Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 20 opens with Feyre strug­gling to shed the unease of a tense din­ner with Tam­lin and Lucien, seek­ing solace in her art, which dis­turbing­ly man­i­fests as a mon­strous crea­ture. The antic­i­pa­tion of the mys­te­ri­ous Fire Night, or Calan­mai, height­ens the atmos­phere, iso­lat­ing her from the faerie fes­tiv­i­ties and Tam­lin and Lucien’s prepa­ra­tions. As the day turns to night, Feyre’s curios­i­ty becomes an unyield­ing force, push­ing her towards the cel­e­bra­tions despite explic­it warn­ings to stay away. The chap­ter vivid­ly por­trays Feyre’s nav­i­ga­tion through an eeri­ly desert­ed estate towards the haunt­ing rhythm of dis­tant drums and the lure of fes­tal bon­fires on the hori­zon. Her encounter with Tam­lin, a momen­tary clash of their desires to pro­tect and par­tic­i­pate, reveals the grav­i­ty of the night’s events and the roles they must play—him, as a High Lord par­tak­ing in a crit­i­cal faerie rite, and her, as an out­sider meant to stay safe­ly away.

Dri­ven by an irre­press­ible curios­i­ty and the mys­ti­cal pull of the drums, Feyre dis­obeys Tam­lin’s stark warn­ings and ven­tures out into the night, rid­ing towards the source of the drum­ming. The enig­mat­ic allure of the cel­e­bra­tion, described through the mes­mer­iz­ing effects of faerie mag­ic on Feyre’s sens­es, sets a back­drop for her encounter with the pri­mal and untamed essence of the faerie world. As she stealth­ily observes the intrigu­ing and oth­er­world­ly gath­er­ing, Feyre stum­bles upon the dark­er, more per­ilous aspects of faerie rev­el­ry, find­ing her­self caught by faeries whose inten­tions are as ambigu­ous as their unfath­omable eyes.

The eeri­ness of the ini­tial­ly cap­ti­vat­ing bon­fire quick­ly turns sin­is­ter when Feyre is forcibly held by three faeries, her human vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty stark against their preda­to­ry fix­a­tion. This encounter stark­ly con­trasts the enchant­ment and beau­ty of the faerie realm with its under­ly­ing cru­el­ty, empha­siz­ing Feyre’s iso­la­tion and dan­ger. Despite her brav­ery and attempts to stand her ground, the faeries’ omi­nous inten­tions leave her in a pre­car­i­ous posi­tion, blend­ing fear and defi­ance as she nav­i­gates the treach­er­ous under­cur­rents of faerie pol­i­tics and pow­er plays unseen to her.

This chap­ter not only vivid­ly paints the world of the faeries and their cus­toms but also deep­ens the com­plex­i­ty of Feyre’s character—her courage, curios­i­ty, and the raw vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that comes with being a human in a faerie’s world. The ten­sions between her and Tam­lin, the allure of for­bid­den knowl­edge, and the pal­pa­ble dan­ger of the faerie realm are intri­cate­ly woven togeth­er against the back­drop of Calan­mai, set­ting the stage for unfold­ing events deeply root­ed in faerie tra­di­tion and the vis­cer­al fight for sur­vival and auton­o­my.

Chap­ter 20 opens with the nar­ra­tor reflect­ing on the sto­ry he was meant to tell—that of his sister—and the ensu­ing years. Three years post his sis­ter Maeve’s pass­ing and amid his divorce, Celeste, his wife, asserts she nev­er liked their home, a sen­ti­ment that con­trasts deeply with the nar­ra­tor’s inten­tions when he orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed the house to her as a gift. This moment marks a piv­otal reflec­tion on his rela­tion­ships and the home that sym­bol­ized much of their lives.

The death of Maeve shift­ed the nar­ra­tor’s focus towards his imme­di­ate fam­i­ly, lend­ing him a new­found pres­ence and com­mit­ment he pre­vi­ous­ly lacked. This tran­si­tion also led to rev­e­la­tions about his mar­riage to Celeste, attribut­ing the fric­tion between them not to his sis­ter as Celeste believed, but to the inher­ent dis­so­nance in their rela­tion­ship.

The nar­ra­tive then delves into the nar­ra­tor’s rela­tion­ship with his estranged moth­er, who re-emerges to care for Andrea, his father’s sec­ond wife, in their ances­tral home. Through vis­its and con­ver­sa­tions, he rec­on­ciles with lin­ger­ing resent­ments and mis­un­der­stand­ings from the past, offer­ing a nuanced view of fam­i­ly, for­give­ness, and the com­plex­i­ties of human rela­tion­ships.

An explo­ration of the Dutch House post-Andrea’s death reveals how this struc­ture remains a cen­tral char­ac­ter, embody­ing mem­o­ries, changes, and con­ti­nu­ities with­in the fam­i­ly’s saga. The nar­ra­tor’s vis­it, inter­ac­tions with for­mer house­hold mem­bers and revis­i­ta­tions of fam­i­ly dynam­ics illu­mi­nate his jour­ney towards under­stand­ing and accep­tance.

May, the nar­ra­tor’s daugh­ter, emerges as a key fig­ure sym­bol­iz­ing the future and poten­tial con­ti­nu­ity of the fam­i­ly’s lega­cy with the Dutch House. Her ambi­tions and even­tu­al suc­cess pose ques­tions about the sig­nif­i­cance of her­itage, place, and iden­ti­ty. The nar­ra­tive clos­es with a poignant moment between the nar­ra­tor and May, empha­siz­ing trans­for­ma­tion, the pas­sage of time, and the endur­ing bonds of fam­i­ly despite the inevitable changes and chal­lenges they face.

This chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of mem­o­ry, iden­ti­ty, and fam­i­ly lega­cy, using the metaphor of the Dutch House to explore the intri­cate dynam­ics of love, loss, and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with­in the con­structs of a home.

In Chap­ter 20 of a heart­felt nar­ra­tive, the small com­mu­ni­ty grap­ples with the wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion of Margery O’Hare, accused under harsh alle­ga­tions, deeply affect­ing those close to her, espe­cial­ly Alice. Amidst the tur­moil, Alice, dis­play­ing remark­able resolve, chan­nels her wor­ry into action by ensur­ing Margery, who is preg­nant, receives care with­in her grim jail con­di­tions. Defy­ing the jailer’s ini­tial refusal, she man­ages an emo­tion­al vis­it to deliv­er essen­tials to Margery, spark­ing a small yet sig­nif­i­cant act of com­pas­sion in an oth­er­wise indif­fer­ent sys­tem.

The chap­ter intri­cate­ly weaves Alice’s per­son­al tur­moil with her fierce ded­i­ca­tion to Margery. Alice nav­i­gates the town’s whis­pered judg­ments and the emo­tion­al strain of Margery’s impris­on­ment with courage. Her resolve is fur­ther test­ed by her own life’s cross­roads, con­tem­plat­ing a return to Eng­land, a move back to a past life that now seems alien in con­trast to her pro­found attach­ment to the Ken­tucky com­mu­ni­ty and the bonds formed there­in, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Fred, a rela­tion­ship marked by unspo­ken depths and shared vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

The nar­ra­tive also cap­tures the essence of a com­mu­ni­ty bound by shared ordeals, high­light­ing the librar­i­ans’ unwa­ver­ing sup­port for Margery amidst her cri­sis. As time pass­es, the community’s efforts to pro­vide for Margery, from legal attempts to every­day ges­tures of kind­ness, under­score a col­lec­tive resilience despite the shad­ow of injus­tice loom­ing over them.

Alice’s inter­nal con­flict, torn between a sense of duty towards her fam­i­ly in Eng­land and her deep con­nec­tion to her life in Ken­tucky, reach­es a poignant cli­max. An encounter with the mes­mer­iz­ing beau­ty of fire­flies serves as a metaphor for her expe­ri­ence — fleet­ing yet trans­for­ma­tive, urg­ing a con­tem­pla­tion of the tran­sient yet impact­ful nature of expe­ri­ence and con­nec­tion.

