cre­ates a euphor­ic feel­ing in the per­son. They become addict­ed.”
“It’s the same mark they found on the chil­dren in Six Mile,” Mrs.
Greene said.
“It’s the same mark Ben said they found on Ann Sav­age after she
died,” Patri­cia said.
“I thought he would leave our chil­dren alone if I kept qui­et,” Slick
said. “But he took Korey. He could come after any one of us next. His
hunger knows no lim­its.”
“Before we just had sus­pi­cions,” Patri­cia said. “Francine was gone.
Orville Reed killed him­self, Des­tiny Tay­lor killed her­self. But Kit­ty
and I saw Francine’s body in his attic. He attacked Slick. He attacked
my daugh­ter. He’s groom­ing Blue. He wants me.”
“Did you real­ly see Francine’s body in his attic?” Maryellen asked
Kit­ty.
Kit­ty looked down at her paper-shroud­ed knees.
“Tell her,” Patri­cia said.
“He’d bro­ken her arms and legs to stuff her inside a suit­case,” Kit­ty
said.
“How much more evi­dence do we need that none of us are safe?”
Patri­cia asked. “The men all think he’s their best friend, but he’s
tak­en every­thing he want­ed right out from under our noses. How
long do we wait before we do some­thing? He is prey­ing on our
chil­dren.”
“Call me old-fash­ioned,” Grace snapped. “But first you tell the
police he’s a child moles­ter. Then you tell us he’s a drug deal­er. Now
you say he’s Count Drac­u­la. Your fan­tasies have come at a great cost
to the rest of us, Patri­cia. Do you know what hap­pened to me?”
“I know,” Patri­cia said through grit­ted teeth. “I know, I messed up.
Oh, God, Grace, I know I messed up and I am being pun­ished for it,
but we ran away when things got hard. And now we’ve wait­ed so long
that I don’t think there’s a nor­mal way to get rid of him. I think he’s
ingrained him­self too deeply into the Old Vil­lage.”
“Spare me,” Grace said.
“I am crawl­ing on my knees beg­ging for your help,” Patri­cia said.
“Don’t tell me the rest of you believe this non­sense?” Grace asked.
Maryellen and Kit­ty wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Kit­ty,” Patri­cia said. “You and I saw what he did to Francine. I
know how scared you are but how long do you think it will be until he
fig­ures out you were in his attic, too? How long do you think it will be
before he comes after your fam­i­ly?”
“Don’t say things like that,” Kit­ty said.
“It’s true,” Patri­cia said. “We can’t hide from it any­more.”
“I’m not sure what you’re ask­ing us to do,” Maryellen said.
“You said you want­ed to live where peo­ple watched out for each
oth­er,” Patri­cia told her. “But what’s the good of watch­ing if we’re not
going to act?”
“We’re a book club,” Maryellen said. “What are we sup­posed to do?
Read him to death? Use strong lan­guage? We can’t go to Ed again.”
“I think…we’re beyond that,” Slick said.
“Then I don’t know what we’re talk­ing about,” Maryellen said.
“The last time we did this we learned one thing,” Patri­cia said.
“The men stick togeth­er. Their friend­ship with him is stronger now
than it was then. There’s only us.”
Grace hitched her purse’s shoul­der straps high­er over her shoul­der
and regard­ed the room.
“I am leav­ing now before this becomes even more absurd,” she
said, nod­ding to Kit­ty and Maryellen. “And I think you should both
come with me before you do some­thing you’ll regret.”
“Grace,” Kit­ty said, low and calm, star­ing at her knees. “If you keep
act­ing like I’m fee­ble­mind­ed, I’m going to smack you. I’m a grown
woman, the same as you, and I saw a dead body in that attic.”
“Good night,” Grace said, head­ing for the door.
Patri­cia nod­ded to Mrs. Greene, who stepped into Grace’s path,
block­ing her.
“Mrs. Cavanaugh,” she said. “Am I trash to you?”
Grace did a dou­ble take, the first one any of them had ever seen.
“I beg your par­don?” Grace asked, all frozen hau­teur.
Frozen hau­teur didn’t cut much ice with Mrs. Greene.
“You must think I’m trash,” Mrs. Greene said.
Grace swal­lowed once, so out­raged she couldn’t even get the words
lined up on her tongue.
“I said no such thing,” she man­aged.
“Your actions aren’t the actions of a Chris­t­ian woman,” Mrs.
