In Chap­ter 29, the nar­ra­tor recounts the ease of devis­ing sto­ries about her time with Aunt Ripleigh, whose for­tune she inher­it­ed. This lega­cy was­n’t just in attire but includ­ed trunks brim­ming with gold and uncut jew­els vast enough to pur­chase thou­sands of estates. Her father is invig­o­rat­ed, metic­u­lous­ly cat­a­loging these trea­sures. The sight of him, recov­ered and vibrant, deep­ens her appre­ci­a­tion for Tam­lin’s past kind­ness.

The fam­i­ly dynam­ic is trans­form­ing. Her father, refreshed and live­ly, con­trasts stark­ly with her sis­ter Nes­ta’s ret­i­cence. Elain, how­ev­er, thrives, immers­ing her­self in her gar­den, dream­ing of vis­it­ing the tulip fields of the continent—an enthu­si­asm she wish­es to share with the nar­ra­tor. Despite the allure of these dis­tant land­scapes, a deep­er yearn­ing for explo­ration emerges with­in the nar­ra­tor, a desire pre­vi­ous­ly stifed by cir­cum­stance.

Amid blos­som­ing flow­ers, the nar­ra­tor con­vers­es with Elain about soci­etal rein­te­gra­tion post-dis­grace. Elain express­es dis­il­lu­sion­ment with their new­found sta­tus and a sub­tle long­ing for their sim­pler past, despite its hard­ships. Nes­ta’s iso­la­tion and unex­plained with­draw­al from the social sea­son under­score the famil­ial estrange­ment exac­er­bat­ed by their vary­ing cop­ing mech­a­nisms.

The nar­ra­tor observes a sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tion with­in her­self, a resid­ual lumi­nes­cence from her time in Pry­thi­an, which she fears to lose. Elain, obliv­i­ous to the deep­er truths of the nar­ra­tor’s expe­ri­ences, probes inno­cent­ly about any roman­tic encoun­ters, to which the nar­ra­tor responds vague­ly.

Days blend as the nar­ra­tor finds solace in Elain’s com­pa­ny and her bur­geon­ing gar­den aspi­ra­tions. Observ­ing Elain’s untaint­ed radi­ance and the gen­er­al affec­tion she com­mands, the nar­ra­tor con­tem­plates her pro­found wealth. Resolv­ing to share her for­tune, she revis­its the famil­iar­i­ty of their pre­vi­ous, hum­bler dwelling, embark­ing with intent and the echoes of her recent, trans­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ences.

Through reflec­tions on famil­ial bonds, the allure of the unknown, and the rem­nants of mag­i­cal influ­ence, this chap­ter explores themes of renew­al, dis­place­ment, and the endur­ing quest for iden­ti­ty amid change.

Nina returns home from deliv­er­ing Cecelia to camp in the ear­ly after­noon, bur­dened with four siz­able shop­ping bags from an unsched­uled spree, which she care­less­ly sets down in the liv­ing room. She excit­ed­ly shares her find with Mil­lie, though her appear­ance is less than pris­tine, with sweat marks and unkempt hair, leav­ing Mil­lie per­plexed about Andrew’s affec­tion for her. Tasked by Nina to car­ry the heavy bags upstairs, Mil­lie feels belit­tled, espe­cial­ly when Nina com­ments on her phys­i­cal con­di­tion, imply­ing she’s become soft.

On her way up, Nina con­fronts Mil­lie about not answer­ing the house phone the pre­vi­ous night, a sup­posed respon­si­bil­i­ty of Mil­lie’s. Caught off guard, Mil­lie fab­ri­cates an excuse, unaware if Andrew had left the house late. Nina’s sus­pi­cion grows, unaware of Mil­lie’s inti­mate moment with Andrew, their shared out­ing replac­ing what should have been Nina’s expe­ri­ence. Mil­lie wor­ries about Nina’s poten­tial reac­tion if she dis­cov­ered their secret tryst.

After car­ry­ing the bags to the mas­ter bed­room, Mil­lie’s atten­tion is drawn to the metic­u­lous­ly cleaned mas­ter bath­room, reflect­ing on a grim mem­o­ry. She imag­ines a young Cecelia in the bath­tub, with Nina forcibly sub­merg­ing her, a chill­ing scene sug­gest­ing a dark his­to­ry between Nina and her daugh­ter. Mil­lie stands in the large bath­room, con­tem­plat­ing the unset­tling event from the past, bur­dened by the secrets and ten­sions with­in the house­hold.

