CHAPTER 2 SUMMARY

Chap­ter 2 delves into Barack Oba­ma’s ear­ly rela­tion­ship with Michelle LaVaughn Robin­son, high­light­ing their ini­tial inter­ac­tions, the growth of their rela­tion­ship, and even­tu­al mar­riage. It por­trays Michelle as a high­ly accom­plished, car­ing, and sup­port­ive part­ner, jux­ta­posed against Barack­’s polit­i­cal ambi­tions and the ensu­ing chal­lenges.

Their sto­ry begins at Sid­ley & Austin, where Michelle was assigned to men­tor Barack, spark­ing a bond that deep­ened over shared val­ues and aspi­ra­tions. Michelle’s impact is pro­found, guid­ing Barack­’s under­stand­ing of per­son­al and com­mu­ni­ty resilience, even as they nav­i­gate per­son­al loss­es togeth­er.

As their rela­tion­ship solid­i­fies, Barack­’s con­tem­pla­tion of mar­riage reveals his uncer­tain­ties, stem­ming from his back­ground, con­trast­ing with Michelle’s clar­i­ty about their future. Despite dif­fer­ing views on for­mal­iz­ing their rela­tion­ship, their bond strength­ens, under­scored by Michelle’s influ­ence on Barack­’s com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and polit­i­cal ambi­tions.

Michelle’s back­ground, embody­ing Chicago’s ethos through her fam­i­ly’s val­ues and her own pro­fes­sion­al achieve­ments, brings a ground­ing bal­ance to Barack­’s life. Their part­ner­ship evolves amidst Barack­’s polit­i­cal ascent, with Michelle’s insights and crit­i­cism sharp­en­ing his focus on soci­etal change and per­son­al respon­si­bil­i­ty.

The nar­ra­tive tran­si­tions to Barack­’s deci­sion to enter pol­i­tics, sup­port­ed by Michelle’s cau­tious opti­mism. Despite fac­ing a chal­leng­ing polit­i­cal land­scape in Chica­go, Michelle’s unwa­ver­ing sup­port and can­did feed­back play a cru­cial role in Barack­’s ini­tial polit­i­cal endeav­ors.

Their mar­riage, set against the back­drop of Barack­’s com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ing and legal work, sig­ni­fies a com­mit­ment to their shared val­ues and vision for soci­etal improve­ment. How­ev­er, as Barack­’s polit­i­cal career demands esca­late, the toll on their fam­i­ly life becomes appar­ent.

Michelle’s tran­si­tion from cor­po­rate law to pub­lic ser­vice aligns with the cou­ple’s ded­i­ca­tion to com­mu­ni­ty empow­er­ment, yet Barack­’s esca­lat­ing polit­i­cal ambi­tions strain their rela­tion­ship. Despite these chal­lenges, Michelle’s sup­port remains piv­otal as Barack nav­i­gates polit­i­cal con­tests, show­cas­ing their part­ner­ship’s resilience amid per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al tur­moil.

In sum­ma­ry, Chap­ter 2 encap­su­lates Barack and Michelle Oba­ma’s jour­ney from their ear­ly rela­tion­ship through the evolv­ing chal­lenges of bal­anc­ing per­son­al aspi­ra­tions with pub­lic ser­vice. It por­trays a part­ner­ship found­ed on mutu­al respect, shared val­ues, and a stead­fast com­mit­ment to effect­ing change, despite the per­son­al sac­ri­fices required along the way.

Giv­en the com­pre­hen­sive excerpt pro­vid­ed, it seems we’re engag­ing with a deeply emo­tion­al and reflec­tive nar­ra­tive seg­ment pri­mar­i­ly focused on Jude, a char­ac­ter grap­pling with pro­found loss, self-per­cep­tion, and the fluc­tu­at­ing dynam­ics of his rela­tion­ships. Through­out this chap­ter, Jude nav­i­gates his mem­o­ries, cur­rent inter­ac­tions, and inter­nal con­flicts as he vis­its a sig­nif­i­cant exhi­bi­tion that under­scores his com­plex emo­tions towards those close to him, par­tic­u­lar­ly JB, Willem, and Harold.

