Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

In Chap­ter 21, the pro­tag­o­nist, a mor­tal woman, encoun­ters a cap­ti­vat­ing High Fae man dur­ing Fire Night, an oth­er­world­ly cel­e­bra­tion. His appear­ance is strik­ing, with short black hair and deep blue eyes that near­ly seem vio­let, exud­ing an air of sen­su­al grace and ease. Their inter­ac­tion is charged with ten­sion and intrigue, as he ques­tions what a mor­tal is doing at the faerie cel­e­bra­tion. Despite his allur­ing demeanor, there’s an under­cur­rent of dan­ger, prompt­ing the woman to be wary.

The man’s inter­est appears to pique fur­ther when she lies about her com­pan­ions, try­ing to main­tain her anonymi­ty and safe­ty. As their con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, the man sub­tly intim­i­dates her, empha­siz­ing the divide between mor­tals and faeries and hint­ing at the per­ils that lurk for her with­in the faerie realm.

The pro­tag­o­nist sens­es both the allure and the threat that the Fae man rep­re­sents, lead­ing to a tense but elec­tric inter­ac­tion where she attempts to nav­i­gate the sit­u­a­tion cau­tious­ly. The con­ver­sa­tion takes a reveal­ing turn when he implies knowl­edge of the pro­tag­o­nist’s true cir­cum­stances, indi­rect­ly sug­gest­ing that no refresh­ments or friends would return for her, iso­lat­ing her fur­ther.

As she con­tem­plates her escape, the Fae man offers a veiled warn­ing about the dan­gers of the night, mak­ing it clear that she would be wise to stay away from him. Nev­er­the­less, curios­i­ty com­pels her to inquire about his court alle­giance, to which he responds with amused dis­missal, empha­siz­ing his auton­o­my and high­light­ing the intrigue and dan­ger of his char­ac­ter.

Their inter­ac­tion ends with the pro­tag­o­nist retreat­ing into the crowd, seek­ing safe­ty among the faeries and reflect­ing on the pre­car­i­ous­ness of her posi­tion. Yet, this encounter leaves a last­ing impres­sion, under­scor­ing the com­plex­i­ties and haz­ards of nav­i­gat­ing the faerie realm, espe­cial­ly dur­ing such a piv­otal and mys­ti­cal event as Fire Night.

On a suf­fo­cat­ing­ly warm night, Alice is awok­en at 2:45 AM by Deputy Dulles bang­ing on her door, alert­ing her that Margery O’Hare is in labor and needs assis­tance. With no doc­tor avail­able, Alice quick­ly pre­pares and rides her horse, Spir­it, through the woods to Monarch Creek, seek­ing help from Sophia, knowl­edge­able in mid­wifery due to her moth­er’s lega­cy. Upon Alice’s arrival at the jail where Margery is detained, they find Margery in intense labor.

The jail­house, filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of child­birth, becomes a tense and fran­tic scene. Sophia, equipped with her mother’s mid­wifery bag and Deputy Dulles pro­vid­ing sup­port, tries to man­age the birth. Despite the grim envi­ron­ment and Margery’s despair, they pro­ceed with the deliv­ery, the deputy sup­ply­ing hot water and show­ing con­cern for their well-being amidst the chaos.

Margery, over­whelmed and exhaust­ed, fears for her baby’s well-being, wish­ing for the pres­ence of Sven, the father. Amidst pain and des­per­a­tion, she doubts her abil­i­ty to endure child­birth. How­ev­er, Alice and Sophia offer relent­less sup­port, guid­ing her through the ordeal. The chap­ter vivid­ly describes the pal­pa­ble ten­sion, Margery’s intense pain, and the col­lec­tive effort to ensure a safe deliv­ery with­in the bleak con­fines of the jail cell.

In a moment of cli­mac­tic relief, the baby is born as dawn breaks, trans­form­ing the room with an out­pour of joy and relief. The new life momen­tar­i­ly eclipses the grim real­i­ty of their sur­round­ings, spark­ing cel­e­bra­tions among the jail’s inmates and the arrival of fresh hope. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in a gath­er­ing where the com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing Sven, cel­e­brates the baby’s birth, acknowl­edg­ing the efforts of Alice, Sophia, and Margery. The baby, named Vir­ginia Alice O’Hare, sym­bol­izes a bea­con of hope and resilience amidst adver­si­ty, bring­ing togeth­er a dis­parate group in shared joy and human­i­ty.

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.

TWENTY-ONE
By din­ner time tonight, the card­board box Enzo brought into the house is
still sit­ting on the din­ing table. In the inter­est of set­ting the table, I try to
move it, but it is very heavy—Enzo made it seem lighter than it was by the
way he effort­less­ly car­ried it into the room. I’m scared if I try to move it,
I’ll acci­den­tal­ly drop it. Odds are good there’s some price­less Ming vase
inside, or some­thing equal­ly frag­ile and expen­sive.
I study the return address on the box again. Eve­lyn Winchester—I
won­der who that is. The hand­writ­ing is big and loopy. I give it a ten­ta­tive
shove and some­thing rat­tles inside.
“Ear­ly Christ­mas present?”
I look up from the package—Andrew is home. He must have come in
from the garage entrance, and he’s smil­ing crooked­ly at me, his tie loose
around his neck. I’m glad he seems to be in bet­ter spir­its than yes­ter­day. I
real­ly thought he was going to lose it after that doctor’s appoint­ment. And
then that ter­ri­ble argu­ment last night, where I was half-con­vinced Nina had
mur­dered him. Of course, now that I know why she was insti­tu­tion­al­ized, it
doesn’t seem near­ly as far-fetched.
“It’s June,” I remind him.
He clucks his tongue. “It’s nev­er too ear­ly for Christ­mas.” He rounds
the side of the table to exam­ine the return address on the pack­age. He is
only a few inch­es away from me, and I can smell his after­shave. It
smells… nice. Expen­sive.
Stop it, Mil­lie. Stop smelling your boss.
“It’s from my moth­er,” he notes.
I grin up at him. “Your moth­er still sends you care pack­ages?”
He laughs. “She used to, actu­al­ly. Espe­cial­ly in the past, when Nina
was… sick.”
Sick. That’s a nice euphemism for what Nina did. I just can’t wrap my
head around it.
“It’s prob­a­bly some­thing for Cece,” he remarks. “My moth­er loves to
spoil her. She always says since Cece only has one grand­moth­er, it’s her
duty to spoil her.”
“What about Nina’s par­ents?”
He paus­es, his hands on the box. “Nina’s par­ents are gone. Since she
was young. I nev­er met them.”
Nina tried to kill her­self. Tried to kill her own daugh­ter. And now it
turns out she’s also left a cou­ple of dead par­ents in her wake. I just hope the
maid isn’t next.
No. I need to stop think­ing this way. It’s more like­ly Nina’s par­ents died
of can­cer or heart dis­ease. What­ev­er was wrong with Nina, they obvi­ous­ly
felt she was ready to rejoin soci­ety. I should give her the ben­e­fit of the
doubt.
“Anyway”—Andrew straight­ens up—“let me get this open.”
He dash­es into the kitchen and returns a minute lat­er with a box cut­ter.
He slices open the top and pulls up the flaps. I’m pret­ty curi­ous at this
point. I’ve been star­ing at this box all day, won­der­ing what’s inside. I’m
sure what­ev­er it is, it’s some­thing insane­ly expen­sive. I raise my eye­brows
as Andrew stares into the box, the col­or drain­ing from his face.
“Andrew?” I frown. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he sinks into one of the chairs and press­es
his fin­ger­tips into his tem­ples. I hur­ry over to com­fort him, but I can’t help
but stop to take a look inside the box.
And then I under­stand why he looks so upset.
The box is filled with baby stuff. Lit­tle white baby blan­kets, rat­tles,
dolls. There’s a lit­tle pile of tiny white one­sies.
Nina had been blab­bing to any­one who would lis­ten that they were
expect­ing a baby soon. Sure­ly, she men­tioned it to Andrew’s moth­er, who
decid­ed to send sup­plies. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, she jumped the gun.
Andrew has a glazed look in his eyes. “Are you okay?” I ask again.
He blinks like he for­got I was in the room with him. He man­ages a
watery smile. “I’m okay. Real­ly. I just… I didn’t need to see that.”
I slide into the chair next to his. “Maybe that doc­tor was wrong?”

