In Chap­ter 4 of “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” Lis­beth Salan­der returns to Stock­holm after a long and uncom­fort­able jour­ney, which includ­ed an extend­ed delay in Bar­ba­dos due to air­port secu­ri­ty con­cerns. Arriv­ing at Arlan­da Air­port, she express­es a mix of weari­ness and exhil­a­ra­tion at being back home, peek­ing into her new­found wealth after pulling off a fraud­u­lent coup. After ini­tial­ly giv­ing her old address to the taxi dri­ver, she ulti­mate­ly directs him to her new home on Göt­gats­back­en and set­tles in after a brief shop­ping trip at a near­by 7‑Eleven for neces­si­ties.

As the chap­ter unfolds, Salan­der reflects on her past liv­ing arrange­ments, reveal­ing her dis­sat­is­fac­tion with her pre­vi­ous cramped apart­ment on Lunda­gatan, where she had been under guardian­ship until turn­ing eigh­teen. Now, with her sub­stan­tial for­tune, Salan­der con­sid­ers the qual­i­ties she wants in her new apartment—namely, a good view, space, a bal­cony, and aes­thet­ic com­fort. She grap­ples with the pecu­liar­i­ties of the real estate mar­ket, feel­ing inex­pe­ri­enced and uncer­tain about the process of buy­ing prop­er­ty, as shown by her awk­ward vis­its to open hous­es.

She even­tu­al­ly decides on a spa­cious apart­ment near Mose­backe Torg, pre­vi­ous­ly owned by a wealthy for­mer exec­u­tive. After secur­ing this prop­er­ty, she takes time to explore her options, reveal­ing a glimpse into her emo­tion­al strug­gles relat­ed to her past rela­tion­ships, espe­cial­ly with Mikael Blomkvist, and her com­pli­cat­ed feel­ings towards the world around her.

Fol­low­ing a brief peri­od of adjust­ing to her new real­i­ty, Salan­der spends time reflect­ing on her lack­lus­tre con­nec­tions in Stock­holm, aside from her respect for her for­mer employ­er, Arman­sky. As she feels trapped by per­son­al his­to­ries, Salan­der con­sid­ers dis­tant trav­els to escape her old life. This con­tem­pla­tion trig­gers a resolve to break away from her famil­iar sur­round­ings, which cul­mi­nates in her impul­sive deci­sion to trav­el, mark­ing the end of the chap­ter on a note of rest­less­ness and trans­for­ma­tion.

Ulti­mate­ly, the chap­ter delves into themes of iden­ti­ty, belong­ing, and the weight of past expe­ri­ences while paint­ing a vivid por­trait of Salan­der’s life as she re-estab­lish­es her­self in Stock­holm and begins to plan her future.

In the ear­ly months of her mar­riage, Janie Kil­licks observed a sig­nif­i­cant shift in her hus­band Logan’s demeanor; he no longer expressed admi­ra­tion for her or engaged play­ful­ly in con­ver­sa­tion. Once, he had tak­en pride in his role, boast­ing about his abil­i­ties to chop wood and main­tain their home, but now he resort­ed to scold­ing her for not ful­fill­ing tra­di­tion­al duties. In one exchange, Janie defi­ant­ly pro­claimed her inde­pen­dence, assert­ing she would not chop wood, to which Logan retort­ed he would con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing for her out of sheer habit formed by his late wife’s strong nature.

As Logan pre­pared to vis­it Lake City to acquire a sec­ond mule, he asked Janie to assist him with prepa­ra­tions. While he was away, Janie immersed her­self in the after­noon sun, reflect­ing on the changes in her world. It was then that she noticed a strik­ing­ly pol­ished man — Joe Starks — walk­ing by, his demeanor con­trast­ing sharply with the rur­al sur­round­ings. He ini­ti­at­ed a con­ver­sa­tion, reveal­ing his ambi­tions to build a new life in Flori­da and express­ing his desire to engage Janie’s inter­est. Their dis­cus­sions blos­somed into flir­ta­tion, as Joe paint­ed a bold pic­ture of their poten­tial future togeth­er, promis­ing Janie a life filled with pres­tige and respect, treat­ing her as a lady deserv­ing sup­port and care.

Through their inter­ac­tions, Janie found her­self caught between her past with Logan and the entic­ing allure of Joe’s dreams. She felt a con­flict with­in, stem­ming from her grand­moth­er’s teach­ings and the soci­etal expec­ta­tions placed upon her. How­ev­er, Joe per­sis­tent­ly assured her of his inten­tions to treat her with the respect she deserved, chal­leng­ing her to con­sid­er a future devoid of medi­oc­rity.

That night, Janie pon­dered her choic­es with Logan, who expressed dis­be­lief at her aspi­ra­tions, ques­tion­ing her worth based on her fam­i­ly’s his­to­ry. Their con­ver­sa­tion turned heat­ed, and Janie sensed Logan’s inse­cu­ri­ty and resentment—the bur­den of soci­etal expec­ta­tions weigh­ing heav­i­ly on both of them. As dawn approached, she resolved to embrace change and sought out Joe, reject­ing the con­straints of her cur­rent life. The sym­bols of rebirth and bloom­ing flow­ers around her sig­ni­fied a piv­otal trans­for­ma­tion in her jour­ney. Final­ly, she accept­ed Joe’s invi­ta­tion, lead­ing to their mar­riage in Green Cove Springs, embark­ing on what would promise to be a new and vibrant chap­ter of her life .

In Chap­ter 4 of George Orwell’s “1984,” Win­ston expe­ri­ences a notable improve­ment in his phys­i­cal con­di­tion while impris­oned with­in the Min­istry of Love. Although the exact pas­sage of time eludes him, he per­ceives that he is receiv­ing three meals a day, increas­ing­ly feel­ing stronger and more robust. The mea­ger com­forts provided—a mat­tress, a bath, and clean clothes—contrast sharply with his pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences. Despite his con­fine­ment, he finds solace in the reg­u­lar meals and an occa­sion­al cig­a­rette, although smok­ing ini­tial­ly makes him ill.

Ini­tial­ly tor­pid and indif­fer­ent, Win­ston grad­u­al­ly becomes more active, under­tak­ing phys­i­cal exer­cis­es to reclaim his strength. As he does so, he finds not only phys­i­cal improve­ment but also begins to reflect on his past and thoughts regard­ing the Par­ty. He real­izes the futil­i­ty of his ear­li­er rebel­lion against the omnipo­tent author­i­ty of the Par­ty and acknowl­edges his capit­u­la­tion, under­stand­ing that he had sub­con­scious­ly sur­ren­dered long before his overt actions.

Win­ston takes a white slate and begins to write down the ideas form­ing in his mind, not­ing slo­gans like “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY” and “TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE.” These expres­sions illus­trate his forced accep­tance of the Par­ty’s relent­less rewrit­ing of truth and real­i­ty. He accepts the com­plete pow­er of the Par­ty over his­to­ry and even his thoughts, under­stand­ing that the nature of real­i­ty is con­tin­gent upon the Par­ty’s dic­tates. He grap­ples with launch­ing into a form of cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance, train­ing him­self to reject any con­tra­dict­ing thoughts through a con­cept called “crimestop.”

Amidst this inter­nal strug­gle, Win­ston expe­ri­ences a bliss­ful rever­ie, dream­ing of Julia, whom he calls out for in a moment of vulnerability—revealing the lin­ger­ing emo­tions he faces. This tran­sient moment of con­nec­tion with Julia stirs with­in him an aware­ness of his servi­tude and the risk it pos­es to his own sur­vival and con­for­mi­ty to the Party’s ide­ol­o­gy.

Their ensu­ing con­ver­sa­tion reveals O’Brien, who rep­re­sents the Party’s author­i­ty, re-empha­siz­ing the con­cept that Win­ston must not only obey but gen­uine­ly love Big Broth­er, mark­ing the cul­mi­na­tion of Winston’s emo­tion­al con­flict and fore­shad­ow­ing fur­ther psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion he will face ahead. The chap­ter con­cludes with the impli­ca­tion that Winston’s strug­gles are far from over as he is direct­ed to “Room 101,” a fore­bod­ing place hint­ed to be the site of ulti­mate tor­ment.

In Chap­ter 4 of “1984,” Win­ston Smith occu­pies a shab­by room above Mr. Char­ring­ton’s shop, where he pre­pares for a meet­ing with Julia. The room, stark and sim­ple, hous­es a bed with ragged blan­kets, an old clock, and a glass paper­weight that sparks mem­o­ries of the past. Win­ston feels a mix of excite­ment and guilt about the nature of their meet­ing, as they both know that their love affair is con­sid­ered one of the gravest crimes in a soci­ety dom­i­nat­ed by the Par­ty’s oppres­sive regime.

As he waits, he con­tem­plates the sheer fol­ly of seek­ing pri­va­cy in a world where such a desire leads to cer­tain con­se­quences. Under the win­dow, he observes a woman singing, a mem­ber of the pro­les who appears bliss­ful­ly unaware of the polit­i­cal bondage that sur­rounds her. The con­trast between her care­free exis­tence and his own fear­ful psy­che high­lights the depths of Par­ty con­trol.

Both Win­ston and Julia, yearn­ing for a tran­sient sanc­tu­ary, have arranged to meet despite the risks involved. Pre­vi­ous encoun­ters have led them to this moment, yet pri­or failed attempts due to work demands exac­er­bat­ed their frus­tra­tion. When they unex­pect­ed­ly com­mu­ni­cate in the street, Julia hints at can­cel­la­tion of their plans, reveal­ing chal­lenges she faces from the Par­ty. This moment ignites Win­ston’s pos­ses­sive­ness, reveal­ing the inter­twin­ing of his phys­i­cal desire for Julia and a deep­er emo­tion­al con­nec­tion.

As Julia bursts into the room, she brings with her a trea­sure of for­bid­den goods—real sug­ar, prop­er bread, and even Inner Par­ty coffee—artifacts of a world Win­ston has longed for. Her trans­for­ma­tions, both in appear­ance and pres­ence, awak­en in him a long­ing for a more tra­di­tion­al rela­tion­ship. The dynam­ics of their rela­tion­ship shift as they explore their iden­ti­ties beyond Par­ty affil­i­a­tion; Julia express­es her desire to embrace fem­i­nin­i­ty through cloth­ing and appear­ance, which rein­forces their shared yearn­ing for lib­er­a­tion from Par­ty restric­tions.

Amidst moments of inti­ma­cy and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, they nav­i­gate their fears, even­tu­al­ly falling into the ease of com­pan­ion­ship. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with the cou­ple shar­ing sim­ple plea­sures, savor­ing for­bid­den fla­vors in their pri­vate refuge. Yet, the under­ly­ing threat of real­i­ty remains pal­pa­ble as the knowl­edge of Par­ty sur­veil­lance looms, remind­ing both of their ulti­mate fate. Over­all, Chap­ter 4 jux­ta­pos­es the instinc­tu­al human desire for love and inti­ma­cy against the back­drop of a dystopi­an, oppres­sive regime .

