Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 4 begins with the author recount­ing fre­quent encoun­ters with peo­ple con­vinced of his des­tiny to become pres­i­dent, both before and after con­tem­plat­ing a pres­i­den­tial run. Despite oth­ers’ con­fi­dence and some­times prophet­ic assur­ances, he har­bors skep­ti­cism about des­tiny and divine plans, attribut­ing more to chance and indi­vid­ual effort in nav­i­gat­ing life’s uncer­tain­ties.

As 2006 pro­gress­es, signs that a pres­i­den­tial run is fea­si­ble accu­mu­late. Request­ed to keep his options open, he wavers but even­tu­al­ly enter­tains the notion, spurred by unprece­dent­ed atten­tion and sup­port. Var­i­ous polit­i­cal insid­ers and col­leagues offer encour­age­ment and advise con­sid­er­a­tion, high­light­ing his unique appeal and poten­tial to inspire a broad coali­tion of vot­ers.

In con­ver­sa­tions with senior sen­a­tors and polit­i­cal advi­sors, the fea­si­bil­i­ty of a cam­paign is debat­ed, with strate­gic and exis­ten­tial con­sid­er­a­tions com­ing to the fore. Despite oth­er capa­ble Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­tenders, the author’s per­ceived abil­i­ty to ener­gize and unite dif­fer­ent seg­ments of the Amer­i­can elec­torate sets him apart.

How­ev­er, con­sid­er­a­tions extend beyond polit­i­cal strat­e­gy to per­son­al sac­ri­fices. His wife, Michelle, ini­tial­ly resis­tant due to the inva­sive nature of pol­i­tics and its impact on fam­i­ly, becomes a cru­cial voice. The nar­ra­tive reveals her evo­lu­tion from skep­tic to a cau­tious sup­port­er, high­light­ing the com­plex inter­play between per­son­al rela­tion­ships and polit­i­cal ambi­tions.

A piv­otal moment aris­es dur­ing a team meet­ing where Michelle asks why he specif­i­cal­ly needs to be pres­i­dent, prompt­ing a reflec­tion on the his­tor­i­cal and sym­bol­ic sig­nif­i­cance of his poten­tial pres­i­den­cy, espe­cial­ly for minori­ties and the dis­en­fran­chised. His response cap­tures a sense of mis­sion tran­scend­ing polit­i­cal objec­tives — to inspire and trans­form per­cep­tions both domes­ti­cal­ly and glob­al­ly.

This chap­ter inter­twines intro­spec­tive con­tem­pla­tion with prac­ti­cal polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing, illus­trat­ing the author’s cau­tious yet delib­er­ate jour­ney towards embrac­ing a path filled with both his­toric oppor­tu­ni­ty and per­son­al risk. Through can­did reflec­tions and piv­otal con­ver­sa­tions, it encap­su­lates the weight of decid­ing to pur­sue the Amer­i­can pres­i­den­cy.

In Chap­ter 4, the scene opens in chaos as a large, mon­strous crea­ture with gold­en fur, a wolfish head, elk-like horns, black claws, and yel­low fangs invades the pro­tag­o­nist’s home. This beast, despite its ter­ri­fy­ing appear­ance, is not a mar­tax but some­thing far more fear­some and pow­er­ful, under­stood to be a faerie. The pro­tag­o­nist, armed only with a hunt­ing knife, instinc­tive­ly posi­tions her­self between the crea­ture and her ter­ri­fied fam­i­ly, refus­ing to suc­cumb to fear despite the dan­ger.

As the faerie accus­es them of mur­der with a roar, it becomes clear that this sit­u­a­tion is a con­fronta­tion over a grave mis­un­der­stand­ing or an act unknow­ing­ly com­mit­ted against the fae. The pro­tag­o­nist, Feyre, though ter­ri­fied, faces the crea­ture with a mix­ture of brav­ery and des­per­a­tion, attempt­ing nego­ti­a­tion and defense with what­ev­er weapons she can find, despite know­ing their inad­e­qua­cy against such a pow­er­ful being.

The faerie’s accu­sa­tion cen­ters around the killing of a wolf, which Feyre con­fess­es to, claim­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty in hopes of pro­tect­ing her fam­i­ly. This admis­sion leads to a nego­ti­a­tion of sorts, oper­at­ing under the ancient law— a life for a life— spec­i­fied in a treaty between humans and faeries. The crea­ture offers Feyre a grim choice: cer­tain death or a life in exile in Pry­thi­an, the faerie realm, as atone­ment for the wolf’s life she took.

As the chap­ter unfolds, Feyre grap­ples with this impos­si­ble choice, weigh­ing her fam­i­ly’s safe­ty against her free­dom and life. The faerie’s insis­tence on a life for a life, as dic­tat­ed by the treaty, forces Feyre to make a quick deci­sion. The crea­ture’s expla­na­tion of how the treaty demands ret­ri­bu­tion in this man­ner high­lights the stark con­trasts between human and faerie moral­i­ty, and the com­plex inter­play of pow­er, mer­cy, and jus­tice in their inter­ac­tions.

Despite her fierce desire to pro­tect her fam­i­ly and her home, Feyre decides to accept the faerie’s offer, choos­ing a life in Pry­thi­an over imme­di­ate death, not just for her own sake but to spare her fam­i­ly from wit­ness­ing her exe­cu­tion. Her deci­sion is met with a mix of sor­row, res­ig­na­tion, and unre­solved rage from both her and her fam­i­ly, set­ting the stage for her forcible removal from the human world to the unknown dan­gers of the faerie lands.

