Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 5 of the book opens with the pro­tag­o­nist reluc­tant­ly fol­low­ing a beast­ly fig­ure into a fore­bod­ing for­est, a jour­ney that marks the begin­ning of an enforced tran­si­tion from her famil­iar world into the unknown realms of faerie territory—Prythian. The set­ting is steeped in ten­sion and fear, illu­mi­nat­ed by the ethe­re­al pres­ence of a white mare that serves as the pro­tag­o­nist’s mount for the jour­ney. Despite the phys­i­cal com­fort the mare pro­vides, the pro­tag­o­nist’s mind is ensnared by dread con­cern­ing the uncer­tain fate that awaits her across the invis­i­ble bound­ary sep­a­rat­ing the human world from the faerie lands.

The pro­tag­o­nist reflects on her sit­u­a­tion with a mix of res­ig­na­tion and defi­ance. Hav­ing killed a faerie, she con­tem­plates the pos­si­bly harsh terms of her sur­vival on the beast­’s lands, giv­en the ambi­gu­i­ty of the Treaty that pro­tects humans from being tak­en as slaves by faeries, but pos­si­bly not in cas­es involv­ing humans who have killed faeries. This par­tic­u­lar spec­u­la­tion trig­gers a deep­er delve into her fears and the poten­tial hor­rors of Pry­thi­an, as dis­tin­guished from the mis­lead­ing per­cep­tions fos­tered by tales and the naive enthu­si­asm of the Chil­dren of the Blessed.

While on their north­ward jour­ney, the pro­tag­o­nist grap­ples with the impli­ca­tions of her action—killing a faerie—manifesting nei­ther regret for the deed nor com­pas­sion for the crea­ture, dri­ven instead by a steely resolve for sur­vival and poten­tial­ly, escape. Through­out this pas­sage, detailed obser­va­tions of the envi­ron­ment and intro­spec­tive mus­ings pro­vide a vivid por­tray­al of the pro­tag­o­nist’s tumul­tuous emo­tion­al land­scape, char­ac­ter­ized by alter­nat­ing feel­ings of hope­less­ness and deter­mined resilience against the back­drop of an omi­nous­ly beau­ti­ful and unfor­giv­ing faerie realm.

The nar­ra­tive is fur­ther enriched by the pro­tag­o­nist’s strate­gic con­sid­er­a­tions for defense and escape, despite the loom­ing pres­ence of the beast and the stark real­i­ties of faerie cru­el­ty and pow­er. Through­out, the dia­logue between the pro­tag­o­nist and the beast is sparse, yet charged with ten­sion and unspo­ken enmi­ty, cul­mi­nat­ing in a moment of enforced slum­ber brought upon the pro­tag­o­nist by the beast­’s mag­i­cal prowess. This chap­ter clos­es on a note of sus­pense and unre­solved con­flict, leav­ing the read­er intrigued about the pro­tag­o­nist’s fate in this alien and dan­ger­ous land.

Chap­ter 5 recounts the com­plex dynam­ics of a fam­i­ly nav­i­gat­ing through loss, expec­ta­tion, and the quest for iden­ti­ty. Maeve returns home for Christ­mas briefly before leav­ing to ski with friends, show­cas­ing her inte­gra­tion into a world of afflu­ence and oppor­tu­ni­ties. The pro­tag­o­nist, feel­ing old­er and some­what dis­placed from peers, con­tem­plates on the dis­tances grow­ing with­in the fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly when Maeve opts to stay at school for East­er, indi­cat­ing a drift in their shared expe­ri­ences and reliance on tra­di­tion­al fam­i­ly gath­er­ings.

A spon­ta­neous trip to New York presents the pro­tag­o­nist an oppor­tu­ni­ty to recon­nect with Maeve, explor­ing the city, and inad­ver­tent­ly div­ing into mem­o­ries and land­marks that define their father’s past. This explo­ration plays out against the back­drop of their step­moth­er Andrea’s impos­ing pres­ence and her con­trast­ing plans for the fam­i­ly, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing their rela­tion­ships.

The chap­ter poignant­ly cap­tures a father-son jour­ney, lit­er­al­ly and metaphor­i­cal­ly, nav­i­gat­ing through rec­ol­lec­tions of their fam­i­ly his­to­ry in Brook­lyn. It stands as a reveal­ing ven­ture into their her­itage, bring­ing forth untold fam­i­ly sto­ries, includ­ing those of their mother—painted as a fig­ure of pro­found absence yet con­sid­er­able influ­ence over their iden­ti­ty and per­cep­tions.

The nar­ra­tive astute­ly weaves togeth­er themes of mem­o­ry, loss, and the attempt to find coher­ence in one’s fam­i­ly nar­ra­tive. It deals with the pro­tag­o­nist’s inter­nal strug­gle to rec­on­cile with the per­sonas of their moth­er and step­moth­er, oscil­lat­ing between resent­ment, curios­i­ty, and the pur­suit of under­stand­ing. Through spon­ta­neous escapes, mun­dane inter­ac­tions, and reflec­tive silences, the chap­ter encap­su­lates the nuanced jour­ney of com­ing to terms with the com­plex­i­ties of famil­ial bonds, lega­cies, and the spaces—physical and emotional—that they inhab­it.

The vis­it to Maeve in New York becomes a piv­otal point for the pro­tag­o­nist, offer­ing a glimpse into Maeve’s col­lege life, her aspi­ra­tions, and her way of cop­ing with the famil­ial gap through inde­pen­dence and aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits. Their bond­ing over shared rem­i­nis­cences and the explo­rative strolls in Man­hat­tan and Brook­lyn sig­ni­fy a deep­er quest for con­nec­tion amidst the evolv­ing land­scapes of their lives.

In con­clu­sion, this chap­ter del­i­cate­ly nar­rates the pro­tag­o­nists’ nav­i­ga­tion through shift­ing famil­ial land­scapes, the quest for per­son­al iden­ti­ty amidst col­lec­tive his­to­ries, and the pro­found rever­ber­a­tions of past deci­sions on present real­i­ties. Through a blend of vivid expe­ri­ences and reflec­tive moments, it offers a rich, mul­ti­fac­eted explo­ration of the ties that bind, the mem­o­ries that shape, and the silent under­stand­ings that often con­sti­tute fam­i­ly inter­ac­tions.

In the heart of Lee Coun­ty, where moun­tain vil­lages dot the land­scape rem­i­nis­cent of feu­dal days, Margery and her team of librar­i­ans face the grow­ing chaos of the Split Creek Road library. Rapid­ly gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty, the library sees an insa­tiable demand for read­ing mate­r­i­al from its patrons, stretch­ing the small team to their lim­its. Mag­a­zines and books, par­tic­u­lar­ly com­ic books, are con­sumed vora­cious­ly, lead­ing to a hec­tic envi­ron­ment at their base with­in Fred­er­ick Guisler’s cab­in. Despite their over­whelm­ing suc­cess, the librar­i­ans strug­gle to man­age the mount­ing dis­ar­ray of their col­lec­tions.

Margery, observ­ing the unman­age­able state of affairs, sug­gests the idea of hir­ing a full-time sorter to alle­vi­ate the bur­den. How­ev­er, none of her col­leagues are keen on tak­ing up the posi­tion, high­light­ing their var­i­ous defi­cien­cies and dis­com­forts with the role. The librar­i­ans rec­og­nize the neces­si­ty of some­one capa­ble of mend­ing the dete­ri­o­rat­ing books and per­haps cre­at­ing scrap­books from the loose pages, a con­cept adopt­ed from anoth­er library.

In an attempt to address this need, Margery sets off to Hoff­man, a min­ing town embody­ing the stark real­i­ties of indus­try, to seek help. There, she encoun­ters Sven Gus­tavs­son, an influ­en­tial fig­ure in the com­mu­ni­ty, amidst the harsh back­drop of min­ing oper­a­tions and labor ten­sions. Their rela­tion­ship, marked by mutu­al admi­ra­tion and flir­ta­tion, pro­vides a per­son­al touch to Margery’s quest.

Shift­ing her focus, Margery vis­its William Ken­worth and his sis­ter Sophia at Monarch Creek, aim­ing to recruit Sophia for the librar­i­an role. Reflect­ing on their shared his­to­ry and Sophia’s exper­tise as a librar­i­an, Margery presents her pro­pos­al. Despite the ini­tial reluc­tance stem­ming from the racial seg­re­ga­tion and dan­gers asso­ci­at­ed with chang­ing social norms, the con­ver­sa­tion reveals the tight finan­cial cir­cum­stances the Ken­worths face, prompt­ing them to con­sid­er the offer.