Jude’s vis­its to Lucien and involve­ment in sig­nif­i­cant mile­stones like JB’s exhi­bi­tion show­case his strug­gle with grief, iden­ti­ty, and the notion of mov­ing for­ward. His inter­ac­tions reflect a deep sense of loss, notably after Willem’s death, reveal­ing how Jude’s past con­tin­u­al­ly shapes his present. The encounter where JB impul­sive­ly kiss­es Jude, and Jude’s sub­se­quent reac­tion, high­lights the ten­sion and mis­un­der­stand­ing between friends try­ing to nav­i­gate their shared and per­son­al sor­rows.

The nar­ra­tive unfolds against the back­drop of an art exhi­bi­tion fea­tur­ing works by JB that inti­mate­ly involve Jude and their shared his­to­ry, empha­siz­ing themes of reflec­tion, mem­o­ry, and the ever-present nature of past rela­tion­ships in Jude’s life. Notably, the por­tray­al of Willem in the art­work “Willem Lis­ten­ing to Jude Tell a Sto­ry” trig­gers a pow­er­ful emo­tion­al response from Jude, encap­su­lat­ing his ongo­ing strug­gle with Willem’s absence and his own place in a world pro­found­ly altered by loss.

This chap­ter delves into Jude’s inter­nal­ized hard­ships, exter­nal con­fronta­tions, and the nuanced com­plex­i­ties of his rela­tion­ships, under­scored by vivid mem­o­ries and the haunt­ing per­ma­nence of loss. Through care­ful­ly craft­ed inter­ac­tions and intro­spec­tive moments, the nar­ra­tive poignant­ly explores the depths of Jude’s char­ac­ter and his evolv­ing yet endur­ing con­nec­tions with those around him.

reward­ed for it.

his body was no longer tru­ly his own, that it was some­thing poten­tial­ly hos­tile, some­thing to be wary of and to dis­tance him­self from. He became again a per­son who could only tru­ly relax when he was alone, when there was no risk of some­one touch­ing him, of invad­ing his care­ful­ly main­tained perime­ter.

In many ways, it felt like a return to the days just after we had adopt­ed him, when every ges­ture of affec­tion from Julia or me seemed to cause him not plea­sure but pain, when he was con­stant­ly on guard, brac­ing for hurts that nev­er came but which, in his mind, were always immi­nent. Back then, it had tak­en years for him to believe that our love for him was uncon­di­tion­al, that it was­n’t a pre­lude to some form of abuse or aban­don­ment. And now, we were back at the begin­ning, try­ing to rebuild the trust that Caleb had demol­ished in a mat­ter of hours.

What I nev­er told him, though, was how angry I was: not just at Caleb, but at him — for not let­ting us help him, for not trust­ing us enough to let us real­ly see him and his pain. But I under­stood, too, why he could­n’t. To have sur­vived what he had, he need­ed to believe in his own self-suf­fi­cien­cy, even if it was just an illu­sion. To admit he need­ed us, that he was­n’t imper­vi­ous to hurt, was too great a risk: it threat­ened the very foun­da­tion on which he had rebuilt him­self after each of his pre­vi­ous dev­as­ta­tions.

So, we respect­ed his bound­aries, nev­er push­ing too hard, always let­ting him set the pace of his recov­ery. It was a slow process, some­times frus­trat­ing­ly so. But there were small vic­to­ries. A moment of laugh­ter shared with­out the imme­di­ate recoil of his body. A minute longer that he would allow him­self to relax in our pres­ence. Each tiny pro­gres­sion felt mon­u­men­tal.