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
21
I froze, the ring now in the pock­et of my jack­et. She’d fin­ished the last song
—maybe she’d start anoth­er.
Maybe.
The spin­ning wheel slowed.
I backed a step toward the door. Then anoth­er.
Slow­er and slow­er, each rota­tion of the ancient wheel longer than the
last.
Only ten steps to the door.
Five.
The wheel went round, one last time, so slow I could see each of the
spokes.
Two.
I turned for the door as she lashed out with a white hand, grip­ping the
wheel and stop­ping it whol­ly.
The door before me snicked shut.
I lunged for the han­dle, but there was none.
Win­dow. Get to the win­dow—
“Who is in my house?” she said soft­ly.
Fear—undiluted, unbro­ken fear—slammed into me, and I remem­bered. I
remem­bered what it was to be human and help­less and weak. I remem­bered
what it was to want to fight to live, to be will­ing to do any­thing to stay
breath­ing—
I reached the win­dow beside the door. Sealed. No latch, no open­ing. Just
glass that was not glass. Sol­id and impen­e­tra­ble.
The Weaver turned her face toward me.
Wolf or mouse, it made no dif­fer­ence, because I became no more than an
ani­mal, siz­ing up my chance of sur­vival.
Above her young, sup­ple body, beneath her black, beau­ti­ful hair, her skin
was gray—wrinkled and sag­ging and dry. And where eyes should have
gleamed instead lay rot­ting black pits. Her lips had with­ered to noth­ing but
deep, dark lines around a hole full of jagged stumps of teeth—like she had
gnawed on too many bones.
And I knew she would be gnaw­ing on my bones soon if I did not get out.
Her nose—perhaps once pert and pret­ty, now half-caved in—flared as
she sniffed in my direc­tion.
“What are you?” she said in a voice that was so young and love­ly.
Out—out, I had to get out—
There was anoth­er way.
One sui­ci­dal, reck­less way.
I did not want to die.
I did not want to be eat­en.
I did not want to go into that sweet dark­ness.
The Weaver rose from her lit­tle stool.
And I knew my bor­rowed time had run out.
“What is like all,” she mused, tak­ing one grace­ful step toward me, “but
unlike all?”
I was a wolf.
And I bit when cor­nered.
I lunged for the sole can­dle burn­ing on the table in the cen­ter of the
room. And hurled it against the wall of woven thread—against all those
mis­er­able, dark bolts of fab­ric. Woven bod­ies, skins, lives. Let them be free.
Fire erupt­ed, and the Weaver’s shriek was so pierc­ing I thought my head
might shat­ter; thought my blood might boil in its veins.
She dashed for the flames, as if she’d put them out with those flaw­less
white hands, her mouth of rot­ted teeth open and scream­ing like there was
noth­ing but black hell inside her.
I hur­tled for the dark­ened hearth. For the fire­place and chim­ney above.
A tight squeeze, but wide—wide enough for me.
I didn’t hes­i­tate as I grabbed onto the ledge and hauled myself up, arms
buck­ling. Immor­tal strength—it got me only so far, and I’d become so
weak, so mal­nour­ished.
I had let them make me weak. Bent to it like some wild horse bro­ken to
the bit.
The soot-stained bricks were loose, uneven. Per­fect for climb­ing.
Faster—I had to go faster.
But my shoul­ders scraped against the brick, and it reeked in here, like
car­rion and burned hair, and there was an oily sheen on the stone, like
cooked fat—
The Weaver’s scream­ing was cut short as I was halfway up her chim­ney,
sun­light and trees almost vis­i­ble, every breath a near-sob.
I reached for the next brick, fin­ger­nails break­ing as I hauled myself up so
vio­lent­ly that my arms barked in protest against the squeez­ing of the stone
around me, and—
And I was stuck.
Stuck, as the Weaver hissed from with­in her house, “What lit­tle mouse is
climb­ing about in my chim­ney?”
I had just enough room to look down as the Weaver’s rot­ted face
appeared below.
She put that milk-white hand on the ledge, and I real­ized how lit­tle room
there was between us.
My head emp­tied out.
I pushed against the grip of the chim­ney, but couldn’t budge.
I was going to die here. I was going to be dragged down by those
beau­ti­ful hands and ripped apart and eat­en. Maybe while I was still alive,
she’d set that hideous mouth on my flesh and gnaw and tear and bite and—
Black pan­ic crushed in, and I was again trapped under a near­by
moun­tain, in a mud­dy trench, the Mid­den­gard Wyrm bar­rel­ing for me. I’d
bare­ly escaped, bare­ly—
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe—
The Weaver’s nails scratched against the brick as she took a step up.
No, no, no, no, no—
I kicked and kicked against the bricks.
“Did you think you could steal and flee, thief?”
I would have pre­ferred the Mid­den­gard Wyrm. Would have pre­ferred
those mas­sive, sharp teeth to her jagged stumps—
Stop.
The word came out of the dark­ness of my mind.
And the voice was my own.
Stop, it said—I said.
Breathe.
Think.
The Weaver came clos­er, brick crum­bling under her hands. She’d climb
up like a spider—like I was a fly in her web—
Stop.
And that word qui­et­ed every­thing.
I mouthed it.
Stop, stop, stop.
Think.
I had sur­vived the Wyrm—survived Ama­ran­tha. And I had been grant­ed
gifts. Con­sid­er­able gifts.
Like strength.
I was strong.
I slammed a hand against the chim­ney wall, as low as I could get. The
Weaver hissed at the debris that rained down. I smashed my fist again,
ral­ly­ing that strength.
I was not a pet, not a doll, not an ani­mal.
I was a sur­vivor, and I was strong.
I would not be weak, or help­less again. I would not, could not be bro­ken.
Tamed.
I pound­ed my fist into the bricks over and over, and the Weaver paused.
Paused long enough for the brick I’d loos­ened to slide free into my
wait­ing palm.
And for me to hurl it at her hideous, hor­ri­ble face as hard as I could.
Bone crunched and she roared, black blood spray­ing. But I rammed my
shoul­ders into the sides of the chim­ney, skin tear­ing beneath my leather. I
kept going, going, going, until I was stone break­ing stone, until noth­ing and
no one held me back and I was scal­ing the chim­ney.
I didn’t dare stop, not as I reached the lip and hauled myself out,
tum­bling onto the thatched roof. Which was not thatched with hay at all.
But hair.
And with all that fat lin­ing the chimney—all that fat now gleam­ing on
my skin … the hair clung to me. In clumps and strands and tufts. Bile rose,
but the front door banged open—a shriek fol­low­ing it.
No—not that way. Not to the ground.
Up, up, up.
A tree branch hung low and close by, and I scram­bled across that heinous
roof, try­ing not to think about who and what I was step­ping on, what clung
to my skin, my clothes. A heart­beat lat­er, I’d jumped onto the wait­ing
branch, scram­bling into the leaves and moss as the Weaver screamed,
“WHERE ARE YOU?”
But I was run­ning through the tree—running toward anoth­er one near­by.
I leaped from branch to branch, bare hands tear­ing on the wood. Where was
Rhysand?
Far­ther and far­ther I fled, her screams chas­ing me, though they grew
ever-dis­tant.
Where are you, where are you, where are you—
And then, loung­ing on a branch in a tree before me, one arm draped over
the edge, Rhysand drawled, “What the hell did you do?”
I skid­ded to a stop, breath­ing raw. I thought my lungs might actu­al­ly be
bleed­ing.
“You,” I hissed.
But he raised a fin­ger to his lips and win­nowed to me—grabbing my
waist with one hand and cup­ping the back of my neck with his oth­er as he
spir­it­ed us away—
To Velaris. To just above the House of Wind.
We free-fell, and I didn’t have breath to scream as his wings appeared,
spread­ing wide, and he curved us into a steady glide … right through the
open win­dows of what had to be a war room. Cass­ian was there—in the
mid­dle of argu­ing with Amren about some­thing.
Both froze as we land­ed on the red floor.
There was a mir­ror on the wall behind them, and I glimpsed myself long
enough to know why they were gap­ing.
My face was scratched and bloody, and I was cov­ered in dirt and grease
—boiled fat—and mor­tar dust, the hair stuck to me, and I smelled—
“You smell like bar­be­cue,” Amren said, cring­ing a bit.
Cass­ian loos­ened the hand he’d wrapped around the fight­ing knife at his
thigh.
I was still pant­i­ng, still try­ing to gob­ble down breath. The hair cling­ing to
me scratched and tick­led, and—
“You kill her?” Cass­ian said.
“No,” Rhys answered for me, loose­ly fold­ing his wings. “But giv­en how
much the Weaver was scream­ing, I’m dying to know what Feyre dar­ling
did.”
Grease—I had the grease and hair of peo­ple on me—
I vom­it­ed all over the floor.
Cass­ian swore, but Amren waved a hand and it was instant­ly gone—
along with the mess on me. But I could feel the ghost of it there, the
rem­nants of peo­ple, the mor­tar of those bricks …
“She … detect­ed me some­how,” I man­aged to say, slump­ing against the
large black table and wip­ing my mouth against the shoul­der of my leathers.
“And locked the doors and win­dows. So I had to climb out through the
chim­ney. I got stuck,” I added as Cassian’s brows rose, “and when she tried
to climb up, I threw a brick at her face.”
Silence.
Amren looked to Rhysand. “And where were you?”
“Wait­ing, far enough away that she couldn’t detect me.”
I snarled at him, “I could have used some help.”
“You sur­vived,” he said. “And found a way to help your­self.” From the
hard glim­mer in his eye, I knew he was aware of the pan­ic that had almost
got­ten me killed, either through men­tal shields I’d for­got­ten to raise or
what­ev­er anom­aly in our bond. He’d been aware of it—and let me endure
it.
Because it had almost got­ten me killed, and I’d be no use to him if it
hap­pened when it mattered—with the Book. Exact­ly like he’d said.
“That’s what this was also about,” I spat. “Not just this stu­pid ring,” I
reached into my pock­et, slam­ming the ring down on the table, “or my
abil­i­ties, but if I can mas­ter my pan­ic.”
Cass­ian swore again, his eyes on that ring.
Amren shook her head, sheet of dark hair sway­ing. “Bru­tal, but
effec­tive.”
Rhys only said, “Now you know. That you can use your abil­i­ties to hunt
our objects, and thus track the Book at the Sum­mer Court, and mas­ter
your­self.”
“You’re a prick, Rhysand,” Cass­ian said qui­et­ly.
Rhys mere­ly tucked his wings in with a grace­ful snap. “You’d do the
same.”
Cass­ian shrugged, as if to say fine, he would.