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
29
Despite the chill night, every shop was open as we walked through the city.
Musi­cians played in the lit­tle squares, and the Palace of Thread and Jew­els
was packed with shop­pers and per­form­ers, High Fae and less­er faeries
alike. But we con­tin­ued past, down to the riv­er itself, the water so smooth
that the stars and lights blend­ed on its dark sur­face like a liv­ing rib­bon of
eter­ni­ty.
The five of them were unhur­ried as we strolled across one of the wide
mar­ble bridges span­ning the Sidra, often mov­ing for­ward or drop­ping back
to chat with one anoth­er. From the ornate lanterns that lined either side of
the bridge, fae­light cast gold­en shad­ows on the wings of the three males,
gild­ing the talons at the apex of each.
The con­ver­sa­tion ranged from the peo­ple they knew, match­es and teams
for sports I’d nev­er heard of (appar­ent­ly, Amren was a vicious, obses­sive
sup­port­er of one), new shops, music they’d heard, clubs they favored …
Not a men­tion of Hybern or the threats we faced—no doubt from secre­cy,
but I had a feel­ing it was also because tonight, this time togeth­er … they did
not want that ter­ri­ble, hideous pres­ence intrud­ing. As if they were all just
ordi­nary citizens—even Rhys. As if they weren’t the most pow­er­ful peo­ple
in this court, maybe in all of Pry­thi­an. And no one, absolute­ly no one, on
the street balked or paled or ran.
Awed, per­haps a lit­tle intim­i­dat­ed, but … no fear. It was so unusu­al that I
kept silent, mere­ly observ­ing them—their world. The nor­mal­cy that they
each fought so hard to pre­serve. That I had once raged against, resent­ed.
But there was no place like this in the world. Not so serene. So loved by
its peo­ple and its rulers.
The oth­er side of the city was even more crowd­ed, with patrons in fin­ery
out to attend the many the­aters we passed. I’d nev­er seen a the­ater before—
nev­er seen a play, or a con­cert, or a sym­pho­ny. In our ram­shackle vil­lage,
we’d got­ten mum­mers and min­strels at best—herds of beg­gars yowl­ing on
makeshift instru­ments at worst.
We strolled along the river­side walk­way, past shops and cafés, music
spilling from them. And I thought—even as I hung back from the oth­ers,
my gloved hands stuffed into the pock­ets of my heavy blue overcoat—that
the sounds of it all might have been the most beau­ti­ful thing I’d ever heard:
the peo­ple, and the riv­er, and the music; the clank of sil­ver­ware on plates;
the scrape of chairs being pulled out and pushed in; the shouts of ven­dors
sell­ing their wares as they ambled past.
How much had I missed in these months of despair and numb­ness?
But no longer. The lifeblood of Velaris thrummed through me, and in rare
moments of qui­et, I could have sworn I heard the clash of the sea, claw­ing
at the dis­tant cliffs.
Even­tu­al­ly, we entered a small restau­rant beside the riv­er, built into the
low­er lev­el of a two-sto­ry build­ing, the whole space bedecked in greens and
golds and bare­ly big enough to fit all of us. And three sets of Illyr­i­an wings.
But the own­er knew them, and kissed them each on the cheek, even
Rhysand. Well, except for Amren, whom the own­er bowed to before she
hus­tled back into her kitchen and bade us sit at the large table that was half
in, half out of the open store­front. The star­ry night was crisp, the wind
rustling the pot­ted palms placed with lov­ing care along the river­side
walk­way rail­ing. No doubt spelled to keep from dying in the winter—just as
the warmth of the restau­rant kept the chill from dis­turb­ing us or any of
those din­ing in the open air at the river’s edge.
Then the food plat­ters began pour­ing out, along with the wine and the
con­ver­sa­tion, and we dined under the stars beside the riv­er. I’d nev­er had
such food—warm and rich and savory and spicy. Like it filled not only my
stom­ach, but that lin­ger­ing hole in my chest, too.
The owner—a slim, dark-skinned female with love­ly brown eyes—was
stand­ing behind my chair, chat­ting with Rhys about the lat­est ship­ment of
spices that had come to the Palaces. “The traders were say­ing the prices
might rise, High Lord, espe­cial­ly if rumors about Hybern awak­en­ing are
cor­rect.”
Down the table, I felt the oth­ers’ atten­tion slide to us, even as they kept
talk­ing.
Rhys leaned back in his seat, swirling his gob­let of wine. “We’ll find a
way to keep the prices from sky­rock­et­ing.”
“Don’t trou­ble your­self, of course,” the own­er said, wring­ing her fin­gers
a bit. “It’s just … so love­ly to have such spices avail­able again—now that
… that things are bet­ter.”
Rhys gave her a gen­tle smile, the one that made him seem younger. “I
wouldn’t be trou­bling myself—not when I like your cook­ing so much.”
The own­er beamed, flush­ing, and looked to where I’d half twist­ed in my
seat to watch her. “Is it to your lik­ing?”
The hap­pi­ness on her face, the sat­is­fac­tion that only a day of hard work
doing some­thing you love could bring, hit me like a stone.
I—I remem­bered feel­ing that way. After paint­ing from morn­ing until
night. Once, that was all I had want­ed for myself. I looked to the dish­es,
then back at her, and said, “I’ve lived in the mor­tal realm, and lived in oth­er
courts, but I’ve nev­er had food like this. Food that makes me … feel
awake.”
It sound­ed about as stu­pid as it felt com­ing out, but I couldn’t think of
anoth­er way to say it. But the own­er nod­ded like she under­stood and
squeezed my shoul­der. “Then I’ll bring you a spe­cial dessert,” she said, and
strode into her kitchen.
I turned back to my plate, but found Rhysand’s eyes on me. His face was
soft­er, more con­tem­pla­tive than I’d ever seen it, his mouth slight­ly open.
I lift­ed my brows. What?
He gave me a cocky grin and leaned in to hear the sto­ry Mor was telling
about—
I for­got what she was talk­ing about as the own­er emerged with a met­al
gob­let full of dark liq­uid and placed it before Amren.
Rhys’s Sec­ond hadn’t touched her plate, but pushed the food around like
she might actu­al­ly be try­ing to be polite. When she saw the gob­let laid
before her, she flicked her brows up. “You didn’t have to do that.”
The own­er shrugged her slim shoul­ders. “It’s fresh and hot, and we
need­ed the beast for tomorrow’s roast, any­way.”
I had a hor­ri­ble feel­ing I knew what was inside.
Amren swirled the gob­let, the dark liq­uid lap­ping at the sides like wine,
then sipped from it. “You spiced it nice­ly.” Blood gleamed on her teeth.
The own­er bowed. “No one leaves my place hun­gry,” she said before
walk­ing away.
Indeed, I almost asked Mor to roll me out of the restau­rant by the time
we were done and Rhys had paid the tab, despite the owner’s protests. My
mus­cles were bark­ing thanks to my ear­li­er train­ing in the mor­tal for­est, and
at some point dur­ing the meal, every part of me I’d used while tack­ling
Rhys into the snow had start­ed to ache.
Mor rubbed her stom­ach in lazy cir­cles as we paused beside the riv­er. “I
want to go danc­ing. I won’t be able to fall asleep when I’m this full. Rita’s
is right up the street.”
Danc­ing. My body groaned in protest and I glanced about for an ally to
shoot down this ridicu­lous idea.
But Azriel—Azriel said, his eyes whol­ly on Mor, “I’m in.”
“Of course you are,” Cass­ian grum­bled, frown­ing at him. “Don’t you
have to be off at dawn?”
Mor’s frown now mir­rored Cassian’s—as if she real­ized where and what
he’d be doing tomor­row. She said to Azriel, “We don’t have to—”
“I want to,” Azriel said, hold­ing her gaze long enough that Mor dropped
it, twist­ed toward Cass­ian, and said, “Will you deign to join us, or do you
have plans to ogle your mus­cles in the mir­ror?”
Cass­ian snort­ed, loop­ing his elbow through hers and lead­ing her up the
street. “I’ll go—for the drinks, you ass. No danc­ing.”
“Thank the Moth­er. You near­ly shat­tered my foot the last time you tried.”
It was an effort not to stare at Azriel as he watched them head up the
steep street, arm in arm and bick­er­ing with every step. The shad­ows
gath­ered around his shoul­ders, like they were indeed whis­per­ing to him,
shield­ing him, per­haps. His broad chest expand­ed with a deep breath that
sent them skit­ter­ing, and then he set into an easy, grace­ful stroll after them.
If Azriel was going with them, then any excuse I might make not to—
I turned plead­ing eyes to Amren, but she’d van­ished.
“She’s get­ting more blood in the back to take home with her,” Rhys said
in my ear, and I near­ly jumped out of my skin. His chuck­le was warm
against my neck. “And then she’ll be going right to her apart­ment to gorge
her­self.”
I tried not to shud­der as I faced him. “Why blood?”
“It doesn’t seem polite to ask.”
I frowned up at him. “Are you going danc­ing?”
He peered over my shoul­der at his friends, who had almost scaled the
steep street, some peo­ple paus­ing to greet them. “I’d rather walk home,”
Rhys said at last. “It’s been a long day.”
Mor turned back at the top of the hill, her pur­ple clothes float­ing around
her in the win­ter wind, and raised a dark gold brow. Rhys shook his head,
and she waved, fol­lowed by short waves from Azriel and Cass­ian, who’d
dropped back to talk with his broth­er-in-arms.
Rhys ges­tured for­ward. “Shall we? Or are you too cold?”
Con­sum­ing blood with Amren in the back of the restau­rant sound­ed more
appeal­ing, but I shook my head and fell into step beside him as we walked
along the riv­er toward the bridge.
I drank in the city as greed­i­ly as Amren had gob­bled down the spiced