In Chap­ter 4 of “1984,” Win­ston Smith begins his work­day in the Min­istry of Truth with a sigh, as he approach­es the speak­write, a device for record­ing his changes to doc­u­ments. The cubi­cle he works in con­tains var­i­ous pneu­mat­ic tubes for com­mu­ni­ca­tion and waste dis­pos­al, the lat­ter known as “mem­o­ry holes,” through which doc­u­ments are destroyed en route to large fur­naces. Win­ston retrieves four slips of paper with mes­sages requir­ing rec­ti­fi­ca­tion, three deal­ing with rou­tine mat­ters, while the fourth is more com­plex and is pushed aside for lat­er.

He calls for past issues of “The Times” through the tele­screen, which quick­ly deliv­ers them. His work involves alter­ing arti­cles to align with the Par­ty’s lat­est pro­pa­gan­da and sup­press any con­tra­dic­to­ry infor­ma­tion. For instance, he needs to rewrite Big Broth­er’s inac­cu­rate pre­dic­tions about mil­i­tary engage­ments, ensur­ing that past writ­ings reflect the cur­rent nar­ra­tive that the Par­ty dic­tates.

After com­plet­ing cor­rec­tions, he dis­pos­es of the orig­i­nal papers in the mem­o­ry hole, know­ing they will be destroyed with­out a trace. This process of per­pet­u­al mod­i­fi­ca­tion applies to all forms of media, ensur­ing that his­to­ry is con­stant­ly rewrit­ten to fit the Party’s needs, effec­tive­ly eras­ing any evi­dence of pre­vi­ous truths.

Win­ston observes his sur­round­ings, not­ing the oth­er work­ers in the Records Depart­ment, many of whom are engaged in sim­i­lar forms of fab­ri­cat­ing real­i­ty by eras­ing “unpersons”—those who have been vapor­ized or erased from exis­tence by the Par­ty. He reflects on the absur­di­ty of the sta­tis­tics and nar­ra­tives he manip­u­lates, empha­siz­ing the dis­con­nect between the Par­ty’s lies and any sem­blance of real­i­ty.

As he delves deep­er into his task, Win­ston dis­cov­ers he must rewrite a report involv­ing Big Brother’s Order for the Day, which misiden­ti­fied a com­mend­able com­rade who has since been removed from his­to­ry. In a cre­ative act of forgery, he invents the hero­ic nar­ra­tive of Com­rade Ogilvy, a fig­ure who had nev­er exist­ed but whose fab­ri­cat­ed hero­ism aligns with the Par­ty’s ideals. This act under­scores the theme that with­in the Par­ty’s frame­work, one can cre­ate his­tor­i­cal fig­ures as eas­i­ly as one can erase them, empha­siz­ing the mal­leabil­i­ty of truth in oppres­sive regimes. With the deci­sion to erase exist­ing doc­u­ments, and the sat­is­fac­tion from craft­ing a new nar­ra­tive, Win­ston reflects on the nature of exis­tence and real­i­ty under Big Broth­er’s rule.

In Chap­ter 4 of “The Art Thief,” we delve into the child­hood and for­ma­tive expe­ri­ences of Stéphane Guil­laume Frédéric Bre­itwieser, whose affin­i­ty for arti­facts began with his grand­fa­ther’s expe­di­tions for pot­tery shards and arrow­heads. These child­hood adven­tures in Alsace—a region grap­pling with its his­tor­i­cal identity—instilled in him a fas­ci­na­tion for antiq­ui­ties that would lat­er dri­ve his actions as an adult. Born in 1971, Bre­itwieser’s upbring­ing was marked by his lov­ing mater­nal grand­par­ents, Aline Philippe and Joseph Sten­gel, who nur­tured his inter­ests and whims.

Grow­ing up in Wit­ten­heim, France, he enjoyed a priv­i­leged lifestyle, sur­round­ed by antiques and art­works, includ­ing pieces from the renowned Alsa­t­ian expres­sion­ist Robert Bre­itwieser, who was dis­tant­ly relat­ed. This back­drop fos­tered an intense con­nec­tion to art and his­to­ry, although it also ampli­fied his feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy. As the only grand­child, he was indulged with gifts, which fueled his grow­ing col­lec­tion of coins, tools, and antiq­ui­ties. How­ev­er, social inter­ac­tions were chal­leng­ing for him. He felt dis­con­nect­ed from peers who favored mod­ern dis­trac­tions and strug­gled with intense anx­i­ety and depres­sion.

Con­flict arose with­in his fam­i­ly dynam­ics, espe­cial­ly with his author­i­tar­i­an father, lead­ing to a tur­bu­lent home envi­ron­ment where argu­ments esca­lat­ed. After his father’s depar­ture short­ly after Bre­itwieser grad­u­at­ed in 1991, the fam­i­ly faced finan­cial strug­gles, which fur­ther con­tributed to his sense of aban­don­ment and loss. The dras­tic changes in lifestyle led him to shoplift as a means of cop­ing, cul­mi­nat­ing in minor encoun­ters with law enforce­ment.

Dur­ing this tumul­tuous peri­od, he found solace in muse­ums and his­to­ry, often wan­der­ing alone in search of com­fort. His first theft—a small piece of met­al from a Roman coffin—marked the begin­ning of a trou­bling pat­tern, ratio­nal­ized as gifts from his­to­ry rather than as crim­i­nal acts. As he became increas­ing­ly enthralled by col­lect­ing, he start­ed to find that tan­gi­ble arti­facts pro­vid­ed a sense of ful­fill­ment that human rela­tion­ships did not. Ulti­mate­ly, the chap­ter con­cludes with a twist as Breitwieser’s soli­tary world shifts when he unex­pect­ed­ly falls in love, set­ting the stage for fur­ther explo­ration of his char­ac­ter in the nar­ra­tive.

The sum­mer came to an end, and although Tam­my insist­ed my child­care duties were no longer nec­es­sary, I con­tin­ued to assist her. I ensured Abi­gail attend­ed her math club appoint­ments, updat­ed her vac­ci­na­tions, and found a den­tist to address her numer­ous cav­i­ties. The den­tist referred us to an ortho­don­tist who, aston­ished by Abi­gail’s den­tal needs, declared, “She’s going to need a lot of braces.” It led to a week-long bat­tle with Penn­syl­va­nia Med­ic­aid, which pre­ferred cheap­er alter­na­tives, while I insist­ed on qual­i­ty, ulti­mate­ly cov­er­ing most costs myself.

By Octo­ber, our dai­ly rou­tine had evolved seam­less­ly. One day, Tam­my request­ed I pick up Abi­gail from school due to a work issue. I col­lect­ed her in my Jeep and pre­pared tacos for din­ner while she spread out her home­work on the liv­ing room floor. After clean­ing up, we watched a cook­ing show on Net­flix, which fea­tured humor­ous bak­ing dis­as­ters, fol­lowed by send­ing her to bed after a half hour of read­ing her fan­ta­sy nov­el about War­rior Cats.

That evening, while say­ing good­night, I spot­ted a map affixed above her dress­er amid her room’s play­ful dec­o­ra­tions. It was a topo­graph­i­cal map of Lake Wyn­d­ham near Osprey Cove, adorned with fea­tures sketched in pen­cil and marked with a bright red “X” at its deep­est point. Curi­ous, I inquired about its ori­gin, and Abi­gail revealed it was a gift from Aidan, who had giv­en it to her after their New Hamp­shire trip.

She sug­gest­ed it was a trea­sure map, and her enthu­si­asm was unmis­tak­able. “One day, I’m going back to Osprey Cove to look for the X. You should come.” When I asked if she had shown it to Tam­my, she replied no, cit­ing Tam­my’s warn­ing about dis­cussing Osprey Cove due to poten­tial reper­cus­sions.

Con­cerned, I care­ful­ly explained my belief that Abi­gail had mis­tak­en­ly received the map, empha­siz­ing Aidan’s inten­tion might have been to give her mon­ey instead. My sug­ges­tion about the $1,000 hid­den in my suit­case puz­zled her, lead­ing to an ani­mat­ed con­ver­sa­tion about exchang­ing the map for cash. We agreed on a deal, result­ing in her ecsta­sy over receiv­ing eighty-four dol­lars, while I wres­tled with my over­whelm­ing emo­tions about the map in my hands.

In the chap­ter from “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the pro­tag­o­nist returns to his bed­room to find it clean and orga­nized, sug­gest­ing a house­keep­er had tidied up after a chaot­ic pre­vi­ous night. His suit­case is unpacked, the bath­room is free of vom­it, and even the cedar clos­et is clear of dad­dy lon­glegs. As he pre­pares for the wed­ding, he care­ful­ly unpacks his hand-tai­lored, pearl-gray tuxe­do from Italy. The pris­tine white shirt is com­ple­ment­ed by black onyx studs, and he feels pride in being able to tie a real bow tie, despite the acces­so­ry pack­age con­tain­ing a clip-on ver­sion.

Amidst dress­ing, his phone buzzes with a call from Vicky, who express­es con­cern for his well­be­ing. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals ten­sion; he recounts a trou­bling inci­dent involv­ing a girl and drugs found in her cot­tage, which he strug­gles to dis­cuss. He describes her as a “very trou­bled per­son,” but also lies about the sit­u­a­tion con­cern­ing anoth­er indi­vid­ual, Dawn Tag­gart, claim­ing it was mere­ly a mis­un­der­stand­ing. He attrib­ut­es his mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions to being unac­cus­tomed to the peo­ple in town, insist­ing every­thing has been resolved.

Despite his reas­sur­ances, Vick­y’s son Todd has been wor­ried about him, indi­cat­ing that some­thing deep­er may be amiss. Frank believes he has vis­i­bly upset her, but he main­tains the façade of nor­mal­cy, has­ten­ing to inform her that the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny is immi­nent. Vicky’s lin­ger­ing doubts man­i­fest in her insis­tence on his well-being, prompt­ing Frank to assure her one last time that he’ll call her once home.

Ulti­mate­ly, he reflects on the toast he must deliv­er at the wed­ding, extract­ing a sin­gle sheet of yel­low lined paper with his speech draft. Despite his prepa­ra­tion, he is struck by the real­iza­tion that his words feel insin­cere. He acknowl­edges that he has­n’t tru­ly believed his own speech, reveal­ing an inner con­flict as he pre­pares to speak about the bride and her late moth­er, cul­mi­nat­ing in the under­stand­ing of his strug­gle with authen­tic­i­ty in that moment.

In the unfold­ing dra­ma sur­round­ing Gwendolyn’s death, Tam­my quick­ly estab­lished her view­point. “I think we can all agree she looked like trou­ble,” she stat­ed, express­ing con­cern over Gwendolyn’s appar­ent state. Last night at the buf­fet, Tam­my had observed Gwen­dolyn’s frail, glassy-eyed appear­ance and min­i­mal food intake—just some green beans, corn, and rice. “This kid’s an addict,” she con­clud­ed, attribut­ing her con­di­tion to sub­stance abuse.