Greene said. “I came to you years ago as a moth­er and as a woman,
and I begged for your help because that man was prey­ing on the
chil­dren in Six Mile. I begged for you to do some­thing sim­ple, to
come with me to the police, and tell them what you knew. I risked my
job and the mon­ey that puts food on my table, to come to you. Do
you even know my children’s names?”
It took a minute for Grace to real­ize Mrs. Greene was wait­ing for
an answer.
“There’s Abra­ham,” Grace said, search­ing for their names. “And
Lily, I think…”
“The first Har­ry,” Mrs. Greene said. “He passed. Har­ry Jr., Rose,
Heanne, Jesse, and Aaron. You don’t even know how many chil­dren
I’ve got, and I don’t expect you to. But you owe me. You pro­tect­ed
your­self, but you didn’t do a thing for the chil­dren of Six Mile
because they weren’t worth­while to you. Well, now he’s com­ing after
your chil­dren. Mrs. Campbell’s daugh­ter is one of you. Mrs. Paley is
sup­posed to be your friend. Mrs. Scrug­gs saw Francine’s body in his
house. What are you made of, Mrs. Cavanaugh, that lets you walk
away from your friends?”
They watched Grace cycle through a dozen dif­fer­ent emo­tions, a
hun­dred pos­si­ble respons­es, her jaw work­ing, her chin clench­ing, the
cords in her neck twitch­ing. Mrs. Greene stared back at her, jaw
out­thrust. Then Grace pushed past her, threw open the door, and
slammed it behind her.
In the silence, none of them moved. The only sound was wind
whistling through a chink in the window’s weath­er­strip­ping.
“She’s right,” Slick said. “All of us…got scared and sac­ri­ficed the
chil­dren of Six Mile…for our own. We were…embarrassed and
fright­ened. Proverbs says…‘Like a mud­died spring or a pol­lut­ed
fountain…is a right­eous man who gives way…before the wicked.’ We
gave way…We want­ed to believe…that Patri­cia was wrong because it
meant we didn’t have to do…anything hard.”
Patri­cia decid­ed it was safe to push them to the next step.
“I don’t know if the word is vam­pire or mon­ster,” Patri­cia said.
“But I’ve seen him like this twice and Slick has seen it once. He’s not
like us. He can live for a very long time. He’s strong. He can see in
the dark.”
“His willpow­er can make ani­mals do his bid­ding,” Mrs. Greene
said.
Patri­cia looked over at her, both of them think­ing about the rats,
about the way the house smelled for days after, about Miss Mary in
the hos­pi­tal, uncon­scious, her wounds stained with iodine, breath­ing
through a tube. Patri­cia nod­ded.
“I think you’re right,” she said. “And he needs to put his blood
through peo­ple to live. They get addict­ed to him. Right now, Korey
would stab me in the back for him to suck on her again. That’s how
good it feels. He’s got­ten every­thing he wants, so why would he stop
by him­self? We need to stop him.”
“Again,” Maryellen said, “we’re a book club, not a bunch of
detec­tives. If he’s so much stronger than us, this is futile.”
“You think…we can’t match him?” Slick asked from her bed. “I’ve
had three children…And some man who’s nev­er felt…his baby crown
is stronger than me? Is tougher than me? He thinks he’s safe…
because he thinks like you…He looks at Patri­cia and thinks we’re all a
bunch of Sun­shine Suzies…He thinks we’re what we look like on the
out­side: nice South­ern ladies. Let me tell you something…there’s
noth­ing nice about South­ern ladies.”
There was a long pause, and then Patri­cia spoke.
“He has one weak­ness,” Patri­cia said. “He’s alone. He’s not
con­nect­ed to oth­er peo­ple, he doesn’t have any fam­i­ly or friends. If
one of us so much as miss­es a car pool pick­up every­one starts
drop­ping by the house to make sure we’re okay. But he’s a lon­er. If
we can make him dis­ap­pear, total­ly and com­plete­ly, there’s no one to
ask ques­tions. There may be a hard day or two but they will pass, and
it will be like he nev­er exist­ed.”
Maryellen turned her face to the ceil­ing, arms out in a shrug. “How
are you sit­ting here talk­ing like this is nor­mal? We’re six women.
Five women, because I don’t think Grace is com­ing back. I mean,
Kit­ty, your hus­band has to open jars for you.”