The nar­ra­tive inter­twines themes of com­mu­ni­ty resilience, the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of lit­er­a­ture, and the strug­gles against eco­nom­ic and racial injus­tices. As Margery nav­i­gates the com­plex land­scape of Appalachia, her efforts to expand access to books and lit­er­a­cy illu­mi­nate the pro­found impact of small acts of resis­tance and sol­i­dar­i­ty with­in mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties.

By 6:45 that evening, din­ner was near­ly ready, with mar­i­nat­ed chick­en breast from a ser­vice instruct­ing prepa­ra­tion already in the oven. The delight­ful kitchen aro­mas wel­comed Andrew Win­ches­ter home as he arrived, loos­en­ing his tie and com­pli­ment­ing Mil­lie on the meal’s scent and her work on the kitchen’s clean­li­ness. Despite her suc­cess­ful day, Mil­lie with­held men­tion­ing an ear­li­er mishap with peanut but­ter to Andrew, part­ly to avoid any con­cerns about her capa­bil­i­ties in his fam­i­ly’s home, which he cred­its Nina, his wife, for main­tain­ing.

Nina entered, impec­ca­bly dressed, yet reveal­ing a vis­i­ble change from the casu­al and slim­mer per­son in an old pho­to Mil­lie had observed ear­li­er. Andrew’s affec­tion for Nina was evi­dent, spark­ing a light moment of who missed whom more between the cou­ple. This moment, how­ev­er, quick­ly turned awk­ward for Mil­lie, who felt out of place wit­ness­ing such inti­mate exchanges.

Amidst this, Andrew’s remark on Nina’s inabil­i­ty in the kitchen and his light-heart­ed acknowl­edg­ment of rely­ing on take­out since his moth­er moved to Flori­da, posi­tions Mil­lie as a sav­ior for their meal­time strug­gles. Despite his jest, Nina’s dis­com­fort was pal­pa­ble, reflect­ing on the dynam­ics with­in their rela­tion­ship and the pres­sure and expec­ta­tions often placed unfair­ly on women in house­holds.

Andrew’s invi­ta­tion for Mil­lie to join them for din­ner expos­es Nina’s appre­hen­sion towards her hus­band’s casu­al inter­ac­tion with anoth­er woman, even in a pro­fes­sion­al or casu­al con­text. This ten­sion reveals the com­plex­i­ties with­in their mar­riage, show­cas­ing a mix of affec­tion, depen­den­cy, and under­ly­ing inse­cu­ri­ties. Mil­lie, sens­ing the del­i­cate sit­u­a­tion, declines the offer, choos­ing to dis­tance her­self from poten­tial­ly esca­lat­ing the moment into a deep­er domes­tic con­flict.

This chap­ter paints a detailed pic­ture of the Win­ches­ter house­hold, show­ing the lay­ers of rela­tion­ship dynam­ics, expec­ta­tions, and social norms with­in a seem­ing­ly per­fect yet sub­tly strained fam­i­ly life.