We nev­er spoke of that night again, not direct­ly. The details of his assault became like a ghost sto­ry in our fam­i­ly: a haunt­ing pres­ence that influ­enced every­thing but was nev­er acknowl­edged out loud. It was there in the way I would auto­mat­i­cal­ly scan pub­lic spaces for poten­tial threats when we were out togeth­er, in the way Julia would watch him with a hawk’s eye at fam­i­ly gath­er­ings, ready to inter­vene if any­one made a ges­ture that might be too inva­sive or star­tling for him.

And it was there, too, in his unend­ing bat­tle with him­self: the inces­sant push to be stronger, more resilient, more imper­vi­ous to pain, both phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al. The way he would throw him­self into his work, into his reha­bil­i­ta­tion, into any dis­trac­tion that could keep him from hav­ing to con­front the ter­ror and the shame that lurked just beneath his sur­face. We could all see it, this inces­sant need to prove to him­self that what had hap­pened had­n’t bro­ken him, even as he strug­gled with the para­dox that in deny­ing its impact, he gave it more pow­er over him.

But amidst all this, there was also love — fierce, pro­tec­tive, and unwa­ver­ing. We might not have been able to shield him from the world’s cru­el­ty, but we could give him a safe har­bor in its midst. And per­haps, in the end, that was the most impor­tant thing we could offer: the assur­ance that no mat­ter what hap­pened, he would nev­er have to face it alone.

by friends and loves, and there is no sor­row in him, no shad­ow over his days from hav­ing had to care for some­one unwor­thy of his time and essence, some­one like him. Mal­colm inter­rupts these thoughts, hes­i­tat­ing in the midst of the street, his face drawn with con­cern, but he brush­es him off, insists they keep walk­ing. They end up in Wash­ing­ton Square Park, where the ear­ly-after­noon light smears gold over the stones and grass, and chil­dren run shriek­ing through the foun­tains. Mal­colm has slowed, is watch­ing a cou­ple argue silent­ly on a bench, their ges­tures sharp and hurt­ful, and he won­ders whether Mal­colm is draw­ing par­al­lels, whether he is think­ing about Sophie, about their own silent con­flicts.

He turns to Mal­colm, ready to lis­ten, to offer advice, but Mal­colm is star­ing at him, study­ing him in a way that makes him feel trans­par­ent, seen in all his frag­ment­ed, jagged parts. He knows he can­not talk about what he has­n’t admit­ted to him­self, about fears that taste like bile at the back of his throat, about the lone­li­ness that clamps cold fin­gers around his heart in the dead of night, about the shame that pools dark and thick in his veins, mak­ing him won­der if he’s ever tru­ly known love, or if he’s sim­ply been a shad­ow in the lives of those he cher­ish­es most.

“Jude,” says Mal­colm, his voice thick. “What­ev­er you decide, I’m here. We’re all here. You’re not your past, man. You’re not your scars.”

The moment stretch­es, taut and charged, a sin­gle held breath in the cease­less march of time. Then he nods, because he can­not find words, because some­thing has shift­ed, a win­dow cracked open in a long-sealed room, let­ting in a sliv­er of light. Maybe, he thinks, maybe this is the start of admit­ting he needs more than he’s allowed him­self to accept, of under­stand­ing that vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty isn’t the same as weak­ness, that love isn’t a debt to be repaid but a gift, freely giv­en and freely received.

They stand in silence, sur­round­ed by the puls­ing life of the city, and for the first time in a long time, he allows him­self to lean into the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hope, of a future where he can be whole, where he can accept love with­out fear, where he can say “I need” with­out shame. And in that moment, in the frag­ile bright­ness of a new under­stand­ing, he feels, per­haps for the first time, the true weight of belong­ing, of home.

In the chap­ter, the unnamed nar­ra­tor reflects on a pro­found moment of con­nec­tion with a younger per­son, reflect­ing on the com­plex­i­ty of rela­tion­ships, the depth of human emo­tions, and the inevitable chal­lenges that life presents. At the heart of these reflec­tions is the nar­ra­tor’s attempt to grap­ple with the con­cept of know­ing someone—“the moment you decide to think of some­one as your child, some­thing changes.” This trans­for­ma­tion isn’t sparked by biol­o­gy but by a deep­er, more intrin­sic con­nec­tion, encap­su­lat­ing the fear and love that come with gen­uine con­nec­tion.