“It’s not…about that,” Slick said, eyes blaz­ing. “It’s not about…our
hus­bands or any­one else…it’s about us. It’s about whether…we can
go the dis­tance. That’s what matters…not our mon­ey, or our looks, or
our husbands…Can we go the dis­tance?”
“Not with killing a man,” Maryellen said.
“He’s not a man,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Lis­ten to me,” Slick said. “If there were…a tox­ic waste dump in
this city…that caused cancer…we would not stop until we closed it
down. This is no dif­fer­ent. This is our fam­i­lies’ safe­ty we’re talk­ing
about…our children’s lives. Are you will­ing to gamble…with those?”
Maryellen leaned for­ward and touched Kitty’s leg. Kit­ty looked up
from study­ing her knees.
“You real­ly saw Francine in his attic?” Maryellen asked. “Don’t lie
to me. You’re sure it was her and not a shad­ow or a man­nequin or
some Hal­loween dec­o­ra­tion?”
Kit­ty nod­ded, mis­er­able.
“When I close my eyes I see her in that suit­case, wrapped in
plas­tic,” she moaned. “I can’t sleep, Maryellen.”
Maryellen stud­ied Kitty’s face, then leaned back.
“How do we do it?” she asked.
“Before we go any fur­ther,” Slick said. “We have to see it through…
and then nev­er talk about it again…I have to hear it from each of
you…After this there’s no…changing your mind.”
“Amen,” Mrs. Greene said.
“Of course,” Patri­cia agreed.
“Kit­ty?” Slick asked.
“God help me, yes,” Kit­ty exhaled in a rush.
“Maryellen?” Slick asked.
Maryellen didn’t say any­thing.
“He’ll come for Car­o­line next,” Patri­cia said. “Then Alexa. Then
Mon­i­ca. He’ll do to them what he’s done to Korey. He’s just hunger,
Maryellen. He’ll eat and eat until there’s noth­ing left.”
“I won’t do any­thing ille­gal,” Maryellen said.
“We’re beyond that,” Patri­cia said. “We’re pro­tect­ing our fam­i­lies.
We will do what­ev­er it takes. You’re a moth­er, too.”
Every­one watched Maryellen. Her back was stiff and then the fight
went out of her and her shoul­ders slumped.
“All right,” she said.
Patri­cia, Slick, and Mrs. Greene exchanged a look. Patri­cia took it
as her cue.
“We need a night when everyone’s dis­tract­ed,” she said. “Next
week is the Clem­son-Car­oli­na game. The entire pop­u­la­tion of South
Car­oli­na is going to be glued to their tele­vi­sion sets from kick­off until
the last down. That’s when we do it.”
“Do what?” Kit­ty asked in a very small voice.
Patri­cia took a black-and-white Mead com­po­si­tion book from her
purse.
“I read every­thing I could about them,” she said. “About things like
vam­pires. Mrs. Greene and I have been mak­ing a list of the facts they
agree on. There are as many super­sti­tions about how to stop one as
there are how to cre­ate one: expo­sure to sun­light, dri­ve a stake
through its heart, decap­i­ta­tion, sil­ver.”
“We can think he’s evil and not an actu­al vam­pire,” Maryellen said.
“Maybe he’s like that Richard Chase, the Vam­pire of Sacra­men­to,
and he just thinks he’s a vam­pire.”
“No,” Patri­cia said. “We can’t fool our­selves any­more. He’s
unnat­ur­al and we have to kill him the right way or he’s just going to
keep on com­ing back. He’s under­es­ti­mat­ed us. We can’t
under­es­ti­mate him.”
Her words sound­ed bizarre in the ster­ile hos­pi­tal room with its
plas­tic cups and sip­py straws, its tele­vi­sion hang­ing from the ceil­ing,
its Hall­mark cards on the win­dowsill. They looked at each oth­er in
their prac­ti­cal flats with their roomy purs­es by their feet, with their
read­ing glass­es, and their notepads, and their ball­point pens, and
real­ized they had crossed a line.
“We have to dri­ve a stake through his heart?” Kit­ty asked. “I don’t
think I’m up for that.”
“No stakes,” Patri­cia said.
“Oh, thank God,” Kit­ty said. “Sor­ry, Slick.”
“I don’t think that would kill him,” Patri­cia said. “The books say
vam­pires sleep dur­ing the day, but he’s awake in day­light. The sun

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.