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
5
I shouldn’t have been sur­prised. Not when Rhysand liked to make a
spec­ta­cle of every­thing. And found piss­ing off Tam­lin to be an art form.
But there he was.
Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court, now stood beside me, dark­ness
leak­ing from him like ink in water.
He angled his head, his blue-black hair shift­ing with the move­ment.
Those vio­let eyes sparkled in the gold­en fae­light as they fixed on Tam­lin, as
he held up a hand to where Tam­lin and Lucien and their sen­tries had their
swords half-drawn, siz­ing up how to get me out of the way, how to bring
him down—
But at the lift of that hand, they froze.
Ianthe, how­ev­er, was back­ing away slow­ly, face drained of col­or.
“What a pret­ty lit­tle wed­ding,” Rhysand said, stuff­ing his hands into his
pock­ets as those many swords remained in their sheaths. The remain­ing
crowd was press­ing back, some climb­ing over seats to get away.
Rhys looked me over slow­ly, and clicked his tongue at my silk gloves.
What­ev­er had been build­ing beneath my skin went still and cold.
“Get the hell out,” growled Tam­lin, stalk­ing toward us. Claws ripped
from his knuck­les.
Rhys clicked his tongue again. “Oh, I don’t think so. Not when I need to
call in my bar­gain with Feyre dar­ling.”
My stom­ach hol­lowed out. No—no, not now.
“You try to break the bar­gain, and you know what will hap­pen,” Rhys
went on, chuck­ling a bit at the crowd still falling over them­selves to get
away from him. He jerked his chin toward me. “I gave you three months of
free­dom. You could at least look hap­py to see me.”
I was shak­ing too bad­ly to say any­thing. Rhys’s eyes flick­ered with
dis­taste.
The expres­sion was gone when he faced Tam­lin again. “I’ll be tak­ing her
now.”
“Don’t you dare,” Tam­lin snarled. Behind him, the dais was emp­ty;
Ianthe had van­ished entire­ly. Along with most of those in atten­dance.
“Was I inter­rupt­ing? I thought it was over.” Rhys gave me a smile
drip­ping with ven­om. He knew—through that bond, through what­ev­er
mag­ic was between us, he’d known I was about to say no. “At least, Feyre
seemed to think so.”
Tam­lin snarled, “Let us fin­ish the cer­e­mo­ny—”
“Your High Priest­ess,” Rhys said, “seems to think it’s over, too.”
Tam­lin stiff­ened as he looked over a shoul­der to find the altar emp­ty.
When he faced us again, the claws had eased halfway back into his hands.
“Rhysand—”
“I’m in no mood to bar­gain,” Rhys said, “even though I could work it to
my advan­tage, I’m sure.” I jolt­ed at the caress of his hand on my elbow.
“Let’s go.”
I didn’t move.
“Tam­lin,” I breathed.
Tam­lin took a sin­gle step toward me, his gold­en face turn­ing sal­low, but
remained focused on Rhys. “Name your price.”
“Don’t both­er,” Rhys crooned, link­ing elbows with me. Every spot of
con­tact was abhor­rent, unbear­able.
He’d take me back to the Night Court, the place Ama­ran­tha had
sup­pos­ed­ly mod­eled Under the Moun­tain after, full of deprav­i­ty and tor­ture
and death—
“Tam­lin, please.”
“Such dra­mat­ics,” Rhysand said, tug­ging me clos­er.
But Tam­lin didn’t move—and those claws were whol­ly replaced by
smooth skin. He fixed his gaze on Rhys, his lips pulling back in a snarl. “If
you hurt her—”
“I know, I know,” Rhysand drawled. “I’ll return her in a week.”
No—no, Tam­lin couldn’t be mak­ing those kinds of threats, not when they
meant he was let­ting me go. Even Lucien was gap­ing at Tam­lin, his face
white with fury and shock.
Rhys released my elbow only to slip a hand around my waist, press­ing
me into his side as he whis­pered in my ear, “Hold on.”
Then dark­ness roared, a wind tear­ing me this way and that, the ground
falling away beneath me, the world gone around me. Only Rhys remained,
and I hat­ed him as I clung to him, I hat­ed him with my entire heart—
Then the dark­ness van­ished.
I smelled jas­mine first—then saw stars. A sea of stars flick­er­ing beyond
glow­ing pil­lars of moon­stone that framed the sweep­ing view of end­less
snow­capped moun­tains.
“Wel­come to the Night Court,” was all Rhys said.
It was the most beau­ti­ful place I’d ever seen.
What­ev­er build­ing we were in had been perched atop one of the gray-
stoned moun­tains. The hall around us was open to the ele­ments, no
win­dows to be found, just tow­er­ing pil­lars and gos­samer cur­tains, sway­ing
in that jas­mine-scent­ed breeze.
It must be some mag­ic, to keep the air warm in the dead of win­ter. Not to
men­tion the alti­tude, or the snow coat­ing the moun­tains, mighty winds
send­ing veils of it drift­ing off the peaks like wan­der­ing mist.
Lit­tle seat­ing, din­ing, and work areas dot­ted the hall, sec­tioned off with
those cur­tains or lush plants or thick rugs scat­tered over the moon­stone
floor. A few balls of light bobbed on the breeze, along with col­ored-glass
lanterns dan­gling from the arch­es of the ceil­ing.
Not a scream, not a shout, not a plea to be heard.
Behind me, a wall of white mar­ble arose, bro­ken occa­sion­al­ly by open
door­ways lead­ing into dim stair­wells. The rest of the Night Court had to be
through there. No won­der I couldn’t hear any­one scream­ing, if they were all
inside.
“This is my pri­vate res­i­dence,” Rhys said casu­al­ly. His skin was dark­er
than I’d remembered—golden now, rather than pale.
Pale, from being locked Under the Moun­tain for fifty years. I scanned
him, search­ing for any sign of the mas­sive, mem­bra­nous wings—the ones
he’d admit­ted he loved fly­ing with. But there was none. Just the male,
smirk­ing at me.
And that too-famil­iar expres­sion— “How dare you—”
Rhys snort­ed. “I cer­tain­ly missed that look on your face.” He stalked
clos­er, his move­ments feline, those vio­let eyes turn­ing subdued—lethal.
“You’re wel­come, you know.”
“For what?”
Rhys paused less than a foot away, slid­ing his hands into his pock­ets. The
night didn’t seem to rip­ple from him here—and he appeared, despite his
per­fec­tion, almost nor­mal. “For sav­ing you when asked.”
I stiff­ened. “I didn’t ask for any­thing.”
His stare dipped to my left hand.
Rhys gave no warn­ing as he gripped my arm, snarling soft­ly, and tore off
the glove. His touch was like a brand, and I flinched, yield­ing a step, but he
held firm until he’d got­ten both gloves off. “I heard you beg­ging some­one,
any­one, to res­cue you, to get you out. I heard you say no.”
“I didn’t say any­thing.”
He turned my bare hand over, his hold tight­en­ing as he exam­ined the eye
he’d tat­tooed. He tapped the pupil. Once. Twice. “I heard it loud and clear.”
I wrenched my hand away. “Take me back. Now. I didn’t want to be
stolen away.”
He shrugged. “What bet­ter time to take you here? Maybe Tam­lin didn’t
notice you were about to reject him in front of his entire court—maybe you
can now sim­ply blame it on me.”
“You’re a bas­tard. You made it clear enough that I had … reser­va­tions.”
“Such grat­i­tude, as always.”
I strug­gled to get down a sin­gle, deep breath. “What do you want from
me?”
“Want? I want you to say thank you, first of all. Then I want you to take
off that hideous dress. You look … ” His mouth cut a cru­el line. “You look
exact­ly like the doe-eyed damsel he and that sim­per­ing priest­ess want you
to be.”
“You don’t know any­thing about me. Or us.”
Rhys gave me a know­ing smile. “Does Tam­lin? Does he ever ask you
why you hurl your guts up every night, or why you can’t go into cer­tain
rooms or see cer­tain col­ors?”
I froze. He might as well have stripped me naked. “Get the hell out of my
head.”
Tam­lin had hor­rors of his own to endure, to face down.
“Like­wise.” He stalked a few steps away. “You think I enjoy being
awok­en every night by visions of you puk­ing? You send every­thing right
down that bond, and I don’t appre­ci­ate hav­ing a front-row seat when I’m
try­ing to sleep.”
“Prick.”
Anoth­er chuck­le. But I wouldn’t ask about what he meant—about the
bond between us. I wouldn’t give him the sat­is­fac­tion of look­ing curi­ous.
“As for what else I want from you … ” He ges­tured to the house behind us.
“I’ll tell you tomor­row at break­fast. For now, clean your­self up. Rest.” That
rage flick­ered in his eyes again at the dress, the hair. “Take the stairs on the
right, one lev­el down. Your room is the first door.”
“Not a dun­geon cell?” Per­haps it was fool­ish to reveal that fear, to
sug­gest it to him.