blood, and I almost stum­bled as I spied the glim­mer of col­or across the
water.
The Rain­bow of Velaris glowed like a fist­ful of jew­els, as if the paint
they used on their hous­es came alive in the moon­light.
“This is my favorite view in the city,” Rhys said, stop­ping at the met­al
rail­ing along the riv­er walk­way and gaz­ing toward the artists’ quar­ter. “It
was my sister’s favorite, too. My father used to have to drag her kick­ing and
scream­ing out of Velaris, she loved it so much.”
I fum­bled for the right response to the qui­et sor­row in those words. But
like a use­less fool, I mere­ly asked, “Then why are both your hous­es on the
oth­er side of the riv­er?” I leaned against the rail­ing, watch­ing the reflec­tions
of the Rain­bow wob­ble on the riv­er sur­face like bright fish­es strug­gling in
the cur­rent.
“Because I want­ed a qui­et street—so I could vis­it this clam­or when­ev­er I
wished and then have a home to retreat to.”
“You could have just reordered the city.”
“Why the hell would I change one thing about this place?”
“Isn’t that what High Lords do?” My breath cloud­ed in front of me in the
brisk night. “What­ev­er they please?”
He stud­ied my face. “There are a great many things that I wish to do, and
don’t get to.”
I hadn’t real­ized how close we were stand­ing. “So when you buy jew­el­ry
for Amren, is it to keep your­self in her good graces or because you’re—
togeth­er?”
Rhys barked a laugh. “When I was young and stu­pid, I once invit­ed her
to my bed. She laughed her­self hoarse. The jew­el­ry is just because I enjoy
buy­ing it for a friend who works hard for me, and has my back when I need
it. Stay­ing in her good graces is an added bonus.”
None of it sur­prised me. “And you didn’t mar­ry any­one.”
“So many ques­tions tonight.” I stared at him until he sighed. “I’ve had
lovers, but I nev­er felt tempt­ed to invite one of them to share a life with me.
And I hon­est­ly think that if I’d asked, they all would have said no.”
“I would have thought they’d be fight­ing each oth­er to win your hand.”
Like Ianthe.
“Mar­ry­ing me means a life with a tar­get on your back—and if there were
off­spring, then a life of know­ing they’d be hunt­ed from the moment they
were con­ceived. Every­one knows what hap­pened to my family—and my
peo­ple know that beyond our bor­ders, we are hat­ed.”
I still didn’t know the full sto­ry, but I asked, “Why? Why are you hat­ed?
Why keep the truth of this place secret? It’s a shame no one knows about it
—what good you do here.”
“There was a time when the Night Court was a Court of Night­mares and
was ruled from the Hewn City. Long ago. But an ancient High Lord had a
dif­fer­ent vision, and rather than allow­ing the world to see his ter­ri­to­ry
vul­ner­a­ble at a time of change, he sealed the bor­ders and staged a coup,
elim­i­nat­ing the worst of the courtiers and preda­tors, build­ing Velaris for the
dream­ers, estab­lish­ing trade and peace.”
His eyes blazed, as if he could peer all the way back in time to see it.
With those remark­able gifts of his, it wouldn’t sur­prise me.
“To pre­serve it,” Rhys con­tin­ued, “he kept it a secret, and so did his
off­spring, and their off­spring. There are many spells on the city itself—laid
by him, and his Heirs, that make those who trade here unable to spill our
secrets, and grant them adept skills at lying in order to keep the ori­gin of
their goods, their ships, hid­den from the rest of the world. Rumor has it that
ancient High Lord cast his very life’s blood upon the stones and riv­er to
keep that spell eter­nal.
“But along the way, despite his best inten­tions, dark­ness grew again—not
as bad as it had once been … But bad enough that there is a per­ma­nent
divide with­in my court. We allow the world to see the oth­er half, to fear
them—so that they might nev­er guess this place thrives here. And we allow
the Court of Night­mares to con­tin­ue, blind to Velaris’s exis­tence, because
we know that with­out them, there are some courts and king­doms that might
strike us. And invade our bor­ders to dis­cov­er the many, many secrets we’ve
kept from the oth­er High Lords and courts these mil­len­nia.”
“So tru­ly none of the oth­ers know? In the oth­er courts?”
“Not a soul. You will not find it on a sin­gle map, or men­tioned in any
book beyond those writ­ten here. Per­haps it is our loss to be so con­tained
and iso­lat­ed, but … ” He ges­tured to the city around us. “My peo­ple do not
seem to be suf­fer­ing much for it.”
Indeed, they did not. Thanks to Rhys—and his Inner Cir­cle. “Are you
wor­ried about Az going to the mor­tal lands tomor­row?”
He tapped a fin­ger against the rail. “Of course I am. But Azriel has
infil­trat­ed places far more har­row­ing than a few mor­tal courts. He’d find
my wor­ry­ing insult­ing.”
“Does he mind what he does? Not the spy­ing, I mean. What he did to the
Attor today.”
Rhys loosed a breath. “It’s hard to tell with him—and he’d nev­er tell me.
I’ve wit­nessed Cass­ian rip apart oppo­nents and then puke his guts up once
the car­nage stopped, some­times even mourn them. But Azriel … Cass­ian
tries, I try—but I think the only per­son who ever gets him to admit to any
sort of feel­ing is Mor. And that’s only when she’s pestered him to the point
where even his infi­nite patience has run out.”
I smiled a bit. “But he and Mor—they nev­er … ?”
“That’s between them—and Cass­ian. I’m not stu­pid or arro­gant enough
to get in the mid­dle of it.” Which I would cer­tain­ly be if I shoved my nose
in their busi­ness.
We walked in silence across the packed bridge to the oth­er side of the
riv­er. My mus­cles quiv­ered at the steep hills between us and the town
house.
I was about to beg Rhys to fly me home when I caught the strands of
music pour­ing from a group of per­form­ers out­side a restau­rant.
My hands slack­ened at my sides. A reduced ver­sion of the sym­pho­ny I’d
heard in a chill dun­geon, when I had been so lost to ter­ror and despair that I
had hallucinated—hallucinated as this music poured into my cell … and
kept me from shat­ter­ing.
And once more, the beau­ty of it hit me, the lay­er­ing and sway­ing, the joy
and peace.
They had nev­er played a piece like it Under the Mountain—never this
sort of music. And I’d nev­er heard music in my cell save for that one time.
“You,” I breathed, not tak­ing my eyes from the musi­cians play­ing so
skill­ful­ly that even the din­ers had set down their forks in the cafés near­by.
“You sent that music into my cell. Why?”
Rhysand’s voice was hoarse. “Because you were break­ing. And I
couldn’t find anoth­er way to save you.”
The music swelled and built. I’d seen a palace in the sky when I’d
hallucinated—a place between sun­set and dawn … a house of moon­stone
pil­lars. “I saw the Night Court.”
He glanced side­long at me. “I didn’t send those images to you.”
I didn’t care. “Thank you. For everything—for what you did. Then …
and now.”
“Even after the Weaver? After this morn­ing with my trap for the Attor?”
My nos­trils flared. “You ruin every­thing.”
Rhys grinned, and I didn’t notice if peo­ple were star­ing as he slid an arm
under my legs, and shot us both into the sky.
I could learn to love it, I real­ized. The fly­ing.
I was read­ing in bed, lis­ten­ing to the mer­ry chat­ter of the toasty birch fire
across the room, when I turned the page of my book and a piece of paper
fell out.
I took one look at the cream sta­tionery and the hand­writ­ing and sat up
straight.
On it, Rhysand had writ­ten,
I might be a shame­less flirt, but at least I don’t have a hor­ri­ble tem­per.
You should come tend to my wounds from our squab­ble in the snow. I’m
bruised all over thanks to you.
Some­thing clicked against the night­stand, and a pen rolled across the
pol­ished mahogany. Hiss­ing, I snatched it up and scrib­bled:
Go lick your wounds and leave me be.
The paper van­ished.
It was gone for a while—far longer than it should have tak­en to write the
few words that appeared on the paper when it returned.
I’d much rather you licked my wounds for me.
My heart pound­ed, faster and faster, and a strange sort of rush went
through my veins as I read the sen­tence again and again. A chal­lenge.
I clamped my lips shut to keep from smil­ing as I wrote,
Lick you where, exact­ly?
The paper van­ished before I’d even com­plet­ed the final mark.
His reply was a long time com­ing. Then,
Wher­ev­er you want to lick me, Feyre.
I’d like to start with “Every­where,” but I can choose, if nec­es­sary.
I wrote back,
Let’s hope my lick­ing is bet­ter than yours. I remem­ber how hor­ri­ble you
were at it Under the Moun­tain.
Lie. He’d licked away my tears when I’d been a moment away from
shat­ter­ing.
He’d done it to keep me distracted—keep me angry. Because anger was
bet­ter than feel­ing noth­ing; because anger and hatred were the long-last­ing
fuel in the end­less dark of my despair. The same way that music had kept
me from break­ing.
Lucien had come to patch me up a few times, but no one risked quite so
much in keep­ing me not only alive, but as men­tal­ly intact as I could be
con­sid­er­ing the cir­cum­stances. Just as he’d been doing these past few
weeks—taunting and teas­ing me to keep the hol­low­ness at bay. Just as he
was doing now.
I was under duress, his next note read. If you want, I’d be more than
hap­py to prove you wrong. I’ve been told I’m very, very good at lick­ing.
I clenched my knees togeth­er and wrote back, Good night.
A heart­beat lat­er, his note said, Try not to moan too loud­ly when you
dream about me. I need my beau­ty rest.
I got up, chucked the let­ter in the bur­bling fire, and gave it a vul­gar
ges­ture.