36
He loved you.
I don’t know why hear­ing those words out of Jane’s mouth hit me like they do. Maybe because
Jane, of all peo­ple, wouldn’t want that to be true.
But Jane is a good liar.
I can tell, look­ing at her. I can also tell that she isn’t at all the girl Eddie thought she was. A girl
who would smash his face in with a sil­ver pineap­ple, then sit here with his wife—who she’d been
told was dead at the bot­tom of a lake—drinking wine.
I like this girl, so much that I almost feel sor­ry for Eddie that he couldn’t see this side of her.
He might have liked it, too.
Or maybe he did. Maybe, as much as he hat­ed to admit it, Eddie knew she was like me.
Knew that it was what had drawn him to her in the first place.
She takes anoth­er sip of her wine. She is petite, pale, her hair a col­or between blond and brown
that isn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly flat­ter­ing, and the clothes she’s wear­ing look like mut­ed imi­ta­tions of the oth­er
women in this neigh­bor­hood. Maybe that was enough to fool Eddie, but he should have looked into
her eyes.
Her eyes give it all away.
For exam­ple, she’s nod­ding at me, sit­ting there calm­ly, but her eyes are almost fever-bright, and
I’m sure she’s not buy­ing my sto­ry of what “real­ly hap­pened.” The affair, Eddie killing Blanche,
lock­ing me away, fram­ing Tripp. I’d count­ed on her think­ing Eddie is smarter than he is, but that might
have been a mis­cal­cu­la­tion.
In fact, look­ing at her now, she reminds me of Blanche. After the funer­al.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” Bea hugs Blanche tight­ly, feel­ing just how thin she is in her black
dress. Bea is not wear­ing black, going instead for the dark plum that will be a sig­na­ture shade in
this year’s autumn line at South­ern Manors.
Blanche hugs her back, says how sor­ry she is over and over again, but as she leaves, Bea
thinks she catch­es some­thing in Blanche’s eyes. She’s not sus­pi­cious, not exact­ly. Blanche would
nev­er make that big of a leap. But Bea can tell there’s some­thing about all of this that isn’t sit­ting
quite right for Blanche, even if she’d nev­er say it, nev­er even let her­self think it.
Lat­er that night, Bea sits in the wing­back chair she’d had shipped from Mama’s house, the only
thing she’d want­ed out of her godaw­ful child­hood home, and fin­ish­es off the bot­tle of wine. It
helps her to feel numb and fuzzy, helps to block out the pic­ture of Mama’s face right before she
fell.
She had been high, that part was true, com­plete­ly zonked out on what­ev­er the cur­rent fla­vor of
escape was. Klonopin, prob­a­bly. Bea had watched her make her way down the hall like a woman
much old­er than fifty-three, her foot­steps slow and shuf­fling.
She had told Mama to get rid of that hall run­ner right there by the stairs, but of course she
hadn’t lis­tened. Still, she’d only stum­bled rather than fall­en out­right. She would’ve been fine.
Bea can’t even say for sure why she pushed her. Only that she was there, and Mama tripped,
and as she did, Bea’s whole heart seemed to rise up joy­ful­ly in her chest, and it had felt like the
most nat­ur­al thing in the world to just reach out and … shove.
Her face didn’t reg­is­ter fear or hor­ror or shock. As always, Mama just looked vague­ly con­fused
as she fell.
It occurred to Bea at the funer­al that she was lucky. If she’d just bro­ken an ankle or frac­tured a
col­lar­bone, Bea would’ve had a lot of explain­ing to do. But she hit her head hard at the edge of the
fil­ial there at the bot­tom. Bea had heard the crack, seen the blood.
She didn’t die right away, but when Bea had looked down at her, she’d seen that the injury was
severe enough, the blood already pool­ing around her head.
Still, if she had called 911 right then instead of the next morn­ing, if she’d pre­tend­ed to hear a
thud in the mid­dle of the night rather than wak­ing up to find her moth­er at the bot­tom of the stairs,
Mama prob­a­bly would’ve made it. It was the bleed­ing that did it in the end, after all.
Lying there all night alone at the foot of the stairs, blood gush­ing then slow­ly leak­ing onto the
hard­wood.
Bea had wait­ed for months to feel bad about it, but in the end, all she’d felt was free.