But Rhys half turned, brows lift­ing. “You are not a pris­on­er, Feyre. You
made a bar­gain, and I am call­ing it in. You will be my guest here, with the
priv­i­leges of a mem­ber of my house­hold. None of my sub­jects are going to
touch you, hurt you, or so much as think ill of you here.”
My tongue was dry and heavy as I said, “And where might those sub­jects
be?”
“Some dwell here—in the moun­tain beneath us.” He angled his head.
“They’re for­bid­den to set foot in this res­i­dence. They know they’d be
sign­ing their death war­rant.” His eyes met mine, stark and clear, as if he
could sense the pan­ic, the shad­ows creep­ing in. “Ama­ran­tha wasn’t very
cre­ative,” he said with qui­et wrath. “My court beneath this moun­tain has
long been feared, and she chose to repli­cate it by vio­lat­ing the space of
Prythian’s sacred moun­tain. So, yes: there’s a court beneath this moun­tain
—the court your Tam­lin now expects me to be sub­ject­ing you to. I pre­side
over it every now and then, but it most­ly rules itself.”
“When—when are you tak­ing me there?” If I had to go under­ground, had
to see those kinds of hor­rors again … I’d beg him—beg him not to take me.
I didn’t care how pathet­ic it made me. I’d lost any sort of qualms about
what lines I’d cross to sur­vive.
“I’m not.” He rolled his shoul­ders. “This is my home, and the court
beneath it is my … occu­pa­tion, as you mor­tals call it. I do not like for the
two to over­lap very often.”
My brows rose slight­ly. “ ‘You mor­tals’?”
Starlight danced along the planes of his face. “Should I con­sid­er you
some­thing dif­fer­ent?”
A chal­lenge. I shoved away my irri­ta­tion at the amuse­ment again tug­ging
at the cor­ners of his lips, and instead said, “And the oth­er denizens of your
court?” The Night Court ter­ri­to­ry was enormous—bigger than any oth­er in
Pry­thi­an. And all around us were those emp­ty, snow-blast­ed moun­tains. No
sign of towns, cities, or any­thing.
“Scat­tered through­out, dwelling as they wish. Just as you are now free to
roam where you wish.”
“I wish to roam home.”
Rhys laughed, final­ly saun­ter­ing toward the oth­er end of the hall, which
end­ed in a veran­da open to the stars. “I’m will­ing to accept your thanks at
any time, you know,” he called to me with­out look­ing back.
Red explod­ed in my vision, and I couldn’t breathe fast enough, couldn’t
think above the roar in my head. One heart­beat, I was star­ing after him—the
next, I had my shoe in a hand.
I hurled it at him with all my strength.
All my con­sid­er­able, immor­tal strength.
I bare­ly saw my silk slip­per as it flew through the air, fast as a shoot­ing
star, so fast that even a High Lord couldn’t detect it as it neared—
And slammed into his head.
Rhys whirled, a hand ris­ing to the back of his head, his eyes wide.
I already had the oth­er shoe in my hand.
Rhys’s lip pulled back from his teeth. “I dare you.” Temper—he had to
be in some mood today to let his tem­per show this much.
Good. That made two of us.
I flung my oth­er shoe right at his head, as swift and hard as the first one.
His hand snatched up, grab­bing the shoe mere inch­es from his face.
Rhys hissed and low­ered the shoe, his eyes meet­ing mine as the silk
dis­solved to glit­ter­ing black dust in his fist. His fin­gers unfurled, the last of
the sparkling ash­es blow­ing into obliv­ion, and he sur­veyed my hand, my
body, my face.
“Inter­est­ing,” he mur­mured, and con­tin­ued on his way.
I debat­ed tack­ling him and pum­mel­ing that face with my fists, but I
wasn’t stu­pid. I was in his home, on top of a moun­tain in the mid­dle of
absolute­ly nowhere, it seemed. No one would be com­ing to res­cue me—no
one was even here to wit­ness my scream­ing.
So I turned toward the door­way he’d indi­cat­ed, head­ing for the dim
stair­well beyond.
I’d near­ly reached it, not dar­ing to breathe too loud­ly, when a bright,
amused female voice said behind me—far away, from wher­ev­er Rhys had
gone to at the oppo­site end of the hall, “So, that went well.”
Rhys’s answer­ing snarl sent my foot­steps hur­ry­ing.
My room was … a dream.
After scour­ing it for any sign of dan­ger, after learn­ing every exit and
entrance and hid­ing place, I paused in the cen­ter to con­tem­plate where,
exact­ly, I’d be stay­ing for the next week.
Like the upstairs liv­ing area, its win­dows were open to the bru­tal world
beyond—no glass, no shutters—and sheer amethyst cur­tains flut­tered in
that unnat­ur­al, soft breeze. The large bed was a creamy white-and-ivory
con­coc­tion, with pil­lows and blan­kets and throws for days, made more
invit­ing by the twin gold­en lamps beside it. An armoire and dress­ing table
occu­pied a wall, framed by those glass-less win­dows. Across the room, a
cham­ber with a porce­lain sink and toi­let lay behind an arched wood­en door,
but the bath …
The bath.
Occu­py­ing the oth­er half of the bed­room, my bath­tub was actu­al­ly a
pool, hang­ing right off the moun­tain itself. A pool for soak­ing or enjoy­ing
myself. Its far edge seemed to dis­ap­pear into noth­ing, the water flow­ing
silent­ly off the side and into the night beyond. A nar­row ledge on the
adja­cent wall was lined with fat, gut­ter­ing can­dles whose glow gild­ed the
dark, glassy sur­face and waft­ing ten­drils of steam.
Open, airy, plush, and … calm.
This room was fit for an empress. With the mar­ble floors, silks, vel­vets,
and ele­gant details, only an empress could have afford­ed it. I tried not to
think what Rhys’s cham­ber was like, if this was how he treat­ed his guests.
Guest—not pris­on­er.
Well … the room proved it.
I didn’t both­er bar­ri­cad­ing the door. Rhys could like­ly fly in if he felt like
it. And I’d seen him shat­ter a faerie’s mind with­out so much as blink­ing. I
doubt­ed a bit of wood would keep out that hor­ri­ble pow­er.
I again sur­veyed the room, my wed­ding gown hiss­ing on the warm
mar­ble floors.
I peered down at myself.
You look ridicu­lous.
Heat itched along my cheeks and neck.
It didn’t excuse what he’d done. Even if he’d … saved me—I choked on
the word—from hav­ing to refuse Tam­lin. Hav­ing to explain.
Slow­ly, I tugged the pins and baubles from my curled hair, pil­ing them
onto the dress­ing table. The sight was enough for me to grit my teeth, and I
swept them into an emp­ty draw­er instead, slam­ming it shut so hard the
mir­ror above the table rat­tled. I rubbed at my scalp, aching from the weight
of the curls and prod­ding pins. This after­noon, I’d imag­ined Tam­lin pulling
them each from my hair, a kiss for every pin, but now—
I swal­lowed against the burn­ing in my throat.
Rhys was the least of my con­cerns. Tam­lin had seen the hes­i­ta­tion, but
had he under­stood that I was about to say no? Had Ianthe? I had to tell him.
Had to explain that there couldn’t be a wed­ding, not for a while yet. Maybe
I’d wait until the mat­ing bond snapped into place, until I knew for sure it
couldn’t be some mis­take, that … that I was wor­thy of him.
Maybe wait until he, too, had faced the night­mares stalk­ing him. Relaxed
his grip on things a bit. On me. Even if I under­stood his need to pro­tect, that
fear of los­ing me … Per­haps I should explain every­thing when I returned.
But—so many peo­ple had seen it, seen me hes­i­tate—
My low­er lip trem­bled, and I began unbut­ton­ing my gown, then tugged it
off my shoul­ders.
I let it slide to the ground in a sigh of silk and tulle and bead­ing, a
deflat­ed souf­flé on the mar­ble floor, and took a large step out of it. Even my
under­gar­ments were ridicu­lous: frothy scraps of lace, intend­ed sole­ly for
Tam­lin to admire—and then tear into rib­bons.
I snatched up the gown, storm­ing to the armoire and shov­ing it inside.
Then I stripped off the under­gar­ments and chucked them in as well.
My tat­too was stark against the pile of white silk and lace. My breath
came faster and faster. I didn’t real­ize I was weep­ing until I grabbed the
first bit of fab­ric with­in the armoire I could find—a set of turquoise
nightclothes—and shoved my feet into the ankle-length pants, then pulled
the short-sleeved match­ing shirt over my head, the hem graz­ing the top of
my navel. I didn’t care that it had to be some Night Court fash­ion, didn’t
care that they were soft and warm.
I climbed into that big, fluffy bed, the sheets smooth and wel­com­ing, and
could bare­ly draw a breath steady enough to blow out the lamps on either
side.