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.

F OR TWO MONTHS, I WAS liv­ing in near bliss. Celia and I nev­er talked
about Mick, because we didn’t have to. Instead, we could go wher­ev­er
we want­ed, do what­ev­er we want­ed.
Celia bought a sec­ond car, a bor­ing brown sedan, and left it parked
in my dri­ve­way every night with­out any­one ask­ing ques­tions. We
would sleep cradling each oth­er, turn­ing off the light an hour before
we want­ed to fall asleep so that we could talk in the dark­ness. I would
trace the lines of her palm with my fin­ger­tips in the morn­ings to wake
her up. On my birth­day, she took me out to the Polo Lounge. We were
hid­ing in plain sight.
For­tu­nate­ly, paint­ing me as some woman who couldn’t keep a
hus­band sold more papers—for a longer peri­od of time—than out­ing
me. I’m not say­ing the gos­sip colum­nists print­ed what they knew to be
a lie. I’m sim­ply say­ing they were all too hap­py to believe the lie I was
sell­ing them. And of course, that’s the eas­i­est lie to tell, one you know
the oth­er per­son des­per­ate­ly wants to be true.
All I had to do was make sure that my roman­tic scan­dals felt like a
sto­ry that would keep mak­ing head­lines. And as long as I did that, I
knew the gos­sip rags would nev­er look too close­ly at Celia.
And it was all work­ing so god­damn beau­ti­ful­ly.
Until I found out I was preg­nant.
  *  *  *  
“YOU ARE NOT,” Celia said to me. She was stand­ing in my pool in a
laven­der pol­ka-dot biki­ni and sun­glass­es.
“Yes,” I said. “I am.”
I had just brought her out a glass of iced tea from the kitchen. I was
stand­ing right in front of her, loom­ing over her, in a blue cov­er-up and
san­dals. I’d sus­pect­ed I was preg­nant for two weeks. I’d known for
sure since the day before, when I went to Bur­bank and saw a dis­creet
doc­tor Har­ry had rec­om­mend­ed.
I told her then, when she was in the pool and I was hold­ing a glass
of iced tea with a slice of lemon in it, because I couldn’t hold it in
any­more.
I am and have always been a great liar. But Celia was sacred to me.
And I nev­er want­ed to lie to her.
I was under no illu­sions about how much it had cost Celia and me to
be togeth­er and that it was going to con­tin­ue to cost us more. It was
like a tax on being hap­py. The world was going to take fifty per­cent of
my hap­pi­ness. But I could keep the oth­er fifty per­cent.
And that was her. And this life we had.
But keep­ing some­thing like this from her felt wrong. And I couldn’t
do it.
I put my feet into the pool next to her and tried to touch her, tried to
com­fort her. I expect­ed that the news would upset her, but I did not
expect her to hurl the iced tea to the oth­er side of the pool, break­ing
the glass on the edge, scat­ter­ing shards in the water.
I also did not expect her to plunge her­self under the sur­face and
scream. Actress­es are very dra­mat­ic.
When she popped back up, she was wet and disheveled, her hair in
her face, her mas­cara run­ning. And she did not want to talk to me.
I grabbed her arm, and she pulled away. When I caught a glimpse of
her face and saw the hurt in her eyes, I real­ized that Celia and I had
nev­er real­ly been on the same page about what I was going to do with
Mick Riva.
“You slept with him?” she said.
“I thought that was implied,” I said.
“Well, it wasn’t.”
Celia raised her­self up out of the pool and didn’t even both­er to dry
off. I watched as her wet foot­prints changed the col­or of the cement
around the pool, as they cre­at­ed pud­dles on the hard­wood and then
start­ed damp­en­ing the car­pet on the stairs.
When I looked up at the back bed­room win­dow, I saw that she was
walk­ing back and forth. It looked like she was pack­ing.
“Celia! Stop it,” I said, run­ning up the stairs. “This doesn’t change
any­thing.”
By the time I got to my own bed­room door, it was locked.
I pound­ed on it. “Hon­ey, please.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Please,” I said. “Let’s talk about this.”
“No.”
“You can’t do this, Celia. Let’s talk this out.” I leaned against the
door, push­ing my face into the slim gap of the door­frame, hop­ing it
would make my voice trav­el far­ther, make Celia under­stand faster.
“This is not a life, Eve­lyn,” she said.
She opened the door and walked past me. I almost fell, so much of
my weight had been rest­ing on the very door she had just flung open.
But I caught myself and fol­lowed her down the stairs.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “This is our life. And we’ve sac­ri­ficed so much for
it, and you can’t give up on it now.”
“Yes, I can,” she said. “I don’t want to do this any­more. I don’t want
to live this way. I don’t want to dri­ve an awful brown car to your home
so no one knows I’m here. I don’t want to pre­tend I live by myself in
Hol­ly­wood when I tru­ly live here with you in this house. And I
cer­tain­ly don’t want to love a woman who would screw some singer
just so the world doesn’t sus­pect she loves me.”
“You are twist­ing the truth.”
“You are a cow­ard, and I can’t believe I ever thought any
dif­fer­ent­ly.”
“I did this for you!” I yelled.
We were at the foot of the stairs now. Celia had one hand on the
door, the oth­er on her suit­case. She was still in her bathing suit. Her
hair was drip­ping.
“You didn’t do a god­damn thing for me,” she said, her chest turn­ing
red in splotch­es, her cheeks burn­ing. “You did it for you. You did it
because you can’t stand the idea of not being the most famous woman
on the plan­et. You did it to pro­tect your­self and your pre­cious fans,
who go to the the­ater over and over just to see if this time they’ll catch
a half frame of your tits. That’s who you did it for.”
“It was for you, Celia. Do you think your fam­i­ly is going to stick by
you if they find out the truth?”
She bris­tled when I said it, and I saw her turn the door­knob.
“You will lose every­thing you have if peo­ple find out what you are,” I
said.
“What we are,” she said, turn­ing toward me. “Don’t go around
try­ing to pre­tend you’re dif­fer­ent from me.”
“I am,” I said. “And you know that I am.”
“Bull­shit.”
“I can love a man, Celia. I can go mar­ry any man I want and have
chil­dren and be hap­py. And we both know that wouldn’t come eas­i­ly
for you.”
Celia looked at me, her eyes nar­row, her lips pursed. “You think
you’re bet­ter than me? Is that what’s going on? You think I’m sick, and
you think you’re just play­ing some kind of game?”
I grabbed her, imme­di­ate­ly want­i­ng to take back what I’d said. That
wasn’t what I meant at all.
But she flung her arm away from me and said, “Don’t you ever
touch me again.”
I let go of her. “If they find out about us, Celia, they’ll for­give me. I’ll
mar­ry anoth­er guy like Don, and they’ll for­get I even knew you. I can
sur­vive this. But I’m not sure that you can. Because you’d have to
either fall in love with a man or mar­ry one you didn’t love. And I don’t
think you’re capa­ble of either option. I’m wor­ried for you, Celia. More
than I’m wor­ried for me. I’m not sure your career would ever recov­er
—if your life would recover—if I didn’t do some­thing. So I did the only
thing I knew. And it worked.”
“It didn’t work, Eve­lyn. You’re preg­nant.”
“I will take care of it.”
Celia looked down at the floor and laughed at me. “You cer­tain­ly
know how to han­dle almost any sit­u­a­tion, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, unsure why I was sup­posed to be insult­ed by that. “I
do.”
“And yet when it comes to being a human, you seem to have
absolute­ly no idea where to start.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“You are a whore, Eve­lyn. You let men screw you for fame. And that
is why I’m leav­ing you.”
She opened the door to leave, not even look­ing back at me. I
watched her walk out to my front stoop, down the stairs, and over to
her car. I fol­lowed her out and stood, frozen, in the dri­ve­way.
She threw her bag into the passenger’s side of her car. And then
she opened the door on the driver’s side and stood there.
“I loved you so much that I thought you were the mean­ing of my
life,” Celia said, cry­ing. “I thought that peo­ple were put on earth to
find oth­er peo­ple, and I was put here to find you. To find you and
touch your skin and smell your breath and hear all your thoughts. But
I don’t think that’s true any­more.” She wiped her eyes. “Because I
don’t want to be meant for some­one like you.”
The sear­ing pain in my chest felt like water boil­ing. “You know
what? You’re right. You aren’t meant for some­one like me,” I said
final­ly. “Because I’m will­ing to do what it takes to make a world for us,
and you’re too chick­en­shit. You won’t make the hard deci­sions; you
aren’t will­ing to do the ugly stuff. And I’ve always known that. But I
thought you’d at least have the decen­cy to admit you need some­one
like me. You need some­one who will get her hands dirty to pro­tect
you. You want to play like you’re all high and mighty all the time. Well,
try doing that with­out some­one in the trench­es pro­tect­ing you.”
Celia’s face was sto­ic, frozen. I wasn’t sure she’d heard a sin­gle
word I’d said. “I guess we aren’t as right for each oth­er as we thought,”
she said, and then she got into her car.
It wasn’t until that moment, with her hand on the steer­ing wheel,
that I real­ized this was real­ly hap­pen­ing, that this wasn’t just a fight we
were hav­ing. That this was the fight that would end us. It had all been
going so well and had turned so quick­ly in the oth­er direc­tion, like a
hair­pin turn off the free­way.
“I guess not” was all I could say. It came out like a croak, the vow­els
crack­ing.
Celia start­ed the car and put it in reverse. “Good-bye, Eve­lyn,” she
said at the very last minute. Then she backed out of my dri­ve­way and
dis­ap­peared down the road.
I walked into my house and start­ed clean­ing up the pud­dles of
water she’d left. I called a ser­vice to come and drain the pool and clean
the shards of glass from her iced tea.
And then I called Har­ry.
Three days lat­er, he drove with me to Tijua­na, where no one would
ask any ques­tions. It was a set of moments that I tried not to be
men­tal­ly present for so that I would nev­er have to work to for­get them.
I was relieved, walk­ing back to the car after the pro­ce­dure, that I had
become so good at com­part­men­tal­iza­tion and dis­as­so­ci­a­tion. May it
make its way to the record books that I nev­er regret­ted, not for one
minute, end­ing that preg­nan­cy. It was the right deci­sion. On that I
nev­er wavered.
But still I cried the whole way home, while Har­ry drove us through
San Diego and along the Cal­i­for­nia coast­line. I cried because of
every­thing I had lost and all the deci­sions I had made. I cried because
I was sup­posed to start Anna Karen­i­na on Mon­day and I didn’t care
about act­ing or acco­lades. I wished I’d nev­er need­ed a rea­son to be in
Mex­i­co in the first place. And I des­per­ate­ly want­ed Celia to call me,
cry­ing, telling me how wrong she’d been. I want­ed her to show up on
my doorstep and beg to come home. I want­ed . . . her. I just want­ed her
back.
As we were com­ing off the San Diego Free­way, I asked Har­ry the
ques­tion that had been run­ning through my mind for days.
“Do you think I’m a whore?”
Har­ry pulled over to the side of the road and turned to me. “I think
you’re bril­liant. I think you’re tough. And I think the word whore is
some­thing igno­rant peo­ple throw around when they have noth­ing
else.”
I lis­tened to him and then turned my head to look out my win­dow.
“Isn’t it awful­ly con­ve­nient,” Har­ry added, “that when men make
the rules, the one thing that’s looked down on the most is the one
thing that would bear them the great­est threat? Imag­ine if every sin­gle
woman on the plan­et want­ed some­thing in exchange when she gave
up her body. You’d all be rul­ing the place. An armed pop­u­lace. Only
men like me would stand a chance against you. And that’s the last
thing those ass­holes want, a world run by peo­ple like you and 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.