And she’d put it out of her head, most­ly, for years. Even Eddie didn’t know the truth about how
her Mama had died. She’d giv­en him a vague sto­ry about Mama’s drink­ing, and since Eddie was
vague enough about his own past, he’d let it slide. It hadn’t come up again until just a few months
before Blanche died.
The two of them, hav­ing din­ner at that same Mex­i­can restau­rant they’d gone to after Bea had
met Eddie.
Things had been tense—this is after Bea catch­es Eddie and Blanche at lunch, after she fucks
Tripp in the bath­room, not that Blanche knows about that—but Bea is still unpre­pared for how
angry Blanche seems that night.
“He doesn’t know, does he?” she asks, and Bea stares at her until she’s the first to look away.
“Eddie. That all your shit is fake. That this whole”—she waves one arm in the air—“Southern
Manors thing was basi­cal­ly stolen from me.”
“I know it’s hard to believe the world doesn’t revolve around you, Blanche, but I promise that’s
the case,” Bea replies, her voice calm even as her pulse spikes.
Blanche takes anoth­er drink, sullen now. Was she always like this, or is this what being
mar­ried to Tripp has done? Bea won­ders.
She even looks like him now, her hair the same sandy shade as his, cut near­ly as short. But her
body is rail thin, unlike his, ban­gles jan­gling on her wrist as she plucks a chip from the bas­ket.
Bea can’t help but inspect those bracelets, look­ing for some­thing famil­iar, but no, not a one of
them is from South­ern Manors. They’re all Kate Spade, and she wrin­kles her nose.
Blanche sees. “What?” She’s not eat­ing the chip she’s hold­ing, just pick­ing small pieces off of
it, and Bea reach­es over to wipe away the pile of crumbs.
“If you need ban­gles, we just did a new line,” Bea says. “I’ll send some over to you.”
Blanche’s lips part slight­ly, eyes wide, and after a moment, she gives a star­tled laugh that’s too
loud. “Are you fuck­ing seri­ous?” she asks, and Bea sees heads turn in their direc­tion.
Frown­ing, she leans clos­er. “Low­er your voice, please.”
“No,” she says, let­ting the rem­nant of her chip drop to the table. “No, I seri­ous­ly want to know
if you’re pissed because I’m not wear­ing your stu­pid jew­el­ry. I want to know if that’s what’s
hap­pen­ing right now, Bertha.”
“Mature,” Bea replies, and Blanche hoots with laugh­ter, sit­ting back in the booth and cross­ing
her arms over her chest.
“I’m ask­ing you if your hus­band knows that every­thing about you is a lie. You’re bitch­ing
about my bracelets, and I’m the imma­ture one, okay.”
Bea’s hand shoots out, grab­bing her wrist, the one cov­ered in those god­damn ban­gles, and she
squeezes so hard Blanche yelps.
“You’re drunk,” Bea tells her through clenched teeth. “And you’re embar­rass­ing your­self.
Maybe leave that to Tripp.”
Din­ner ends ear­ly that night, and it’s only two days lat­er that Eddie is ask­ing why Bea nev­er
told him her moth­er died in a fall.
Which is when Bea real­izes there is no affair, when she real­izes that even if Blanche had
want­ed to hurt her, Eddie did not. And because Blanche did not get what she want­ed for once in
her life, she’s now act­ing out, fir­ing the only ammu­ni­tion she has left.
Bea shows up with cof­fee the next morn­ing and break­fast pas­tries. She even gets Blanche one
of those gluten-free abom­i­na­tions she likes.
“Peace offer­ing,” she says, and she can tell that a part of Blanche wants to believe it, that she
wants things to go back to the way they were.
The lake trip is anoth­er peace offer­ing. Anoth­er olive branch.
And Blanche grabs it with both hands.

Jane sits there, twirling the stem of her wine­glass between her fin­gers, and I watch her mind work. I
like not know­ing exact­ly what she’ll do, and it is odd­ly sat­is­fy­ing to see how shal­low her loy­al­ty to
Eddie real­ly is.
I hadn’t lost him after all.
It sur­pris­es me how much that thrills me.
But maybe it shouldn’t. Some of the things in the diary were for show, to cov­er my tracks—the
major­i­ty of it, really—but the sex? The way I felt about Eddie?
That had all been real.
But then Jane sits up a lit­tle straighter and says, “We should call the police. Tell them what Eddie
did. Let him pay the con­se­quences.”