The chap­ter grace­ful­ly bal­ances themes of injus­tice, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty, per­son­al dilem­ma, and the beau­ty of fleet­ing moments, encap­su­lat­ed in Alice’s jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery and her unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to doing what’s right, even in the face of per­son­al sac­ri­fice.

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
God, that was humil­i­at­ing.
I’m still reel­ing from the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion of Enzo reject­ing me while I’m
wait­ing for Cecelia to fin­ish her tap-danc­ing class. My head is throb­bing,
and the tap­ping of lit­tle feet in uni­son com­ing from the dance class­room
isn’t help­ing mat­ters at all. I look around the room, won­der­ing if any­one
else finds it as annoy­ing as I do. No? Just me?
The woman in the seat next to mine final­ly gives me a sym­pa­thet­ic
look. Based on her nat­u­ral­ly smooth skin, with no signs of a facelift or
Botox, I’d esti­mate her to be about my age, which makes me think she’s not
pick­ing up her own kid, either. She’s one of the ser­vants, like me.
“Advil?” she asks. She must have a sixth sense to notice my dis­com­fort.
Either that or my sighs are giv­ing her the mes­sage.
I hes­i­tate, then nod. A painkiller won’t get rid of the humil­i­a­tion of the
hot Ital­ian land­scap­er turn­ing me down, but it will ease my headache at
least.
She reach­es into her big black purse and takes out a bot­tle of Advil. She
rais­es her eye­brows at me, then I put out my hand and she shakes two lit­tle
red pills into my palm. I throw them back into my mouth and swal­low them
dry. I won­der how long it’ll take them to kick in.
“I’m Aman­da, by the way,” she tells me. “I’m your offi­cial tap-danc­ing
wait­ing-room drug deal­er.”
I laugh, despite myself. “Who are you here to pick up?”
She flicks her brown pony­tail off her shoul­der. “The Bern­stein twins.
You should see them tap dance in uni­son. It’s some­thing to behold—
speak­ing of pound­ing headaches. How about you?”
“Cecelia Win­ches­ter.”
Aman­da lets out a low whis­tle. “You work for the Win­ches­ters? Good
luck with that.”
I squeeze my knees. “What do you mean?”
She lifts a shoul­der. “Nina Win­ches­ter. You know. She’s…” She makes
the uni­ver­sal “cuck­oo” sign with her index fin­ger. “Right?”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, every­one knows.” She shoots me a look. “Also, I get the feel­ing
Nina is the jeal­ous type. And her hus­band is real­ly hot—don’t you think?”
I avert my eyes. “He’s okay, I guess.”
Aman­da starts dig­ging around in her purse as I lick my lips. This is the
oppor­tu­ni­ty I’ve been wait­ing for. Some­body I can pump for infor­ma­tion
about Nina.
“So,” I say, “why do peo­ple say Nina is crazy?”
She looks up, and for a moment I’m scared she’s going to be offend­ed
by my obvi­ous dig­ging. But she just grins. “You know she was locked up in
a loony bin, right? Every­one talks about it.”
I wince at her use of the term “loony bin.” I’m sure she has some
equal­ly col­or­ful terms for the place where I spent the last decade of my life.
But I need to hear this. My heart speeds up, beat­ing in sync with the tap­ping
of lit­tle feet in the oth­er room. “I did hear some­thing about that…”
Aman­da clucks. “Cecelia was a baby then. Poor thing—if the police had
arrived a sec­ond lat­er…”
“What?”
She drops her voice a notch, look­ing around the room. “You know what
she did, don’t you?”
I shake my head word­less­ly.
“It was hor­ri­ble…” Aman­da sucks in a breath. “She tried to drown
Cecelia in the bath­tub.”
I clasp a hand over my mouth. “She… what?”
She nods solemn­ly. “Nina drugged her, threw her in the tub with
run­ning water, then took a bunch of pills her­self.”
I open my mouth but no words come out. I have been expect­ing some
sto­ry like, I don’t know, she got into a fight with some oth­er moth­er at
bal­let prac­tice over the best col­or for tutus and then had a melt­down when
they couldn’t agree. Or maybe her favorite man­i­curist decid­ed to retire and