29
Los Ange­les is warm and sun­ny all year round. Dri­ving through the city,
some­times it’s hard to remem­ber what sea­son it is. Every­where you look, peo­ple
are wear­ing sun­glass­es and drink­ing cold drinks out of straws, smil­ing and
laugh­ing under­neath the clear blue sky. But in Jan­u­ary 2008, win­ter real­ly felt
like win­ter, even in Cal­i­for­nia, because I felt alone and cold and I was
hos­pi­tal­ized.
I prob­a­bly shouldn’t admit to this, but I was hell on wheels. I was tak­ing a lot
of Adder­all.
I was hor­ri­ble, and I will admit to doing wrong. I was so angry about what
hap­pened with Kevin. I’d tried so hard with him. I’d giv­en my every­thing.
And he’d turned on me.
I had start­ed dat­ing a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. I was com­plete­ly infat­u­at­ed with him.
He’d been a paparaz­zo, and I under­stood that peo­ple thought he was up to no
good, but all I could see at the time was that he was chival­rous and helped me
out when the oth­ers got too aggres­sive.
Back then I would speak up if I didn’t like something—I would cer­tain­ly let
you know. And I wouldn’t think twice about it. (If I had been hit in the face in
Vegas—as hap­pened to me in July 2023—I would’ve hit the per­son back, 100
per­cent.)
I was fear­less.
We were always being chased by the paparazzi. The chas­es were real­ly insane
—some­times they were aggres­sive, and some­times they were play­ful, too. Many
of the paps were try­ing to make me look bad, to get the mon­ey shot to show
“Oh, she’s lost and she looks crazy right now.” But some­times they want­ed me to
look good, too.
One day, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and I were being chased, and this was one of those
moments with him that I’ll nev­er for­get. We were dri­ving fast, near the edge of a
cli�, and I don’t know why, but I decid­ed to pull a 360, right there on the edge. I
hon­est­ly didn’t even know I could do a 360—it was com­plete­ly beyond me, so I
think it was God. But I stuck it; the back wheels of the car stopped on what
seemed like the very edge, and if the wheels had rotat­ed maybe three more times,
we would have just gone o� the cli�.
I looked at him; he looked at me.
“We could have just died,” I said.
I felt so alive.
As par­ents we’re always telling our chil­dren, “Stay safe. Don’t do this; don’t
do that.” But even though safe­ty is the most impor­tant thing, I also think it’s
impor­tant to have awak­en­ings and chal­lenge our­selves to feel lib­er­at­ed, to be
fear­less and expe­ri­ence every­thing the world has to o�er.
I didn’t know then that the pho­tog­ra­ph­er was mar­ried; I had no clue that I was
essen­tial­ly his mis­tress. I only found that out after we’d bro­ken up. I’d just
thought he was a lot of fun and our time togeth­er was incred­i­bly hot. He was ten
years old­er than me.
Every­where I went—and for a while I went out a lot—the paparazzi were
there. And yet, for all the reports about my being out of con­trol, I don’t know
that I was ever out of con­trol in a way that war­rant­ed what came next. The truth
is that I was sad, beyond sad, miss­ing my kids when they were with Kevin.
The pho­tog­ra­ph­er helped me with my depres­sion. I longed for atten­tion, and
he gave me the atten­tion I need­ed. It was just a lust­ful rela­tion­ship. My fam­i­ly
didn’t like him, but there was a lot about them I didn’t like, either.
The pho­tog­ra­ph­er encour­aged me to rebel. He let me sow my oats and he still
loved me for it. He loved me uncon­di­tion­al­ly. It wasn’t like my mom scream­ing
at me for par­ty­ing. He said, “Girl, go, you got it, do your thing!” He wasn’t like
my father, who set impos­si­ble con­di­tions for his love.
And so, with the photographer’s sup­port, I 100 per­cent did my thing. And it
felt rad­i­cal to be that wild. That far from what every­one want­ed me to be.
I talked as if I were out of my mind. I was so loud—everywhere I went, even
at restau­rants. Peo­ple would go out to eat with me, and I would lie down on the
table. It was a way of say­ing “Fuck you!” to any per­son who came my way.
I mean, I will say it: I was bad.
Or maybe I wasn’t bad so much as very, very angry.
I want­ed to escape. I didn’t have my kids, and I need­ed to get away from the
media and the paparazzi. I want­ed to leave LA, so the pho­tog­ra­ph­er and I went
on a trip to Mex­i­co.
It was like I’d �ed to a safe house. Every­where else there’d be a mil­lion peo­ple
out­side my door. But when I left LA, even though it was for a short time, I felt
far from every­thing. This worked—I felt bet­ter for a lit­tle while. I should have
tak­en more advan­tage of it.
It seemed like my rela­tion­ship with the pho­tog­ra­ph­er was get­ting more seri­ous,
and as that hap­pened, I sensed that my fam­i­ly was try­ing to get clos­er to me—in
a way that made me uneasy.
My mom called me one day and said, “Brit­ney, we feel like something’s going
on. We hear that the cops are after you. Let’s go to the beach house.”
“The cops are after me?” I said. “For what?” I hadn’t done any­thing ille­gal.
That I knew for sure. I’d had my moments. I’d had my wild spell. I’d been high
on Adder­all and act­ed crazy. But I didn’t do any­thing crim­i­nal. In fact, as she
knew, I’d been with girl­friends the pri­or two days. My mom and I had had a
sleep­over with my cousin Alli and two oth­er girl­friends.
“Just come to the house!” she said. “We want to talk to you.”
So I went to the house with them. The pho­tog­ra­ph­er met me there.
My moth­er was act­ing sus­pi­cious.
When the pho­tog­ra­ph­er got there, he said, “Something’s up, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Something’s real­ly o�.” All of a sud­den, there were
heli­copters going around the house.
“Is that for me?” I asked my mom. “Is this a joke?”
It wasn’t a joke.
Sud­den­ly there was a SWAT team of what seemed like twen­ty cops in my
house.
“What the fuck did I do?” I kept shout­ing. “I didn’t do any­thing!”
I know I had been act­ing wild but there was noth­ing I’d done that justi�ed
their treat­ing me like I was a bank rob­ber. Noth­ing that justi�ed upend­ing my
entire life.
I’d lat­er come to believe some­thing had changed that month, since the last time I
was brought to the hos­pi­tal for eval­u­a­tion. My father had struck up a very close
friend­ship with Louise “Lou” Tay­lor, who he wor­shipped. She was front and
cen­ter dur­ing the imple­men­ta­tion of the con­ser­va­tor­ship that would lat­er allow
them to con­trol and take over my career. Lou, who had just start­ed a new
com­pa­ny called Tri Star Sports & Enter­tain­ment Group, was direct­ly involved in
call­ing the shots right before the con­ser­va­tor­ship. At the time, she had few real
clients. She basi­cal­ly used my name and hard work to build her com­pa­ny.
Con­ser­va­tor­ships, also called guardian­ships, are usu­al­ly reserved for peo­ple
with no men­tal capac­i­ty, peo­ple who can’t do any­thing for them­selves. But I was
high­ly func­tion­al. I’d just done the best album of my career. I was mak­ing a lot
of peo­ple a lot of mon­ey, espe­cial­ly my father, who I found out took a big­ger
salary than he paid me. He paid him­self more than $6 mil­lion while pay­ing
oth­ers close to him tens of mil­lions more.
The thing is, you can have a con­ser­va­tor­ship that lasts for two months and
then the per­son gets on track and you let them con­trol their life again, but that
wasn’t what my father want­ed. He want­ed far more.
My dad was able to set up two forms of con­ser­va­tor­ship: what’s called
“con­ser­va­tor­ship of the per­son” and “con­ser­va­tor­ship of the estate.” The
con­ser­va­tor of the per­son is des­ig­nat­ed to con­trol details of the conservatee’s life,
like where they live, what they eat, whether they can dri­ve a car, and what they
do day-to-day. Even though I begged the court to appoint lit­er­al­ly any­one else—
and I mean, any­one o� the street would have been better—my father was giv­en
the job, the same man who’d made me cry if I had to get in the car with him