The chap­ter spans mem­o­ries and intro­spec­tions, from the nar­ra­tor’s per­son­al jour­ney with par­ent­hood and loss to a detailed explo­ration of how indi­vid­u­als per­ceive fair­ness and jus­tice with­in the frame­work of their expe­ri­ences. The nar­ra­tor, hav­ing lost a child named Jacob, shares can­did­ly about the mul­ti­fac­eted nature of grief, under­scor­ing a rarely acknowl­edged relief along­side the more uni­ver­sal­ly rec­og­nized feel­ings of mourn­ing. This relief is tied not to the end of the child’s life per se but to the cul­mi­na­tion of a dread­ed antic­i­pa­tion, a pro­found fear embed­ded in the very essence of par­ent­hood.

The chap­ter delves into the nar­ra­tor’s back­ground, reveal­ing a lin­eage of only chil­dren, and tran­si­tions to dis­cus­sions on the impacts of upbring­ing and envi­ron­ment on one’s per­spec­tives of fam­i­ly and self-iden­ti­ty. Through sto­ries from the nar­ra­tor’s life, includ­ing vignettes of their par­ents’ atti­tudes towards rela­tion­ships and expec­ta­tions, the read­er is invit­ed to con­sid­er how these for­ma­tive expe­ri­ences shape one’s approach to love, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and even pro­fes­sion­al endeav­ors.

In the realm of pro­fes­sion­al life, the nar­ra­tive shifts to the nar­ra­tor’s career in law, illus­trat­ing how legal edu­ca­tion can pro­found­ly reshape one’s think­ing. Through the lens of hypo­thet­i­cal legal cas­es dis­cussed in the class­room, the nar­ra­tor explores the ten­sion between the idea of what is ‘fair’ ver­sus what is ‘right,’ stir­ring a con­tem­pla­tive inquiry into the nature of jus­tice, ethics, and the human con­di­tion. The sto­ry of Den­nys, a gift­ed artist turned bar­ris­ter, fur­ther expands on this theme by com­par­ing the transformational—often reductionist—impact of spe­cial­ized edu­ca­tion on nat­ur­al tal­ent and intu­ition.

Through­out, the nar­ra­tive is inter­wo­ven with the nar­ra­tor’s pro­found reflec­tions on the essence and com­plex­i­ties of human rela­tion­ships, par­tic­u­lar­ly the irre­versible alter­ation brought upon by the adop­tion of a parental role towards some­one. The chap­ter clos­es with a poignant recount­ing of an inter­ac­tion with a stu­dent, encap­su­lat­ing the over­ar­ch­ing themes of fair­ness, moral­i­ty, and the indeli­ble human yearn­ing for under­stand­ing and con­nec­tion.

shar­ing their work with each oth­er, the dreams of the oth­ers always seemed so
much grander than his, their ambi­tions so much more impres­sive. Their
sketch­es weren’t just build­ings; they were crit­i­cisms of the cul­ture at large, they
were entire new ways of liv­ing, ways of see­ing. His build­ings looked like … build­ings. They had roofs. They had doors. And, tru­ly, was there any­thing so embar­rass­ing, so vul­gar, as want­i­ng to build a build­ing that looked like a build­ing, and that would be used as a build­ing? The rest of them weren’t build­ing build­ings; they were con­struct­ing argu­ments. And twen­ty-four, he felt, or twen­ty-six, or even twen­ty-sev­en, was the age at which you were still allowed to want to build a build­ing that was just a build­ing, but thirty—and he was now thir­ty, god help him—was not. At thir­ty, you were sup­posed to no longer be explor­ing; you were sup­posed to have arrived.