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
20
Rhysand win­nowed us into a wood that was old­er, more aware, than any
place I’d been.
The gnarled beech trees were tight­ly woven togeth­er, splat­tered and
draped so thor­ough­ly with moss and lichen that it was near­ly impos­si­ble to
see the bark beneath.
“Where are we?” I breathed, hard­ly dar­ing to whis­per.
Rhys kept his hands with­in casu­al reach of his weapons. “In the heart of
Pry­thi­an, there is a large, emp­ty ter­ri­to­ry that divides the North and South.
At the cen­ter of it is our sacred moun­tain.”
My heart stum­bled, and I focused on my steps through the ferns and
moss and roots. “This for­est,” Rhys went on, “is on the east­ern edge of that
neu­tral ter­ri­to­ry. Here, there is no High Lord. Here, the law is made by who
is strongest, mean­est, most cun­ning. And the Weaver of the Wood is at the
top of their food chain.”
The trees groaned—though there was no breeze to shift them. No, the air
here was tight and stale. “Ama­ran­tha didn’t wipe them out?”
“Ama­ran­tha was no fool,” Rhys said, his face dark. “She did not touch
these crea­tures or dis­turb the wood. For years, I tried to find ways to
manip­u­late her to make that fool­ish mis­take, but she nev­er bought it.”
“And now we’re dis­turb­ing her—for a mere test.”
He chuck­led, the sound bounc­ing off the gray stones strewn across the
for­est floor like scat­tered mar­bles. “Cass­ian tried to con­vince me last night
not to take you. I thought he might even punch me.”
“Why?” I bare­ly knew him.
“Who knows? With Cass­ian, he’s prob­a­bly more inter­est­ed in fuck­ing
you than pro­tect­ing you.”
“You’re a pig.”
“You could, you know,” Rhys said, hold­ing up the branch of a scrawny
beech for me to slip under. “If you need­ed to move on in a phys­i­cal sense,
I’m sure Cass­ian would be more than hap­py to oblige.”
It felt like a test in itself. And it pissed me off enough that I crooned,
“Then tell him to come to my room tonight.”
“If you sur­vive this test.”
I paused atop a lit­tle lichen-crust­ed rock. “You seem pleased by the idea
that I won’t.”
“Quite the oppo­site, Feyre.” He prowled to where I stood on the stone. I
was almost eye lev­el with him. The for­est went even quieter—the trees
seem­ing to lean clos­er, as if to catch every word. “I’ll let Cass­ian know
you’re … open to his advances.”
“Good,” I said. A bit of hol­lowed-out air pushed against me, like a flick­er
of night. That pow­er along my bones and blood stirred in answer.
I made to jump off the stone, but he gripped my chin, the move­ment too
fast to detect. His words were a lethal caress as he said, “Did you enjoy the
sight of me kneel­ing before you?”
I knew he could hear my heart as it ratch­eted into a thun­der­ous beat. I
gave him a hate­ful lit­tle smirk, any­way, yank­ing my chin out of his touch
and leap­ing off the stone. I might have aimed for his feet. And he might
have shift­ed out of the way just enough to avoid it. “Isn’t that all you males
are good for, any­way?” But the words were tight, near-breath­less.
His answer­ing smile evoked silken sheets and jas­mine-scent­ed breezes at
mid­night.
A dan­ger­ous line—one Rhys was forc­ing me to walk to keep me from
think­ing about what I was about to face, about what a wreck I was inside.
Anger, this … flir­ta­tion, annoy­ance … He knew those were my crutch­es.
What I was about to encounter, then, must be tru­ly har­row­ing if he
want­ed me going in there mad—thinking about sex, about any­thing but the
Weaver of the Wood.
“Nice try,” I said hoarse­ly. Rhysand just shrugged and swag­gered off into
the trees ahead.
Bas­tard. Yes, it had been to dis­tract me, but—
I stormed after him as silent­ly as I could, intent on tack­ling him and
slam­ming my fist into his spine, but he held up a hand as he stopped before
a clear­ing.
A small, white­washed cot­tage with a thatched roof and half-crum­bling
chim­ney sat in the cen­ter. Ordinary—almost mor­tal. There was even a well,
its buck­et perched on the stone lip, and a wood pile beneath one of the
round win­dows of the cot­tage. No sound or light within—not even smoke
puffed from the chim­ney.
The few birds in the for­est fell qui­et. Not entire­ly, but to keep their
chat­ter to a min­i­mum. And—there.
Faint, com­ing from inside the cot­tage, was a pret­ty, steady hum­ming.
It might have been the sort of place I would have stopped if I were
thirsty, or hun­gry, or in need of shel­ter for the night.
Maybe that was the trap.
The trees around the clear­ing, so close that their branch­es near­ly clawed
at the thatched roof, might very well have been the bars of a cage.
Rhys inclined his head toward the cot­tage, bow­ing with dra­mat­ic grace.
In, out—don’t make a sound. Find what­ev­er object it was and snatch it
from beneath a blind person’s nose.
And then run like hell.
Mossy earth paved the way to the front door, already cracked slight­ly. A
bit of cheese. And I was the fool­ish mouse about to fall for it.
Eyes twin­kling, Rhys mouthed, Good luck.
I gave him a vul­gar ges­ture and slow­ly, silent­ly made my way toward the
front door.
The woods seemed to mon­i­tor each of my steps. When I glanced behind,
Rhys was gone.
He hadn’t said if he’d inter­fere if I were in mor­tal per­il. I prob­a­bly should
have asked.
I avoid­ed any leaves and stones, falling into a pat­tern of move­ment that
some part of my body—some part that was not born of the High Lords—
remem­bered.
Like wak­ing up. That’s what it felt like.
I passed the well. Not a speck of dirt, not a stone out of place. A per­fect,
pret­ty trap, that mor­tal part of me warned. A trap designed from a time
when humans were prey; now laid for a smarter, immor­tal sort of game.
I was not prey any longer, I decid­ed as I eased up to that door.
And I was not a mouse.
I was a wolf.
I lis­tened on the thresh­old, the rock worn as if many, many boots had
passed through—and per­haps nev­er passed back over again. The words of
her song became clear now, her voice sweet and beau­ti­ful, like sun­light on a
stream:
“There were two sis­ters, they went play­ing,
To see their father’s ships come sail­ing …
And when they came unto the sea-brim
The elder did push the younger in.”