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 29
Slick called on Thurs­day at 10:25 in the morn­ing.
“I’ll come,” she said. “But I’ll only look. I won’t open any­thing
that’s closed.”
“Thank you,” Patri­cia said.
“I don’t feel right about this,” Slick said.
“I don’t either,” Patri­cia said, and then she hung up and called
Mrs. Greene to tell her the good news.
“This is a big mis­take,” Mrs. Greene said.
“It’ll go faster with three of us,” Patri­cia said.
“Maybe,” Mrs. Greene said. “But all I’m telling you is that it’s a
mis­take.”
She kissed Carter good-bye on Fri­day morn­ing at 7:30, and he left
for Tam­pa on Delta flight 1237 from the Charleston air­port, with a
lay­over in Atlanta. On Sat­ur­day morn­ing at 9:30 she drove Blue to
Sat­ur­day school. She told Korey they could work on her list of
col­leges togeth­er, but by noon, when she had to go pick up Blue from
Sat­ur­day school, Korey had bare­ly glimpsed at the cat­a­logs.
When she pulled up in front of Albe­mar­le at 12:05, the only oth­er
car there was Slick’s white Saab. She got out and tapped on the
driver’s‑side win­dow.
“Hi, Mrs. Camp­bell,” Greer said, rolling down the win­dow.
“Is your moth­er all right?” Patri­cia asked.
“She had to take some­thing over to the church,” Greer said. “She
said she might be see­ing you lat­er?”
“I’m help­ing her plan her Ref­or­ma­tion Par­ty,” Patri­cia said.
“Sounds fun,” Greer said.
She and Blue got home at 12:40. Korey had left a note on the
counter say­ing she was going down­town to step aer­o­bics and then to
a movie with Lau­rie Gib­son. At 2:15, Patri­cia knocked on Blue’s
bed­room door.
“I’m going out for a lit­tle while,” she called.
He didn’t answer. She assumed he’d heard.
She didn’t want any­one to see her car, and it was a warm after­noon
any­way, so she walked up Mid­dle Street. She saw Mrs. Greene’s car
parked in James Harris’s dri­ve­way, next to a green-and-white
Green­er Clean­ers truck. James Harris’s Cor­si­ca was gone.
She hat­ed his house. Two years ago, he’d torn down Mrs. Savage’s
cot­tage, split the lot in half, and sold the piece of it clos­est to the
Hen­der­sons to a den­tist from up north some­place, then built him­self
a McMan­sion that stretched from prop­er­ty line to prop­er­ty line. A
mas­sive South­ern lump with con­crete pineap­ples at the end of the
dri­ve, it stood on stilts with an enclosed ground floor for park­ing. It
was a white mon­stros­i­ty paint­ed white with all its var­i­ous tin roofs
paint­ed rust red, encir­cled by a huge porch.
She’d been inside once for his house­warm­ing par­ty last sum­mer,
and it was all sisal run­ners and enor­mous, heavy, machine-milled
fur­ni­ture, noth­ing with any per­son­al­i­ty, every­thing anony­mous and
done in beige, and cream, and off-white, and slate. It felt like the
embalmed and swollen corpse of a ram­shackle South­ern beach
house, tart­ed up with cos­met­ics and cen­tral air.
Patri­cia turned onto McCants then turned again and looped back
until she stood on Pitt Street direct­ly behind James Harris’s house.
She could see its red roofs loom­ing over the trees at the end of a lit­tle
drainage ditch that ran between two prop­er­ty lines from this side of
the block to the oth­er. When it rained, the ditch car­ried the over­flow
water off Pitt down to the har­bor. But it hadn’t rained in weeks and
now it was a swampy trick­le, with a worn path the chil­dren used as a
short­cut between blocks run­ning along­side it.
She stepped off the root-cracked side­walk and walked to his house
along the path, as fast as pos­si­ble, feel­ing like eyes were watch­ing her
the entire way. James Harris’s back­yard lay in the heavy shad­ow of
his house, and it was as chilly as the water at the bot­tom of a lake.
His grass didn’t get enough light and the yel­lowed blades crunched
beneath her feet.
She walked up the stairs to his back porch and paused, look­ing
back to see if she could spot Slick, but she hadn’t got­ten there yet.
She kept mov­ing, want­i­ng to get out of sight as soon as pos­si­ble. She
knocked on the back door.
Inside, she heard a vac­u­um clean­er whirl down and a minute lat­er
the weath­er seal cracked and the door opened to reveal Mrs. Greene
in a green polo shirt.
“Hel­lo, Mrs. Greene,” Patri­cia said, loud­ly. “I came to see if I could
find my keys. That I left here.”
“Mr. Har­ris isn’t home,” Mrs. Greene respond­ed loud­ly, which let
Patri­cia know that the oth­er woman work­ing with her was near­by.
“Maybe you should come back lat­er.”
“I real­ly need my keys,” Patri­cia said.
“I’m sure he won’t mind if you look for them,” Mrs. Greene said.
She stepped out of the way, and Patri­cia came inside. The kitchen
had a large island in the mid­dle, half of it cov­ered by some kind of
stain­less-steel grill. Dark brown cab­i­nets lined the walls, and the
refrig­er­a­tor, dish­wash­er, and sink were all stain­less steel. The room
felt cold. Patri­cia wished she’d brought a sweater.
“Is Slick here yet?” Patri­cia asked qui­et­ly.
“Not yet,” Mrs. Greene said. “But we can’t wait.”
A woman in the same green polo shirt as Mrs. Greene came in
from the hall. She wore yel­low rub­ber dish­wash­ing gloves and a
shiny leather fan­ny pack.
“Lora,” Mrs. Greene said. “This is Mrs. Camp­bell from down the
street. She thinks she left her keys here and is going to look for
them.”
Patri­cia gave what she hoped looked like a friend­ly smile.
“Hi, Lora,” she said. “Pleased to meet you. Don’t let me get in your
way.”
Lora turned her large brown eyes from Patri­cia to Mrs. Greene,
then back to Patri­cia. She reached down to her belt and unclipped a
mobile phone.
“There’s no need,” Mrs. Greene said. “I know Mrs. Camp­bell. I
used to clean for her.”
“I’ll just be a minute,” Patri­cia said, pre­tend­ing to scan the gran­ite
coun­ter­tops. “I know those keys are some­where.”
Her huge brown eyes still on Mrs. Greene, Lora flipped the phone
open and pressed a but­ton.
“Lora, no!” Patri­cia said, too loud­ly.
Lora turned and looked at Patri­cia. She blinked once, hold­ing the
open phone in her yel­low rub­ber hand.
“Lora,” Patri­cia said. “I real­ly do need to find my keys. They could
be any­where and it might take me a while. But you won’t get in any
trou­ble for what I’m doing. I promise. And I’ll pay you for the
incon­ve­nience.”
She had left her purse at home, but Mrs. Greene had told her to
bring mon­ey, just in case. She reached into her pock­et and pulled out
four of the five ten-dol­lar bills she’d brought and placed them on the
kitchen island clos­est to Lora, then stepped away.
“Mr. Har­ris won’t be com­ing back until tomor­row,” Mrs. Greene
said.
Lora stepped for­ward, took the bills, and made them dis­ap­pear
into her fan­ny pack.
“Thank you so much, Lora,” Patri­cia said.
Mrs. Greene and Lora left the kitchen and the vac­u­um clean­er
roared back to life, and Patri­cia looked out the back win­dow to see if
she could spot Slick com­ing up the path, but it was emp­ty. She
turned and walked through the wide front hall and looked out the
win­dow by the door. The glass was art­ful­ly rip­pled to make it seem as
if it were antique. Slick’s Saab wasn’t in the dri­ve­way. It wasn’t like
her to be late, although if she’d lost her nerve at the last minute
maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She didn’t know how
Lora would react to two of them search­ing the house.
Besides, there wasn’t much in it. The kitchen draw­ers were emp­ty.
The cab­i­nets bare­ly con­tained any food. No junk draw­er. No
mag­ne­tized adver­tise­ments from the exter­mi­na­tor or the piz­za
deliv­ery peo­ple on the fridge door. No toast­er on the coun­ter­tops, no
blenders, no waf­fle irons, no George Fore­man grills. It was the same
all over the house. She decid­ed to go upstairs. If he had any­thing
per­son­al it was more like­ly to be hid­den there.