I looked at my hands, my nails bloody and cracked. And I said to
Cass­ian, “I want you to teach me—how to fight. To get strong. If the offer
to train still stands.”
Cassian’s brows rose, and he didn’t both­er look­ing to Rhys for approval.
“You’ll be call­ing me a prick pret­ty damn fast if we train. And I don’t know
any­thing about train­ing humans—how break­able your bod­ies are. Were, I
mean,” he added with a wince. “We’ll fig­ure it out.”
“I don’t want my only option to be run­ning,” I said.
“Run­ning,” Amren cut in, “kept you alive today.”
I ignored her. “I want to know how to fight my way out. I don’t want to
have to wait on any­one to res­cue me.” I faced Rhys, cross­ing my arms.
“Well? Have I proved myself?”
But he mere­ly picked up the ring and gave me a nod of thanks. “It was
my mother’s ring.” As if that were all the expla­na­tion and answers owed.
“How’d you lose it?” I demand­ed.
“I didn’t. My moth­er gave it to me as a keep­sake, then took it back when
I reached maturity—and gave it to the Weaver for safe­keep­ing.”
“Why?”
“So I wouldn’t waste it.”
Non­sense and idio­cy and—I want­ed a bath. I want­ed qui­et and a bath.
The need for those things hit me strong enough that my knees buck­led.
I’d bare­ly looked at Rhys before he grabbed my hand, flared his wings,
and had us soar­ing back through the win­dows. We free-fell for five
thun­der­ous, wild heart­beats before he win­nowed to my bed­room in the
town house. A hot bath was already run­ning. I stag­gered to it, exhaus­tion
hit­ting me like a phys­i­cal blow, when Rhys said, “And what about train­ing
your oth­er … gifts?”
Through the ris­ing steam from the tub, I said, “I think you and I would
shred each oth­er to bits.”
“Oh, we most def­i­nite­ly will.” He leaned against the bathing room
thresh­old. “But it wouldn’t be fun oth­er­wise. Con­sid­er our train­ing now
offi­cial­ly part of your work require­ments with me.” A jerk of the chin. “Go
ahead—try to get past my shields.”
I knew which ones he was talk­ing about. “I’m tired. The bath will go
cold.”
“I promise it’ll be just as hot in a few moments. Or, if you mas­tered your
gifts, you might be able to take care of that your­self.”
I frowned. But took a step toward him, then another—making him yield a
step, two, into the bed­room. The phan­tom grease and hair clung to me,
remind­ed me what he’d done—
I held his stare, those vio­let eyes twin­kling.
“You feel it, don’t you,” he said over the bur­bling and chit­ter­ing gar­den
birds. “Your pow­er, stalk­ing under your skin, purring in your ear.”
“So what if I do?”
A shrug. “I’m sur­prised Ianthe didn’t carve you up on an altar to see what
that pow­er looks like inside you.”
“What, pre­cise­ly, is your issue with her?”
“I find the High Priest­esses to be a per­ver­sion of what they once were—
once promised to be. Ianthe among the worst of them.”
A knot twist­ed in my stom­ach. “Why do you say that?”
“Get past my shields and I’ll show you.”
So that explained the turn in con­ver­sa­tion. A taunt. Bait.
Hold­ing his stare … I let myself fall for it. I let myself imag­ine that line
between us—a bit of braid­ed light … And there was his men­tal shield at the
oth­er end of the bond. Black and sol­id and impen­e­tra­ble. No way in.
How­ev­er I’d slipped through before … I had no idea. “I’ve had enough
tests for the day.”
Rhys crossed the two feet between us. “The High Priest­esses have
bur­rowed into a few of the courts—Dawn, Day, and Win­ter, most­ly.
They’ve entrenched them­selves so thor­ough­ly that their spies are
every­where, their fol­low­ers near-fanat­ic with devo­tion. And yet, dur­ing
those fifty years, they escaped. They remained hid­den. I would not be
sur­prised if Ianthe sought to estab­lish a foothold in the Spring Court.”
“You mean to tell me they’re all black-heart­ed vil­lains?”
“No. Some, yes. Some are com­pas­sion­ate and self­less and wise. But there
are some who are mere­ly self-right­eous … Though those are the ones that
always seem the most dan­ger­ous to me.”
“And Ianthe?”
A know­ing sparkle in his eyes.
He real­ly wouldn’t tell me. He’d dan­gle it before me like a piece of meat
—
I lunged. Blind­ly, wild­ly, but I sent my pow­er lash­ing down that line
between us.
And yelped as it slammed against his inner shields, the rever­ber­a­tions
echo­ing in me as sure­ly as if I’d hit some­thing with my body.
Rhys chuck­led, and I saw fire. “Admirable—sloppy, but an admirable
effort.”
Pant­i­ng a bit, I seethed.
But he said, “Just for try­ing … ‚” and took my hand in his. The bond
went taut, that thing under my skin puls­ing, and—
There was dark, and the colos­sal sense of him on the oth­er side of his
men­tal bar­ri­cade of black adamant. That shield went on for­ev­er, the prod­uct
of half a mil­len­nia of being hunt­ed, attacked, hat­ed. I brushed a men­tal hand
against that wall.
Like a moun­tain cat arch­ing into a touch, it seemed to purr—and then
relaxed its guard.
His mind opened for me. An antecham­ber, at least. A sin­gle space he’d
carved out, to allow me to see—
A bed­room carved from obsid­i­an; a mam­moth bed of ebony sheets, large
enough to accom­mo­date wings.
And on it, sprawled in noth­ing but her skin, lay Ianthe.
I reeled back, real­iz­ing it was a mem­o­ry, and Ianthe was in his bed, in his
court beneath that moun­tain, her full breasts peaked against the chill—
“There is more,” Rhys’s voice said from far away as I strug­gled to pull
out. But my mind slammed into the shield—the oth­er side of it. He’d
trapped me in here—
“You kept me wait­ing,” Ianthe sulked.
The sen­sa­tion of hard, carved wood dig­ging into my back—Rhysand’s
back—as he leaned against the bed­room door. “Get out.”
Ianthe gave a lit­tle pout, bend­ing her knee and shift­ing her legs wider,
bar­ing her­self to him. “I see the way you look at me, High Lord.”
“You see what you want to see,” he—we—said. The door opened beside
him. “Get out.”
A coy tilt of her lips. “I heard you like to play games.” Her slen­der hand
drift­ed low, trail­ing past her bel­ly but­ton. “I think you’ll find me a divert­ing
play­mate.”
Icy wrath crept through me—him—as he debat­ed the mer­its of splat­ter­ing
her on the walls, and how much of an incon­ve­nience it’d cause. She’d
hound­ed him relentlessly—stalked the oth­er males, too. Azriel had left last
night because of it. And Mor was about one more com­ment away from
snap­ping her neck.
“I thought your alle­giance lay with oth­er courts.” His voice was so cold.
The voice of the High Lord.
“My alle­giance lies with the future of Pry­thi­an, with the true pow­er in
this land.” Her fin­gers slid between her legs—and halt­ed. Her gasp cleaved
the room as he sent a ten­dril of pow­er blast­ing for her, pin­ning that arm to
the bed—away from her­self. “Do you know what a union between us could
do for Pry­thi­an, for the world?” she said, eyes devour­ing him still.
“You mean your­self.”
“Our off­spring could rule Pry­thi­an.”
Cru­el amuse­ment danced through him. “So you want my crown—and for
me to play stud?”
She tried to writhe her body, but his pow­er held her. “I don’t see any­one
else wor­thy of the posi­tion.”
She’d be a problem—now, and lat­er. He knew it. Kill her now, end the
threat before it began, face the wrath of the oth­er High Priest­esses, or …
see what hap­pened. “Get out of my bed. Get out of my room. And get out of
my court.”
He released his power’s grip to allow her to do so.
Ianthe’s eyes dark­ened, and she slith­ered to her feet, not both­er­ing with
her clothes, draped over his favorite chair. Each step toward him had her
gen­er­ous breasts bob­bing. She stopped bare­ly a foot away. “You have no
idea what I can make you feel, High Lord.”
She reached a hand for him, right between his legs.
His pow­er lashed around her fin­gers before she could grab him.
He crunched the pow­er down, twist­ing.
Ianthe screamed. She tried back­ing away, but his pow­er froze her in
place—so much pow­er, so eas­i­ly con­trolled, roil­ing around her,
con­tem­plat­ing end­ing her exis­tence like an asp sur­vey­ing a mouse.
Rhys leaned close to breathe into her ear, “Don’t ever touch me. Don’t
ever touch anoth­er male in my court.” His pow­er snapped bones and
ten­dons, and she screamed again. “Your hand will heal,” he said, step­ping
back. “The next time you touch me or any­one in my lands, you will find that
the rest of you will not fare so well.”
Tears of agony ran down her face—the effect wast­ed by the hatred
light­ing her eyes. “You will regret this,” she hissed.
He laughed soft­ly, a lover’s laugh, and a flick­er of pow­er had her thrown
onto her ass in the hall­way. Her clothes fol­lowed a heart­beat lat­er. Then the
door slammed.
Like a pair of scis­sors through a taut rib­bon, the mem­o­ry was sev­ered,
the shield behind me fell, and I stum­bled back, blink­ing.
“Rule one,” Rhys told me, his eyes glazed with the rage of that mem­o­ry,
“don’t go into someone’s mind unless you hold the way open. A dae­mati
might leave their minds spread wide for you—and then shut you inside, turn
you into their will­ing slave.”
A chill went down my spine at the thought. But what he’d shown me …
“Rule two,” he said, his face hard as stone, “when—”
“When was that,” I blurt­ed. I knew him well enough not to doubt its
truth. “When did that hap­pen between you?”
The ice remained in his eyes. “A hun­dred years ago. At the Court of
Night­mares. I allowed her to vis­it after she’d begged for years, insist­ing she
want­ed to build ties between the Night Court and the priest­esses. I’d heard
rumors about her nature, but she was young and untried, and I hoped that
per­haps a new High Priest­ess might indeed be the change her order need­ed.
It turned out that she was already well trained by some of her less-
benev­o­lent sis­ters.”
I swal­lowed hard, my heart thun­der­ing. “She—she didn’t act that way at
…”
Lucien.
Lucien had hat­ed her. Had made vague, vicious allu­sions to not lik­ing
her, to being approached by her—
I was going to throw up. Had she … had she pur­sued him like that? Had
he … had he been forced to say yes because of her posi­tion?
And if I went back to the Spring Court one day … How would I ever
con­vince Tam­lin to dis­miss her? What if, now that I was gone, she was—
“Rule two,” Rhys final­ly went on, “be pre­pared to see things you might
not like.”