A hon­eyed voice, for an ancient, hor­ri­ble song. I’d heard it before—
slight­ly dif­fer­ent, but sung by humans who had no idea that it had come
from faerie throats.
I lis­tened for anoth­er moment, try­ing to hear any­one else. But there was
only a clat­ter and thrum of some sort of device, and the Weaver’s song.
“Some­times she sank, and some­times she swam,
’Til her corpse came to the miller’s dam.”
My breath was tight in my chest, but I kept it even—directing it through
my mouth in silent breaths. I eased open the front door, just an inch.
No squeak—no whine of rusty hinges. Anoth­er piece of the pret­ty trap:
prac­ti­cal­ly invit­ing thieves in. I peered inside when the door had opened
wide enough.
A large main room, with a small, shut door in the back. Floor-to-ceil­ing
shelves lined the walls, crammed with bric-a-brac: books, shells, dolls,
herbs, pot­tery, shoes, crys­tals, more books, jew­els … From the ceil­ing and
wood rafters hung all man­ner of chains, dead birds, dress­es, rib­bons,
gnarled bits of wood, strands of pearls …
A junk shop—of some immor­tal hoard­er.
And that hoard­er …
In the gloom of the cot­tage, there sat a large spin­ning wheel, cracked and
dulled with age.
And before that ancient spin­ning wheel, her back to me, sat the Weaver.
Her thick hair was of rich­est onyx, tum­bling down to her slen­der waist as
she worked the wheel, snow-white hands feed­ing and pulling the thread
around a thorn-sharp spin­dle.
She looked young—her gray gown sim­ple but ele­gant, sparkling faint­ly
in the dim for­est light through the win­dows as she sang in a voice of
glit­ter­ing gold:
“But what did he do with her breast­bone?
He made him a viol to play on.
What’d he do with her fin­gers so small?
He made pegs to his viol with­all.”
The fiber she fed into the wheel was white—soft. Like wool, but … I
knew, in that lin­ger­ing human part of me, it was not wool. I knew that I did
not want to learn what crea­ture it had come from, who she was spin­ning
into thread.
Because on the shelf direct­ly beyond her were cones upon cones of
threads—of every col­or and tex­ture. And on the shelf adja­cent to her were
swaths and yards of that woven thread—woven, I real­ized, on the mas­sive
loom near­ly hid­den in the dark­ness near the hearth. The Weaver’s loom.
I had come on spin­ning day—would she have been singing if I had come
on weav­ing day instead? From the strange, fear-drenched scent that came
from those bolts of fab­ric, I already knew the answer.
A wolf. I was a wolf.
I stepped into the cot­tage, care­ful of the scat­tered debris on the earth­en
floor. She kept work­ing, the wheel clat­ter­ing so mer­ri­ly, so at odds with her
hor­ri­ble song:
“And what did he do with her nose-ridge?
Unto his viol he made a bridge.
What did he do with her veins so blue?
He made strings to his viol there­to.”
I scanned the room, try­ing not to lis­ten to the lyrics.
Noth­ing. I felt … noth­ing that might pull me toward one object in
par­tic­u­lar. Per­haps it would be a bless­ing if I were indeed not the one to
track the Book—if today was not the start of what was sure to be a slew of
mis­eries.
The Weaver perched there, work­ing.
I scanned the shelves, the ceil­ing. Bor­rowed time. I was on bor­rowed
time, and I was almost out of it.
Had Rhys sent me on a fool’s errand? Maybe there was noth­ing here.
Maybe this object had been tak­en. It would be just like him to do that. To
tease me in the woods, to see what sort of things might make my body
react.
And maybe I resent­ed Tam­lin enough in that moment to enjoy that dead­ly
bit of flir­ta­tion. Maybe I was as much a mon­ster as the female spin­ning
before me.
But if I was a mon­ster, then I sup­posed Rhys was as well.
Rhys and I were one in the same—beyond the pow­er that he’d giv­en me.
It’d be fit­ting if Tam­lin hat­ed me, too, once he real­ized I’d tru­ly left.
I felt it, then—like a tap on my shoul­der.
I piv­ot­ed, keep­ing one eye on the Weaver and the oth­er on the room as I
wove through the maze of tables and junk. Like a bea­con, a bit of light
laced with his half smile, it tugged me.
Hel­lo, it seemed to say. Have you come to claim me at last?
Yes—yes, I want­ed to say. Even as part of me wished it were oth­er­wise.
The Weaver sang behind me,
“What did he do with her eyes so bright?
On his viol he set at first light.
What did he do with her tongue so rough?
’Twas the new till and it spoke enough.”
I fol­lowed that pulse—toward the shelf lin­ing the wall beside the hearth.
Noth­ing. And noth­ing on the sec­ond. But the third, right above my eye­line
… There.
I could almost smell his salt-and-cit­rus scent. The Bone Carv­er had been
cor­rect.
I rose on my toes to exam­ine the shelf. An old let­ter knife, books in
leather that I did not want to touch or smell; a hand­ful of acorns, a tar­nished
crown of ruby and jasper, and—
A ring.
A ring of twist­ed strands of gold and sil­ver, flecked with pearl, and set
with a stone of deep­est, sol­id blue. Sapphire—but dif­fer­ent. I’d nev­er seen a
sap­phire like that, even at my father’s offices. This one … I could have
sworn that in the pale light, the lines of a six-point­ed star radi­at­ed across the
round, opaque sur­face.
Rhys—this had Rhys writ­ten all over it.
He’d sent me here for a ring?
The Weaver sang,
“Then bespake the tre­ble string,
‘O yon­der is my father the king.’”
I watched her for anoth­er heart­beat, gaug­ing the dis­tance between the
shelf and the open door. Grab the ring, and I could be gone in a heart­beat.
Quick, qui­et, calm.
“Then bespake the sec­ond string,
‘O yon­der sits my moth­er the queen.’ ”
I dropped a hand toward one of the knives strapped to my thighs. When I
got back to Rhys, maybe I’d stab him in the gut.
That fast, the mem­o­ry of phan­tom blood cov­ered my hands. I knew how
it’d feel to slide my dag­ger through his skin and bones and flesh. Knew how
the blood would drib­ble out, how he’d groan in pain—
I shut out the thought, even as I could feel the blood of those faeries
soak­ing that human part of me that hadn’t died and belonged to no one but
my mis­er­able self.
“Then bespake the strings all three,
‘Yon­der is my sis­ter that drowned me.’ ”