Frankie, who had just reunit­ed with Tam­my and Abi­gail beneath Big Ben, the property’s his­toric tree, dis­agreed. Despite Tammy’s insis­tence that Gwendolyn’s demeanor was a clear sign of addiction—stemming from her back­ground with birth par­ents who were addicts—Frankie recalled a sober inter­ac­tion with Gwen­dolyn from the pre­vi­ous night. As they dis­cussed the impli­ca­tions of Gwendolyn’s death on the upcom­ing wed­ding, Abi­gail was busy attempt­ing a dan­ger­ous climb in the tree. Ignor­ing Frankie’s warn­ings, she ascend­ed fur­ther and even­tu­al­ly sought help when she became stuck.

Tam­my and Frankie debat­ed their options, with Tam­my sug­gest­ing they call for a lad­der. Frankie, how­ev­er, believed he could man­age the sit­u­a­tion. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed quick­ly when Abi­gail fell, land­ing on Frankie and caus­ing a painful back injury. As he lay on the ground curs­ing silent­ly through the pain, Tam­my rushed to check on Abi­gail, who had sus­tained only a small scratch.

As Tam­my con­soled Abi­gail and offered to treat the minor injury with cor­ti­sone, she final­ly turned her atten­tion to Frankie, who was still on the ground. Although he insist­ed he was “fine,” he was deeply con­cerned about the poten­tial impact of his injury on his job—an issue no one in their cir­cle seemed to take seri­ous­ly. Frankie feared that this injury might ren­der him unem­ploy­able and was deter­mined to get back up and find his daugh­ter amid the chaos of the wed­ding prepa­ra­tions. Ulti­mate­ly, he pushed through the pain, moti­vat­ed by a sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty to both his daugh­ter and him­self.

Mag­gie sug­gest­ed we arrive at twelve-thir­ty for lunch, but we did­n’t hit New Hamp­shire until eleven, so I need­ed to hur­ry. Dri­ving through the pic­turesque lakes region down Inter­state 93 on a two-lane high­way, we passed towns char­ac­ter­ized by gas sta­tions, sports bars, and road­side pro­duce stands. Many res­i­dents had fire­wood for sale on the hon­or system—a part of small-town life. The GPS indi­cat­ed we were still forty-five min­utes from Osprey Cove, and while I was eager to stretch my legs, I could­n’t ignore the knot of ner­vous­ness in my stom­ach about meet­ing Errol and Cather­ine and their vast net­work of friends.

Tam­my noticed my anx­i­ety, not­ing my nail-bit­ing habit. I shared my unease stem­ming from a news report about a woman who had lost every­thing in a fire, feel­ing as though it was an omen for my day ahead. Tam­my reas­sured me that pre-wed­ding jit­ters were nor­mal, as she too felt out of her ele­ment, nev­er hav­ing attend­ed a sum­mer camp before. I dread­ed say­ing or doing some­thing to embar­rass Mag­gie, espe­cial­ly since I did­n’t want to ruin her spe­cial week­end or our chance for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion.

Our jour­ney con­tin­ued as we crest­ed a hill, reveal­ing the White Moun­tains and a vibrant blue lake team­ing with sail­boats. We entered Hopps Fer­ry, a vil­lage with a fad­ed charm, where Tam­my urgent­ly request­ed to stop for a bath­room break. Final­ly, we reached a road­side restau­rant named Mom and Dad’s. While Tam­my and Abi­gail rushed inside, I felt too anx­ious to engage with strangers, divert­ing my focus to a bul­letin board cov­ered in local fly­ers.

One fly­er caught my eye: it was about a miss­ing woman named Dawn Tag­gart, who had van­ished since Novem­ber 3rd. Brody Tag­gart, claim­ing to be her uncle, approached me as I exam­ined the fly­er. He recount­ed how his niece went miss­ing after seek­ing help from Aidan Gard­ner, rais­ing alarm bells about the Gard­ner fam­i­ly. As Brody pas­sion­ate­ly warned me about the Gard­ners’ alleged dark his­to­ry, the sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed with a police offi­cer inter­ven­ing.

After the com­mo­tion set­tled, the restau­rant own­er dis­missed Brody’s claims, sug­gest­ing he was the town’s res­i­dent trou­ble­mak­er. The man spoke high­ly of the Gard­ners’ con­tri­bu­tions to the town, which left me and Tam­my in dis­be­lief but some­what relieved. As the bizarre encounter lin­gered in our minds, Tam­my reas­sured Abi­gail, dis­miss­ing Brody’s chaot­ic out­burst. It became evi­dent that every­one held their own nar­ra­tives about the Gard­ners, mak­ing our fam­i­ly gath­er­ing at Osprey Cove increas­ing­ly com­pli­cat­ed.

**The Last One at the Wed­ding — Chap­ter Sum­ma­ry**

The nar­ra­tor reflects on the trag­ic death of his wife, Colleen, who suc­cumbed to a brain aneurysm while work­ing at Michaels, leav­ing behind their ten-year-old daugh­ter, Mag­gie. This event pro­found­ly affect­ed their lives, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Mag­gie faced the tur­moil of ear­ly ado­les­cence with­out her moth­er. The nar­ra­tor grap­ples with feel­ings of guilt, often wish­ing he had tak­en Colleen’s place, believ­ing she would have raised Mag­gie well while he sup­port­ed them from his Team­sters pen­sion. The nar­ra­tor acknowl­edges his short­com­ings as a father, espe­cial­ly giv­en his strained rela­tion­ship with Mag­gie, who had stopped speak­ing to him for three years.

Fol­low­ing this somber back­drop, he nar­rates Mag­gie’s sur­prise announce­ment of her engage­ment to Aidan. How­ev­er, he is appre­hen­sive about the sud­den news, par­tic­u­lar­ly after real­iz­ing she and Aidan are already cohab­it­ing. The nar­ra­tor is not shocked by this rev­e­la­tion, under­stand­ing the eco­nom­ic pres­sures of liv­ing in Boston, where hous­ing is cost­ly. Mag­gie’s pre­vi­ous apart­ment was a mis­er­able space infest­ed with sil­ver­fish, which she detest­ed. Con­se­quent­ly, her deci­sion to move in with Aidan was like­ly a relief.

Despite his con­cerns about the state of their new liv­ing arrange­ment, the nar­ra­tor insists on cel­e­brat­ing the engage­ment at a restau­rant rather than at their apart­ment. He offers to pay for the meal, want­i­ng to make the occa­sion spe­cial, but Mag­gie deflects this, insist­ing that they gath­er at her place instead. This rais­es alarm bells for the nar­ra­tor, who ques­tions the safe­ty of the area they live in, espe­cial­ly giv­en alarm­ing news reports about local crime.

While he tries to con­ceal his wor­ry, he’s still hes­i­tant and wants to ensure his daugh­ter is safe in her new envi­ron­ment. His con­cern under­scores his pro­tec­tive nature as a father, yet he ulti­mate­ly seeks to sup­port Maggie’s choic­es, request­ing her to text him their address as he pre­pares to meet her and Aidan. The chap­ter con­veys a mix of grief, appre­hen­sion, and a desire to recon­nect with his daugh­ter amid the com­plex­i­ties of their evolv­ing fam­i­ly dynam­ics.

In Chap­ter 4 of “James,” the pro­tag­o­nist reflects on the over­whelm­ing amount of cat­fish they’ve caught, not­ing that fifty pounds is far too much for just two peo­ple. As they pre­pare for a jour­ney, with Huck rolling up chunks of fish for bait, they feel a brief sense of safe­ty as the peo­ple they escaped from seem pre­oc­cu­pied with their own sur­vival. The pro­tag­o­nist’s thoughts drift to the poten­tial pur­suit due to the theft of a note­book, adding to their feel­ings of guilt and con­cern.

As dark­ness falls, they decide to rest as trav­el­ing along the riv­er in the dark seems inad­vis­able. Although Huck does­n’t com­mu­ni­cate, the pro­tag­o­nist is too tired and angry to engage. Ear­ly the next day, hunger prompts them to move, and after hik­ing a mile, they dis­cov­er a well-trod­den trail—causing con­cern for their safety—and con­tem­plate whether they stum­bled onto the under­ground rail­road.

Sud­den­ly, they spot a group of sev­en young sol­diers dressed in blue, armed, which sig­nals the ten­sion of a pos­si­ble larg­er con­flict. Huck express­es curios­i­ty about their pur­pose, not­ing hearsay about slavers and recent vio­lence. They both notice a young sol­dier fall behind, reveal­ing the fear he car­ries before he resumes his place in line. The sight prompts Huck to dream about join­ing the sol­diers and fight­ing, but the pro­tag­o­nist insists they need to head north for safe­ty, espe­cial­ly as they dis­cuss the con­fus­ing nature of the war and the impli­ca­tions of tak­ing sides.

Huck grap­ples with the con­cept of war, their free­dom, and the nature of their rela­tion­ship, ques­tion­ing why he wouldn’t accom­pa­ny the pro­tag­o­nist if he’s wor­thy of being con­sid­ered a son. The pro­tag­o­nist acknowl­edges Huck­’s free­dom but empha­sizes that he should remain safe with peo­ple who care for him. They con­tin­ue dis­cussing fam­i­ly and safe­ty, with the pro­tag­o­nist lead­ing Huck back towards the riv­er.

As they attempt to nav­i­gate, the chal­lenge of the chang­ing land­scape con­founds their direc­tion. The Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er seems to morph before them, cre­at­ing uncer­tain­ty about where they stand. They reflect on their predica­ment, acknowl­edg­ing that despite their jour­ney, choos­ing a boat would be less fea­si­ble than walk­ing, press­ing on while try­ing to make sense of their sit­u­a­tion amidst the chaos around them.

In Chap­ter 4, I trailed behind Luke, a fel­low cap­tive, as he indi­cat­ed a bar­rel of water for me to refresh myself. Our con­ver­sa­tion high­light­ed the grim real­i­ty of our sit­u­a­tion as I expressed that being sold was as bad as being bought. Luke remarked about the bru­tal­i­ty of our mas­ter, Hen­der­son, who inevitably used vio­lence to main­tain con­trol. His scars revealed a his­to­ry of suf­fer­ing, indi­cat­ing a deep­er strug­gle between the accep­tance of a harsh exis­tence ver­sus the desire for free­dom.

As the day pro­gressed, we were tasked with saw­ing tim­ber. I worked with Sam­my, a small­er indi­vid­ual who also suf­fered under Hen­der­son. The work was gru­el­ing, espe­cial­ly giv­en the poor con­di­tion of our tools. The phys­i­cal exer­tion and the fetid envi­ron­ment of the pit test­ed my resolve, and just as I felt I was mak­ing no progress, Hen­der­son appeared to chas­tise me for my fear of the blade. His threat of pun­ish­ment loomed over me, lead­ing to a lash­ing that left me weak­ened and in pain.

When I regained con­scious­ness, I found myself fac­ing Sam­my again, who shared her insight on Henderson’s behav­ior. This unex­pect­ed encounter revealed that Sam­my was not only a fel­low work­er but also a young girl who had sur­vived under the same harsh con­di­tions. I was remind­ed of my own daugh­ter, which spurred me to pro­pose an escape. Despite her admis­sion of fear, Sam­my agreed to join me.