In Celi­a’s apart­ment, the nar­ra­tor finds refuge from the tur­moil out­side, spend­ing days read­ing while Celia works on a new movie. Their rela­tion­ship is a mix of phys­i­cal close­ness and emo­tion­al dis­tance, with nights spent togeth­er yet apart, hint­ing at deep­er feel­ings that remain unex­plored due to soci­etal norms and the nar­ra­tor’s reluc­tance to accept their sex­u­al­i­ty. Despite this, moments of inti­ma­cy and long­ing hint at a bond that tran­scends friend­ship.

The nar­ra­tive takes a sig­nif­i­cant turn when Har­ry vis­its, deliv­er­ing divorce papers from the nar­ra­tor’s hus­band, a pow­er­ful fig­ure in Hol­ly­wood. The terms of the divorce include a gen­er­ous set­tle­ment on the con­di­tion of the nar­ra­tor’s silence about their marriage—a move meant to pro­tect the hus­band’s rep­u­ta­tion while sti­fling the nar­ra­tor’s abil­i­ty to speak open­ly about their expe­ri­ences.

Har­ry reveals the harsh real­i­ties of Hol­ly­wood pol­i­tics: the nar­ra­tor is to be loaned out to oth­er stu­dios, like­ly to be placed in fail­ing projects as a form of pun­ish­ment and con­trol by the hus­band, aim­ing to under­mine the nar­ra­tor’s career and cred­i­bil­i­ty. The con­ver­sa­tion under­scores the pow­er dynam­ics at play in Hol­ly­wood, where per­son­al lives and careers are manip­u­lat­ed for prof­it and pub­lic image.

Despite the emo­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al set­backs, the nar­ra­tor resolves to rebuild their life, acknowl­edg­ing the sup­port and friend­ship of Har­ry. With the prospect of free­dom from a manip­u­la­tive mar­riage, the nar­ra­tor faces their true desires and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­sue a rela­tion­ship with Celia, sug­gest­ing a turn­ing point towards self-accep­tance and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hap­pi­ness beyond soci­etal expec­ta­tions and the con­straints of their pre­vi­ous life.