The chap­ter clos­es on a poignant note, with Feyre mak­ing rushed, des­per­ate prepa­ra­tions and say­ing what she knows could be her final farewells, encap­su­lat­ing her role as the self-sac­ri­fic­ing pro­tec­tor of her fam­i­ly while step­ping into an uncer­tain and like­ly per­ilous future.

Six weeks into Maeve’s fresh­man year at Barnard, she returned to Elkins Park for our father’s wed­ding to Andrea, held in our home under the obser­vance of the Van­Hoe­beeks’ por­traits. Andrea brought her fam­i­ly and friends to mar­vel at our home­’s grandeur, espe­cial­ly the gild­ed din­ing room ceil­ing. Maeve and I, joined by Sandy and Joce­lyn in new­ly acquired black and white uni­forms, watched the wed­ding amidst the bright fall light, orches­trat­ed to illu­mi­nate the cel­e­bra­tion includ­ing water lilies in the pool. Despite the divorce and reli­gious dif­fer­ences hin­der­ing a church wed­ding, they mar­ried at home by a judge, cast­ing doubt on the cer­e­mony’s legit­i­ma­cy for us.

Maeve and I pon­dered the accu­ra­cy of our mem­o­ries of the past, altered by present knowl­edge, dur­ing a vis­it back to the Dutch House. Maeve worked as a book­keep­er, her aca­d­e­m­ic bril­liance under­uti­lized, lead­ing me to sug­gest fur­ther edu­ca­tion, a thought she brushed aside focus­ing on the past.

The nar­ra­tive harks back to adjust­ments fol­low­ing Andrea’s intru­sion into our fam­i­ly life, steal­ing away spaces and impos­ing her pref­er­ences, par­tic­u­lar­ly on domes­tic staff Sandy and Joce­lyn, whose sub­dued pres­ence marked a shift in the house­hold dynam­ic. Andrea’s deci­sion to relo­cate her daugh­ter Nor­ma into Maeve’s room sig­ni­fied a phys­i­cal and sym­bol­ic dis­place­ment with­in the home, fur­ther estrang­ing Maeve upon her Thanks­giv­ing return. Maeve humor­ous­ly likened her attic relo­ca­tion to “The Lit­tle Princess,” mask­ing the tur­moil of Andrea’s dom­i­nance with light-heart­ed defi­ance. This anec­dote under­scored not only a famil­ial dis­place­ment but the loss of warmth and com­mu­ni­ty with­in the Dutch House, tran­si­tion­ing from a cher­ished fam­i­ly home to a bat­tle­ground of con­trol and resis­tance against Andrea’s impo­si­tions.

Margery O’Hare’s first mem­o­ry is a vivid por­tray­al of domes­tic vio­lence in her fam­i­ly home, an image that shapes her upbring­ing amidst the tur­bu­lent envi­ron­ment of Bai­leyville. The nar­ra­tive intro­duces us to a fam­i­ly torn apart by vio­lence: Margery’s father, Frank O’Hare, a noto­ri­ous moon­shin­er and abuser, and her moth­er, a resilient woman deter­mined to pro­tect her chil­dren at all costs. Margery’s broth­er, Jack, leaves home after a con­fronta­tion with their father, nev­er to return, his depar­ture mark­ing a piv­otal moment of loss and betray­al with­in the fam­i­ly.

As Margery grows, her moth­er’s warn­ings against mar­ry­ing local men echo as a haunt­ing reminder of their harsh real­i­ty. Despite these warn­ings, her sis­ter Vir­ginia finds her­self in a sim­i­lar­ly abu­sive sit­u­a­tion, fur­ther empha­siz­ing the cycle of vio­lence that seems inescapable for the women in the O’Hare fam­i­ly. The nar­ra­tive expos­es the bleak and often vio­lent exis­tence on the moun­tain, shed­ding light on the domes­tic and com­mu­ni­ty vio­lence that plagues their lives. Margery inher­its her moth­er’s defi­ance and resilience, shar­ing not a tear at her father’s vio­lent death, sig­nal­ing a break from the past and a com­plex rela­tion­ship with the con­cept of fam­i­ly and loy­al­ty.

Intro­duced to Alice, the out­sider attempt­ing to fit into this tight­ly-knit com­mu­ni­ty through her work with the trav­el­ing library, the sto­ry delves into themes of accep­tance, the pow­er of lit­er­a­cy, and the trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial of com­pas­sion. Alice’s encounter with the Bligh fam­i­ly exem­pli­fies these themes, show­cas­ing the deep-root­ed strug­gles of the moun­tain peo­ple, but also their capac­i­ty for kind­ness and mutu­al sup­port. The strug­gle to over­come stereo­types and find com­mon ground is a recur­ring motif, and Alice’s efforts to adapt to and respect the moun­tain com­mu­ni­ty’s ways high­light the chal­lenges and rewards of cross-cul­tur­al under­stand­ing.

Through Margery and Alice’s nar­ra­tives, the sto­ry por­trays the hard­ships of life in Bai­leyville and the stark real­i­ties of its inhab­i­tants’ every­day strug­gles. The trav­el­ing library becomes a sym­bol of hope and escape for both the com­mu­ni­ty it serves and the women who run it, offer­ing a glimpse into the broad­er social issues of the time, includ­ing gen­der dynam­ics, pover­ty, and the quest for per­son­al free­dom.

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.