Nav­i­gat­ing our way through the com­pound, we stealth­ily avoid­ed draw­ing atten­tion, even as rain began to fall. We aimed for the town, “Blue­bird Hole,” where I hoped to meet my friend, Nor­man. The sense of urgency height­ened as I con­sid­ered our pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion and the real pos­si­bil­i­ty of being pur­sued once dis­cov­ered. As dawn approached, we set forth into the woods, search­ing for a place to rest and hide, while con­tem­plat­ing the dan­ger that lay ahead. How­ev­er, just as we felt a sense of hope, a scream echoed through the trees, sig­nal­ing the real­i­ty of our pre­car­i­ous flight from cap­tiv­i­ty.

In Chap­ter 4 of the nar­ra­tive, the atmos­phere is tense and wor­ry­ing as the pro­tag­o­nist, Jim, grap­ples with the threat of being sold away from his fam­i­ly. The chap­ter opens with Jim scav­eng­ing wood to keep warm as the weath­er remains unex­pect­ed­ly cold. His anx­i­ety esca­lates when Sadie reveals over­hear­ing Miss Wat­son dis­cussing sell­ing him to a man in New Orleans, inten­si­fy­ing Jim’s fears of being sep­a­rat­ed from his loved ones.

As pan­ic sets in, Jim con­cocts a plan to evade cap­ture. He asserts that if he hides, they can­not sell him if they can­not find him. Sadie and Lizzie express their con­cern as Jim pre­pares to leave, and he reas­sures them with promis­es to return. He then slips away into the woods, con­tem­plat­ing the harsh real­i­ties of his exis­tence as a slave. He expe­ri­ences feel­ings of rage and frus­tra­tion, but knows he must sup­press these emo­tions for his sur­vival.

At dusk, Jim faces a daunt­ing chal­lenge as he tries to cross the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er to Jack­son Island, where he intends to stay hid­den. His attempt near­ly fails when he becomes entan­gled in a line, but he unex­pect­ed­ly catch­es three cat­fish, pro­vid­ing him with food for the night. Exhaust­ed and freez­ing, he finds shel­ter among the leaves and tries to sleep, aware that the threat of dis­cov­ery looms over him.

The next morn­ing, Jim awak­ens to the cold and pre­pares to make fire with the sun’s reflec­tion. He encoun­ters Huck, who is in his own pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion, hav­ing faked his death to escape Pap’s wrath. The two friends share their strug­gles, reveal­ing the sys­temic injus­tices they face—Jim’s impend­ing sale and Huck­’s need to stay hid­den.

As they col­lect fire­wood to cook Jim’s catch, they hear can­non shots from a fer­ry­boat, indi­cat­ing that peo­ple are search­ing for Huck­’s body. This inten­si­fies Jim’s anx­i­ety about remain­ing incon­spic­u­ous and rein­forces their shared plight. The chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of friend­ship, sur­vival, and the harsh real­i­ties of slav­ery, while also high­light­ing the inven­tive spir­it of both char­ac­ters as they nav­i­gate their pre­car­i­ous cir­cum­stances.

In Chap­ter 4 of “We Solve Mur­ders,” Jeff Nolan, CEO of Max­i­mum Impact Solu­tions, reflects on the recent mur­ders impact­ing his busi­ness, par­tic­u­lar­ly that of Andrew Fair­banks, which has drawn sig­nif­i­cant media atten­tion. Despite acknowl­edg­ing the harsh real­i­ties of his work, Jeff is con­cerned about the impli­ca­tions for his clients and rep­u­ta­tion. The police are inves­ti­gat­ing, but Jeff views his clients’ loss of con­fi­dence as the big­ger threat, lead­ing to can­cel­la­tions from impor­tant con­tracts.

Max High­field, a cru­cial con­sul­tant for Jeff, pays him a vis­it, express­ing his dis­plea­sure about how the string of deaths is affect­ing their busi­ness rela­tion­ship and his own rep­u­ta­tion. Jeff empha­sizes that Fair­banks, a fit­ness influ­encer, was not a major client and reas­sures Max of their worth togeth­er. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to the enter­tain­ment indus­try, where Max rem­i­nisces about the dis­par­i­ty in earn­ings com­pared to his con­sul­tan­cy fee. The talk is filled with ban­ter about actors and the nature of awards like the Oscars, fur­ther high­light­ing the industry’s pol­i­tics.

As the con­ver­sa­tion pro­gress­es, Jeff reveals he has an oper­a­tive, Amy Wheel­er, inves­ti­gat­ing the sit­u­a­tion in South Car­oli­na. Max recalls his past inter­ac­tions with Amy, hint­ing at an implic­it bond. The mood shifts when Max men­tions poten­tial­ly join­ing Jef­f’s rival, Henk, which indi­cates the com­pet­i­tive ten­sion between the two fig­ures. Their dis­cus­sion also touch­es on past inci­dents that bind them humor­ous­ly, rein­forc­ing the casu­al yet pre­car­i­ous nature of their rela­tions.

Fol­low­ing Max’s depar­ture, Jeff shifts his focus to Susan Knox, head of HR, who enters the office. Their exchange hints at work­place dynam­ics and the lin­ger­ing effects of Max’s behav­ior on staff morale. Susan’s dry wit high­lights her pro­fes­sion­al­ism amidst the chaos caused by their industry’s under­bel­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing their con­nec­tion to François Lou­bet, a noto­ri­ous mon­ey smug­gler.

As Jeff pon­ders the threat Lou­bet pos­es, he pulls up an email he wrote seek­ing advice, empha­siz­ing the urgency of his sit­u­a­tion. The chap­ter clos­es with Jeff con­tem­plat­ing his part­ner­ship with Henk and the intri­cate dynam­ics at play with­in the world of pri­vate secu­ri­ty, sug­gest­ing both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al stakes are at risk due to the unfold­ing series of mur­ders.

In Chap­ter 4 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the set­ting is a vivid land­scape where Pines are paint­ed against a back­drop of gold­en hues and blue shad­ows. The pro­tag­o­nist, Patch, nav­i­gates along trails bor­der­ing town lim­its, with the expan­sive Loess Hills loom­ing over the Mis­souri Riv­er and the indus­tri­al air above the cities. Among the dilap­i­dat­ed rem­nants of old vehi­cles, includ­ing a Dodge aban­doned and sunk into the earth, and a pam­phlet caught in the branch­es of East­ern red­bud, hints of vibrant com­mu­ni­ty life unfold. Notably, a smil­ing image of Jim­my Carter is fea­tured, por­tray­ing an effort to con­nect with the peo­ple.

Patch’s explo­ration leads him to a lake, where child­hood mem­o­ries linger. A fad­ed sign warns of treach­er­ous under­cur­rents; leg­end has it that a boy named Col­son, who once swam there, mys­te­ri­ous­ly van­ished, adding an air of fore­bod­ing. The peace­ful scene becomes unset­tling as eerie rumors cir­cu­late about his spir­it lurk­ing in the depths, wait­ing for the right moment to reach for unsus­pect­ing girls.

Lean­ing against the dilap­i­dat­ed Mon­ta Clare rail­road, Patch is sud­den­ly jolt­ed by a scream echo­ing through the val­ley. Inves­ti­gat­ing, he stum­bles upon Misty Mey­er, a class­mate, seem­ing­ly in dan­ger, along­side the shad­owy fig­ure of a man in a hood. Pan­ic sets in as he seeks help, feel­ing the weight of the sit­u­a­tion heav­i­ly upon him. Anoth­er scream slices through his thoughts, ignit­ing a vis­cer­al alarm with­in him.

With adren­a­line surg­ing, Patch takes action. Armed with instinct and a rock, he con­fronts the man, whose face is obscured by a bal­a­cla­va. In a des­per­ate moment, he yells for Misty to run, urg­ing her through the thick of despair. Despite her ini­tial freeze, Misty’s sur­vival instincts kick in, and she bolts, pur­sued by the man.

Patch, in a coura­geous attempt to pro­tect her, draws a dag­ger in a moment of des­per­a­tion. A strug­gle ensues, lead­ing to a har­row­ing twist as the assailant turns the weapon back on him. Injured and sink­ing into uncon­scious­ness, Patch is over­whelmed by dark­ness. The chap­ter clos­es with a grim future hint­ed at: a com­mu­ni­ty search, a griev­ing moth­er, and a friend on a reck­less path, fore­shad­ow­ing the tragedy that will unfold in the wake of this inci­dent.

Phoebe sits on a king-sized canopy bed, strug­gling to relax with the impend­ing thought of her death. While the wed­ding recep­tion below begins, she feels over­whelmed by triv­ial con­cerns, like the blood stain­ing a bride’s dress, which dis­rupts her idea of a peace­ful clo­sure. To drown out the noise, she attempts to use an old Dis­c­man but ends up frus­trat­ed by the scratched CD. She steps out onto the bal­cony, lights a cig­a­rette, and attempts to find solace in smok­ing, though she finds her­self cough­ing painful­ly.

With no demands on her time, Phoebe reflects on her sit­u­a­tion, graveal­le­vi­at­ing her morose thoughts with each puff, try­ing to main­tain a steady com­po­sure. Yet her acute aware­ness of impend­ing death leads her to con­tem­plate the world beyond her exis­tence, rec­og­niz­ing how eas­i­ly peo­ple will move on. As she watch­es the wed­ding guests below, Phoebe is both cap­ti­vat­ed and detached, judg­ing their inter­ac­tions from her ele­vat­ed per­spec­tive.

A knock dis­rupts her soli­tude, and in walks the bride—a com­mand­ing fig­ure who con­fronts Phoebe about smok­ing in her room. Their inter­ac­tion reveals under­ly­ing ten­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly around beau­ty and priv­i­lege, as the bride com­plains about her inad­e­quate room and her extrav­a­gant wed­ding plans fueled by her deceased father’s mon­ey. Through their back-and-forth, Phoebe real­izes how lack­ing a lov­ing mater­nal pres­ence shaped both their lives.

As the con­ver­sa­tion devel­ops, Phoebe begins to feel a strange kin­ship with the bride, who shares her own anx­i­eties about famil­ial expec­ta­tions and impend­ing mat­ri­mo­ny. They engage in a can­did dis­course about art’s val­ue and their respec­tive life choic­es, with the bride express­ing doubts about her moth­er’s influ­ence and her father’s lega­cy. Their mutu­al strug­gle to nav­i­gate expec­ta­tions, love, and loss cre­ates a frag­ile con­nec­tion.

Even­tu­al­ly, a moment of lev­i­ty aris­es when they share laugh­ter over dark anec­dotes about death and absur­di­ty. When the bride express­es a desire for Phoebe to recon­sid­er her own dark plans, Phoebe rebuffs her, stat­ing her deci­sion is already made. Yet the con­ver­sa­tion shifts when the bride starts to floss her teeth, sym­bol­iz­ing a calm before the storm of her wed­ding recep­tion. This unex­pect­ed­ly ten­der moment allows Phoebe a glimpse into com­pan­ion­ship, con­trast­ing the iso­la­tion she’s felt since her hus­band’s depar­ture and deep­en­ing her inner con­flict about life and death .