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.

R UBY LEFT ME THERE, NEXT to the dry­er, with an emp­ty cock­tail
glass in my hand.
I need­ed to go back to the par­ty. But I stood there, frozen, think­ing,
Get out of here. I just couldn’t turn the door­knob. And then the door
opened on its own. Celia. The rau­cous, bright-lit par­ty behind her.
“Eve­lyn, what are you doing?”
“How did you find me?”
“I ran into Ruby, and she said I could find you drink­ing in the
laun­dry room. I thought it was a euphemism.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I can see that.”
“Do you sleep with women?” I asked.
Celia, shocked, shut the door behind her. “What are you talk­ing
about?”
“Ruby says you’re a les­bian.”
Celia looked over my shoul­der. “Who cares what Ruby says?”
“Are you?”
“Are you going to stop being friends with me now? Is that what this
is about?”
“No,” I said, shak­ing my head. “Of course not. I would . . . nev­er do
that. I would nev­er.”
“What, then?”
“I just want to know is all.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you think I have the right to know?”
“Depends.”
“So you are?” I asked.
Celia put her hand on the door­knob and pre­pared to leave.
Instinc­tive­ly, I leaned for­ward and grabbed her wrist.
“What are you doing?” she said.
I liked the feel of her wrist in my hand. I liked the way her per­fume
per­me­at­ed the whole tiny room. I leaned for­ward and kissed her.
I did not know what I was doing. And by that I mean that I was not
ful­ly in con­trol of my move­ment and that I was phys­i­cal­ly unaware of
how to kiss her. Should it be the way I kissed men, or should it be
dif­fer­ent some­how? I also did not under­stand the emo­tion­al scope of
my actions. I did not tru­ly under­stand their sig­nif­i­cance or risk.
I was a famous woman kiss­ing a famous woman in the house of the
biggest stu­dio head in Hol­ly­wood, sur­round­ed by pro­duc­ers and stars
and prob­a­bly a good dozen peo­ple who rat­ted to Sub Rosa mag­a­zine.
But all I cared about in that moment was that her lips were soft. Her
skin was with­out any rough­ness what­so­ev­er. All I cared about was that
she kissed me back, that she took her hand off the door­knob and,
instead, put it on my waist.
She smelled flo­ral, like lilac pow­der, and her lips felt humid. Her
breath was sweet, spiked with the taste of cig­a­rettes and crème de
men­the.
When she pushed her­self against me, when our chests touched and
her pelvis grazed mine, all I could think was that it wasn’t so dif­fer­ent
and yet it was dif­fer­ent entire­ly. She swelled in all the places Don went
flat. She was flat in the places Don swelled.
And yet that sense that you can feel your heart in your chest, that
your body tells you it wants more, that you lose your­self in the scent,
taste, and feel of anoth­er person—it was all the same.
Celia broke away first. “We can’t stay in here,” she said. She wiped
her lips on the back of her hand. She took her thumb and rubbed it
against the bot­tom of mine.
“Wait, Celia,” I said, try­ing to stop her.
But she left the room, shut­ting the door behind her.
I closed my eyes, unsure how to get a han­dle on myself, how to
qui­et my brain.
I breathed in. I opened the door and walked right up the steps,
tak­ing them two at a time.
I opened every sin­gle door on the sec­ond floor until I found who I
was look­ing for.
Don was get­ting dressed, shov­ing the tail of his shirt into his suit
pants, as a woman in a bead­ed gold dress put her shoes on.
I ran out. And Don fol­lowed me.
“Let’s talk about this at home,” he said, grab­bing my elbow.
I yanked it away, search­ing for Celia. There was no sign of her.
Har­ry came in through the front door, fresh-faced and look­ing
sober. I ran up to him, leav­ing Don on the stair­case, cor­nered by a
tip­sy pro­duc­er want­i­ng to talk to him about a melo­dra­ma.
“Where have you been all night?” I asked Har­ry.
He smiled. “I’m going to keep that to myself.”
“Can you take me home?”
Har­ry looked at me and then at Don still on the stairs. “You’re not
going home with your hus­band?”
I shook my head.
“Does he know that?”
“If he doesn’t, he’s a moron.”
“OK,” Har­ry said, nod­ding with con­fi­dence and sub­mis­sion.
What­ev­er I want­ed was what he would do.
I got into the front seat of Harry’s Chevy, and he start­ed back­ing
out just as Don came out of the house. He ran to my side of the car. I
did not roll down the win­dow.
“Eve­lyn!” he yelled.
I liked how the glass between us took the edge off his voice, how it
muf­fled it enough to make him sound far away. I liked the con­trol of
being able to decide whether I lis­tened to him at full vol­ume.
“I’m sor­ry,” he said. “It isn’t what you think.”
I stared straight ahead. “Let’s go.”
I was putting Har­ry in a tough spot, mak­ing him take sides. But to
Harry’s cred­it, he didn’t bat an eye­lash.
“Cameron, don’t you dare take my wife away from me!”
“Don, let’s dis­cuss it in the morn­ing,” Har­ry called through the
win­dow, and then he plowed out, into the roads of the canyon.
When we got to Sun­set Boule­vard and my pulse had slowed, I
turned to Har­ry and start­ed talk­ing. When I told him that Don had
been upstairs with a woman, he nod­ded as if he’d expect­ed no less.
“Why don’t you seem sur­prised?” I asked as we sped through the
inter­sec­tion of Dohe­ny and Sun­set, the very spot where the beau­ty of
Bev­er­ly Hills start­ed to show. The streets widened and became lined
with trees, and the lawns were immac­u­late­ly man­i­cured, the side­walks
clean.
“Don has always had a pen­chant for women he’s just met,” Har­ry
says. “I wasn’t sure if you knew. Or if you cared.”
“I didn’t know. And I do care.”
“Well, then, I’m sor­ry,” he said, look­ing at me briefly before putting
his eyes back on the road. “In that case, I should have told you.”
“I sup­pose there are lots of things we don’t tell each oth­er,” I said,
look­ing out the win­dow. There was a man walk­ing his dog down the
street.
I need­ed some­one.
Right then, I need­ed a friend. Some­one to tell my truths to,
some­one to accept me, some­one to say that I was going to be OK.
“What if we real­ly did it?” I said.
“Told each oth­er the truth?”
“Told each oth­er every­thing.”
Har­ry looked at me. “I’d say that’s a bur­den I don’t want to put on
you.”
“It might be a bur­den for you, too,” I said. “I have skele­tons.”
“You’re Cuban, and you’re a pow­er-hun­gry, cal­cu­lat­ing bitch,”
Har­ry said, smil­ing at me. “Those secrets aren’t so bad.”
I threw my head back and laughed.
“And you know what I am,” he said.
“I do.”
“But right now, you have plau­si­ble deni­a­bil­i­ty. You don’t have to
hear about it or see it.”
Har­ry turned left, into the flats instead of the hills. He was tak­ing
me to his house instead of my own. He was scared of what Don would
do to me. I sort of was, too.
“Maybe I’m ready for that. To be a real friend. True blue,” I said.
“I’m not sure that’s a secret I want you to have to keep, love. It’s a
sticky one.”
“I think that secret’s much more com­mon than either of us is
pre­tend­ing,” I said. “I think maybe all of us have at least a lit­tle bit of
that secret with­in us. I think I just might have that secret in me, too.”
Har­ry took a right and pulled into his dri­ve­way. He put the car in
park and turned to me. “You’re not like me, Eve­lyn.”
“I might be a lit­tle,” I said. “I might be, and Celia might be, too.”
Har­ry turned back to the wheel, think­ing. “Yes,” he said final­ly.
“Celia might be, too.”
“You knew?”
“I sus­pect­ed,” he said. “And I sus­pect­ed she might have . . . feel­ings
for you.”
I felt like I was the last per­son on earth to know what was right in
front of me.
“I’m leav­ing Don,” I said.
Har­ry nod­ded, unsur­prised. “I’m hap­py to hear it,” he said. “But I
hope you know the full extent of what it means.”
“I know what I’m doing, Har­ry.” I was wrong. I didn’t know what I
was doing.
“Don’s not going to take it sit­ting down,” Har­ry said. “That’s all I
mean.”
“So I should con­tin­ue this cha­rade? Allow him to sleep around and
hit me when he feels like it?”
“Absolute­ly not. You know I would nev­er say that.”
“Then what?”
“I want you to be pre­pared for what you’re going to do.”
“I don’t want to talk about this any­more,” I said.
“That’s fine,” Har­ry said. He opened his car door and got out. He
came around to my side and opened my door.
“Come, Ev,” he said kind­ly. He put his hand out. “It’s been a long
night. You need some rest.”
I sud­den­ly felt very tired, as if once he point­ed it out, I real­ized it
had been there all along. I fol­lowed Har­ry to his front door.
His liv­ing room was sparse but hand­some, fur­nished with wood and
leather. The alcoves and door­ways were all arched, the walls stark
white. Only a sin­gle piece of art hung on the wall, a red and blue
Rothko above the sofa. It occurred to me then that Har­ry wasn’t a
Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­er for the pay­check. Sure, his house was nice. But
there wasn’t any­thing osten­ta­tious about it, noth­ing per­for­ma­tive. It
was mere­ly a place to sleep for him.
Har­ry was like me. Har­ry was in it for the glo­ry. He was in it
because it kept him busy, kept him impor­tant, kept him sharp.
Har­ry, like me, had got­ten into it for the ego.
And we were both for­tu­nate that we’d found our human­i­ty in it,
even though it appeared to be some­what by acci­dent.
The two of us walked up the curved stairs, and Har­ry set me up in
his guest room. The bed had a thin mat­tress with a heavy wool
blan­ket. I used a bar of soap to wash my make­up off, and Har­ry gen­tly
unzipped the back of my dress for me and gave me a pair of his
paja­mas to wear.
“I’ll be just next door if you need any­thing,” he said.
“Thank you. For every­thing.”
Har­ry nod­ded. He turned away and then turned back to me as I was
fold­ing down the blan­ket. “Our inter­ests aren’t aligned, Eve­lyn,” he
said. “Yours and mine. You see that, right?”
I looked at him, try­ing to deter­mine if I did see it.
“My job is to make the stu­dio mon­ey. And if you are doing what the
stu­dio wants, then my job is to make you hap­py. But more than
any­thing, Ari wants to—”
“Make Don hap­py.”
Har­ry looked me in the eye. I got the point.
“OK,” I said. “I see it.”
Har­ry smiled shy­ly and closed the door behind him.
You’d think I’d have tossed and turned all night, wor­ried about the
future, wor­ried about what it meant that I had kissed a woman,
wor­ried about whether I should real­ly leave Don.
But that’s what denial is for.
The next morn­ing, Har­ry drove me back to my house. I was
brac­ing myself for a fight. But when I got there, Don was nowhere to
be seen.
I knew that very moment that our mar­riage was over and that the
decision—the one I thought was mine to make—had been made for
me.