But as soon as dark­ness enveloped the room, my sobs hit in full—great,
gasp­ing pants that shud­dered through me, flow­ing out the open win­dows,
and into the star­ry, snow-kissed night.
Rhys hadn’t been lying when he said I was to join him for break­fast.
My old hand­maid­ens from Under the Moun­tain appeared at my door just
past dawn, and I might not have rec­og­nized the pret­ty, dark-haired twins
had they not act­ed like they knew me. I had nev­er seen them as any­thing
but shad­ows, their faces always con­cealed in impen­e­tra­ble night. But here
—or per­haps with­out Amarantha—they were ful­ly cor­po­re­al.
Nuala and Cer­rid­wen were their names, and I won­dered if they’d ever
told me. If I had been too far gone Under the Moun­tain to even care.
Their gen­tle knock hurled me awake—not that I’d slept much dur­ing the
night. For a heart­beat, I won­dered why my bed felt so much soft­er, why
moun­tains flowed into the dis­tance and not spring grass­es and hills … and
then it all poured back in. Along with a throb­bing, relent­less headache.
After the sec­ond, patient knock, fol­lowed by a muf­fled expla­na­tion
through the door of who they were, I scram­bled out of bed to let them in.
And after a mis­er­ably awk­ward greet­ing, they informed me that break­fast
would be served in thir­ty min­utes, and I was to bathe and dress.
I didn’t both­er to ask if Rhys was behind that last order, or if it was their
rec­om­men­da­tion based on how grim I no doubt looked, but they laid out
some clothes on the bed before leav­ing me to wash in pri­vate.
I was tempt­ed to linger in the lux­u­ri­ous heat of the bath­tub for the rest of
the day, but a faint, end­less­ly amused tug cleaved through my headache. I
knew that tug—had been called by it once before, in those hours after
Amarantha’s down­fall.
I ducked to my neck in the water, scan­ning the clear win­ter sky, the fierce
wind whip­ping the snow off those near­by peaks … No sign of him, no
pound of beat­ing wings. But the tug yanked again in my mind, my gut—a
sum­mon­ing. Like some servant’s bell.
Curs­ing him sound­ly, I scrubbed myself down and dressed in the clothes
they’d left.
And now, strid­ing across the sun­ny upper lev­el as I blind­ly fol­lowed the
source of that insuf­fer­able tug, my magen­ta silk shoes near-silent on the
moon­stone floors, I want­ed to shred the clothes off me, if only for the fact
that they belonged to this place, to him.
My high-waist­ed peach pants were loose and bil­low­ing, gath­ered at the
ankles with vel­vet cuffs of bright gold. The long sleeves of the match­ing top
were made of gos­samer, also gath­ered at the wrists, and the top itself hung
just to my navel, reveal­ing a sliv­er of skin as I walked.
Com­fort­able, easy to move in—to run. Fem­i­nine. Exot­ic. Thin enough
that, unless Rhysand planned to tor­ment me by cast­ing me into the win­ter
waste­land around us, I could assume I wasn’t leav­ing the bor­ders of
what­ev­er warm­ing mag­ic kept the palace so balmy.
At least the tat­too, vis­i­ble through the sheer sleeve, wouldn’t be out of
place here. But—the clothes were still a part of this court.
And no doubt part of some game he intend­ed to play with me.
At the very end of the upper lev­el, a small glass table gleamed like
quick­sil­ver in the heart of a stone veran­da, set with three chairs and laden
with fruits, juices, pas­tries, and break­fast meats. And in one of those chairs
… Though Rhys stared out at the sweep­ing view, the snowy moun­tains
near-blind­ing in the sun­light, I knew he’d sensed my arrival from the
moment I cleared the stair­well at the oth­er side of the hall. Maybe since I’d
awok­en, if that tug was any indi­ca­tion.
I paused between the last two pil­lars, study­ing the High Lord loung­ing at
the break­fast table and the view he sur­veyed.
“I’m not a dog to be sum­moned,” I said by way of greet­ing.
Slow­ly, Rhys looked over his shoul­der. Those vio­let eyes were vibrant in
the light, and I curled my fin­gers into fists as they swept from my head to
my toes and back up again. He frowned at what­ev­er he found lack­ing. “I
didn’t want you to get lost,” he said bland­ly.
My head throbbed, and I eyed the sil­ver teapot steam­ing in the cen­ter of
the table. A cup of tea … “I thought it’d always be dark here,” I said, if
only to not look quite as des­per­ate for that life-giv­ing tea so ear­ly in the
morn­ing.
“We’re one of the three Solar Courts,” he said, motion­ing for me to sit
with a grace­ful twist of his wrist. “Our nights are far more beau­ti­ful, and
our sun­sets and dawns are exquis­ite, but we do adhere to the laws of
nature.”
I slid into the uphol­stered chair across from him. His tunic was
unbut­toned at the neck, reveal­ing a hint of the tanned chest beneath. “And
do the oth­er courts choose not to?”
“The nature of the Sea­son­al Courts,” he said, “is linked to their High
Lords, whose mag­ic and will keeps them in eter­nal spring, or win­ter, or fall,
or sum­mer. It has always been like that—some sort of strange stag­na­tion.
But the Solar Courts—Day, Dawn, and Night—are of a more … sym­bol­ic
nature. We might be pow­er­ful, but even we can­not alter the sun’s path or
strength. Tea?”
The sun­light danced along the curve of the sil­ver teapot. I kept my eager
nod to a restrained dip of my chin. “But you will find,” Rhysand went on,
pour­ing a cup for me, “that our nights are more spectacular—so spec­tac­u­lar
that some in my ter­ri­to­ry even awak­en at sun­set and go to bed at dawn, just
to live under the starlight.”
I splashed some milk in the tea, watch­ing the light and dark eddy
togeth­er. “Why is it so warm in here, when win­ter is in full blast out there?”
“Mag­ic.”
“Obvi­ous­ly.” I set down my tea­spoon and sipped, near­ly sigh­ing at the
rush of heat and smoky, rich fla­vor. “But why?”
Rhys scanned the wind tear­ing through the peaks. “You heat a house in
the winter—why shouldn’t I heat this place as well? I’ll admit I don’t know
why my pre­de­ces­sors built a palace fit for the Sum­mer Court in the mid­dle
of a moun­tain range that’s mild­ly warm at best, but who am I to ques­tion?”
I took a few more sips, that headache already less­en­ing, and dared to
scoop some fruit onto my plate from a glass bowl near­by.
He watched every move­ment. Then he said qui­et­ly, “You’ve lost weight.”
“You’re prone to dig­ging through my head when­ev­er you please,” I said,
stab­bing a piece of mel­on with my fork. “I don’t see why you’re sur­prised
by it.”
His gaze didn’t light­en, though that smile again played about his
sen­su­ous mouth, no doubt his favorite mask. “Only occa­sion­al­ly will I do
that. And I can’t help it if you send things down the bond.”
I con­tem­plat­ed refus­ing to ask as I had done last night, but … “How does
it work—this bond that allows you to see into my head?”
He sipped from his own tea. “Think of the bargain’s bond as a bridge
between us—and at either end is a door to our respec­tive minds. A shield.
My innate tal­ents allow me to slip through the men­tal shields of any­one I
wish, with or with­out that bridge—unless they’re very, very strong, or have
trained exten­sive­ly to keep those shields tight. As a human, the gates to
your mind were flung open for me to stroll through. As Fae … ” A lit­tle
shrug. “Some­times, you unwit­ting­ly have a shield up—sometimes, when
emo­tion seems to be run­ning strong, that shield van­ish­es. And some­times,
when those shields are open, you might as well be stand­ing at the gates to
your mind, shout­ing your thoughts across the bridge to me. Some­times I
hear them; some­times I don’t.”
I scowled, clench­ing my fork hard­er. “And how often do you just rifle
through my mind when my shields are down?”
All amuse­ment fad­ed from his face. “When I can’t tell if your night­mares
are real threats or imag­ined. When you’re about to be mar­ried and you
silent­ly beg any­one to help you. Only when you drop your men­tal shields
and unknow­ing­ly blast those things down the bridge. And to answer your
ques­tion before you ask, yes. Even with your shields up, I could get through
them if I wished. You could train, though—learn how to shield against
some­one like me, even with the bond bridg­ing our minds and my own
abil­i­ties.”
I ignored the offer. Agree­ing to do any­thing with him felt too per­ma­nent,
too accept­ing of the bar­gain between us. “What do you want with me? You