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

In Chap­ter Four, Mil­lie embarks on a stren­u­ous clean­ing spree through­out Nina’s remark­ably dirty house, spend­ing sev­en hours tack­ling the mess left behind. The liv­ing room presents the first chal­lenge with a piz­za box stub­born­ly stuck to the cof­fee table due to a sticky, dis­gust­ing spill. The kitchen proves to be a night­mare, with over­flow­ing garbage, a dish­wash­er crammed with dirty dish­es, and pans coat­ed in days-old food. After much effort, Mil­lie man­ages to restore some order to the kitchen, feel­ing a sense of accom­plish­ment despite the daunt­ing task.

Her day takes an unex­pect­ed turn when she encoun­ters Cecelia, Nina’s daugh­ter, who sur­pris­es Mil­lie with her silent pres­ence and pen­e­trat­ing pale blue eyes. The ini­tial encounter is unset­tling, but Mil­lie attempts to make a con­nec­tion by offer­ing to pre­pare a snack. Cecelia’s respons­es are cryp­tic and unhelp­ful, mak­ing the inter­ac­tion awk­ward. Despite the rocky start, Mil­lie pre­pares a snack of peanut but­ter and banana on crack­ers, only to dis­cov­er in hor­ror that Cecelia is aller­gic to peanut but­ter. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lates quick­ly as Cecelia alarm­ing­ly accus­es Mil­lie of try­ing to harm her, bring­ing Nina rush­ing in, con­cerned and upset.

Caught in a mis­un­der­stand­ing, Mil­lie tries to explain, only to be rebuked by Nina for neglect­ing Cecelia’s aller­gies, an accu­sa­tion Mil­lie con­tests silent­ly as she was nev­er informed. Nina even­tu­al­ly calms down, warn­ing Mil­lie to not make such a mis­take again. The chap­ter con­cludes with an irri­tat­ed yet com­pli­ant Mil­lie, puz­zled over Nina’s deci­sion to keep the peanut but­ter and tasked unex­pect­ed with prepar­ing din­ner, show­cas­ing the unpre­dictable and chal­leng­ing nature of her job and her rela­tion­ship with Nina and Cecelia.

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
4
A few days before the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny, guests began arriv­ing, and I was
grate­ful that I’d nev­er be High Lady, nev­er be Tamlin’s equal in
respon­si­bil­i­ty and pow­er.
A small, for­got­ten part of me roared and screamed at that, but …
Din­ner after din­ner, lun­cheons and pic­nics and hunts.
I was intro­duced and passed around, and my face hurt from the smile I
kept plas­tered there day and night. I began look­ing for­ward to the wed­ding
just know­ing that once it was over, I wouldn’t have to be pleas­ant or talk to
any­one or do any­thing for a week. A month. A year.
Tam­lin endured it all—in that qui­et, near-fer­al way of his—and told me
again and again that the par­ties were a way to intro­duce me to his court, to
give his peo­ple some­thing to cel­e­brate. He assured me that he hat­ed the
gath­er­ings as much as I did, and that Lucien was the only one who real­ly
enjoyed him­self, but … I caught Tam­lin grin­ning some­times. And
truth­ful­ly, he deserved it, had earned it. And these peo­ple deserved it, too.
So I weath­ered it, cling­ing to Ianthe when Tam­lin wasn’t at my side, or, if
they were togeth­er, let­ting the two of them lead con­ver­sa­tions while I
count­ed down the hours until every­one would leave.
“You should head to bed,” Ianthe said, both of us watch­ing the assem­bled
rev­el­ers pack­ing the great hall. I’d spot­ted her by the open doors thir­ty
min­utes ago, and was grate­ful for the excuse to leave the gag­gle of Tamlin’s
friends I’d been stuck talk­ing to. Or not talk­ing to. Either they out­right
stared at me, or they tried so damn hard to come up with com­mon top­ics.
Hunt­ing, most­ly. Con­ver­sa­tion usu­al­ly stalled after three min­utes.
“I’ve anoth­er hour before I need to sleep,” I said. Ianthe was in her usu­al
pale robe, hood up and that cir­clet of sil­ver with its blue stone atop it.
High Fae males eyed her as they mean­dered past where we stood by the
wood-pan­eled wall near the main doors, either from awe or lust or per­haps
both, their gazes occa­sion­al­ly snag­ging on me. I knew the wide eyes had
noth­ing to do with my bright green gown or pret­ty face (fair­ly bland
com­pared to Ianthe’s). I tried to ignore them.
“Are you ready for tomor­row? Is there any­thing I can do for you?” Ianthe
sipped from her glass of sparkling wine. The gown I wore tonight was a gift
from her, actually—Spring Court green, she’d called it. Alis had mere­ly
lin­gered while I dressed, unnerv­ing­ly silent, let­ting Ianthe claim her usu­al
duties.
“I’m fine.” I’d already con­tem­plat­ed how pathet­ic it would be if I asked
her to per­ma­nent­ly stay after the wed­ding. If I revealed that I dread­ed her
leav­ing me to this court, these peo­ple, until Nynsar—a minor spring hol­i­day
to cel­e­brate the end of seed­ing the fields and to pass out the first flower
clip­pings of the sea­son. Months and months from now. Even hav­ing her live
at her own tem­ple felt too removed.
Two males that had cir­cled past twice already final­ly worked up the
courage to approach us—her.
I leaned against the wall, the wood dig­ging into my back, as they flanked
Ianthe. Hand­some, in the way that most of them were hand­some, armed
with weapons that marked them as two of the High Fae who guard­ed
Tamlin’s lands. Per­haps they even worked under Ianthe’s father. “Priest­ess,”
one said, bow­ing deep.
By now, I’d become accus­tomed to peo­ple kiss­ing her sil­ver rings and
beseech­ing her for prayers for them­selves, their fam­i­lies, or their lovers.
Ianthe received it all with­out that beau­ti­ful face shift­ing in the slight­est.
“Bron,” she said to the one on her left, brown-haired and tall. “And
Hart,” she said to the one on her right, black-haired and built a bit more
pow­er­ful­ly than his friend. She gave a coy, pret­ty tilt of her lips that I’d
learned meant she was now on the hunt for night­time com­pan­ion­ship. “I
haven’t seen you two trou­ble­mak­ers in a while.”
They par­ried with flir­ta­tious com­ments, until the two males began
glanc­ing my way.
“Oh,” Ianthe said, hood shift­ing as she turned. “Allow me to intro­duce
Lady Feyre.” She low­ered her eyes, angling her head in a deep nod. “Sav­ior
of Pry­thi­an.”
“We know,” Hart said qui­et­ly, bow­ing with his friend at the waist. “We
were Under the Moun­tain with you.”
I man­aged to incline my head a bit as they straight­ened. “Con­grat­u­la­tions
on tomor­row,” Bron said, grin­ning. “A fit­ting end, eh?”
A fit­ting end would have been me in a grave, burn­ing in hell.
“The Caul­dron,” Ianthe said, “has blessed all of us with such a union.”
The males mur­mured their agree­ment, bow­ing their heads again. I ignored
it.
“I have to say,” Bron went on, “that trial—with the Mid­den­gard Wyrm?
Bril­liant. One of the most bril­liant things I ever saw.”
It was an effort not to push myself whol­ly flat against the wall, not to
think about the reek of that mud, the gnash­ing of those flesh-shred­ding teeth
bear­ing down upon me. “Thank you.”
“Oh, it sound­ed ter­ri­ble,” Ianthe said, step­ping clos­er as she not­ed I was
no longer wear­ing that bland smile. She put a hand on my arm. “Such
brav­ery is awe-inspir­ing.”
I was grate­ful, so pathet­i­cal­ly grate­ful, for the steady­ing touch. For the
squeeze. I knew then that she’d inspire hordes of young Fae females to join
her order—not for wor­ship­ping their Moth­er and Caul­dron, but to learn
how she lived, how she could shine so bright­ly and love her­self, move from
male to male as if they were dish­es at a ban­quet.
“We missed the hunt the oth­er day,” Hart said casu­al­ly, “so we haven’t
had a chance to see your tal­ents up close, but I think the High Lord will be
sta­tion­ing us near the estate next month—it’d be an hon­or to ride with you.”
Tam­lin wouldn’t allow me out with them in a thou­sand years. And I had
no desire to tell them that I had no inter­est in ever using a bow and arrow
again, or hunt­ing any­thing at all. The hunt I’d been dragged on two days
ago had almost been too much. Even with every­one watch­ing me, I hadn’t
drawn an arrow.
They were still wait­ing for a reply, so I said, “The hon­or would be mine.”
“Does my father have you two on duty tomor­row, or will you be
attend­ing the cer­e­mo­ny?” Ianthe said, putting a dis­tract­ing hand on Bron’s
arm. Pre­cise­ly why I sought her out at events.
Bron answered her, but Hart’s eyes lin­gered on me—on my crossed arms.
On my tat­tooed fin­gers. He said, “Have you heard from the High Lord at
all?”
Ianthe stiff­ened, and Bron imme­di­ate­ly cut his gaze toward my inked
flesh.
“No,” I said, hold­ing Hart’s gaze.
“He’s prob­a­bly run­ning scared now that Tamlin’s got his pow­ers back.”
“Then you don’t know Rhysand very well at all.”
Hart blinked, and even Ianthe kept silent. It was prob­a­bly the most
assertive thing I’d said to any­one dur­ing these par­ties.
“Well, we’ll take care of him if need be,” Hart said, shift­ing on his feet as
I con­tin­ued to hold his gaze, not both­er­ing to soft­en my expres­sion.
Ianthe said to him, to me, “The High Priest­esses are tak­ing care of it. We
will not allow our sav­ior to be treat­ed so ill.”
I schooled my face into neu­tral­i­ty. Was that why Tam­lin had ini­tial­ly
sought out Ianthe? To make an alliance? My chest tight­ened a bit. I turned