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.

20
When Sean Pre­ston was very lit­tle, Kevin start­ed work­ing hard­er on his own
music. He want­ed to make his own name, which was some­thing I encour­aged.
He was record­ing a lot, which was his pas­sion. Some­times I’d drop by a stu­dio
where he was work­ing and it seemed like a club­house. I could smell the weed
waft­ing out of the stu­dio door before I even walked in. He and the oth­er guys
would all be get­ting high, and it felt like I was in the way. I wasn’t invit­ed to their
par­ty.
I couldn’t stand being around pot smoke. Even the smell of it nau­se­at­ed me.
And I had the baby and was preg­nant, so it wasn’t like I could hang out all day.
So most­ly, I stayed home. It’s not as if that was such a hard­ship. I had a beau­ti­ful
home—a dream home. We would hire an amaz­ing chef—too expen­sive to use
very often. But one time, eat­ing some­thing the chef cooked, I said, “Oh my God,
this is the most deli­cious thing I’ve ever had and can you just live with us? I love
you so much!” And I meant it—I loved him. I was so grate­ful for any addi­tion­al
help around the house.
Maybe this is the way mar­ried cou­ples are, I thought as Kevin and I grew more
and more estranged. You take turns let­ting each oth­er be a lit­tle self­ish. This is his
first taste of fame for him­self. I should let him have it.
I gave myself pep talks: He’s my hus­band. I’m sup­posed to respect him, accept
him on a deep­er lev­el than I’d accept some­one I was just dat­ing. He’s the father of
my kids. His demeanor is dif­fer­ent now, but if it changed, it could change back.
Peo­ple say he’s going to break up with me while I have tiny chil­dren, like he did
with the moth­er of his first two chil­dren when they were infants, but no way! How
he was with his oth­er fam­i­ly won’t be the way he is with me.
In try­ing to make up all these excus­es in my head, I was lying to myself—
total­ly in denial this whole time that he was leav­ing me. I �ew to New York to see
him. He’d been so out of touch that I thought we need­ed to have some time
togeth­er as a fam­i­ly. In the city, I checked into a nice hotel, excit­ed to see my
hus­band.
But he wouldn’t see me. It seemed like he want­ed to pre­tend I didn’t exist.
His man­ag­er, who had been on my team for years, wouldn’t see me, either.
He was on Kevin’s team now and it seemed they were done with me.
“Damn, real­ly?” I said.
All I could think was that I want­ed to get close enough to Kevin that I could
ask him what was going on. I want­ed to say, “When you left to come out here,
we hugged. You kissed me. What’s going on? What hap­pened?”
I’d sus­pect­ed some­thing was up, that he was chang­ing, espe­cial­ly once he
start­ed get­ting press and feel­ing him­self. One time he came home late and told
me he’d been at a par­ty. “Justin Tim­ber­lake was there!” he said. “Lind­say Lohan
was, too!”
Do you think I care about your stu­pid par­ty? I thought. Do you have any idea
how many par­ties like that I’ve gone to? I’ve known some of those peo­ple longer than
I’ve known you. Do you know how much I went through in my years with Justin?
No—you know none of it. I didn’t say any of that, but I want­ed to say it and a
whole lot more.
Kevin was just so enthralled with the fame and the pow­er. Again and again in
my life I’ve seen fame and mon­ey ruin peo­ple, and I saw it hap­pen with Kevin in
slow motion. In my expe­ri­ence, when most people—especially men—get that
type of atten­tion, it’s all over. They love it too much. And it’s not good for
them.
Some celebri­ties han­dle fame well. They have per­spec­tive. They have fun
being admired but not too much fun. They know whose opin­ion to lis­ten to
and whose opin­ion to ignore. Get­ting awards and tro­phies is cool, and in the
beginning—those �rst two years when you become a celebrity—well, it’s a
feel­ing you can’t explain. I think some peo­ple are great at fame.
I’m not. My �rst two or three years I was good at it, and it was �ne, but my
real self? In school I was a bas­ket­ball play­er. I didn’t cheer­lead, I didn’t wan­na be
out there. I played ball. That’s what I loved.
But fame? That world isn’t real, my friends. It’s. Not. Real. You go along
with it because of course it’s going to pay the family’s bills and every­thing. But
for me, there was an essence of real life miss­ing from it. I think that’s why I had
my babies.
So get­ting awards and all that fame stu�? I liked it a lot. But there’s noth­ing
last­ing in it for me. What I love is sweat on the �oor dur­ing rehearsals, or just
play­ing ball and mak­ing a shot. I like the work. I like the prac­tic­ing. That has
more authen­tic­i­ty and val­ue than any­thing else.
I actu­al­ly envy the peo­ple who know how to make fame work for them,
because I hide from it. I get very shy. For exam­ple, Jen­nifer Lopez, from the
begin­ning, struck me as some­one who was very good at being famous—at
indulging people’s inter­est in her but know­ing where to draw lines. She always
han­dled her­self well. She always car­ried her­self with dig­ni­ty.
Kevin didn’t know how to do any of that. I’ll con­fess, I’m not great at it,
either. I’m a ner­vous per­son. I run away from most kinds of atten­tion as I’ve
got­ten old­er, maybe because I’ve been real­ly hurt.
At the time of that rough trip to New York, I should have known my
mar­riage was over, but I still thought it might be sal­vage­able. Lat­er, Kevin moved
on to anoth­er stu­dio, this one in Las Vegas. And so I went there, hop­ing to talk
to him.
When I found him, he had his head shaved. He was get­ting ready to shoot the
cov­er for his album. He was in the stu­dio all the time. He real­ly thought he was a
rap­per now. Bless his heart—because he did take it so seri­ous­ly.
And so I showed up in Vegas car­ry­ing Sean Pre­ston, still preg­nant with
Jay­den James, full of sym­pa­thy for Kevin’s sit­u­a­tion. He was try­ing to make
some­thing hap­pen for him­self and every­one seemed to be doubt­ing him. I knew
what that was like. It is scary to put your­self out there like that. You do real­ly
have to believe in your­self even when the world makes you won­der if you have
what it takes. But I also felt like he should have been check­ing in more and
should have been spend­ing time with me. Our lit­tle fam­i­ly was my heart. I’d had
his babies inside of me for a very long time, and I’d sacri�ced a lot. I had all but
aban­doned my career. I had done every­thing to make our life pos­si­ble.