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.

21
Right around Sean Preston’s �rst birth­day, on Sep­tem­ber 12, 2006, Jay­den
James came along. He was such a hap­py kid right from birth.
Once I’d had both the boys, I felt so light—so light it was almost like I was a
bird or a feath­er, like I could �oat away.
My body felt incred­i­ble to me. Is this what it’s like to be a thir­teen-year-old
again? I thought. I didn’t have a bel­ly any­more.
One of my friends came over and said, “Wow, you look so skin­ny!”
“Well, I’ve been preg­nant for two years straight,” I said.
After the babies, I felt like a com­plete­ly di�erent per­son. It was con­fus­ing.
On one hand, I sud­den­ly �t into my clothes again. When I tried things on
they looked good! Lov­ing clothes again was a rev­e­la­tion. I thought, Holy shit!
My body!
On the oth­er hand, I’d been so hap­py feel­ing these babies pro­tect­ed inside
me. I got a lit­tle depressed once I was no longer keep­ing them safe inside my
body. They seemed so vul­ner­a­ble out in the world of jock­ey­ing paparazzi and
tabloids. I want­ed them back inside me so the world couldn’t get at them.
“Why is Brit­ney so cam­era-shy with Jay­den?” one head­line read.
Kevin and I had got­ten bet­ter at hid­ing the kids after Jay­den was born, so
much so that peo­ple were won­der­ing why no pic­tures of him had been released.
I think if any­one had thought about that ques­tion for a sec­ond, they could have
come up with some guess­es. But no one was real­ly ask­ing the ques­tion. They just
kept act­ing like I owed it to them to let the men who kept try­ing to catch me
look­ing fat take pho­tos of my infant sons.
After each birth, one of the �rst things I had to do was look out the win­dow
to count the num­ber of ene­my com­bat­ants in the park­ing lot. They just seemed
to mul­ti­ply every time I checked. There were always more cars than seemed safe.
To see that many men gath­er­ing to shoot pho­tos of my babies—it made my
blood run cold. With a whole lot of mon­ey in pho­to roy­al­ties on the line, it was
their mis­sion to get pic­tures of the boys at any cost.
And my boys—they were so tiny. It was my job to keep them safe. I wor­ried
that the �ash­ing lights and the shout­ing would scare them. Kevin and I had to
devise strate­gies to cov­er them with blan­kets while mak­ing sure they could still
breathe. Even with­out a blan­ket over me, I bare­ly could.
I didn’t have much inter­est in doing press that year, but I did one inter­view,
with Matt Lauer for Date­line. He said that peo­ple were ask­ing ques­tions about
me, includ­ing: “Is Brit­ney a bad mom?” He nev­er said who was ask­ing them.
Every­one, appar­ent­ly. And he asked me what I thought it would take for the
paparazzi to leave me alone. I wished he’d ask them—so what­ev­er it was, I could
do exact­ly that.
Luck­i­ly, my home was a safe haven. Our rela­tion­ship was in trou­ble, but
Kevin and I had built an incred­i­ble house in Los Ange­les, right beside Mel
Gibson’s house. Sandy from Grease lived near­by, too. I’d see her and call out,
“Hi, Olivia New­ton-John! How are you, Olivia New­ton-John?”
For us, it was a dream house. There was a slide that went into the pool. There
was a sand­box, full of toys, so the kids could build sand­cas­tles. We had a
minia­ture play­house with steps and a lad­der and a minia­ture porch. And we just
kept adding on to it.
I didn’t like the wood­en �oors so I added mar­ble everywhere—and, of
course, it had to be white mar­ble.
The inte­ri­or design­er was com­plete­ly against it. He said, “Mar­ble �oors are
super slip­pery and hard if you fall down.”
“I want mar­ble!” I shout­ed. “I need mar­ble.”
It was my home and my nest. It was fuck­ing beau­ti­ful. But I think I knew
then that I’d become weird.
I’d had these two kids back-to-back. My hor­mones were all over the place. I
was mean­er than hell and so bossy. It was such a big deal for me to have kids. In
try­ing to make our home per­fect, I had gone over the top. I look back now and
think, God, that was bad. I’m sor­ry, con­trac­tors. I think I cared too much.
I had an artist come in and paint murals in the boys’ rooms: fan­tas­ti­cal
paint­ings of lit­tle boys on the moon. I just went all out.
It was my dream to have chil­dren and raise them in the cozi­est envi­ron­ment I
could cre­ate. To me they were per­fect, beau­ti­ful, every­thing I’d ever want­ed. I
want­ed to give them the world—the whole solar sys­tem.
I began to sus­pect that I was a bit over­pro­tec­tive when I wouldn’t let my
mom hold Jay­den for the �rst two months. Even after that, I’d let her hold him
for �ve min­utes and that was it. I had to have him back in my arms. That’s too
much. I know that now. I shouldn’t have been that con­trol­ling.
Again, I think what hap­pened when I �rst saw them after they’d been born
was sim­i­lar to what hap­pened to me after the breakup with Justin: It was that
Ben­jamin But­ton thing. I aged back­ward. Hon­est­ly, as a new moth­er, it was as if
some part of me became the baby. One part of me was a very demand­ing grown
woman yelling about white mar­ble, while anoth­er part of me was sud­den­ly very
child­like.
Kids are so heal­ing in one way. They make you less judg­men­tal. Here they
are, so inno­cent and so depen­dent on you. You real­ize every­one was a baby once,
so frag­ile and so help­less. In anoth­er way, for me, hav­ing kids was psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly
very com­pli­cat­ed. It had hap­pened when Jamie Lynn was born, too. I loved her
so much and was so empath­ic that I became her in this strange way. When she
was three, some part of me became three, too.
I’ve heard that this some­times hap­pens to parents—especially if you have
trau­ma from your child­hood. When your kids get to be the age you were when
you were deal­ing with some­thing rough, you relive it emo­tion­al­ly.
Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there wasn’t the same con­ver­sa­tion about men­tal health back
then that there is now. I hope any new moth­ers read­ing this who are hav­ing a
hard time will get help ear­ly and will chan­nel their feel­ings into some­thing more
heal­ing than white mar­ble �oors. Because I now know that I was dis­play­ing just
about every symp­tom of peri­na­tal depres­sion: sad­ness, anx­i­ety, fatigue. Once the
babies were born, I added on my con­fu­sion and obses­sion about the babies’
safe­ty, which was ratch­et­ing up the more media atten­tion was on us. Being a
new mom is chal­leng­ing enough with­out try­ing to do every­thing under a
micro­scope.