to her. “I’m going up. Tell Tam­lin I’ll see him tomor­row.”
Tomor­row, because tonight, Ianthe had told me, we’d spend apart. As
dic­tat­ed by their long-held tra­di­tions.
Ianthe kissed my cheek, her hood shield­ing me from the room for a
heart­beat. “I’m at your dis­pos­al, Lady. Send word if you need any­thing.”
I wouldn’t, but I nod­ded.
As I slipped from the room, I peered toward the front—where Tam­lin and
Lucien were sur­round­ed by a cir­cle of High Fae males and females. Per­haps
not as refined as some of the oth­ers, but … They had the look of peo­ple
who had been togeth­er a long time, fought at each other’s sides. Tamlin’s
friends. He’d intro­duced me to them, and I’d imme­di­ate­ly for­got­ten their
names. I hadn’t tried to learn them again.
Tam­lin tipped his head back and laughed, the oth­ers howl­ing with him.
I left before he could spot me, eas­ing through the crowd­ed halls until I
was in the dim, emp­ty upstairs of the res­i­den­tial wing.
Alone in my bed­room, I real­ized I couldn’t remem­ber the last time I’d
tru­ly laughed.
The ceil­ing pushed down, the large, blunt spikes so hot I could see the heat
rip­pling off them even from where I was chained to the floor. Chained,
because I was illit­er­ate and couldn’t read the rid­dle writ­ten on the wall, and
Ama­ran­tha was glad to let me be impaled.
Clos­er and clos­er. There was no one com­ing to save me from this
hor­ri­ble death.
It’d hurt. It’d hurt and be slow, and I’d cry—I might even cry for my
moth­er, who had nev­er cared for me, any­way. I might beg her to save me—
My limbs flailed as I shot upright in bed, yank­ing against invis­i­ble chains.
I would have lurched for the bathing room had my legs and arms not
shook so bad­ly, had I been able to breathe, breathe, breathe—
I scanned the bed­room, shud­der­ing. Real—this was real. The hor­rors,
those were night­mares. I was out; I was alive; I was safe.
A night breeze float­ed through the open win­dows, ruf­fling my hair,
dry­ing the cold sweat on me. The dark sky beck­oned, the stars so dim and
small, like speck­les of frost.
Bron had sound­ed as if watch­ing my encounter with the Mid­den­gard
Wyrm was a sport­ing match. As if I hadn’t been one mis­take away from
being devoured whole and my bones spat out.
Sav­ior and jester, appar­ent­ly.
I stum­bled to the open win­dow, and pushed it wider, clear­ing my view of
the star-flecked dark­ness.
I rest­ed my head against the wall, savor­ing the cool stones.
In a few hours, I’d be mar­ried. I’d have my hap­py end­ing, whether I
deserved it or not. But this land, these people—they would have their hap­py
end­ing, too. The first few steps toward heal­ing. Toward peace. And then
things would be fine.
Then I’d be fine.
I real­ly, tru­ly hat­ed my wed­ding gown.
It was a mon­stros­i­ty of tulle and chif­fon and gos­samer, so unlike the
loose gowns I usu­al­ly wore: the bodice fit­ted, the neck­line curved to plump
my breasts, and the skirts … The skirts were a sparkling tent, prac­ti­cal­ly
float­ing in the balmy spring air.
No won­der Tam­lin had laughed. Even Alis, as she’d dressed me, had
hummed to her­self, but said noth­ing. Most like­ly because Ianthe had
per­son­al­ly select­ed the gown to com­ple­ment what­ev­er tale she’d weave
today—the leg­end she’d pro­claim to the world.
I might have dealt with it all if it weren’t for the puffy capped sleeves, so
big I could almost see them glint­ing from the periph­ery of my vision. My
hair had been curled, half up, half down, entwined with pearls and jew­els
and the Caul­dron knew what, and it had tak­en all my self-con­trol to keep
from cring­ing at the mir­ror before descend­ing the sweep­ing stairs into the
main hall. My dress hissed and swished with each step.
Beyond the shut patio doors where I paused, the gar­den had been
bedecked in rib­bons and lanterns in shades of cream, blush, and sky blue.
Three hun­dred chairs were assem­bled in the largest court­yard, each seat
occu­pied by Tamlin’s court. I’d make my way down the main aisle,
endur­ing their stares, before I reached the dais at the oth­er end—where
Tam­lin would be wait­ing.
Then Ianthe would sanc­tion and bless our union right before sun­down, as
a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all twelve High Priest­esses. She’d hint­ed that they’d
pushed to be present—but through what­ev­er cun­ning, she’d man­aged to
keep the oth­er eleven away. Either to claim the atten­tion for her­self, or to
spare me from being hound­ed by the pack of them. I couldn’t tell. Per­haps
both.
My mouth went paper-dry as Alis fluffed out the sparkling train of my
gown in the shad­ow of the gar­den doors. Silk and gos­samer rus­tled and
sighed, and I gripped the pale bou­quet in my gloved hands, near­ly snap­ping
the stems.
Elbow-length silk gloves—to hide the mark­ings. Ianthe had deliv­ered
them her­self this morn­ing in a vel­vet-lined box.
“Don’t be ner­vous,” Alis clucked, her tree-bark skin rich and flushed in
the hon­ey-gold evening light.
“I’m not,” I rasped.
“You’re fid­get­ing like my youngest nephew dur­ing a hair­cut.” She
fin­ished fuss­ing over my dress, shoo­ing away some ser­vants who’d come to
spy on me before the cer­e­mo­ny. I pre­tend­ed I didn’t see them, or the
glit­ter­ing, sun­set-gild­ed crowd seat­ed in the court­yard ahead, and toyed
with some invis­i­ble fleck of dust on my skirts.
“You look beau­ti­ful,” Alis said qui­et­ly. I was fair­ly cer­tain her thoughts
on the dress were the same as my own, but I believed her.
“Thank you.”
“And you sound like you’re going to your funer­al.”
I plas­tered a grin on my face. Alis rolled her eyes. But she nudged me
toward the doors as they opened on some immor­tal wind, lilt­ing music
stream­ing in. “It’ll be over faster than you can blink,” she promised, and
gen­tly pushed me into the last of the sun­light.
Three hun­dred peo­ple rose to their feet and piv­ot­ed toward me.
Not since my last tri­al had so many gath­ered to watch me, judge me. All
in fin­ery so sim­i­lar to what they’d worn Under the Moun­tain. Their faces
blurred, meld­ed.
Alis coughed from the shad­ows of the house, and I remem­bered to start
walk­ing, to look toward the dais—
At Tam­lin.
The breath knocked from me, and it was an effort to keep going down the
stairs, to keep my knees from buck­ling. He was resplen­dent in a tunic of
green and gold, a crown of bur­nished lau­rel leaves gleam­ing on his head.
He’d loos­ened the grip on his glam­our, let­ting that immor­tal light and
beau­ty shine through—for me.
My vision nar­rowed on him, on my High Lord, his wide eyes glis­ten­ing
as I stepped onto the soft grass, white rose petals scat­tered down it—
And red ones.
Like drops of blood amongst the white, red petals had been sprayed
across the path ahead.
I forced my gaze up, to Tam­lin, his shoul­ders back, head high.
So unaware of the true extent of how bro­ken and dark I was inside. How
unfit I was to be clothed in white when my hands were so filthy.
Every­one else was think­ing it. They had to be.
Every step was too fast, pro­pelling me toward the dais and Tam­lin. And
toward Ianthe, clothed in dark blue robes tonight, beam­ing beneath that
hood and sil­ver crown.
As if I were good—as if I hadn’t mur­dered two of their kind.
I was a mur­der­er and a liar.
A clus­ter of red petals loomed ahead—just like that Fae youth’s blood
had pooled at my feet.
Ten steps from the dais, at the edge of that splat­ter of red, I slowed.
Then stopped.
Every­one was watch­ing, exact­ly as they had when I’d near­ly died,
spec­ta­tors to my tor­ment.
Tam­lin extend­ed a broad hand, brows nar­row­ing slight­ly. My heart beat
so fast, too fast.
I was going to vom­it.
Right over those rose petals; right over the grass and rib­bons trail­ing into
the aisle from the chairs flank­ing it.
And between my skin and bones, some­thing thrummed and pound­ed,
ris­ing and push­ing, lash­ing through my blood—
So many eyes, too many eyes, pressed on me, wit­ness­es to every crime
I’d com­mit­ted, every humil­i­a­tion—
I don’t know why I’d even both­ered to wear gloves, why I’d let Ianthe
con­vince me.
The fad­ing sun was too hot, the gar­den too hedged in. As inescapable as
the vow I was about to make, bind­ing me to him for­ev­er, shack­ling him to
my bro­ken and weary soul. The thing inside me was roil­ing now, my body
shak­ing with the build­ing force of it as it hunt­ed for a way out—
Forever—I would nev­er get bet­ter, nev­er get free of myself, of that
dun­geon where I’d spent three months—
“Feyre,” Tam­lin said, his hand steady as he con­tin­ued to reach for mine.
The sun sank past the lip of the west­ern gar­den wall; shad­ows pooled,
chill­ing the air.
If I turned away, they’d start talk­ing, but I couldn’t make the last few
steps, couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t—
I was going to fall apart, right there, right then—and they’d see pre­cise­ly
how ruined I was.
Help me, help me, help me, I begged some­one, any­one. Begged Lucien,
stand­ing in the front row, his met­al eye fixed on me. Begged Ianthe, face
serene and patient and love­ly with­in that hood. Save me—please, save me.
Get me out. End this.
Tam­lin took a step toward me—concern shad­ing those eyes.
I retreat­ed a step. No.