Emerg­ing from the for­est as night falls, Feyre returns home with a deer slung over her shoul­ders, weary and numb from the hunt. The path to their small, dilap­i­dat­ed cot­tage is illu­mi­nat­ed only by the light seep­ing through its windows—a sight that brings her a fleet­ing moment of peace. Upon enter­ing, she’s greet­ed by the chat­ter of her sis­ters, Elain and Nes­ta, who seem obliv­i­ous to the harsh real­i­ties of their impov­er­ished exis­tence, includ­ing the cold and hunger that char­ac­ter­izes their lives.

Feyre’s fam­i­ly relies entire­ly on her abil­i­ty to hunt for their sur­vival, a role she has assumed with a sense of duti­ful res­ig­na­tion despite the dan­gers it entails, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing their lack of mag­i­cal abil­i­ties in a world inhab­it­ed by pow­er­ful faeries and High Fae. As she pre­pares the deer for their meal, Feyre reflects on the dif­fi­cult dynam­ics with­in her fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly the strained rela­tion­ships with her sis­ters, who exhib­it a mix of igno­rance, enti­tle­ment, and, in Nes­ta’s case, a bit­ing sharp­ness shaped by their fall from grace.

Their father, once wealthy but now bro­ken and pas­sive, offers lit­tle in the way of sup­port, still cling­ing to hopes of regain­ing their lost for­tune, a con­trast to Nes­ta’s cyn­i­cal accep­tance of their dimin­ished sta­tus. Despite the ten­sion, moments of ten­der­ness and shared his­to­ry sur­face among the sis­ters, hint­ing at a com­plex bond forged through adver­si­ty.

As they dine on the veni­son Feyre has pro­vid­ed, dis­cus­sions of poten­tial mar­riages and finan­cial strug­gles sur­face, reveal­ing the harsh real­i­ties of their soci­etal expec­ta­tions and the lim­it­ed options avail­able to them. Feyre finds her­self caught between her own desires for free­dom and the promise she made to her dying moth­er to keep their fam­i­ly together—a vow that weighs heav­i­ly on her as she nav­i­gates the chal­lenges of their day-to-day sur­vival in a world that seems to offer lit­tle hope for a brighter future.

Through it all, Feyre remains com­mit­ted to her fam­i­ly, dri­ven by a mix­ture of duty, love, and a solemn promise, even as she dreams of a life that allows for more than just sur­vival.

In Chap­ter 2, the nar­ra­tive unfolds in a ret­ro­spec­tive view of Andrea’s inter­mit­tent pres­ence in the house­hold of the Con­roy fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly affect­ing the sib­lings, Maeve and the nar­ra­tor. Andrea, ini­tial­ly depict­ed as an unwel­come and per­sis­tent fig­ure, grad­u­al­ly inte­grates her­self into their lives, exhibit­ing a pecu­liar fas­ci­na­tion with the details of the Dutch House, where the sto­ry is pre­dom­i­nant­ly set. The dynam­ics among the diverse char­ac­ters — includ­ing the chil­dren, their father, and the house­hold staff, Sandy and Joce­lyn — intri­cate­ly weave a tapes­try of inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships char­ac­ter­ized by sub­tle changes over time.

A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the chap­ter delves into Maeve’s expe­ri­ences and her com­plex rela­tion­ship with their father, high­light­ing his unique prac­tices in man­ag­ing his real estate busi­ness and the pro­found lessons he imparts. The father’s approach to life, work, and par­ent­ing unveils a man of prac­ti­cal wis­dom yet dis­tanced from con­ven­tion­al pater­nal inti­ma­cy.

Fur­ther depth is added through detailed reflec­tions on the sib­lings’ moth­er, who, after a series of depar­tures, even­tu­al­ly leaves the fam­i­ly per­ma­nent­ly for India. This cli­mac­tic aban­don­ment leaves an indeli­ble mark on Maeve and the house­hold, ulti­mate­ly man­i­fest­ing in Maeve’s acute ill­ness — inter­pret­ed as either a phys­i­cal ail­ment trig­gered by emo­tion­al trau­ma or a coin­ci­den­tal health cri­sis.