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 20
“But I said you could spend the night with Lau­rie,” Patri­cia told
Korey.
“Well, now I changed my mind,” Korey said.
She stood in the door­way to Patricia’s bath­room while Patri­cia
fin­ished doing her make­up. Korey had come home from soc­cer camp
and increased Patricia’s stress expo­nen­tial­ly. It was hard enough to
make sure Blue was always some­where safe after dark, but Korey
hung around the house aim­less­ly, watch­ing TV for hours, and then
she’d get a phone call and sud­den­ly need to bor­row the car to go see
her friends in the mid­dle of the night. Except for tonight, when
Patri­cia actu­al­ly want­ed her out of the house.
“I’m host­ing book club,” Patri­cia said. “You haven’t seen Lau­rie
since you got back from camp.”
One of the rea­sons they were hav­ing it at her house was because
she’d exert­ed gen­tle pres­sure on Carter to take Blue out for sup­per at
Quincy’s Steak House and then to a movie (they decid­ed on
some­thing called So I Mar­ried an Axe Mur­der­er). Korey was
sup­posed to be spend­ing the night down­town.
“She can­celed,” Korey said. “Her par­ents are get­ting divorced and
her dad wants to spend qual­i­ty time. That skirt’s too tight.”
“I haven’t decid­ed what I’m wear­ing yet,” Patri­cia said, even
though her skirt was def­i­nite­ly not too tight. “If you have to be home
you need to stay in your room.”
“What if I have to go to the bath­room?” Korey asked. “Can I leave
my room then, Moth­er? Most par­ents would think it was great that
their child want­ed to spend more time with them.”
“I’m only ask­ing you to stay upstairs,” Patri­cia said.
“What if I want to watch TV?” Korey asked.
“Then go to Lau­rie Gibson’s.”
Korey slouched off and Patri­cia changed her skirt because it felt
tight, and then she fin­ished her make­up and sprayed her hair. She
wasn’t going to put out any­thing to eat, but she’d made cof­fee and
put it in a ther­mal jug in case the police want­ed some. What if they
want­ed decaf? She didn’t have any and wor­ried that might affect
their mood.
She felt tense. Before this sum­mer she had nev­er inter­act­ed with
the police, and now she felt like that was all she did. They made her
ner­vous, but if she could get through tonight, James Har­ris would no
longer be her prob­lem. All she had to do was con­vince the police that
he was a drug deal­er, they’d start look­ing into his affairs, and all his
secrets would come spilling out. And she wasn’t doing it alone; she
had her book club.
Patri­cia won­dered what they would have said if she told them that
she thought James Har­ris was a vam­pire. Or some­thing like that. She
wasn’t sure of the exact ter­mi­nol­o­gy, but that would do until a bet­ter
name came along. How else to explain that thing com­ing out of his
face? How else to explain his aver­sion to going out in sun­light, his
insis­tence on being invit­ed inside, the fact that the marks on the
chil­dren and on Mrs. Sav­age all looked like bites?
When she’d tried to per­form CPR on him he had looked sick and
weak and at least ten years old­er. When she saw him the fol­low­ing
week he’d pos­i­tive­ly glowed with health. What had hap­pened in
between? Francine had gone miss­ing. Had he eat­en her? Sucked her
blood? He’d cer­tain­ly done some­thing.
When she got rid of her prej­u­dices and con­sid­ered the facts,
vam­pire was the the­o­ry that fit best. For­tu­nate­ly, she’d nev­er have to
say it out loud to any­one because this was just about fin­ished. She
didn’t care how they ran him out of town, she just want­ed him gone.
She went down­stairs and jumped when she saw Kit­ty wav­ing at her
through the win­dow by the front door. Slick stood behind her.
“I know we’re a half hour ear­ly,” Kit­ty said as Patri­cia let them in.
“But I couldn’t sit around at home doing noth­ing.”
Slick had dressed con­ser­v­a­tive­ly in a knee-length navy skirt and a
white blouse with a blue batik vest over it. Kit­ty, on the oth­er hand,
had appar­ent­ly lost her mind right before she got dressed. She wore a
red blouse bedaz­zled with red rhine­stones and a huge flo­ral skirt.
Look­ing at her made Patricia’s eyes hurt.
Patri­cia put them in the den, then went to make sure Korey had
her bed­room door closed, then checked the dri­ve­way, and walked
back into the den just as Maryellen opened the front door.
“Yoo-hoo? Am I too ear­ly?” Maryellen called.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Patri­cia hollered.
“Ed went to pick up the detec­tives,” Maryellen said, com­ing in and
putting her purse on the den table. She took two busi­ness cards out
of her day plan­ner. “Detec­tive Claude D. Can­non and Detec­tive Gene
Bus­sell. He says Gene is from Geor­gia but Claude is local and they’re
both good. They’ll lis­ten to us. He can’t promise how they’ll react, but
they’ll lis­ten.”
They each exam­ined the cards for lack of any­thing else to do.
Grace walked into the den.
“The door was open,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind?”
“Do you want some cof­fee?” Patri­cia asked.
“No, thank you,” Grace said. “Ben­nett is at a heart asso­ci­a­tion
din­ner. He won’t be back until late.”
“Horse is at the Yacht Club with Leland,” Kit­ty said. “Again.”
As July had got­ten hot­ter, Leland had con­vinced Horse to put what
mon­ey he could scrape togeth­er into Gra­cious Cay. Then the Dow
had surged and Carter had cashed out some AT&T shares Patricia’s
father had giv­en them as a wed­ding present and he’d put that mon­ey
into Gra­cious Cay, too. The three men had all start­ed going out for
din­ner togeth­er, or meet­ing for drinks at the back bar of the Yacht
Club. Patri­cia didn’t know where Carter found the time, but male
bond­ing seemed to be the in thing these days.
“Patri­cia,” Grace said, pulling a sheet of paper from her purse. “I
wrote all your talk­ing points down in an out­line just in case you
need­ed to jog your thoughts.”
Patri­cia looked at the hand­writ­ten list, num­bered and let­tered in
Grace’s care­ful cal­lig­ra­phy.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you want to go over it again?” Grace asked.
“How many times are we going to hear this?” Kit­ty asked.
“Until we have it right,” Grace said. “This is the most seri­ous thing
we’ve ever done in our lives.”
“I can’t keep hear­ing about those chil­dren,” Kit­ty moaned. “It’s
hor­ri­ble.”
“Let me see it,” Maryellen said, reach­ing toward Patri­cia.
Patri­cia hand­ed her the paper and Maryellen scanned it.
“Lord help us,” she said. “They’re going to think we’re a bunch of
cra­zies.”
They sat around Patricia’s kitchen table. The liv­ing room had fresh
cut flow­ers in it, the fur­ni­ture was new, and the lights were just right.
They didn’t want to go onstage until it was time. No one had much to
say. Patri­cia went over her list in her head.
“It’s eight o’clock,” Grace said. “Should we move to the liv­ing
room?”
Peo­ple pushed back their chairs, but Patri­cia felt like she need­ed to
say some­thing, give some kind of pep talk, before they com­mit­ted
them­selves to this.
“I want every­one to know,” Patri­cia said, and they all stopped to
lis­ten. “Once the police get here there is no turn­ing back. I hope
everyone’s pre­pared for that?”
“I just want to go back to talk­ing about books,” Kit­ty said. “I want
this all to be over with.”
“What­ev­er he’s done,” Grace said, “I don’t think James Har­ris is
going to want to call any more atten­tion to him­self after tonight.
Once the police start ask­ing him ques­tions, I’m sure he’ll leave the
Old Vil­lage qui­et­ly.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Slick said.
“I just wish there were anoth­er way,” Kit­ty said, shoul­ders
slump­ing.
“We all do,” Patri­cia said. “But there isn’t.”
“The police will be dis­creet,” Maryellen said. “And this will all be
over very quick­ly.”
“Will y’all join me in a moment of prayer?” Slick asked.
They bowed their heads and joined hands, even Maryellen.
“Heav­en­ly Father,” Slick said. “Give us strength in our mis­sion,
and make us right­eous in your cause. In thy name we pray, amen.”
Sin­gle file, they walked through the din­ing room and into the
liv­ing room, where they arranged them­selves and Patri­cia real­ized
her error.
“We need water,” she said. “I for­got to put out ice water.”
“I’ll get it,” Grace said, and dis­ap­peared into the kitchen.
She brought the water back at five after eight. Every­one adjust­ed
and read­just­ed their skirts, their col­lars, their neck­laces and
ear­rings. Slick took her three rings off, then put them back on, then
took them off again, and put them back on one more time. It was
8:10, then 8:15.
“Where are they?” Maryellen mut­tered to her­self.
Grace checked the inside of her wrist.
“Ed doesn’t have a car phone, does he?” Patri­cia asked. “Because
we could call if he does and see where he is.”
“Let’s just sit tight,” Maryellen sug­gest­ed.
At 8:30 they heard a car pull up in the dri­ve­way, then anoth­er.
“That’s Ed and the detec­tives,” Maryellen said.
Every­one came awake, sat up straighter, touched her hair to make
sure it was in place. Patri­cia walked to the win­dow.
“Is it them?” Kit­ty asked.