Is she play­ing with me, or is that what she real­ly wants? The ambi­gu­i­ty that I’d enjoyed so much
just a moment ago is now irri­tat­ing, and I wave one hand, fin­ish­ing my wine.
“Lat­er,” I say. “Let me enjoy a few hours of being out of that room before I’m stuck answer­ing a
bunch of ques­tions.”
Look­ing around, I add, “You real­ly didn’t do any­thing new with the place, did you?”
Jane doesn’t answer that, but leans clos­er, reach­ing for my hand. “Bea,” she says. “We can’t just
sit here. Eddie mur­dered Blanche. He could’ve mur­dered you. We have to—”
“We don’t have to do any­thing,” I reply, yank­ing my hand out from under hers and stand­ing up.

“The stress­ful part is always mak­ing the deci­sion,” Bea used to remind her employ­ees. “Once
you’ve made it, it’s done, and you feel bet­ter.”
That’s how it was with Blanche.
Once Bea has decid­ed that she has to die, it’s easy enough, and the rest of the steps fall into
place. She invites Blanche to the lake house, then texts Tripp at the last minute. She’s going to
need a fall guy this time, after all. One per­son dying in an acci­dent while she’s alone with them is
one thing. Two would be hard­er to pull off.
So, Tripp.
Blanche is not hap­py when he shows up.
“I thought this was sup­posed to be a girls’ trip,” she says, and Tripp set­tles on the couch next
to her, already drink­ing a vod­ka ton­ic.
“And I am a Girls’ Tripp,” he jokes, which is so ter­ri­ble that for a moment Bea thinks maybe
she should kill him, too.
But no, she needs Tripp to play a part in all this.
He does it well, too. Blanche is so irri­tat­ed he’s there that she drinks even more than Bea had
hoped, glass after glass of wine, then the vod­ka Tripp is drink­ing.
And when Tripp pass­es out, as Bea had known he would thanks to the Xanax she’d put in his
drink, Blanche actu­al­ly laughs with Bea, the two of them drag­ging his limp body into the mas­ter
bed­room, Bea pre­tend­ing to be just as drunk as Blanche.
That’s the thing she remem­bers the most about it all lat­er. Blanche was hap­py that night. It had
most­ly been the booze, but still, Bea had giv­en her that.
One last Girls’ Night Out.
When they get onto the pon­toon boat Bea bought for Eddie last year, Blanche is so unsteady,
Bea has to guide her to her seat.
More drinks.
The sky over­head is dark, too, a new moon that night, noth­ing to illu­mi­nate what hap­pens.
As with Mama, Bea doesn’t have to do that much work, real­ly.
When Blanche has slumped into uncon­scious­ness, it’s a sim­ple mat­ter of tak­ing the ham­mer
she’d bought, the heavy one, the one that looks exact­ly like the kind of unsub­tle mur­der weapon a
guy like Tripp would buy, and she brings it down.
Once. Twice. Three times. A sick­en­ing crunch giv­ing way to a meaty, wet sound, and then she’s
rolling Blanche off the deck of the boat. It’s dark, and her hair is the last thing Bea sees, sink­ing
under the lake.
She stands there and waits to feel some­thing.
Regret, hor­ror. Any­thing, real­ly. But again, once it’s done, she’s most­ly just relieved and a lit­tle
tired.
Swim­ming back to the house is some­thing of a chore, her arms cut­ting through the warm water,
her brain con­jur­ing images of alli­ga­tors, water moc­casins. Below her, she knows there’s a flood­ed
for­est, and it’s hard not to imag­ine the dead branch­es reach­ing up for her like skele­tal hands, to
see her body drift­ing down with Blanche’s to lay in that under­wa­ter wood.
Some­thing brush­es against her foot at one point, and she gives a choked scream that sounds
too loud in the qui­et night, lake water fill­ing her mouth, tast­ing like min­er­als and some­thing
vague­ly rot­ten, and she spits, keeps swim­ming.
The sto­ry is so sim­ple. Girls’ week­end. Tripp show­ing up unex­pect­ed­ly. They went out on the
boat, they drank too much. Bea fell asleep or passed out, to the sound of Tripp and Blanche
argu­ing. When she woke up, Blanche was gone, and Tripp was passed out. Bea pan­icked, dove in
the water try­ing to save her best friend, and when she couldn’t find her, swam back to the house.