The chap­ter mas­ter­ful­ly nav­i­gates through themes of pres­ence and absence, per­ma­nence and tran­sience, epit­o­mized by the char­ac­ters’ inter­ac­tions with each oth­er and the Dutch House itself. As rev­e­la­tions unfold, the com­plex­i­ty of each char­ac­ter’s con­nec­tion to the house and each oth­er becomes appar­ent, set­ting the stage for fur­ther explo­ration of iden­ti­ty, belong­ing, and the under­stand­ing of home. The nar­ra­tive, by oscil­lat­ing between past and present, con­structs a rich­ly lay­ered sto­ry of famil­ial ties, per­son­al strug­gle, and the quest for con­ti­nu­ity amidst change.

In the rugged set­ting of Bai­leyville, nes­tled amidst the south­ern Appalachi­an moun­tains, the nar­ra­tive unfolds with­in a quaint town char­ac­ter­ized by its sim­ple archi­tec­ture and spir­it­ed com­mu­ni­ty. The tale intro­duces us to the Bai­leyville WPA Pack­horse Library, ambi­tious­ly spear­head­ed by an Eng­lish woman, Alice Van Cleve. Set against the back­drop of a rur­al Amer­i­can land­scape dur­ing a trans­for­ma­tive peri­od, Alice finds her­self at the helm of this lit­er­ary ven­ture, aimed at democ­ra­tiz­ing access to books for the remote and under­priv­i­leged dwellers of the sur­round­ing moun­tain­ous region.

Alice’s jour­ney begins with a series of adjust­ments and encoun­ters that res­onate with the broad­er mis­sion of the Pack­horse Library—to bridge com­mu­ni­ties through lit­er­a­ture and knowl­edge. Her ini­tial moments in Bai­leyville are marked by a life filled with tra­di­tion­al expec­ta­tions and a lin­ger­ing sense of dis­place­ment from her Eng­lish roots. Yet, it’s these very expe­ri­ences that fuel her deter­mi­na­tion to con­nect with the towns­peo­ple and uti­lize the library as a means of fos­ter­ing uni­ty and enlight­en­ment.

Her resolve is test­ed through var­i­ous inter­ac­tions, notably with Margery O’Hare, a rugged and self-suf­fi­cient librar­i­an with a deep under­stand­ing of the local pop­u­lace and a past shad­owed by fam­i­ly dis­grace. Margery embod­ies the essence of the Pack­horse Library’s ethos—resilience in the face of skep­ti­cism and the relent­less pur­suit of edu­ca­tion­al out­reach. Togeth­er, Alice and Margery nav­i­gate the rugged ter­rain, deliv­er­ing books to iso­lat­ed fam­i­lies and encoun­ter­ing an array of char­ac­ters who reflect the diverse chal­lenges and aspi­ra­tions of the Appalachi­an com­mu­ni­ty.

These char­ac­ters, from the wary yet vul­ner­a­ble Jim Horner to the indus­tri­ous Fred­er­ick Guisler, enrich the nar­ra­tive with their unique sto­ries and per­spec­tives, high­light­ing the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of lit­er­a­ture and the human con­nec­tion. The Pack­horse Library, there­fore, emerges not mere­ly as a repos­i­to­ry of books but as a bea­con of hope, under­stand­ing, and cul­tur­al bridg­ing in a time of social and eco­nom­ic tran­si­tion.

In sum, the chap­ter intri­cate­ly weaves togeth­er themes of soci­etal change, per­son­al growth, and the uni­fy­ing force of knowl­edge. Alice’s jour­ney, marked by tri­als, alliances, and rev­e­la­tions, serves as a tes­ta­ment to the endur­ing impact of com­mu­ni­ty-based ini­tia­tives like the Pack­horse Library in fos­ter­ing lit­er­a­cy, empa­thy, and social cohe­sion amidst the rugged land­scapes of Amer­i­ca’s heart­land.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

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

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

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

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

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

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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