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 21
“Did he for­get some­thing?” Maryellen asked behind her.
Patri­cia looked out the win­dow and felt every­thing falling apart
around her. She watched as Carter and Blue got out of the Buick and
Leland’s BMW parked behind them. She saw Bennett’s lit­tle
Mit­subishi pick­up dri­ve past the end of their dri­ve­way and park at
his house, and then Ben­nett got out and came up her dri­ve, join­ing
Carter and Blue. Ed emerged from the back seat of Leland’s gold
BMW in a short-sleeved shirt tucked into his blue jeans, wear­ing a
knit tie. Rum­pled old Horse hauled him­self out of the pas­sen­ger side
of Leland’s car and hitched up his pants. Leland got out of the
driver’s seat and pulled on his sum­mer-weight, poly­ester blaz­er.
“Who is it?” Kit­ty asked from the sofa.
Maryellen got up and stood next to Patri­cia, and Patri­cia felt her
stiff­en.
“Patri­cia?” Grace asked. “Maryellen? Who all’s there?”
The men shook hands and Carter saw Patri­cia stand­ing in the
win­dow and said some­thing to the rest of them and they trooped up
to the front porch in sin­gle file.
“All of them,” Patri­cia said.
The front door opened, and Carter walked into the hall, Blue right
behind him. Then came Ed, who saw Maryellen stand­ing at the base
of the stairs and stopped. The rest of the men piled up behind him,
hot evening air bil­low­ing in around them.
“Ed,” Maryellen said. “Where are Detec­tives Can­non and Bus­sell?”
“They’re not com­ing,” he said, fid­dling with his tie.
He stepped toward her, to take her shoul­der or stroke her cheek,
and she jerked her­self back­ward, stop­ping at the base of the ban­is­ter,
hold­ing on to it with both hands.
“Were they ever com­ing?” she asked.
Keep­ing eye con­tact, he shook his head. Patri­cia put one hand on
Maryellen’s shoul­der, and it hummed beneath her like a high-ten­sion
line. The two of them stood aside as Carter sent Blue upstairs and the
men filed past them and crowd­ed into the liv­ing room. Carter wait­ed
until they were all inside, then ges­tured to Patri­cia like a wait­er
ush­er­ing her to her table.
“Pat­ty,” he said. “Maryellen. Join us?”
They allowed them­selves to be led inside. Kit­ty wiped tears from
her cheeks, face flushed. Slick stared at the floor between her and
Leland and he glared at her, both of them hold­ing very, very still.
Grace made a point of study­ing the framed pho­to of Patricia’s fam­i­ly
hang­ing over the fire­place. Ben­nett looked past them all, through the
sun porch win­dows, out over the marsh.
“Ladies,” Carter said. Clear­ly the oth­er men had elect­ed him their
spokesman. “We need to have a seri­ous talk.”
Patri­cia tried to slow her breath­ing. It had got­ten high and shal­low
and her throat felt like it was swelling closed. She glanced at Carter
and saw how much anger he car­ried in his eyes. “There aren’t enough
chairs for every­one,” she said. “We should get some of the din­ing
room chairs.”
“I’ll get them,” Horse said, and moved to the din­ing room.
Ben­nett went with him, and the men hauled chairs into the liv­ing
room and there was only the clat­ter­ing of fur­ni­ture as every­one
arranged them­selves. Horse sat next to Kit­ty on the sofa, hold­ing her
hand, and Leland leaned against the door to the hall. Ed sat
back­ward in a din­ing room chair, like some­one play­ing a police­man
on TV. Carter sat direct­ly across from Patri­cia, adjust­ing the crease in
his dress pants, the cuffs of his jack­et, putting his pro­fes­sion­al face
on over his real face.
Maryellen tried to regain the ini­tia­tive.
“If the detec­tives aren’t com­ing,” she said, “I’m not sure why you’re
all here.”
“Ed came to us,” Carter said. “Because he heard some alarm­ing
things and rather than risk y’all embar­rass­ing your­selves in front of
the police and doing seri­ous dam­age to both your­selves and to your
fam­i­lies, he did the respon­si­ble thing and brought it to our
atten­tion.”
“What you have to say about James Har­ris is libelous and
slan­der­ous,” Leland cut in. “You could have got­ten me sued into
obliv­ion. What were you even think­ing, Slick? You could have ruined
every­thing. Who wants to work with a devel­op­er who accus­es his
investors of deal­ing drugs to chil­dren?”
Slick low­ered her head.
“I’m sor­ry, Leland,” she said to her lap. “But chil­dren—”
“‘On the day of judg­ment,’” Leland quot­ed, “‘peo­ple will give
account for each care­less word they speak.’ Matthew 12:36.”
“Do you even want to know what we have to say?” Patri­cia asked.
“We got the gist,” Carter said.
“No,” Patri­cia said. “If you haven’t heard what we have to say, then
you have no right to tell us who we can and can’t speak to. We’re not
our moth­ers. This isn’t the 1920s. We’re not some sil­ly bid­dies sit­ting
around sewing all day and gos­sip­ing. We’re in the Old Vil­lage more
than any of you, and some­thing is very wrong here. If you had any
respect for us at all, you’d lis­ten.”
“If you’ve got so much free time, go after the crim­i­nals in the
White House,” Leland said. “Don’t fab­ri­cate one down the street.”
“Let’s all slow down,” Carter said, a gen­tle smile on his lips. “We’ll
lis­ten. It can’t hurt and who knows, maybe we’ll learn some­thing?”
Patri­cia ignored the calm, med­ical-pro­fes­sion­al tone of his voice. If
this was his bluff, she’d call it.
“Thank you, Carter,” she said. “I would like to speak.”
“You’re speak­ing for every­one?” Carter asked.
“It was Patricia’s idea,” Kit­ty said, from the safe­ty of Horse’s side.
“Yes,” Grace said.
“So tell us,” Carter said. “Why do you believe that James Har­ris is
some mas­ter crim­i­nal?”
It took a moment for her blood to stop singing in her ears and
set­tle to a duller roar. She inhaled deeply and looked around the
room. She saw Leland star­ing at her with his face stretched taut,
prac­ti­cal­ly shim­mer­ing with rage, his hands jammed deep in his
pock­ets. Ed stud­ied her the way police­men on TV watched crim­i­nals
dig them­selves in deep­er. Ben­nett stared out the win­dows behind her
at the marsh, face neu­tral. Carter watched her, wear­ing his most
tol­er­ant smile, and she felt her­self shrink­ing in her chair. Only Horse
looked at her with any­thing approach­ing kind­ness.
Patri­cia released her breath and looked down at Grace’s out­line,
shak­ing in her hands.
“James Har­ris, as you all know, moved here around April. His
great-aunt, Ann Sav­age, was in poor health and he took care of her.
When she attacked me, we believe that she was on what­ev­er drugs
he’s deal­ing. We think he’s sell­ing them in Six Mile.”
“Based on what?” Ed asked. “What evi­dence? What arrests? Have
you seen him sell­ing drugs there?”
“Let her fin­ish,” Maryellen said.
Carter held out a hand and Ed stopped.
“Patri­cia.” Carter smiled. She looked up. “Put your paper down.
Tell us in your own words. Relax, we’re all inter­est­ed in what you
have to say.”
He held out his hand, and Patri­cia couldn’t help her­self. She
hand­ed him Grace’s out­line. He fold­ed it in thirds and tucked it into
his jack­et pock­et.
“We think that he gave this drug,” Patri­cia said, forc­ing her­self to
see Grace’s out­line in her head, “to Orville Reed and Des­tiny Tay­lor.
Orville Reed killed him­self. Des­tiny Tay­lor is still alive, for now. But
before they died they claimed to have met a white man in the woods
who gave them some­thing that made them sick. There was also Sean
Brown, Orville’s cousin, who was involved in drugs, accord­ing to the
police. He was found dead in the same woods where the chil­dren
went, dur­ing the same peri­od. In addi­tion, Mrs. Greene saw a van
with the same license plate as James Harris’s in Six Mile dur­ing the
time this was all hap­pen­ing.”
“Did it have the exact same license plate num­ber?” Ed asked.
“Mrs. Greene only wrote down the last part, X 13S, but James
Harris’s license plate is TNX 13S,” Patri­cia said. “James Har­ris
claims he got rid of that van, but he’s keep­ing it in the Pak Rat Mini-
Stor­age on High­way 17 and has tak­en it out a few times, most­ly at
night.”
“Unbe­liev­able,” Leland said.
“Sean Brown was involved in the drug trade, and we think James
Har­ris killed him in a hor­ri­ble way to teach oth­er drug deal­ers a
les­son,” Patri­cia said. “Ann Sav­age died with what you’d call track
marks on the inside of her thigh. Des­tiny Tay­lor had some­thing
sim­i­lar. James Har­ris must have inject­ed some­thing into them. We
believe that if you exam­ine Orville Reed’s body you’ll find the same
mark.”
“That’s very inter­est­ing,” Carter said, and Patri­cia felt her­self
get­ting small­er with every word he spoke. “But I’m not sure it tells us
any­thing.”
“The track marks link Des­tiny Tay­lor and Ann Sav­age,” Patri­cia
said, remem­ber­ing Maryellen’s advice dur­ing one of their rehearsals.
“James Harris’s van was seen in Six Mile even though he says he’s
nev­er been to Six Mile. His van is no longer at his house, but he’s
keep­ing it in Pak Rat Mini-Stor­age. Orville Reed’s cousin was killed
because of what’s going on. Des­tiny Tay­lor suf­fers from the same
symp­toms as Orville Reed did before he killed him­self. We don’t
think you should wait for Des­tiny Tay­lor to fol­low his exam­ple. We
believe that while this evi­dence is cir­cum­stan­tial, there is a
pre­pon­der­ance of it.”
Maryellen, Kit­ty, and Slick all looked from Patri­cia to the men,