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

I AM ONCE AGAIN IN Evelyn’s study. The sun is shin­ing direct­ly into
the win­dows, light­ing Evelyn’s face with so much warmth that it
obscures her right side from view.
We’re real­ly doing this. Eve­lyn and me. Sub­ject and biog­ra­ph­er. It
begins now.
She is wear­ing black leg­gings and a man’s navy-blue but­ton-down
shirt with a belt. I’m wear­ing my usu­al jeans, T‑shirt, and blaz­er. I
dressed with the inten­tion of stay­ing here all day and all night, if need
be. If she keeps talk­ing, I will be here, lis­ten­ing.
“So,” I say.
“So,” Eve­lyn says, her voice dar­ing me to go for it.
Sit­ting at her desk while she is on the couch feels adver­sar­i­al
some­how. I want her to feel as if we are on the same team. Because we
are, aren’t we? Although I get the impres­sion you nev­er know with
Eve­lyn.
Can she real­ly tell the truth? Is she capa­ble of it?
I take a seat in the chair next to the sofa. I lean for­ward, with my
notepad in my lap and a pen in my hand. I take out my phone, open the
voice memo app, and hit record.
“You sure you’re ready?” I ask her.
Eve­lyn nods. “Every­one I loved is dead now. There’s no one left to
pro­tect. No one left to lie for but me. Peo­ple have so close­ly fol­lowed
the most intri­cate details of the fake sto­ry of my life. But it’s not . . . I
don’t . . . I want them to know the real sto­ry. The real me.”
“All right,” I say. “Show me the real you, then. And I’ll make sure
the world under­stands.”
Eve­lyn looks at me and briefly smiles. I can tell I have said what she
wants to hear. For­tu­nate­ly, I mean it.

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.

5
I was qui­et and small, but when I sang I came alive, and I had tak­en enough
gym­nas­tics class­es to be able to move well. When I was �ve, I entered a local
dance com­pe­ti­tion. My tal­ent was a dance rou­tine done wear­ing a top hat and
twirling a cane. I won. Then my moth­er start­ed tak­ing me around to con­tests all
over the region. In old pho­tos and videos, I’m wear­ing the most ridicu­lous
things. In my third-grade musi­cal, I wore a bag­gy pur­ple T‑shirt with a huge
pur­ple bow on top of my head that made me look like a Christ­mas present. It
was absolute­ly hor­ri­ble.
I worked my way through the tal­ent cir­cuit, win­ning a region­al con­test in
Baton Rouge. Before too long, my par­ents set their sights on big­ger
oppor­tu­ni­ties than what we could accom­plish pick­ing up prizes in school
gym­na­si­ums. When they saw an adver­tise­ment in the news­pa­per for an open call
for The All New Mick­ey Mouse Club, they sug­gest­ed we go. We drove eight
hours to Atlanta. There were more than two thou­sand kids there. I had to stand
out—especially once we learned, after we arrived, that they were only look­ing for
kids over the age of ten.
When the cast­ing direc­tor, a man named Matt Casel­la, asked me how old I
was, I opened my mouth to say “Eight,” then remem­bered the age-ten cuto� and
said: “Nine!” He looked at me skep­ti­cal­ly.
For my audi­tion, I sang “Sweet Geor­gia Brown” while doing a dance rou­tine,
adding in some gym­nas­tics �ips.
They nar­rowed the group of thou­sands from across the coun­try down to a
hand­ful of kids, includ­ing a beau­ti­ful girl from Cal­i­for­nia a few years old­er than
me named Keri Rus­sell.
A girl from Penn­syl­va­nia named Christi­na Aguil­era and I were told we hadn’t
made the cut but that we were tal­ent­ed. Matt said we could prob­a­bly get on the
show once we were a lit­tle old­er and more expe­ri­enced. He told my mom that he
thought we should go to New York City to work. He rec­om­mend­ed we look up
an agent he liked who helped young per­form­ers get start­ed in the the­ater.
We didn’t go right away. Instead, for about six months, I stayed in Louisiana,
and I went to work, wait­ing tables at Lexie’s seafood restau­rant, Granny’s
Seafood and Deli, to help out.
The restau­rant had a ter­ri­ble, �shy smell. Still, the food was amaz­ing—
unbe­liev­ably good. And it became the new hang­out for all the kids. The deli’s
back room was where my broth­er and all his friends would get drunk in high
school. Mean­while, out on the �oor, at age nine, I was clean­ing shell�sh and
serv­ing plates of food while doing my pris­sy danc­ing in my cute lit­tle out�ts.
My mom sent footage of me to the agent Matt had rec­om­mend­ed, Nan­cy
Car­son. In the video, I was singing “Shine On, Har­vest Moon.” It worked: she
asked us to come to New York and meet with her.
After I sang for Nan­cy in her o�ce twen­ty sto­ries up in a build­ing in
Mid­town Man­hat­tan, we got back on the Amtrak and head­ed home. I had been
o�cially signed by a tal­ent agency.
Not long after we got back to Louisiana, my lit­tle sis­ter, Jamie Lynn, was born.
Lau­ra Lynne and I spent hours play­ing with her in the play­house like she was
anoth­er one of our dolls.
A few days after she came home with the baby, I was get­ting ready for a dance
com­pe­ti­tion when my moth­er start­ed act­ing strange­ly. She was hand-sewing a
rip in my cos­tume, but while work­ing the nee­dle and thread she just up and
threw the cos­tume away. She didn’t seem to know what she was doing. The
cos­tume was a piece of shit, frankly, but I need­ed it to com­pete.
“Mama! Why did you throw my cos­tume away?” I said.
Then all of a sud­den there was blood. Blood every­where.