Tripp had been so drunk he won’t have any idea what hap­pened, won’t even remem­ber he
wasn’t on the boat, and every­one knew he and Blanche were hav­ing prob­lems. Maybe he’ll luck out
and they’ll assume Blanche fell or jumped in of her own accord, nev­er find­ing her body there at
the bot­tom of the lake. Maybe they will find it, see that hole in her skull, and think he mur­dered
her.
Either one works for Bea.
And it all would have been just that easy had Eddie not come along and fucked it all up.
He’s in the house when Bea walks up the dock, his eyes going wide as he sees her. She doesn’t
even think about how she must look, soak­ing wet, shiv­er­ing even though it’s hot. All she can think
is, Why is he here?
And that’s it—the moment she los­es it all.
She should’ve been pay­ing more atten­tion to just how weird it was that he was there, to that
pan­icked look on his face. Eddie nev­er had han­dled being sur­prised well, and like a lot of men, he
always thought he was smarter than he actu­al­ly was.
Bea had always believed that a man who over­es­ti­mates his intel­li­gence is a man who can be
eas­i­ly manip­u­lat­ed. Turns out, he’s also a man who can be real­ly dan­ger­ous.
Lat­er, she want­ed to tell him just how bad­ly he’d fucked it all up, that she would’ve tak­en care
of it, that she had tak­en care of it, just like she always did, but of course Eddie rushed in with­out
think­ing, just like always.

Chap­ter 36 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të, titled “Dual Soli­tude,” delves into the com­plex­i­ties of a dete­ri­o­rat­ing mar­riage through the eyes of the nar­ra­tor, mark­ing the third anniver­sary of her union with her hus­band. This peri­od in their lives is char­ac­ter­ized by a pro­found emo­tion­al dis­tance and a mutu­al acknowl­edg­ment of the absence of love, friend­ship, and sym­pa­thy between them. Despite the strained rela­tion­ship, the nar­ra­tor strives to main­tain a sem­blance of peace and civil­i­ty in their shared life, espe­cial­ly for the sake of their child. The hus­band, ini­tial­ly morose and irri­ta­ble fol­low­ing the depar­ture of a woman named Annabel­la, exhibits a volatile mix­ture of resent­ment and indif­fer­ence towards the nar­ra­tor, occa­sion­al­ly suc­cumb­ing to bouts of drink­ing which he defen­sive­ly jus­ti­fies as a reac­tion to the nar­ra­tor’s demeanor.

The nar­ra­tive unfolds against the back­drop of their iso­lat­ed exis­tence, high­light­ing the nar­ra­tor’s efforts to cope with her husband’s dete­ri­o­rat­ing affec­tion and increas­ing indul­gence in vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly his drink­ing habit, which she attrib­ut­es to his weak char­ac­ter and her own lost influ­ence over him. The strain in their rela­tion­ship is fur­ther exac­er­bat­ed by the hus­band’s offen­sive let­ters from Lady Low­bor­ough, reveal­ing a con­tin­u­ing improp­er con­nec­tion that deeply wounds the nar­ra­tor. Despite these chal­lenges, the nar­ra­tor momen­tar­i­ly con­sid­ers soft­en­ing her approach towards her hus­band in hopes of pos­i­tive­ly influ­enc­ing him, only to be met with unap­pre­ci­a­tion and arro­gance that solid­i­fy her resolve to main­tain emo­tion­al dis­tance.

Amid these domes­tic ten­sions, the pres­ence of Mr. Har­grave and Arthur’s inter­ac­tions with him serve as dis­trac­tions for both the nar­ra­tor and her hus­band, though they do lit­tle to mend the under­ly­ing dis­cord in their mar­riage. The nar­ra­tor’s com­plex feelings—ranging from dis­ap­point­ment, resent­ment, to fleet­ing moments of com­pas­sion towards her husband—are poignant­ly por­trayed, demon­strat­ing her strug­gle to pre­serve her dig­ni­ty and parental respon­si­bil­i­ty in the face of mar­i­tal dis­il­lu­sion­ment. The chap­ter con­cludes with a poignant scene of the nar­ra­tor’s deep emo­tion­al tur­moil as she seeks solace in her love for her child, under­scor­ing the chap­ter’s themes of iso­la­tion, the quest for per­son­al integri­ty, and the painful aware­ness of unrec­i­p­ro­cat­ed affec­tion and val­ues with­in the con­fines of a dis­in­te­grat­ing mar­riage.