wait­ing for their reac­tion. They gave none. Thrown, Patri­cia took a
sip of water, then decid­ed to try some­thing they hadn’t rehearsed.
“Francine was Ann Savage’s clean­ing woman,” she said. “She went
miss­ing in May of this year. The day she went miss­ing, I saw her pull
up in front of James Harris’s house to clean.”
“Did you see her go inside?” Ed asked.
“No,” Patri­cia said. “She was report­ed miss­ing and the police think
she went some­where with a man, but, well, you have to know
Francine to real­ize that’s—”
Leland’s voice rang out loud and clear. “I’m going to stop you right
there. Does any­one need to hear more of this non­sense?”
“But, Leland—” Slick began.
“No, Slick,” Leland snapped.
“Would you ladies be open to hear­ing anoth­er per­spec­tive?” Carter
asked.
Patri­cia hat­ed his psy­chi­atric voice and his rhetor­i­cal ques­tions,
but she nod­ded out of habit.
“Of course,” she said.
“Ed?” Carter prompt­ed.
“I ran that license plate num­ber you gave me,” Ed said to
Maryellen. “It belongs to James Har­ris, Texas address, no crim­i­nal
record except a few minor traf­fic vio­la­tions. You told me it belonged
to a man Horse and Kitty’s girl was dat­ing.”
“Honey’s dat­ing this guy?” Horse asked in a shocked voice.
“No, Horse,” Maryellen said. “I made that up to get Ed to run the
plates.”
Kit­ty rubbed Horse’s back as he shook his head, dumb­found­ed.
“I’ll tell you,” Ed said. “I’m always hap­py to help out a friend, but I
was pret­ty damn embar­rassed to meet James Har­ris think­ing he was
a cra­dle rob­ber. It was a cock-up of a con­ver­sa­tion until I real­ized I’d
been played for a fool.”
“You met him?” Patri­cia asked.
“We had a con­ver­sa­tion,” Ed said.
“You dis­cussed this?” Patri­cia asked, and the betray­al made her
voice weak.
“We’ve been talk­ing for weeks,” Leland said. “James Har­ris is one
of the biggest investors in Gra­cious Cay. Over the past months he’s
put, well, I won’t tell you how much mon­ey he’s put in, but it’s a
sub­stan­tial sum, and in that time he’s demon­strat­ed to me that he’s a
man of char­ac­ter.”
“You nev­er told me,” Slick said.
“Because it’s none of your busi­ness,” he said.
“Don’t be upset with him,” Carter said. “Horse, Leland, James
Har­ris, and I have formed a kind of con­sor­tium to invest in Gra­cious
Cay. We’ve had sev­er­al busi­ness meet­ings and the man we’ve got­ten
to know is very dif­fer­ent from this mur­der­ous, drug-deal­ing preda­tor
you describe. I think it’s safe to say that we know him sig­nif­i­cant­ly
bet­ter than you do at this point.”
Patri­cia thought she’d knit­ted a sweater, but all she held in her
hands was a pile of yarn and every­one was laugh­ing at her, pat­ting
her on the head, chuck­ling at her child­ish­ness. She want­ed to pan­ic.
Instead, she turned to Carter.
“We are your wives. We are the moth­ers of your chil­dren, and we
believe there is a real dan­ger here,” she said. “Does that not count for
some­thing?”
“No one said it didn’t—” Carter began.
“We’re not ask­ing for much,” Maryellen said. “Just check his mini-
stor­age. If the van’s there, you can get a search war­rant and see if it
links him to these chil­dren.”
“No one’s doing any­thing of the sort,” Leland said.
“I asked him about that,” Ed said. “He told us he did it because he
thought all you Old Vil­lage ladies didn’t like his van parked in his
front yard, bring­ing down the tone of the neigh­bor­hood. Grace, he
told me you said it was killing his grass. So he got the Cor­si­ca, and
put the van in stor­age because he couldn’t bear to let it go. He’s
spend­ing eighty-five dol­lars a month because he wants to fit in bet­ter
with the neigh­bor­hood.”
“And for that,” Leland said, “you want to drag his name through
the mud and accuse him of being a drug deal­er.”
“We are men of stand­ing in this com­mu­ni­ty,” Ben­nett said. His
voice car­ried extra weight because he hadn’t spo­ken yet. “Our
chil­dren go to school here, we have spent our lives build­ing our
rep­u­ta­tions, and y’all were going to make us laugh­ing­stocks because
you’re a bunch of crazy house­wives with too much time on your
hands.”
“We’re just ask­ing you to go look at the mini-stor­age unit,” Grace
said, sur­pris­ing Patri­cia. “That’s all. Just because you’ve had some
drinks with him at the Yacht Club doesn’t mean he’s ham­mered from
purest gold.”
Ben­nett fixed his eyes on her. His nor­mal­ly friend­ly face got red.
“Are you argu­ing with me?” he asked. “Are you argu­ing with me in
pub­lic?”
The rage in his voice sucked the air out of the room.
“I think we need to calm down,” Horse said, unsure of him­self.
“They’re just wor­ried, you know? Patricia’s been through a lot.”
“We’re wor­ried about the chil­dren,” Slick said.
“It’s true, Patri­cia has had some emo­tion­al blows recent­ly,” Carter
said. “And they’ve shak­en her more than even I real­ized. You may not
know this, but just a few weeks ago she accused James Har­ris of
being a child moles­ter. You women have all got fine minds, and I
know how hard it is to find intel­lec­tu­al stim­u­la­tion in a place like
this. Add in the mor­bid books you read in your book club and it’s a
per­fect recipe for a kind of group hys­te­ria.”
“A book club?” Leland said. “They’re in a Bible study group.”
The room went silent, and then Carter chuck­led.
“Bible study?” he said. “Is that what they call it? No, they meet
once a month for book club and read those lurid true crime books
full of gory mur­der pho­tographs you see in drug­stores.”
Blood drained from the women’s faces. Slick’s hands twist­ed in her
lap, knuck­les white. Leland stared at her from across the room.
Horse squeezed Kitty’s hand.
“A covenant has been bro­ken,” Leland said. “Between hus­band and
wife.”
“What’s going on?” Korey said from the liv­ing room door.
“I told you to stay upstairs!” Patri­cia snapped, all the humil­i­a­tion
she felt erupt­ing at her daugh­ter.
“Calm down, Pat­ty,” Carter said, then turned to Korey, play­ing the
gen­tle father fig­ure. “We’re just hav­ing an adult con­ver­sa­tion.”
“Why’s Mom cry­ing?” Korey asked.
Patri­cia noticed Blue peer­ing in from the din­ing room door.
“I’m not cry­ing. I’m just upset,” she said.
“Wait upstairs, hon­ey,” Carter said. “Blue? Go with your sis­ter. I’ll
come explain every­thing lat­er, okay?”
Korey and Blue retreat­ed into the hall. Patri­cia heard them go up
the stairs, too loud­ly and obvi­ous­ly, and in her head she count­ed the
steps. They stopped before they reached the top and she knew they
were sit­ting on the land­ing, lis­ten­ing.
“I think everything’s been said that could pos­si­bly be said,” Carter
pro­nounced.
“You can’t stop me from going to the police,” Patri­cia said.
“I can’t stop you, Pat­ty,” Carter said. “But I can inform them that I
believe my wife is not in her right mind. Because the first per­son
they’ll call isn’t a judge to get a search war­rant; it’ll be your hus­band.
Ed’s made sure of that.”
“You can’t keep send­ing the police on wild-goose chas­es,” Ed said.
Carter checked his watch.
“I think the only thing that remains are apolo­gies.”
Patricia’s spine turned to stone. This was some­thing she could
hold on to, this was ground on which she could stand.
“If you think I’m going down to that man’s house and apol­o­giz­ing,
you are deeply mis­tak­en,” she said, draw­ing her­self up, speak­ing as
much like Grace as she could. She tried to make eye con­tact with
Grace, but Grace stared mis­er­ably into the cold fire­place, not mak­ing
eye con­tact with any­one.
“You don’t have to go any­where,” Carter said as the door­bell rang.
“He’s agreed to come here.”
Right on cue, Leland stepped into the hall and came back with
James Har­ris. Unbe­liev­ably, he was smil­ing. James wore a white
but­ton-up oxford shirt tucked into a new pair of kha­ki pants, and
brown loafers. He looked like some­one who belonged on a boat. He
looked like some­one from Charleston.
“I’m sor­ry about all of this, Jim,” Ed said, stand­ing and shak­ing his
hand.
All the men exchanged firm hand­shakes and Patri­cia saw their
shoul­ders relax, the ten­sion in their faces dis­solve. She saw that they
thought of him as one of their own. James Har­ris turned to the
women, study­ing each of their faces, stop­ping at Patri­cia.
“I under­stand I’ve been the source of a whole lot of fuss and
wor­ry,” he said.
“I think the girls have some­thing they want to say,” Leland said.
“I feel ter­ri­ble to have caused all this com­mo­tion,” James said.
“Patri­cia?” Carter prompt­ed.
She knew he want­ed her to go first to set an exam­ple for the oth­er
women, but she was her own per­son, and she didn’t have to do
any­thing she didn’t want to. He’d forced her to apol­o­gize once
already. Not again.
“I have noth­ing to say to Mr. Har­ris,” she said. “I think he’s not
who he says he is and I think all any­one would need to do is look
inside his mini-stor­age unit to see I’m right.”
“Patri­cia—” Carter start­ed.
“I’m will­ing to let bygones be bygones if Patri­cia is,” James said,
and stepped toward her with one hand out­stretched. “For­give and
for­get?”
Patri­cia saw his hand and the whole room behind it blurred and
she felt everyone’s eyes on her.
“Mr. Har­ris,” she said. “If you don’t remove your hand from my
face imme­di­ate­ly, I’m going to spit on it.”
“Pat­ty!” Carter snapped.
James gave a sheep­ish grin and pulled his hand back.