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 5
Patri­cia woke up the next morn­ing with the entire side of her face
swollen and hot. She stood in front of her bath­room mir­ror and
looked at the enor­mous white ban­dage that cov­ered the left side of
her head, wrapped beneath her chin, and around her fore­head.
Sad­ness flood­ed her chest. She’d had a left ear­lobe all her life, and
sud­den­ly it was gone. She felt like a friend had died.
But then that famil­iar fish­hook wormed its way into her brain and
got her mov­ing:
“You have to make sure the chil­dren are all right,” it said. “You
can’t let them feel fright­ened.”
So she brushed her hair over the ban­dage as best she could, went
down­stairs to the den, and made Toast­er Strudel. And when Blue
came down, fol­lowed by Korey, and they sat on their stools on the
oth­er side of the counter, she smiled as best she could, even though
her face felt tight, and asked, “Do you want to see it?”
“Can I?” Korey asked.
She found the begin­ning of the gauze at the back of her head,
untaped it, and began the long process of unwrap­ping it around her
fore­head, beneath her chin, over her skull, until she got down to the
final cot­ton pad and gin­ger­ly began to pull it away. “Do you want to
look, too?” she asked Blue.
He nod­ded, and she lift­ed the square ban­dage and felt cool air
wash over her sweaty, ten­der tis­sue.
Korey sucked in her breath.
“Gnarly,” she said. “Did it hurt?”
“It didn’t feel nice,” Patri­cia said.
Korey came around the counter and stood so close her hair
brushed Patricia’s shoul­der. Patri­cia inhaled her Herbal Essences
sham­poo and real­ized that it had been a long time since they’d been
this close. They used to squeeze in togeth­er on the La-Z-Boy and
watch movies on the sun porch togeth­er, but Korey was almost as tall
as Patri­cia now.
“I can see teeth marks, Blue, look,” Korey said, and her lit­tle
broth­er dragged over a kitchen stool and stood on it, bal­anced with
one hand on his sister’s shoul­der, both of them inspect­ing their
mother’s ear.
“Anoth­er per­son knows what you taste like now,” Blue said.
Patri­cia hadn’t thought about it that way before, but she found the
idea dis­turb­ing. After Korey ran to get her ride to school, and Blue’s
car pool honked, Patri­cia fol­lowed him to the door.
“Blue,” she said. “You know Granny Mary wouldn’t do some­thing
like this.”
By the way he stopped and looked at her, Patri­cia real­ized it was
exact­ly what he’d been think­ing.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because this woman has a dis­ease that’s affect­ed her mind,”
Patri­cia said.
“Like Granny Mary,” Blue said, and Patri­cia real­ized that was how
she’d described Miss Mary’s senil­i­ty to him when she’d moved in.
“It’s a dif­fer­ent dis­ease,” she said. “But I want you to know that I
would not let Granny Mary stay with us if it weren’t safe for you and
your sis­ter. I would nev­er do any­thing that put the two of you in
dan­ger.”
Blue turned this over in his head, and then his car pool honked
again and he ran out the door. Patri­cia hoped she’d reached him. It
was so impor­tant that the chil­dren have good mem­o­ries of at least
one of their grand­par­ents.
“Pat­ty,” Carter called from the top of the stairs, a pais­ley tie in one
hand, a red striped tie in the oth­er. “Which do I wear? This one says
I’m fun and think out­side the box, but the red says pow­er.”
“What’s the occa­sion?” Patri­cia asked.
“I’m tak­ing Haley to lunch.”
“Pais­ley,” she said. “Why are you tak­ing Dr. Haley to lunch?”
He start­ed putting on the red tie as he came down the stairs.
“I’m throw­ing my hat in the ring,” Carter said, wrap­ping his tie
around his neck and loop­ing the knot into exis­tence. “I’m tired of
wait­ing in line.”
He stood in front of the hall mir­ror.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to be chief of psy­chi­a­try,”
Patri­cia said.
He tight­ened his tie in the mir­ror.
“We need to make more mon­ey,” he said.
“You want­ed to spend time with Blue this sum­mer,” Patri­cia said
as Carter turned around.
“I’ll have to fig­ure out a way to do both,” Carter said. “I’ll need to
be at all the morn­ing con­sults, I’ll have to spend more time on
rounds, I’ll need to start bring­ing in more grants—this job belongs to
me, Patri­cia. I only want what’s mine.”
“Well,” she said. “If it’s what you want…”
“It’ll only be for a few months,” he said, then stopped and cocked
his head at her left ear. “You took off your ban­dage?”
“Just to show Korey and Blue,” she said.
“I don’t think it looks so bad,” he said, and exam­ined her ear, his
thumb on her chin, cock­ing her head to the side. “Leave the ban­dage
off. It’s going to heal fine.”
He kissed her good-bye, and it felt like a real kiss.
Well, she thought, if that’s the effect try­ing to become chief of
psy­chi­a­try has on him, I’m all for it.
Patri­cia looked at her­self in the hall mir­ror. The black stitch­es
looked like insect legs against her soft skin, but they made her feel
less con­spic­u­ous than the ban­dage. She decid­ed to leave it off.
Rag­tag clicked into the front hall and stood by the door, want­i­ng to
go out. For a moment Patri­cia thought about putting him on a leash,
then remem­bered that Ann Sav­age was in the hos­pi­tal.
“Go on, boy,” she said, open­ing the door. “Go tear up that mean
old lady’s trash.”
Rag­tag charged off down the dri­ve­way and Patri­cia locked the door
behind him. She’d nev­er done that before, but she’d nev­er been
attacked by a neigh­bor in her own yard before either.
She walked down the three brick steps to the garage room, where
she unlatched the side of the hos­pi­tal bed.
“Did you sleep well, Miss Mary?” she asked.
“An owl bit me,” Miss Mary said.
“Oh, dear,” Patri­cia said, pulling Miss Mary into a sit­ting posi­tion
and swing­ing her legs out of bed.
Patri­cia began the long, slow process of get­ting Miss Mary into her
house­coat and then into her easy chair, final­ly get­ting her a glass of
orange juice with Meta­mu­cil stirred into it just as Mrs. Greene
arrived to make her break­fast.
Like most ele­men­tary school­teach­ers, Miss Mary had drunk from
the foun­tain of eter­nal late mid­dle age; Patri­cia nev­er remem­bered
her as young, exact­ly, but she remem­bered when she had been strong
enough to live on her own about a hun­dred and fifty miles upstate
near Ker­shaw. She remem­bered the half-acre veg­etable gar­den Miss
Mary worked behind her house. She remem­bered the sto­ries of Miss
Mary work­ing in the bomb fac­to­ry dur­ing the war and how the
chem­i­cals turned her hair red, and how peo­ple came to tell her their
dreams and she would tell them lucky num­bers to play.
Miss Mary could pre­dict the weath­er by read­ing cof­fee grounds,
and the local cot­ton farm­ers found her so accu­rate they always
bought her a cup of cof­fee when she came by Husker Early’s store to
pick up her mail. She refused to let any­one eat from the peach tree in
her back­yard no mat­ter how good the fruit looked because she said it
had been plant­ed in sad­ness and the fruit tast­ed bit­ter. Patri­cia had
tried one once and it tast­ed soft and sweet to her, but Carter got mad
when she told him about it, so she’d nev­er done it again.
Miss Mary had been able to draw a map of the Unit­ed States from
mem­o­ry, known the entire peri­od­ic table by heart, taught school in a
one-room school­house, brewed heal­ing teas, and sold what she called
fit­ness pow­ders her entire life. Dime by dime, dol­lar by dol­lar, she’d
put her sons through col­lege, then put Carter through med­ical
school. Now she wore dia­pers and couldn’t fol­low a sto­ry about
gar­den­ing in the Post and Couri­er.
Patricia’s pulse throbbed in her ban­daged ear, send­ing her upstairs
for Tylenol. She had just swal­lowed three when the phone rang,
exact­ly on time: 9:02 a.m. No one would dream of call­ing the house
before nine, but you also didn’t want to appear too anx­ious.
“Patri­cia?” Grace said. “Grace Cavanaugh. How are you feel­ing?”
For some rea­son, Grace always intro­duced her­self at the begin­ning
of each phone call.
“Sad,” Patri­cia said. “She bit off my ear­lobe and swal­lowed it.”
“Of course,” Grace said. “Sad­ness is one of the stages of grief.”
“She swal­lowed my ear­ring, too,” Patri­cia said. “The new ones I
had on last night.
“That is a pity,” Grace said.
“It turns out Carter got them for free from a patient,” Patri­cia said.
“He didn’t even buy them.”
“Then you didn’t want them any­way,” Grace said. “I spoke with
Ben this morn­ing. He said Ann Sav­age has been admit­ted to MUSC
and is in inten­sive care. I’ll call if I find out any­thing fur­ther.”
The phone rang all morn­ing. The inci­dent hadn’t appeared in the
morn­ing paper, but it didn’t mat­ter. CNN, NPR, CBS—no
news­gath­er­ing orga­ni­za­tion could com­pete with the women of the
Old Vil­lage.
“There’s already a run on alarms,” Kit­ty said. “Horse said the
peo­ple he called about get­ting one told him it would be three weeks
before they could even make it out here to look at the house. I don’t
know how I’m going to sur­vive for three weeks. Horse says we’re safe
with his guns, but trust me, I’ve been dove hunt­ing with that man.
He can bare­ly hit the sky.”
Slick called next.
“I’ve been pray­ing for you all morn­ing,” she said.
“Thank you, Slick,” Patri­cia said.
“I heard that Mrs. Savage’s nephew moved down here from
some­place up north,” Slick said. She didn’t need to be more spe­cif­ic
than that. Every­one knew that any place up north was rough­ly the
same: law­less, rel­a­tive­ly sav­age, and while they might have nice
muse­ums and the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty, peo­ple cared so lit­tle for each
oth­er they’d let you die in the street. “Leland told me some real estate
agents stopped by and tried to get him to put her house on the
mar­ket, but he won’t sell. None of them saw Mrs. Sav­age when they
were there. He told them she couldn’t get out of bed, she was so
poor­ly. How’s your ear?”
“She swal­lowed part of it,” Patri­cia said.
“I’m so sor­ry,” Slick said. “Those real­ly were nice ear­rings.”
Grace called again lat­er that after­noon with break­ing news.
“Patri­cia,” she said. “Grace Cavanaugh. I just heard from Ben: Mrs.
Sav­age passed an hour ago.”
Patri­cia sud­den­ly felt gray. The den looked dark and dingy. The
yel­low linoleum seemed worn, and she saw every grub­by hand mark
on the wall around the light switch.
“How?” she asked.
“It wasn’t rabies, if that’s what you’re wor­ried about,” Grace said.
“She had some kind of blood poi­son­ing. She was suf­fer­ing from
mal­nu­tri­tion, she was dehy­drat­ed, and she was cov­ered with infect­ed
cuts and sores. Ben said the doc­tors were sur­prised she last­ed this
long. He even said”—and here Grace low­ered her voice—“that she
had track marks on her inner thigh. She’d prob­a­bly been inject­ing
some­thing for the pain. I’m sure the fam­i­ly doesn’t want any­one to
know about that.”
“I feel just mis­er­able about this,” Patri­cia said.
“Is this about those ear­rings again?” Grace asked. “Even if you got
back the one she swal­lowed, could you ever real­ly bring your­self to
wear them? Know­ing where they’d been?”
“I feel like I should take some­thing by,” Patri­cia said.
“Take some­thing by to the nephew?” Grace asked, and her voice
climbed the reg­is­ter so that nephew was a high, clear note of
dis­be­lief.
“His aunt passed,” Patri­cia said. “I should do some­thing.”
“Why?” Grace asked.
“Should I take him flow­ers, or some­thing to eat?” Patri­cia asked.
There was a long pause on Grace’s end, and then she spoke firm­ly.
“I am not sure what the appro­pri­ate ges­ture is to make toward the
fam­i­ly of the woman who bit off your ear, but if you felt absolute­ly
com­pelled, I cer­tain­ly wouldn’t take food.”
Maryellen called on Sat­ur­day and that was what decid­ed things for
Patri­cia.
“I thought you should know,” she said over the phone, “we did the
cre­ma­tion for Ann Sav­age yes­ter­day.” After her youngest daugh­ter
had entered first grade, Maryellen had got­ten a job as the
book­keep­er at Stuhr’s Funer­al Homes. She knew the details of every
death in Mt. Pleas­ant.
“Do you know any­thing about a memo­r­i­al ser­vice or dona­tions?”
Patri­cia asked. “I want to send some­thing.”
“The nephew did a direct cre­ma­tion,” Maryellen said. “No flow­ers,
no memo­r­i­al ser­vice, no notice in the paper. I don’t even think he’s
putting her in an urn, unless he got one from some­place else. He’ll
prob­a­bly just toss her ash­es in a hole for all the care he showed.”
It ate at Patri­cia, and not mere­ly because she sus­pect­ed that not
putting Rag­tag on a leash had some­how caused Ann Savage’s death.
One day, she would be the same age as Ann Sav­age and Miss Mary.
Would Korey and Blue act like Carter’s broth­ers and ship her around
like an unwant­ed fruit­cake? Would they argue over who got stuck
with her? If Carter died, would they sell the house, her books, her
fur­ni­ture, and split up the pro­ceeds between them­selves and she’d
have noth­ing left of her own?
Every time she looked up and saw Miss Mary stand­ing in a
door­way, dressed to go out, purse over one arm, star­ing at her