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

20
JUNE
“We should go to the lake this week­end.”
I’m sit­ting at the kitchen counter, pag­ing through anoth­er bridal mag­a­zine when Eddie speaks, his
tone casu­al as he pours him­self a cup of cof­fee.
It’s been a week since Detec­tive Lau­rent showed up and while nei­ther of us have men­tioned her
vis­it, it’s still been there between us, a third pres­ence in the room all the time.
And now Eddie wants to go to the lake? The same place where Blanche and his wife died? Oh
wait, were mur­dered?
“Like, the house there?” I ask inane­ly, and he smirks slight­ly.
“That was the idea, yeah. Might be nice to get out of town for a lit­tle bit, you know? And you’ve
nev­er seen the house.”
I’m tem­porar­i­ly stunned into silence. Final­ly, I say, “Are you sure that’s a smart idea?”
Eddie fix­es me with his eyes. He’s still smil­ing, his pos­ture loose and relaxed, and it’s some­how
worse than if he were angry. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
It feels like a dare. It is a dare. He wants me to say it out loud, to ask about the police
inves­ti­ga­tion. Does he won­der if I read into Detec­tive Laurent’s vis­it, if I sus­pect him at all? Because,
if I’m being hon­est with myself, I don’t know what to think any­more. But I also think that in a twist­ed
way, going to the lake could give me some clar­i­ty.
“Okay,” I say. “We’ll go to the lake.”
We leave on Fri­day after­noon, Eddie wrap­ping up work ear­ly. The dri­ve to Smith Lake is about an
hour from the house in Moun­tain Brook, and it’s pret­ty, tak­ing us away from the sub­urbs and into the
more rur­al parts of Alaba­ma, hills rolling gen­tly, the sky a blaz­ing blue.
We stop in a town called Jasper to eat lunch, Eddie as at ease in a lit­tle bar­be­cue joint with
plas­tic tables and a roll of paper tow­els for nap­kins as he is at the fan­cy French place back in the
vil­lage.
Watch­ing him with his slop­py sand­wich, man­ag­ing to get not one drop of sauce on his pris­tine
white shirt, I laugh, shak­ing my head.
“You fit in any­where,” I tell him, and he looks up, eye­brows raised.
“Is that a com­pli­ment?” he asks, and I’d meant it as one, def­i­nite­ly. But not for the first time, I
won­der about Eddie’s past. He rarely talks about it, like he just sprang into the world, ful­ly formed
when he met Bea.
“No, if I want­ed to com­pli­ment you, I’d tell you how hot you look with bar­be­cue sauce on the
cor­ner of your mouth.”
He smiles and winks. “You think I’m hot, huh?”
Shrug­ging, I poke at the lemon in my sweet tea with my straw. “Most days you’re just pass­able,
but right now, yes.”
That makes him laugh, and he toss­es a balled-up nap­kin at me. “This is why I love you, Jane,” he
says. “You won’t let my head get too big.” Even though it’s dumb as hell, I almost want to tell him my
real name then. Just to hear him say it.
Instead, I fin­ish up my lunch, and we head back to the car, the dri­ve short now.
We make our way down wind­ing roads, dim under the canopy of leaves, the lake sparkling in the
dis­tance. There are lots of hous­es, but the far­ther we dri­ve, the more spread out they become until
final­ly, there’s just the woods, the lake, and as Eddie rounds a cor­ner, the house.
It’s not as grand as the one in Thorn­field Estates, and it was clear­ly built to look like a rus­tic lake
house, the kind of place where you bring kids fish­ing, but it’s still sprawl­ing, and I feel the cozi­ness
of lunch start to ebb away.
It’s so qui­et here. So iso­lat­ed.
And it’s the last place Bea was ever alive.
As Eddie gets our bags from the trunk, I think he might be feel­ing some­thing sim­i­lar because he’s
qui­et except to call out, “The code for the door is the same one at the house.”
6–12-85. Bea’s birth­day.
I enter it into the key­pad on the front door, and step inside.
More sim­i­lar­i­ties to Eddie’s house—our house. It’s clear­ly been expen­sive­ly dec­o­rat­ed, but it’s
designed to look lived-in, too. There’s dark­er wood here, dark­er fur­ni­ture, the whole place a lot more
mas­cu­line, a lot less … Bea.
As I stand beside the heavy front door, my sur­prise must reg­is­ter on my face because as Eddie
steps past me with our stuff, he asks, “What?”
“It’s just…”
This house looks so much more like him. Even though Bea died here, her ghost doesn’t feel near­ly
as present.
“This is a very man-cavey place,” I final­ly say, and one cor­ner of his mouth kicks up as he toss­es
his leather bag onto a couch done in green-and-blue tar­tan.
“This place was Bea’s wed­ding present to me,” he says. “So, she let me dec­o­rate.” Anoth­er
smile, wry this time. “Which means I said yes to every­thing she picked out.”
So, Bea’s stamp is still here—it’s just her ver­sion of what she thought Eddie would like. Should
like.
I move into the liv­ing room, see­ing it through Bea’s eyes, imag­in­ing how she saw Eddie. Even
though this is on a lake, not the ocean, there’s a whole coastal theme hap­pen­ing. Paint­ings of
schooners, dec­o­ra­tions made with heavy rope, even an old Chelsea Clock on the wall.
“I worked on sail­boats when I was younger, up north. Char­ter boats in Bar Har­bor, that kind of
thing,” he says, nod­ding at the seascape over the fire­place. “I guess Bea want­ed to remind me of it.”
“Because you liked it or because you hat­ed it?”
The ques­tion is out before I real­ize what a stu­pid thing it is to ask, how much it reveals.
His head jerks back slight­ly, like the ques­tion was an actu­al phys­i­cal blow, and he nar­rows his
eyes. “What does that mean?” he asks, and I feel my face go hot as I shrug, nudg­ing the edge of an area
rug with my toe.
“You’ve just nev­er men­tioned that to me before, so I thought … maybe you were try­ing to for­get
it? Your past. Maybe this reminder of it might not have actu­al­ly been a nice thing to do.”
“You think Bea was that kind of bitch?” he asks, and god, I have roy­al­ly fucked this up.
“Of course not,” I say, but to my sur­prise, he just laughs, shak­ing his head.
“I can’t blame you for it. I imag­ine you saw some real cun­ty stuff when you worked in the
neigh­bor­hood.”
It’s a relief, both that he doesn’t think my ques­tion was that weird, and also that he gets me. I may
not always be hon­est with Eddie, but he still sees these parts of me some­times, and I like it.
It makes me think that even though I’ve been play­ing a cer­tain role, he might have picked me—the
real me—anyway.
“It was still a dumb thing to say,” I tell him now, slid­ing clos­er to him. Over his shoul­der is a
glass door lead­ing out to a screened-in porch; beyond that is a slop­ing green lawn, a nar­row pier, and
the dark water of the lake. This time of the after­noon, the sun sends lit­tle sparks of gold danc­ing
across its sur­face.
It’s hard to believe that this pret­ty, spark­ly water took Bea’s life. And Blanche’s. And it’s even
hard­er to believe Eddie would want to be any­where near it again. How can we sit out there tonight
and drink wine and not think about it?
But Eddie just gives my ass a pat, pro­pelling me slight­ly in the direc­tion of the hall­way off the
liv­ing room. “Go ahead and get set­tled, and I’ll unpack the gro­ceries.”
The mas­ter bed­room is nowhere near as big as the one back at Thorn­field, but it’s pret­ty and, like
the rest of the house, cozy and com­fort­able. There’s a quilt on the bed in swirling shades of blue, and
a big arm­chair near the win­dow with a good view of the lake.
I set­tle into the chair now, watch­ing the water.
After twen­ty min­utes, I still haven’t seen a sin­gle per­son out there.
No boats, no Jet Skis, no swim­mers. The only sound is the lap­ping of the water against the dock
and the wind in the trees.
When I come out of the bed­room, Eddie is pour­ing us both a glass of wine.
“It’s real­ly qui­et out here,” I say, and he nods, look­ing out the back door toward the water.
“That’s why we picked it.”
And then he releas­es a long deep breath and says, “It made me crazy. After Bea.”
I look up, star­tled. I hadn’t expect­ed him to vol­un­tar­i­ly men­tion her after my fuck­up ear­li­er.
“The qui­et,” he goes on. “Think­ing about that night and how qui­et it would’ve been, how dark.”
He keeps his eyes trained on the water. “It’s deep out there, you know. The deep­est lake in
Alaba­ma.”
I hadn’t known that, and I don’t say any­thing. I’m not even sure if he’s talk­ing to me, to be hon­est.
It’s almost like he’s talk­ing to him­self, star­ing out at the lake.
“They flood­ed a for­est to make it,” he goes on. “So there are trees under the water. Tall ones,
six­ty feet high in some places. A whole fuck­ing for­est under the water. That’s why they thought they
nev­er found her. They thought she was some­where in the trees.”
The image seeps into my mind. Bea, her skin white, her body tan­gled in the branch­es of an
under­wa­ter for­est, and it’s so awful I actu­al­ly shake my head a lit­tle. I’d won­dered why it had been so
hard to find the bod­ies, and now that I knew, I wish I didn’t.

In Chap­ter 20, titled “Jun­gle Island Again,” the nar­ra­tive returns to the strand­ed par­ty on Jun­gle Island, led by Tarzan, strug­gling for sur­vival. Tarzan empha­sizes the con­struc­tion of a ves­sel to return to the main­land, a daunt­ing task that caus­es dis­cord and lazi­ness among the crew, rais­ing Tarzan’s con­cern for Jane’s safe­ty with the increas­ing­ly unre­li­able Kin­caid’s crew. Con­verse­ly, on the island’s north coast, the muti­neers of the schooner Cowrie, under Gust, Momul­la, and Kai Shang, plot greed­i­ly over their stolen pearls, unaware of their ship being the poten­tial sal­va­tion for Tarzan’s group.

Gust har­bors plans to aban­don his cohorts with the Cowrie, manip­u­lat­ing fears of being pur­sued by a man-of-war seen days ear­li­er to stall depar­ture. This lie, cou­pled with his claim about the war­ship’s sup­posed wire­less eaves­drop­ping, buys time, reflect­ing his cun­ning yet cow­ard­ly nature.

Unex­pect­ed­ly, Momul­la encoun­ters Schnei­der and Schmidt from the Kin­caid, who con­spire to leave the island, tak­ing Jane as a means to ensure their pay­ment. Their plan aligns with Momul­la’s group’s needs, lead­ing to a pro­posed alliance to cap­ture Jane and use the Cowrie for their escape, poten­tial­ly leav­ing Gust obso­lete.

The chap­ter shifts towards action as Gust, over­hear­ing Kai Shang and Momul­la’s mur­der­ous intent towards him due to his nav­i­ga­tion­al skills, flees into the daunt­ing jun­gle, pri­or­i­tiz­ing sur­vival over his fear of its unknown dan­gers. This depar­ture marks a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point, empha­siz­ing the pre­vail­ing dis­loy­al­ty and des­per­a­tion among the strand­ed par­ties on the island.