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.

E VELYN AND I ARE BACK in her foy­er. “I’ll meet you in my office in a
half hour.”
“OK,” I say as Eve­lyn heads down the cor­ri­dor and out of sight. I
take off my coat and put it in the clos­et.
I should use this time to check in with Frankie. If I don’t reach out
to update her soon, she’ll track me down.
I just have to decide how I’m going to han­dle it. How do I make sure
she doesn’t try to wres­tle this away from me?
I think my only option is to pre­tend every­thing is going accord­ing
to plan. My only plan is to lie.
I breathe.
One of my ear­li­est mem­o­ries from when I was a child was of my
par­ents bring­ing me to Zuma Beach in Mal­ibu. It was still spring­time, I
think. The water hadn’t yet warmed enough for com­fort.
My mom stayed on the sand, set­ting down our blan­ket and
umbrel­la, while my dad scooped me up and ran with me down to the
shore­line. I remem­ber feel­ing weight­less in his arms. And then he put
my feet in the water, and I cried, telling him it was too cold.
He agreed with me. It was cold. But then he said, “Just breathe in
and out five times. And when you’re done, I bet it won’t feel so cold.”
I watched as he put his feet in. I watched him breathe. And then I
put my feet back in and breathed with him. He was right, of course. It
wasn’t so cold.
After that, my dad would breathe with me any­time I was on the
verge of tears. When I skinned my elbow, when my cousin called me
an Oreo, when my mom said we couldn’t get a pup­py, my father would
sit and breathe with me. It still hurts, all these years lat­er, to think
about those moments.
But for now, I keep breath­ing, right there in Evelyn’s foy­er,
cen­ter­ing myself as he taught me.
And then, when I feel calm, I pick up my phone and dial Frankie.
“Monique.” She answers on the sec­ond ring. “Tell me. How’s it
going?”
“It’s going well,” I say. I’m sur­prised at how even and flat my voice
is. “Eve­lyn is pret­ty much every­thing you’d expect from an icon. Still
gor­geous. Charis­mat­ic as ever.”
“And?”
“And . . . things are pro­gress­ing.”
“Is she com­mit­ting to talk about any oth­er top­ics than the gowns?”
What can I say now to start cov­er­ing my own ass? “You know, she’s
pret­ty ret­i­cent about any­thing oth­er than get­ting some press for the
auc­tion. I’m try­ing to play nice at the moment, get her to trust me a bit
more before I start push­ing.”
“Will she sit for a cov­er?”
“It’s too ear­ly to tell. Trust me, Frankie,” I say, and I hate how
sin­cere it sounds com­ing out of my mouth, “I know how impor­tant this
is. But right now, the best thing for me to do is make sure Eve­lyn likes
me so that I can try to gar­ner some influ­ence and advo­cate for what we
want.”
“OK,” Frankie says. “Obvi­ous­ly, I want more than a few sound bites
about dress­es, but that’s still more than any oth­er mag­a­zine has got­ten
from her in decades, so  .  .  .” Frankie keeps talk­ing, but I’ve stopped
lis­ten­ing. I’m far too focused on the fact that Frankie’s not even going
to get sound bites.
And I’m going to get far, far more.
“I should go,” I say, excus­ing myself. “She and I are talk­ing again in
a few min­utes.”
I hang up the phone and breathe out. I’ve got this shit.
As I make my way through the apart­ment, I can hear Grace in the
kitchen. I open the swing­ing door and spot her cut­ting flower stems.
“Sor­ry to both­er you. Eve­lyn said to meet her in her office, but I’m
not sure where that is.”
“Oh,” Grace says, putting down the scis­sors and wip­ing her hands
on a tow­el. “I’ll show you.”
I fol­low her up a set of stairs and into Evelyn’s study area. The walls
are a strik­ing flat char­coal gray, the area rug a gold­en beige. The large
win­dows are flanked by dark blue cur­tains, and on the oppo­site side of
the room are built-in book­cas­es. A gray-blue couch sits fac­ing an
over­sized glass desk.
Grace smiles and leaves me to wait for Eve­lyn. I drop my bag on the
sofa and check my phone.
“You take the desk,” Eve­lyn says as she comes in. She hands me a
glass of water. “I can only assume the way this works is that I talk and
you write.”
“I sup­pose,” I say, sit­ting in the desk chair. “I’ve nev­er attempt­ed to
write a biog­ra­phy before. After all, I’m not a biog­ra­ph­er.”
Eve­lyn looks at me point­ed­ly. She sits oppo­site me, on the sofa. “Let
me explain some­thing to you. When I was four­teen years old, my
moth­er had already died, and I was liv­ing with my father. The old­er I
got, the more I real­ized that it was only a mat­ter of time until my father
tried to mar­ry me off to a friend of his or his boss, some­one who could
help his sit­u­a­tion. And if I’m being hon­est, the more I devel­oped, the
less secure I was in the idea that my father might not try to take
some­thing of me for him­self.
“We were so broke that we were steal­ing the elec­tric­i­ty from the
apart­ment above us. There was one out­let in our place that was on
their cir­cuit, so we plugged any­thing we need­ed to use into that one
sock­et. If I need­ed to do home­work after dark, I plugged in a lamp in
that out­let and sat under­neath it with my book.
“My moth­er was a saint. I real­ly mean it. Stun­ning­ly beau­ti­ful, an
incred­i­ble singer, with a heart of gold. For years before she died, she
would always tell me that we were gonna get out of Hell’s Kitchen and
go straight to Hol­ly­wood. She said she was going to be the most
famous woman in the world and get us a man­sion on the beach. I had
this fan­ta­sy of the two of us togeth­er in a house, throw­ing par­ties,
drink­ing cham­pagne. And then she died, and it was like wak­ing up
from a dream. Sud­den­ly, I was in a world where none of that was ever
going to hap­pen. And I was going to be stuck in Hell’s Kitchen for­ev­er.
“I was gor­geous, even at four­teen. Oh, I know the whole world
prefers a woman who doesn’t know her pow­er, but I’m sick of all that. I
turned heads. Now, I take no pride in this. I didn’t make my own face. I
didn’t give myself this body. But I’m also not going to sit here and say,
‘Aw, shucks. Peo­ple real­ly thought I was pret­ty?’ like some kind of
prig.
“My friend Bev­er­ly knew a guy in her build­ing named Ernie Diaz
who was an elec­tri­cian. And Ernie knew a guy over at MGM. At least,
that was the rumor going around. And one day, Bev­er­ly told me she
heard that Ernie was up for some job rig­ging lights in Hol­ly­wood. So
that week­end, I made up a rea­son to go over to Beverly’s, and I
‘acci­den­tal­ly’ knocked on Ernie’s door. I knew exact­ly where Bev­er­ly
was. But I knocked on Ernie’s door and said, ‘Have you seen Bev­er­ly
Gustafson?’
“Ernie was twen­ty-two. He wasn’t hand­some by any means, but he
was fine to look at. He said he hadn’t seen her, but I watched as he
con­tin­ued to stare at me. I watched as his eyes start­ed at mine and
grazed their way down, scan­ning every inch of me in my favorite green
dress.
“And then Ernie said, ‘Sweet­heart, are you six­teen?’ I was four­teen,
remem­ber. But do you know what I did? I said, ‘Why, I just turned.’ ”
Eve­lyn looks at me with pur­pose. “Do you under­stand what I’m
telling you? When you’re giv­en an oppor­tu­ni­ty to change your life, be
ready to do what­ev­er it takes to make it hap­pen. The world doesn’t give
things, you take things. If you learn one thing from me, it should
prob­a­bly be that.”
Wow. “OK,” I say.
“You’ve nev­er been a biog­ra­ph­er before, but you are one start­ing
now.”
I nod my head. “I got it.”
“Good,” Eve­lyn says, relax­ing into the sofa. “So where do you want
to begin?”
I grab my note­book and look at the scrib­bled words I’ve cov­ered the
last few pages with. There are dates and film titles, ref­er­ences to
clas­sic images of her, rumors with ques­tion marks after them. And
then, in big let­ters that I went over and over with my pen, dark­en­ing
each let­ter until I changed the tex­ture of the page, I’ve writ­ten, “Who
was the love of Evelyn’s life???”
That’s the big ques­tion. That’s the hook of this book.
Sev­en hus­bands.
Which one did she love the best? Which one was the real one?
As both a jour­nal­ist and a con­sumer, that’s what I want to know. It
won’t be where the book begins, but maybe that is where she and I
should begin. I want to know, going into these mar­riages, which is the
one that mat­ters the most.
I look up at Eve­lyn to see her sit­ting up, ready for me.
“Who was the love of your life? Was it Har­ry Cameron?”
Eve­lyn thinks and then answers slow­ly. “Not in the way you mean,
no.”
“In what way, then?”
“Har­ry was my great­est friend. He invent­ed me. He was the per­son
who loved me the most uncon­di­tion­al­ly. The per­son I loved the most
pure­ly, I think. Oth­er than my daugh­ter. But no, he was not the love of
my life.”
“Why not?”
“Because that was some­one else.”
“OK, who was the love of your life, then?”
Eve­lyn nods, as if this is the ques­tion she has been expect­ing, as if
the sit­u­a­tion is unfold­ing exact­ly as she knew it would. But then she
shakes her head again. “You know what?” she says, stand­ing up. “It’s
get­ting late, isn’t it?”
I look at my watch. It’s midafter­noon. “Is it?”
“I think it is,” she says, and she walks toward me, toward the door.
“All right,” I say, stand­ing up to meet her.
Eve­lyn puts her arm around me and leads me out into the hall­way.
“Let’s pick up again on Mon­day. Would that be OK?”
“Uh . . . sure. Eve­lyn, did I say some­thing to offend you?”
Eve­lyn leads me down the stairs. “Not at all,” she says, wav­ing my
fears aside. “Not at all.”
There is a ten­sion that I can’t quite put my fin­ger on. Eve­lyn walks
with me until we hit the foy­er. She opens the clos­et. I reach in and grab
my coat.
“Back here?” Eve­lyn says. “Mon­day morn­ing? What do you say we
start around ten?”

In this chap­ter, the nar­ra­tor unfolds the com­plex­i­ties of liv­ing with a father whose life was dete­ri­o­rat­ing due to heavy drink­ing and the resul­tant finan­cial trou­bles. The father’s alco­holism not only impact­ed his busi­ness­es but also deeply affect­ed his fam­i­ly life, lead­ing to extreme mood swings that left the nar­ra­tor fear­ful, espe­cial­ly dur­ing car rides where the father would mut­ter unin­tel­li­gi­bly to him­self. This behav­ior reflects a man lost in his strug­gles, hint­ing at the deep­er issue of self-med­ica­tion as a cop­ing mech­a­nism for the abus­es he endured from his own father, June. This cycle of abuse and high expec­ta­tions affect­ed not only the nar­ra­tor but also their sib­ling, Bryan, who suf­fered under the weight of their father’s demands to excel in sports — a reflec­tion of the father’s own trau­mat­ic upbring­ing.

The nar­ra­tor yearns for a sem­blance of uncon­di­tion­al love from their father, a wish that remains unful­filled amidst the famil­ial tur­moil. The father’s rela­tion­ship with Bryan is par­tic­u­lar­ly strained, mir­ror­ing the harsh upbring­ing he him­self faced under June’s rigid expec­ta­tions. Fur­ther­more, the father’s errat­ic behav­ior extends to the treat­ment of the nar­ra­tor’s moth­er, man­i­fest­ing in bouts of absence from home which, para­dox­i­cal­ly, the nar­ra­tor found to be a relief. This absence, how­ev­er, did not quell the night­ly argu­ments between the par­ents, leav­ing the chil­dren as silent wit­ness­es to the dis­cord, strug­gling under the weight of an envi­ron­ment marked by unchecked alco­holism and the rip­ple effects of famil­ial abuse.

This chap­ter paints a por­trait of a fam­i­ly caught in the cycle of abuse and addic­tion, where the hope for love and sta­bil­i­ty remains elu­sive. The father’s strug­gle with alco­holism and the painful lega­cy of his upbring­ing under June cre­ate a somber atmos­phere, over­shad­ow­ing the basic need for parental love and accep­tance.

In Chap­ter 4, after leav­ing a live­ly book club meet­ing at Grace’s house, Patri­cia returns home, plung­ing from dis­cus­sions on mys­tery and crime into a sur­re­al con­fronta­tion in her own back­yard. The chap­ter opens with Patri­cia and her friends depart­ing from an engag­ing con­ver­sa­tion about the Bea­t­les and unsolved mur­ders, encap­su­lat­ing the sub­ur­ban con­tra­dic­tion of seek­ing excite­ment amidst rou­tine life. Grace and Patri­cia share a moment, reflect­ing on the mun­dane tasks await­ing them, like pack­ing lunch­es, against their thirst for some­thing thrilling to break the monot­o­ny. How­ev­er, Patri­ci­a’s wish for excite­ment man­i­fests unex­pect­ed­ly and ter­ri­fy­ing­ly.

As Patri­cia nav­i­gates the famil­iar yet eerie path home, trep­i­da­tion sets in, ampli­fied by the neglect of chores and the suf­fo­cat­ing night air. The nar­ra­tive weaves through Patri­ci­a’s domes­tic con­cerns and her role as care­giv­er to her moth­er-in-law, Miss Mary, high­light­ing the weight of her respon­si­bil­i­ties. The ordi­nary, such as tak­ing out the trash, quick­ly spi­rals into hor­ror when Patri­cia encoun­ters what she ini­tial­ly mis­takes for a large spill of garbage, but which turns out to be Mrs. Sav­age, the once-respect­ed neigh­bor­hood fig­ure, now behav­ing like an ani­mal.