She start­ed up the car­pet­ed stairs, the vac­u­um clean­er noise falling
away below her. She stood in the upstairs hall lined with closed doors
and sud­den­ly felt like she was on the verge of mak­ing a ter­ri­ble
mis­take. She shouldn’t be here. She should turn around and leave.
What had she been think­ing? She thought about Blue­beard where
the bride was told not to look behind a cer­tain door by her hus­band
and of course she did and dis­cov­ered the corpses of his pre­vi­ous
brides. Her moth­er had told her the moral of the sto­ry was that you
should trust your hus­band and nev­er pry. But wasn’t it bet­ter to
know the truth? She head­ed for the mas­ter bed­room.
The mas­ter bed­room smelled of hot vinyl and new car­pet, even
though the car­pet must be two years old by now. The bed was made
neat­ly and had four posts, each one crowned with a carved
pineap­ple. An arm­chair and table sat by the win­dow. On the table
was a note­book. Every page was emp­ty. Patri­cia looked in the walk-
in clos­et. All the clothes hung in dry-clean­er bags, even his blue
jeans, and they all smelled like clean­ing chem­i­cals.
She searched the bath­room. Combs, brush­es, tooth­paste, and floss,
but no pre­scrip­tions. Band-Aids and gauze but noth­ing that told her
any­thing about the occu­pant. It smelled like sealant and Sheetrock.
The sink and the show­er were dry. Patri­cia went back to the hall and
tried again.
She went from room to room, open­ing emp­ty clos­ets, look­ing
inside emp­ty draw­ers. Every­thing smelled like fresh paint. Every
room echoed emp­ti­ly. Every bed was care­ful­ly made up with pris­tine
pil­low shams and dec­o­ra­tive pil­lows. The house felt aban­doned.
“Find any­thing?” a voice said, and Patri­cia leapt into the air.
“Ohmy­good­ness,” she gasped, press­ing her hand to the mid­dle of
her chest. “You scared me half to death.”
Mrs. Greene stood in the door­way.
“Did you find any­thing?” she repeat­ed.
“It’s all emp­ty,” Patri­cia said. “Slick hasn’t come by, has she?”
“No,” Mrs. Greene said. “Lora is hav­ing lunch in the kitchen.”
“There’s noth­ing here,” Patri­cia said. “This is point­less.”
“There’s noth­ing in this entire house?” Mrs. Greene said.
“Nowhere? Are you sure you looked?”
“I looked every­where,” Patri­cia said. “I’m going to leave before
Lora changes her mind.”
“I don’t believe that,” Mrs. Greene said.
Her stub­born­ness pro­voked a flash of irri­ta­tion from Patri­cia. “If
you can find some­thing I missed, by all means, feel free,” she said.
The two of them stood, glar­ing at each oth­er. The dis­ap­point­ment
made Patri­cia irri­ta­ble. She’d come this far, and now noth­ing. There
was no path for­ward.
“We tried,” she final­ly said. “If Slick comes, tell her I came to my
sens­es.”
She walked past Mrs. Greene, head­ing for the stairs.
“What about that?” Mrs. Greene said from behind her.
Weari­ly, Patri­cia turned and saw Mrs. Greene with her neck
craned back, star­ing at the hall ceil­ing. More specif­i­cal­ly, she was
star­ing at a small black hook in the hall ceil­ing. Using it as a
land­mark, Patri­cia could just make out the rec­tan­gu­lar line of a door
around it, the hinges paint­ed white. She got a broom from the
kitchen and used the eye­let in its han­dle to snag the hook. They both
pulled and, with a groan of springs and a crack­ing of paint, the
rec­tan­gu­lar edges got big­ger, dark­er, and the attic door dropped
down and the met­al stairs attached to it unfold­ed.
A dry, aban­doned smell rolled down into the hall.
“I’ll go up,” Patri­cia said.
She gripped the edges hard, and the lad­der rat­tled as she climbed.
She felt too heavy, like her foot was going to break the steps. Then
her head passed through the ceil­ing and she was in the dark.
Her eyes adjust­ed and she real­ized it wasn’t com­plete­ly dark. The
attic ran the length of the house and there were lou­vers on either
end. Day­light fil­tered through. It felt hot and stuffy. The end of the
attic fac­ing the street was bare, just joists and pink insu­la­tion. The
back was a jum­ble of dim shapes.
“Do you have a flash­light?” she called down.
“Here,” Mrs. Greene said.
She unclipped some­thing from her key­chain and Patri­cia came
down a few steps and took it: a small, turquoise rub­ber rec­tan­gle the
size of a cig­a­rette lighter.
“You squeeze the sides,” Mrs. Greene said.
A tiny bulb on the end emit­ted a weak glow.
It was bet­ter than noth­ing.
Patri­cia went up into the attic.
The floor was grit­ty, cov­ered in a lay­er of cock­roach poi­son, mouse
drop­pings, dried guano, pigeon feath­ers, dead cock­roach­es on their
backs, and larg­er piles of excre­ment that looked like they came from
rac­coons. Patri­cia start­ed walk­ing toward the clut­ter. Cool air formed
a cross breeze blow­ing from the vents at either end. The white
pow­der ground against the ply­wood beneath her feet.
It smelled like dead insects up here, like rot­ten fab­ric, like wet
card­board that had dried and mildewed. Every­thing down­stairs had
been metic­u­lous­ly cleaned and pol­ished, scoured of any­thing
organ­ic. Up here, the house lay exposed: splin­tery joists, filthy
ply­wood floor­ing, con­struc­tion mea­sure­ments pen­ciled onto the
exposed ply­wood beneath the shin­gles. Patri­cia played the flash­light
beam over the mound of items at the rear and real­ized that this was
the grave­yard of Mrs. Savage’s life.
Blan­kets and quilts and sheets were draped over all the box­es and
trunks and suit­cas­es she’d once seen in the old lady’s front room.
Stud­ded with cock­roach eggs, sticky with spi­der­webs stretched
between every open space, the filthy sheets and blan­kets were stiff
and rank.
Patri­cia lift­ed one tacky cor­ner of a pink quilt and released a puff
of rot­ten wood pulp. Beneath it, on the floor, lay a card­board box of
water-dam­aged paper­back romances. Mice had chewed one cor­ner to
shreds and bright­ly col­ored paper­back guts spilled onto the floor.
Why had he brought all this garbage into a new house? It felt wrong.
In his entire, new, metic­u­lous­ly blank home, this stood out like a
mis­take.
Her skin seethed in revul­sion wher­ev­er she touched the blan­kets.
They were cov­ered in grime, white cock­roach poi­son, and mouse
drop­pings. She walked around the box­es to where the blan­kets
end­ed, where the brick chim­ney rose through the floor and then the
ceil­ing. She rec­og­nized the row of old suit­cas­es sit­ting next to it,
sur­round­ed by fur­ni­ture she remem­bered from the old house:
stand­ing lamps com­plete­ly obscured by spi­der­webs that were thick
with eggs, the rock­ing chair with its seat chewed into a mouse nest,
the cross-stretch­er table whose veneer top had warped and split.
Not know­ing where to start, Patri­cia lift­ed each of the suit­cas­es.
They were emp­ty except for the sec­ond-to-last one. It didn’t budge.
She tried again. It felt root­ed to the floor. She slid the brown, hard-
sided Sam­sonite bag out, sweat drip­ping from her nose. She undid its
first latch, stiff with dis­use, then the sec­ond, and the weight of
what­ev­er was inside popped it open.
The chem­i­cal stench of moth­balls explod­ed into her face, mak­ing
her eyes water. She squeezed the light Mrs. Greene had giv­en her and
saw that it was crammed with black plas­tic sheet­ing speck­led with
white moth­balls that rolled onto the floor. She pulled aside some of
the plas­tic and a pair of milky eyes reflect­ed the light back at her.
Her fin­gers went numb and the flash­light went dark as she
dropped it into the plas­tic. She stepped back, missed the edge where
the ply­wood floor­ing end­ed, and her foot came down on the emp­ty
space between two of the joists. She start­ed to fall back­ward, arms
pin­wheel­ing, and only just man­aged to grab a rough beam on the
ceil­ing and catch her­self.