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.

5
“You’re late on your half of the rent.”
I look up from my spot on the couch. I’ve only been home for ten min­utes and had hoped I might
miss John this after­noon. He’s an office assis­tant at a local church, plus he works with the Youth
Music Min­istry, what­ev­er that actu­al­ly means—I’ve nev­er been a big churchgoer—and his hours are
nev­er as set as I’d like. This is hard­ly the first time I’ve come home to find him stand­ing in the
kitchen, his hip propped against the counter, one of my yogurts in his hand.
He always eats my food, no mat­ter how many times I put my name on it, or where I try to hide it in
our admit­ted­ly tiny kitchen. It’s like noth­ing in this apart­ment belongs to me since it was John’s place
first, and he’s let­ting me live here. He opens my bed­room door with­out knock­ing, he uses my
sham­poo, he eats my food, he “bor­rows” my lap­top. He’s skin­ny and short, a wisp of a guy, real­ly, but
some­times it feels like he sucks up all the space in our shared 700 square feet.
Anoth­er rea­son I want to get out.
Liv­ing with John was only ever sup­posed to be a tem­po­rary thing. It was risky, going back to
some­one who knew my past, but I’d fig­ured it would just be a place to land for a month, maybe six
weeks, while I fig­ured out what to do next.
But that was six months ago, and I’m still here.
Lift­ing my feet off the cof­fee table, I stand, dig­ging into my pock­et for the wad of twen­ties I
shoved in there after my vis­it to the pawn­shop this after­noon.
I don’t always get rid of the stuff I take. The mon­ey has nev­er been the point, after all. It’s the
hav­ing I’ve always enjoyed, plus know­ing they’ll nev­er notice any­thing is miss­ing. It makes me feel
like I’ve won some­thing.
But dog-walk­ing isn’t bring­ing in enough to cov­er every­thing yet, so today, I’d plucked Mrs.
Reed’s lone dia­mond ear­ring from the pile of trea­sures on my dress­er, and while I didn’t get near­ly
what it was worth, it’s enough to cov­er my half of this shit­ty con­crete box.
I shove it into John’s free hand, pre­tend­ing I don’t notice the way his fin­gers try to slide against
mine, search­ing for even a few sec­onds of extra con­tact. I’m anoth­er thing in this apart­ment that John
would con­sume if he could, but we both pre­tend we don’t know that.
“How’s the whole dog-walk­ing thing going?” John asks as I cross back over to our sad couch.
He’s got a bit of yogurt stuck to the cor­ner of his mouth, but I don’t both­er point­ing it out. It’ll
prob­a­bly stay there all day, too, form­ing a crust that’ll creep out some girl down at the Stu­dent Bap­tist
Cen­ter where John vol­un­teers a few nights a week.
I already feel sol­i­dar­i­ty with her, this unknown girl, my sis­ter in Vague Dis­gust for John Rivers.
Maybe that’s what makes me smile as I sit back down, yank­ing the ancient afghan blan­ket out from
under me. “Great, actu­al­ly. Have a few new clients now, so it keeps me pret­ty busy.”
John’s spoon scrapes against the plas­tic tub of yogurt—my yogurt—and he watch­es me, his dark
hair hang­ing limply over one eye.
“Clients,” he snorts. “Makes you sound like a hook­er.”
Only John could try to shame a girl for some­thing as whole­some as dog-walk­ing, but I brush it off.
If things keep going as well as they’re going, soon I won’t have to live here with him any­more. Soon I
can get my own place with my own stuff and my own fuck­ing yogurt that I’ll actu­al­ly get to eat.
“Maybe I am a hook­er,” I reply, pick­ing up the remote off the cof­fee table. “Maybe that’s what I’m
actu­al­ly doing, and I’m just telling you I walk dogs.”
I twist on the couch to look at him.
He’s still stand­ing by the fridge, but his head is ducked even low­er now, his eyes wary as he
watch­es me.
It makes me want to go even fur­ther, so I do.
“That could be blowjob mon­ey in your pock­et now, John. What would the Bap­tists think about
that?”
John flinch­es from my words, his hand going to his pock­et, either to touch the mon­ey or to try to
hide the bon­er he prob­a­bly popped at hear­ing me say blowjob.
Eddie wouldn’t cringe at a joke like that, I sud­den­ly think.
Eddie would laugh. His eyes would do that thing where they seem brighter, bluer, all because
you’ve sur­prised him.
Like he did when you noticed the books.
“You ought to come to church with me,” he says. “You could come this after­noon.”
“You work in the office,” I say, “not the actu­al church. Not sure what good it would do me
watch­ing you file old newslet­ters.”
I’m not nor­mal­ly this open­ly rude to him, aware that he could kick me out since this place is
tech­ni­cal­ly all his, but I can’t seem to help myself. It’s some­thing about that day in Eddie’s kitchen.
I’ve known enough new begin­nings to rec­og­nize when some­thing is click­ing into place, and I think—
know—that my time in this shit­ty box with this shit­ty human is tick­ing down.
“You’re a bitch, Jane,” John mut­ters sul­len­ly, but he throws away the emp­ty yogurt and gath­ers his
things, slink­ing out the door with­out anoth­er word.
Once he’s gone, I hunt through the cab­i­nets for any food he hasn’t tak­en. Luck­i­ly, I still have two
things of Easy Mac left, and I heat them both up, dump­ing them into one bowl before hun­ker­ing down
with my lap­top and pulling up my search on Bea Rochester.
I don’t spend much time on the arti­cles about her death. I’ve heard the gos­sip, and hon­est­ly, it
seems pret­ty basic to me—two ladies got too drunk at their fan­cy beach house, got on their fan­cy boat,
and then suc­cumbed to a very fan­cy death. Sad, but not exact­ly a tragedy.
No, what I want to know about is Bea Rochester’s life. What it was that made a man like Eddie
want her. Who she was, what their rela­tion­ship might have looked like.
The first thing I pull up is her company’s web­site.
South­ern Manors.
“Noth­ing says For­tune 500 com­pa­ny like a bad pun,” I mut­ter, stab­bing anoth­er bite of mac­a­roni
with my fork.
There’s a let­ter on the first page of the site, and my eyes imme­di­ate­ly scan down to see if Eddie
wrote it.
He didn’t. There’s anoth­er name there, Susan, appar­ent­ly Bea’s sec­ond-in-com­mand. It’s full of
the usu­al stuff you’d expect when the founder of a com­pa­ny dies sud­den­ly. How sad they are, what a
loss, how the com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue on, bur­nish­ing her lega­cy, etc., etc.
I won­der what kind of a lega­cy it is, real­ly, sell­ing over­priced cutesy shit.
Click­ing from page to page, I take in expen­sive Mason jars, five-hun­dred-dol­lar sweaters with
HEY, Y’ALL! stitched dis­creet­ly in the left cor­ner, sil­ver sal­ad tongs whose han­dles are shaped like
bees.
There’s so much ging­ham it’s like Dorothy Gale explod­ed on this web­site, but I can’t stop
look­ing, can’t keep from click­ing one item, then anoth­er.
The mono­grammed dog leash­es.
The ham­mered-tin water­ing cans.
A giant glass bowl in the shape of an apple some­one has just tak­en a bite out of.
It’s all expen­sive but use­less crap, the kind of stuff lin­ing the gift tables at every high-soci­ety
wed­ding in Birm­ing­ham, and I final­ly click away from the orgy of pricey/cutesy, going back to the
main page to look at Bea Rochester’s pic­ture again.
She’s stand­ing in front of a din­ing room table made of warm, worn-look­ing wood. Even though I
haven’t been in the din­ing room at the Rochester man­sion, I know imme­di­ate­ly that this is theirs, that
if I looked a lit­tle deep­er into the house, I would find this room. It has the same vibe as the liv­ing
room—nothing match­es exact­ly, but it some­how goes togeth­er, from the flo­ral vel­vet seat cov­ers on
the eight chairs to the orange-and-teal cen­ter­piece that pops against the egg­plant-col­ored drapes.
Bea pops, too, her dark hair swing­ing just above her shoul­ders in a glossy long bob. She has her
arms crossed, her head slight­ly tilt­ed to one side as she smiles at the cam­era, her lip­stick the pret­ti­est
shade of red I think I’ve ever seen.
She’s wear­ing a navy sweater, a thin gold belt around her waist, and a navy-and-white ging­ham
pen­cil skirt that man­ages to be cute and sexy at the same time, and I almost imme­di­ate­ly hate her.
And also want to know every­thing about her.
More googling, the Easy Mac con­geal­ing in its bowl on John’s scratched and water-ringed cof­fee
table, my fin­gers mov­ing quick­ly, my eyes and my mind fill­ing up with Bea Rochester.
There’s not as much as I’d want, though. She wasn’t famous, real­ly. It’s the com­pa­ny peo­ple seem
to care about, the stuff they can buy, while Bea seemed to keep her­self out of the spot­light.
There’s only one inter­view I can find—with South­ern Liv­ing, of course, big sur­prise. In the
accom­pa­ny­ing pho­to, Bea sits at anoth­er din­ing room table—seriously, did this woman exist in any
oth­er rooms of a house?—wearing yel­low this time, a crys­tal bowl of lemons on her elbow, an
enam­el cof­fee cup print­ed with daisies casu­al­ly held in one hand.
The pro­file is a total puff piece. Bea grew up in Alaba­ma, one of her ances­tors was a sen­a­tor in
the 1800s, and they’d had a gor­geous home in some place called Calera that had burned down a few
years ago. Her moth­er had sad­ly passed away not long after Bea start­ed South­ern Manors, and she
“did every­thing in mem­o­ry of her.”
My eyes keep scan­ning past the details I already know—the Ran­dolph-Macon degree, the move
back to Birm­ing­ham, the growth of her business—until I final­ly snag on Eddie’s name.
Three years ago, Bea Mason met Edward Rochester on vaca­tion in Hawaii. “I was def­i­nite­ly

come. He explained the sail and his inten­tions ful­ly to Mugam­bi, who was delight­ed with the prospect of being able to return to his own country.The canoe was drawn well up on the beach above the high water mark,and as Tarzan had had con­sid­er­able expe­ri­ence in the build­ing of small craft among the can­ni­bals of the main­land, he felt no doubt but that he could fash­ion a sea­wor­thy dugout with which to make the short jour­ney to the coast.The fol­low­ing few days were occu­pied in prepar­ing for their depar­ture.
The first con­sid­er­a­tion was the procur­ing of weapons that might be relied upon in an encounter with the beasts of the jun­gle through which they must pass on their way to the coast. For this pur­pose Tarzan select­ed four spears of medi­um size, pre­fer­ring them to the full-sized weapons of the war­riors of Mugam­bi. The short­er weapons were lighter and more effec­tive for use in the hand of a man swing­ing by a rope through the trees
of the for­est. His next care was to secure arrows and a bow that would send them straight and true enough to car­ry a mes­sage of death to a sav­age foe. With these prim­i­tive weapons and a knowl­edge of the jun­gle that was born of years of expe­ri­ence in it, Tarzan felt that he might be more than a match for any­thing that he would be apt to meet upon the mainland.As Mugam­bi, who was again clothed in the appar­el of his own coun­try that con­sti­tut­ed his entire wardrobe when he had set forth upon his ill-
starred jour­ney, was unarmed and with­out means of procur­ing weapons,Tarzan pre­sent­ed him with the spear and bow and arrows which the ape­man had brought with him from the main­land. Mugam­bi was much pleased with the gift, since he knew that it not only might mean much to him in the way of pro­tec­tion, but that it added not a lit­tle to his pres­tige
among the mem­bers of his own sav­age tribe–even though it had beenre­duced to a mem­ber­ship of one by the car­niv­o­rous tastes of Shee­ta, the pan­ther.
At last all was ready. The craft, such as it was, lay upon the beach with her prow toward the water, and her sail hang­ing in lazy folds from the crude mast. Tarzan sought to detain her upon the soft sands, while with pad­dles Akut and he pro­pelled her beyond the break­ing surf. But even
The Beasts of Tarzan 45 before Akut and Tarzan had entered it, Mugam­bi had leaped to his place,having grasped the oppor­tu­ni­ty to make the return jour­ney to his beloved
Ugam­bi and the wife and chil­dren who mourned him there as dead.