After enjoy­ing a pleas­ant din­ner, the nar­ra­tive swift­ly shifts back to the under­ly­ing ten­sion and mys­ter­ies between the nar­ra­tor and Eddie. The chap­ter depicts a night that starts off with warmth and inti­ma­cy but quick­ly descends into unease. As they return to the house, Eddie’s dis­po­si­tion changes, vis­i­bly tensed, lead­ing to an evening spent apart fol­low­ing an exces­sive con­sump­tion of wine. This phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al dis­tance sets the stage for a pecu­liar late-night encounter where the nar­ra­tor finds Eddie in a sus­pi­cious state, alleged­ly search­ing for a mis­placed key to the boathouse—a task both triv­ial and strange­ly urgent.

The inter­ac­tion is marked by Eddie’s quick shift from irri­ta­tion to a feigned casu­al­ness, but the nar­ra­tor is left feel­ing unset­tled and skep­ti­cal about Eddie’s true inten­tions. This dis­com­fort is ampli­fied by a fleet­ing look of inter­est from Eddie, which the nar­ra­tor con­scious­ly decides to ignore, fur­ther empha­siz­ing the grow­ing rift between them. This detach­ment is sym­bol­ized by the narrator’s retreat to the bed­room, pon­der­ing over the exis­tence of the boathouse key and Eddie’s authen­tic­i­ty.

The fol­low­ing after­noon, the nar­ra­tive con­tin­ues to unrav­el the com­plex­i­ties of their rela­tion­ship, with Eddie con­fronting the nar­ra­tor about unex­plained with­drawals from a bank account. The con­ver­sa­tion sub­tly reflects on trust, with Eddie’s knowl­edge of wed­dings hint­ing at a past that remains a silent wedge between them. Despite the nar­ra­tor’s attempt to nav­i­gate this con­fronta­tion with claims of wed­ding expens­es, the dia­logue ends with Eddie’s request to use a pro­vid­ed cred­it card instead, a solu­tion that seem­ing­ly resolves the imme­di­ate finan­cial issue but leaves the under­ly­ing mis­trust and decep­tions unad­dressed.

Through­out the chap­ter, the alter­na­tion between moments of con­nec­tion and sus­pi­cion serves to build an atmos­phere of unease, with every inter­ac­tion loaded with unspo­ken ques­tions and anx­i­eties about the future, trust, and the true nature of their rela­tion­ship.

In Chap­ter 21 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” titled “The Law of the Jun­gle,” the sto­ry unfolds with Tarzan, over­see­ing the near com­ple­tion of a skiff with the help of Mugam­bi and under con­sid­er­able ten­sion and lack of coop­er­a­tion amongst his camp­mates, par­tic­u­lar­ly from Schnei­der, the mate who deserts the work to hunt in the jun­gle but returns with a guise of remorse to con­tin­ue work on the skiff. Schnei­der reports a herd of small deer in the jun­gle, prompt­ing Tarzan to hunt, ulti­mate­ly lead­ing to a plot twist where Schnei­der and his cohort plot to kid­nap Jane Clay­ton with false inten­tions of res­cue to lure away her pro­tec­tors.

When Tarzan hunts, a stranger, Gust, secret­ly fol­lows a group includ­ing Kai Shang, intend­ing to uncov­er their plans and thwart them due to a per­son­al vendet­ta. Mean­while, Schnei­der’s deceit in camp sends Mugam­bi on a false errand, enabling the kid­nap­pers to seize Jane and the Mosu­la woman with ease due to their guard being down.

Tarzan, return­ing from the hunt, notices the absence of Jane and imme­di­ate­ly sus­pects foul play, deduc­ing that the kid­nap­pers must have a means of escape from the island. Gust, aim­ing for revenge against his for­mer com­rades, reveals the plot to Tarzan, urg­ing swift action to catch the abduc­tors aboard the “Cowrie” before they sail off.

An intense con­fronta­tion ensues as Tarzan and his recruit­ed beasts of the jun­gle, includ­ing the return of Shee­ta the pan­ther and the apes of Akut, man­age a dar­ing assault on the “Cowrie.” Tarzan’s forces over­come the kid­nap­pers in a grue­some bat­tle, res­cu­ing Jane and the Mosu­la woman. Tarzan ensures Schnei­der’s demise per­son­al­ly, refus­ing to let evil go unpun­ished again.

The vic­to­ri­ous group com­man­deers the “Cowrie,” set­ting the remain­ing kid­nap­pers to work under the threat of death, and lands on Jun­gle Island to bid farewell to the beasts. Tarzan com­mu­ni­cates with Lon­don via a pass­ing ship, learn­ing that their son, Jack, is safe, reveal­ing a com­pli­cat­ed scheme involv­ing Rokoff, Paul­vitch, and a betray­al that ensured the child’s well-being and return to his fam­i­ly.

The sto­ry ties up with the fam­i­ly reunit­ed and safe in Eng­land, their ene­mies defeat­ed or dead, and the jun­gle’s dan­ger left behind, high­light­ing Tarzan’s deci­sive and cun­ning nature in pro­tect­ing his fam­i­ly and ensur­ing jus­tice.