In a grotesque twist, Patri­cia finds Mrs. Sav­age in the thrall of a pri­mal hunger, gnaw­ing on a rac­coon’s remains. The encounter esca­lates as Mrs. Sav­age attacks Patri­cia, lead­ing to a strug­gle for sur­vival. Patri­ci­a’s dis­be­lief and des­per­a­tion surge as Mrs. Sav­age, a sym­bol of neigh­bor­hood pro­pri­ety, becomes a source of ter­ror, bit­ing off Patricia’s ear­lobe in the fray. The bizarre alter­ca­tion is inter­rupt­ed by Patri­ci­a’s hus­band, Carter, whose arrival pre­cip­i­tates the chaot­ic cli­max, pulling Mrs. Sav­age away but not before Patri­cia is seri­ous­ly injured.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Patri­cia being treat­ed for her injuries, mus­ing over the absur­di­ty and bru­tal­i­ty of the night’s events. The tran­si­tion from idle sub­ur­ban chat­ter to vis­cer­al sur­vival high­lights a dis­turb­ing under­cur­rent of unpre­dictabil­i­ty in seem­ing­ly safe spaces. The nar­ra­tive bal­ances sub­ur­ban ennui with the shock of vio­lence, por­tray­ing a woman grap­pling with her desire for excite­ment and the stark real­i­ty of its actu­al­iza­tion. This inci­dent sets a tone of uneasy antic­i­pa­tion, merg­ing the mun­dane with the macabre and leav­ing Patri­cia to pon­der the costs of her once-inno­cent wish for some­thing thrilling to hap­pen.

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.

4
“Since when does Eddie Rochester have a dog?”
Mrs. Clark—Emily, I’m actu­al­ly sup­posed to call her by her first name—is smil­ing.
She’s always smil­ing, prob­a­bly to show off those per­fect veneers that must have cost a for­tune.
Emi­ly is just as thin as Mrs. Reed and just as rich, but rather than Mrs. Reed’s cute sweater sets,
Emi­ly is always wear­ing expen­sive ath­let­ic wear. I’m not sure if she actu­al­ly goes to the gym, but she
spends every sec­ond look­ing like she’s wait­ing for a yoga class to break out. She’s hold­ing a
mono­grammed cof­fee ther­mos now, the E print­ed in bold pink on a flo­ral back­ground, and even with
that smile, I don’t miss the hard look in her eyes. One thing grow­ing up in the fos­ter sys­tem taught me
was to watch people’s eyes more than you lis­tened to what they said. Mouths were good at lying, but
eyes usu­al­ly told the truth.
“He just got her,” I reply. “Last week, I think.”
I knew it had been last week because Eddie had been as good as his word. He’d adopt­ed the Irish
set­ter pup­py, Adele, the day after we met. I’d start­ed walk­ing her the next day, and appar­ent­ly Emi­ly
had seen me because her first ques­tion this morn­ing had been, “Whose dog were you walk­ing
yes­ter­day?”
Emi­ly sighs and shakes her head, one fist propped on a nar­row hip. Her rings catch the light,
send­ing sprays of lit­tle rain­bows over her white cab­i­nets. She has a lot of those rings, so many she
can’t wear them all.
So many she hasn’t noticed that one, a ruby soli­taire, went miss­ing two weeks ago.
“Maybe that’ll help,” she says, and then she leans in a lit­tle clos­er, like she’s shar­ing a secret.
“His wife died, you know,” she says, the words almost a whis­per. Her voice drops to near­ly
inaudi­ble on died, like just say­ing the word out loud will bring death knock­ing at her door or
some­thing. “Or at least, we pre­sume. She’s been miss­ing for six months, so it’s not look­ing good.”
“I heard that,” I say, non­cha­lant, like I hadn’t gone home last night and googled Blanche Ingra­ham,
like I hadn’t sat in the dark of my bed­room and read the words, Also miss­ing and pre­sumed dead is
Bea Rochester, founder of the South­ern Manors retail empire.
And that I hadn’t then looked up Bea Rochester’s hus­band.
Edward.
Eddie.
The joy that had bloomed in my chest read­ing that arti­cle had been a dark and ugly thing, the sort
of emo­tion I knew I wasn’t sup­posed to feel, but I couldn’t real­ly make myself care. He’s free, she’s
gone, and now I have an excuse to see him every week. An excuse to be in that gor­geous home in this
gor­geous neigh­bor­hood.
“It was so. Sad,” Emi­ly drawls, appar­ent­ly deter­mined to hash out the entire thing for me. Her
eyes are bright now. Gos­sip is cur­ren­cy in this neigh­bor­hood, and she’s clear­ly about to make it rain.
“Bea and Blanche were like this.” Twist­ing her index and mid­dle fin­ger togeth­er, she holds them
up to my face. “They’d been best friends for­ev­er, too. Since they were, like, lit­tle bit­ty.”
I nod, as if I have any idea what it’s like to have a best friend. Or to have known some­one since I
was lit­tle bit­ty.
“Eddie and Bea had a place down at Smith Lake, and Blanche and Tripp used to go down there
with them all the time. But the boys weren’t there when it hap­pened.”
The boys. Like they’re sev­enth graders and not men in their thir­ties.
“I don’t even know why they took the boat out because Bea didn’t real­ly like it. That was always
Eddie’s thing, but I bet he nev­er gets on a boat again.”
She’s watch­ing me again, her dark eyes nar­rowed a lit­tle, and I know she wants me to say
some­thing, or to look shocked or maybe even eager. It’s no fun to spill gos­sip if the recip­i­ent seems
bored, so that’s why I keep my face com­plete­ly neu­tral, no more inter­est than if we were talk­ing about
the weath­er.
It’s sat­is­fy­ing, watch­ing her strive to get a reac­tion out of me.
“That all sounds real­ly awful,” I offer up.
Low­er­ing her voice, Emi­ly leans in even clos­er. “They still don’t even real­ly know what
hap­pened. The boat was found out in the mid­dle of the lake, no lights on. Blanche’s and Bea’s things
were all still inside the house. Police think they must’ve had too much to drink and decid­ed to take the
boat out, but then fall­en over­board. Or one fell and the oth­er tried to help her.”
Anoth­er head shake. “Just real, real sad.”
“Right,” I say, and this time, it’s a lit­tle hard­er to fake not car­ing. There’s some­thing about that
image, the boat in the dark water, one woman scrab­bling against the side of the boat, the oth­er lean­ing
down to help her only to fall in, too …
But it must not show on my face because Emily’s smile is more a gri­mace now, and there’s
some­thing a lit­tle robot­ic in her shrug as she says, “Well, it was tough on all of us, real­ly. A blow to
the whole neigh­bor­hood. Tripp is just a mess, but I guess you know that.”
Again, I don’t say any­thing. Mess does not even begin to describe Tripp. Just the oth­er day, he
asked if I’d start pack­ing up some of his wife’s things for him, since he can’t bring him­self to do it. I
was going to refuse because spend­ing any more time in that house seems like a fuck­ing night­mare, but
he’s offered to pay me dou­ble, so I’m think­ing about it.
Now I just watch Emi­ly with a bland expres­sion. Final­ly, she sighs and says, “Any­way, if Eddie’s
get­ting a dog, maybe that’s a sign that he’s mov­ing on. He didn’t seem to take it as hard as Tripp did,
but then he didn’t depend on Bea like Tripp did on Blanche. I swear, that boy couldn’t go to the
bath­room before ask­ing Blanche if she thought that was a good idea. Eddie wasn’t like that with Bea,
but god, he was bro­ken up.”
Her dark hair brush­es her shoul­der blades as she swings her head to look at me again. “He was
crazy about her. We all were.”
I fight down the bit­ter swell in my chest, think­ing back to the one pho­to I pulled up of Bea
Rochester on my lap­top. She was strik­ing­ly beau­ti­ful, but Eddie is hand­some, more so than most of
the hus­bands around here, so it’s not a sur­prise that they were a matched set.

In Chap­ter 4 enti­tled “Shee­ta” from “The Beasts of Tarzan,” Tarzan ded­i­cates his time to craft­ing weapons, explor­ing his new envi­ron­ment, and refin­ing his sur­vival skills. Choos­ing the jun­gle as his home and work­place, he uses mate­ri­als from his kills, such as ten­dons and hides, to make essen­tial tools and attire, includ­ing a bow, arrows, and cloth­ing. His knowl­edge of the jun­gle and its inhab­i­tants deep­ens, and he iden­ti­fies that he is strand­ed on unknown land, spec­u­lat­ing on its geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion based on the sun’s posi­tion and the marine direc­tion, even­tu­al­ly hypoth­e­siz­ing he’s on an island.

Feel­ing a strong sense of lone­li­ness and long­ing for com­pan­ion­ship, Tarzan rem­i­nisces about his past inter­ac­tions with a tribe of great apes and begins to miss their com­pa­ny. His soli­tary expe­di­tion is soon inter­rupt­ed by the pres­ence of Shee­ta, a pan­ther he wish­es to kill for prac­ti­cal pur­pos­es. How­ev­er, the hunt takes an unex­pect­ed turn when he dis­cov­ers the pan­ther stalk­ing a tribe of apes led by Akut. Tarzan inter­venes, sav­ing Akut from Shee­ta in a bru­tal con­fronta­tion, there­by strength­en­ing his bond with the ape tribe and secur­ing their loy­al­ty through a demon­stra­tion of strength and mer­cy. This act of val­or also serves to remind the apes of Tarzan’s prowess and cements a mutu­al respect among them.

Tarzan’s actions rein­force his dom­i­nance and influ­ence with­in the jun­gle, reflect­ing a deep under­stand­ing and respect for its laws and crea­tures. His inter­ac­tion with the apes and sub­se­quent deci­sion to explore fur­ther solid­i­fies his belong­ing in the wild, dis­tanc­ing him from the last ves­tiges of civ­i­liza­tion he once knew. The chap­ter con­cludes with a con­tem­pla­tive Tarzan mak­ing a poignant real­iza­tion about his iso­la­tion. Yet, in a demon­stra­tion of his adapt­abil­i­ty and resilience, he befriends a trapped pan­ther named Shee­ta by sav­ing it, lat­er col­lab­o­rat­ing in hunt­ing and shar­ing meals, show­cas­ing Tarzan’s abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate and form alliances across species.

As Tarzan and Shee­ta con­tin­ue their sym­bi­ot­ic part­ner­ship, they encounter var­i­ous jun­gle dan­gers togeth­er, rein­forc­ing Tarzan’s role as a medi­a­tor between the wild’s bru­tal­i­ty and the under­ly­ing con­nec­tions among its inhab­i­tants. His unwa­ver­ing courage and inno­v­a­tive think­ing, espe­cial­ly in using his skills to maneu­ver through chal­lenges and build rela­tion­ships with­in the ani­mal king­dom, high­light his unique posi­tion as both a part of the nat­ur­al world and a pro­tec­tor of those he aligns with. This chap­ter encap­su­lates Tarzan’s com­plex rela­tion­ship with the jun­gle, por­tray­ing him as both a for­mi­da­ble preda­tor and a com­pas­sion­ate being capa­ble of pro­found con­nec­tions across the nat­ur­al world.