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.

29
It must be the stu­pid­est thing I’ve ever done, going to Tripp Ingraham’s house. And that’s real­ly say­ing
some­thing for me.
He’s been charged with mur­der. I am will­ing­ly going to an accused murderer’s house.
I say that to myself over and over again as I jog down the street, try­ing to look like it’s just a
reg­u­lar day, just reg­u­lar Jane out for her morn­ing run, cer­tain­ly not about to do some­thing so shit-
stu­pid she might die.
His texts kept me up all night last night, and I can’t explain it, but I need to hear what he says.
Because some­thing in me tells me he’s telling the truth.
Tripp is so many ugly things—a drunk, a lech, a Republican—but mur­der­er still doesn’t fit on
him. I’ve known vio­lent men. I’ve been around too many of them, and I learned how to sniff them out
ear­ly. I had to.
Tripp just … doesn’t smell right.
I hur­ry up his dri­ve­way, pray­ing to god that no one catch­es a glimpse of me. His bush­es are
over­grown, dead leaves and flower petals strewn along the walk at the front of the house, and if I’d
thought his place seemed dark and sad before, it’s noth­ing com­pared to how it feels now.
After ring­ing the door­bell, I wait for so long that I think he’s not going to answer, and I’m
uncom­fort­ably aware that any­one could come by and see me stand­ing there. This neigh­bor­hood
seemed to have eyes every­where, and Tripp is not sup­posed to have vis­i­tors, not with­out it being
cleared through the police first.
Like I was going to do that.
Just as I’m about to turn away, the door opens.
Tripp stares at me, wear­ing a plaid bathrobe tied loose­ly at the waist and a pair of match­ing
paja­ma pants. His skin has gone gray­ish, his eyes near­ly swal­lowed up by the hol­lows around them.
Tripp looked rough before, but now, he looks half-dead, and I almost feel sor­ry for him.
“You came,” he says, his voice low and flat. “I hon­est­ly didn’t think you would. Don’t just stand
there. Come in.”
He ush­ers me inside, and I’m hit with the smell imme­di­ate­ly. Old food, garbage that hasn’t been
tak­en out, and booze.
So much booze.
“Sor­ry I didn’t clean up,” he says, ges­tur­ing for me to head into the liv­ing room, but I shake my
head, fold­ing my arms over my chest.
“What­ev­er you have to say to me, go ahead and say it here. Say it fast.”
He low­ers his gaze back to mine, the cor­ner of his mouth lift­ing slight­ly, and there it is again—a
shad­ow ver­sion of that Tripp, sure, washed out and bare­ly there, but still.
“Don’t want to spend too much time in the murderer’s lair. I get it.”
I’d tell him not to be a dick, but that’s like telling him not to breathe, so instead, I just glare at him,
wait­ing, and even­tu­al­ly he sighs.
“You must’ve felt like you won the god­damn lot­tery when you met Eddie Rochester,” he mus­es.
“Rich, good-look­ing, charm­ing as hell. But let me tell you some­thing, Jane.”
He leans in close, and I catch the ripe odor of him, the stink of unwashed skin and unbrushed
teeth. “He’s poi­son. His wife was poi­son, too, so at least they were well-matched in that.”
Anoth­er smirk. “If I were you, I’d leave here, get what­ev­er shit you can out of the house, and hit
the road. Leave Eddie, Birm­ing­ham, all of it.” He waves one hand, sag­ging back against the door.
“Sure as fuck wish I’d lis­tened when Blanche said we should move.”
“Blanche want­ed to move?” I ask incred­u­lous­ly, and he nods.
“Yeah. Two weeks before she died. Start­ed talk­ing about how she need­ed to be some­where else,
that she felt like Bea was suf­fo­cat­ing her. Wasn’t enough that Bea took her whole god­damn life, you
know? She had to be right up under us all the time, too. And Eddie. Fuck­er was always over at the
house, seemed like.”
“But you said you didn’t real­ly think any­thing was hap­pen­ing there.”
“Still didn’t mean I liked it. Bea didn’t like it, either. It’s why she invit­ed Blanche to the lake that
week­end. To ‘hash it out.’ I asked Blanche what that meant, and she said they were at … I don’t know.
Like a cross­roads or some­thing. That she wasn’t sure they could still be friends. And I thought maybe
it was about…”
His throat moves, but he doesn’t say any­thing, and when he reach­es up to rub his unshaven jaw, I
see his hands are shak­ing slight­ly.
“Things had been fucked up for a while,” he final­ly says. “Between Blanche and Bea, between
Bea and Eddie, me and Blanche. It was all just tox­ic by that point. Which is why I was con­fused as
fuck when Bea called me and asked me to come up.”
My blood turns cold. “What?”
Sigh­ing, Tripp scrubs a hand over his face. “That week­end,” he says, sound­ing tired. “Bea called
me that Fri­day night, said she thought Blanche need­ed me. So I got in the car, drove up to the lake, and
yes, we all had a lot to drink, but I passed out in the house. I was nev­er on that god­damn boat. I woke
up the next morn­ing in the guest bed­room, feel­ing like some­one had jammed a rail­road spike through
my skull, and nei­ther Bea nor Blanche were there. I assumed they’d tak­en the boat out ear­ly, and I left.
Drove back home.”
His voice cracks and he takes a sec­ond to clear his throat, rub­bing his face again. “I didn’t know.
I went home that morn­ing, and I watched fuck­ing golf on TV, and all that time, they were both … they
were already dead. They were … rot­ting in that water…”
There are tears in his eyes now. “It wasn’t until Mon­day, when she didn’t come home and I
couldn’t get her on the phone that I even real­ized some­thing was wrong.”
His bleary eyes focus on my face, and now there are no smirks, no gross lines. “I swear to you, I
had noth­ing to do with any of it. Yes, I was there, and yes, I should’ve told the cops that imme­di­ate­ly,
but I was afraid of…” He makes a strained sound that’s too sad to be a laugh. “This. Fuck, I was
afraid of this.”
His hands clutch my shoul­ders, hard enough that I think I’ll have bruis­es there. “I’m telling you,
leave. I didn’t get on that boat, but my fin­ger­prints are on it. I didn’t buy fuck­ing rope and a ham­mer,
but some­one using my cred­it card did.”
There’s so much infor­ma­tion com­ing at me at once that I bare­ly know how to process it all, and I
blink, try­ing to step out of Tripp’s hold, try­ing to wrap my head around what he’s imply­ing.
“You’re say­ing some­one framed you?”
“I’m say­ing you still have the chance to walk away from these fuck­ers.”
He lets me go, step­ping back. “I wish to Christ I had.”
I tear the house apart.
I don’t know what I’m look­ing for, only that there has to be some­thing, some proof that Eddie did
this.
That’s what Tripp was try­ing to tell me, I know it, and so here I am, open­ing up clos­ets, yank­ing
out draw­ers.
Adele rush­es around my feet, bark­ing fran­ti­cal­ly, and there are tears in my eyes as I sur­vey my
destruc­tion.
Books off shelves, heed­less­ly tum­bled to the floor. Cush­ions pulled off the sofa.
I pick up any­thing heavy, all those tchotchkes from South­ern Manors, look­ing for drops of blood. I
go through the pock­ets of Eddie’s clothes. I push the mat­tress off our bed.
Some­thing, some­thing, there has to be some­thing, you can’t kill two peo­ple and not leave some
sign of it, you can’t. There are receipts, he’s hid­den a mur­der weapon, there will be clothes with
blood, I will find some­thing.
An hour later—no, two, almost two and a half—I’m sit­ting on the floor of the coat clos­et at the
front of the house, my head in my hands. Adele has lost inter­est in me now, and sits in the hall fac­ing
me, her snout rest­ing on her paws.
I’ve lost my fuck­ing mind.
The house is a wreck, and I’m too exhaust­ed to even think about putting it back togeth­er again.
Tripp is right. I should leave. Get out while I can because even if it wasn’t Eddie, there’s
some­thing going on here, some­thing so fucked up that no amount of mon­ey can make it worth it.
I’m just get­ting up from the floor when I see a jack­et in the cor­ner of the clos­et. It must’ve fall­en
off a hang­er while I was in here act­ing like a mad­woman, but I don’t remem­ber see­ing it.
I also don’t remem­ber the last time I saw Eddie wear it.
When I pick it up, I notice imme­di­ate­ly that it feels a lit­tle heav­ier on one side than the oth­er, and
my breath catch­es in my throat as my fin­gers close around some­thing in the pock­et.
But when I pull it out, it’s just a paper­back book.
I imag­ine him, tak­ing it to read some­where, maybe at the office, maybe on his lunch break, and
shov­ing it back in a pock­et, for­get­ting about it.
I’ve seen Eddie read­ing plen­ty over the past few months, but always some bor­ing mil­i­tary thriller.
This is a romance nov­el, an old­er one with a pret­ty lurid cov­er, which doesn’t strike me as Eddie’s
thing.

Chap­ter 29 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të cap­tures the nuanced strug­gles of Helen Hunt­ing­don as she grap­ples with the chal­lenges of her mar­riage to Arthur and her endeav­ors to nav­i­gate her life amidst his con­tin­ued absence and ques­tion­able behav­iors. Dat­ed on Decem­ber 25th, 1823, Helen reflects on anoth­er year gone by, cap­tur­ing her con­cerns over the influ­ence of Arthur on their son, lit­tle Arthur, her fears regard­ing her hus­band’s indul­gent nature, and the sub­se­quent impact on their child. She con­fess­es to a diary—the silent paper—a can­did intro­spec­tion about her dimin­ish­ing hopes and dreams with­in the mar­riage, spot­light­ing the stark con­trast between her affec­tions and Arthur’s increas­ing­ly detached behav­ior. As she delves into the par­tic­u­lars of their rela­tion­ship, it becomes evi­dent that Arthur’s notions of mar­i­tal duties are vast­ly dif­fer­ent from hers, fur­ther high­light­ing the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal dis­tance grow­ing between them.

Arthur’s impend­ing trip to Lon­don sparks a sig­nif­i­cant dis­cus­sion, under­pin­ning his neglect and pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of plea­sure over fam­i­ly respon­si­bil­i­ties. Helen’s des­per­ate propo­si­tions to accom­pa­ny him are dis­missed under var­i­ous pre­texts, under­lin­ing Arthur’s yearn­ing for free­dom from famil­ial duties. This sec­tion poignant­ly illus­trates Helen’s grow­ing despair and iso­la­tion, exac­er­bat­ed by Arthur’s lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and appar­ent dis­re­gard for his famil­ial duties dur­ing his time in Lon­don.

The nar­ra­tive then tran­si­tions into a vis­it from Mr. Har­grave, a char­ac­ter try­ing to posi­tion him­self as a friend to Helen dur­ing Arthur’s absence. Despite his attempts at sym­pa­thy and sup­port, Helen remains wary of his inten­tions, pro­tec­tive of her per­son­al strug­gles from exter­nal scruti­ny. The exchange between Helen and Har­grave shines a light on the soci­etal expec­ta­tions placed on women, the lim­it­ed avenues avail­able for them to seek solace or under­stand­ing out­side their mar­riage, and the nuanced dynam­ics of friend­ship and trust.

Ulti­mate­ly, this chap­ter delves deep into Helen’s emo­tion­al land­scape, offer­ing insights into her resilience amid her trou­bled mar­riage. The intro­duc­tion of Mr. Har­grave intro­duces new social dynam­ics and chal­lenges, set­ting the stage for the com­plex­i­ties of nav­i­gat­ing soci­etal norms and per­son­al hap­pi­ness. Through Helen’s reflec­tions and inter­ac­tions, Bron­të vivid­ly por­trays the inter­nal and exter­nal con­flicts faced by women in the 19th cen­tu­ry, high­light­ing themes of love, duty, and the quest for per­son­al auton­o­my.