In the first chap­ter of “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” Lis­beth Salan­der finds her­self observ­ing a trou­bled Amer­i­can cou­ple at a hotel in Grena­da. Despite her typ­i­cal avoid­ance of the sun, she sits by the pool, notic­ing the woman from room 32, who appears dis­ori­ent­ed and is seem­ing­ly trapped in a cycle of emo­tion­al and pos­si­bly phys­i­cal abuse enact­ed by her hus­band. Salan­der, dis­turbed by the sounds of argu­ments and slaps she hears from their room, con­tem­plates inter­ven­ing, though she ulti­mate­ly refrains.

As Salan­der spends her days in Grena­da, she immers­es her­self in the study of math­e­mat­ics, recent­ly drawn to this pur­suit after devel­op­ing an inter­est in spher­i­cal astron­o­my. Her trav­els have tak­en her through var­i­ous Caribbean islands, where she has encoun­tered dif­fer­ent peo­ple and sit­u­a­tions, includ­ing a humor­ous yet aggres­sive young man in Bar­ba­dos whom she con­front­ed.

The chap­ter shifts back to Mikael Blomkvist, who is trou­bled by Salan­der’s dis­ap­pear­ance from his life after a peri­od of close­ness. He recalls their shared expe­ri­ences and the tumul­tuous events that brought them togeth­er, leav­ing him con­cerned and frus­trat­ed at her abrupt depar­ture. Despite their past inti­ma­cy, Salander’s rejec­tion of him feels final to Blomkvist.

Mean­while, Salan­der is shown as a com­plex char­ac­ter grap­pling with her self-image and inde­pen­dence. Despite under­go­ing breast aug­men­ta­tion, which enhances her self-esteem, she con­tin­ues to rebel against social norms. She posi­tions her­self as an out­sider in both her appear­ance and behav­ior, avoid­ing inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships while devel­op­ing a unique bond with a local teenag­er named George Bland, whom she teach­es math­e­mat­ics.

As a hur­ri­cane named Matil­da approach­es, Salan­der remains calm, absorbed in her math­e­mat­i­cal stud­ies, and dis­mis­sive of the antic­i­pat­ed chaos. The chap­ter ends with her observ­ing Dr. Forbes, the pre­sum­ably abu­sive hus­band, tak­ing sus­pi­cious actions on the beach, prompt­ing Salan­der to reflect on her sur­round­ings. This inter­play of obser­va­tion, social dynam­ics, and per­son­al growth sets the tone for the unfold­ing nar­ra­tive of ten­sion and growth that inter­twines Salan­der and Blomkvist’s lives.

In the open­ing chap­ter of “Their Eyes Were Watch­ing God,” we are intro­duced to a com­pelling nar­ra­tive that explores themes of obser­va­tion, judg­ment, and com­mu­ni­ty. The chap­ter begins by sug­gest­ing the tran­sient nature of dreams, liken­ing men’s wish­es to ships that may for­ev­er remain on the hori­zon, unan­chored by real­i­ty or time. In con­trast, women are depict­ed as hav­ing a dif­fer­ent rela­tion­ship with mem­o­ry and real­i­ty, often cling­ing to dreams that guide their actions.

The nar­ra­tive cen­ters around a woman return­ing from what appears to be a funer­al, stark­ly con­trast­ing with the vivid life sur­round­ing her. As she strolls back at sun­down, the town’s res­i­dents, who had spent their day as mere observers, engage in live­ly gos­sip about her. The wom­an’s attire—work over­alls instead of a dress—and her youth­ful appear­ance spark envy and crit­i­cism among the oth­er women, fuel­ing their judg­ments and assump­tions about her life choic­es and recent past.

The con­ver­sa­tions reveal lay­ered per­cep­tions of the woman, named Janie. The towns­folk spec­u­late about her rela­tion­ship with men, her finan­cial sta­tus, and her age, dis­play­ing their inse­cu­ri­ties and con­di­tion­ing of envy. They bear wit­ness to her con­fi­dence and beau­ty, mark­ing her appear­ance with scruti­ny and judg­ment rather than com­pas­sion. The author paints a vivid pic­ture of the community’s cru­el curios­i­ty wrapped in a facade of cama­raderie.

Amidst the gos­sip, Pheo­by, Janie’s best friend, emerges as a con­trast­ing fig­ure, ini­tial gos­sip giv­ing way to con­cern and sup­port. Pheoby’s inten­tion to offer Janie sup­port show­cas­es a deep­er friend­ship com­pared to the oth­ers, who express mal­ice in their judg­ments.

When Pheo­by arrives at Janie’s home to deliv­er food, a more per­son­al exchange unfolds. This sim­ple act of shar­ing not only fills Janie’s stom­ach but serves as a bridge for hon­est con­ver­sa­tion about her cur­rent emo­tion­al state after leav­ing behind her recent life and love. Janie express­es the void caused by Tea Cake’s absence, reveal­ing the depths of her emo­tion­al strug­gles and the com­plex­i­ties of her iden­ti­ty as a woman in her com­mu­ni­ty. Thus, this chap­ter sets the stage for Janie’s jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery against the back­drop of soci­etal norms and expec­ta­tions, pro­vid­ing a rich the­mat­ic foun­da­tion for the rest of the nar­ra­tive.

In Chap­ter 1 of “1984,” Win­ston finds him­self in a stark, high-ceilinged cell with­in the Min­istry of Love, which lacks win­dows and is min­i­mal­ly fur­nished, con­sist­ing only of a bench and a lava­to­ry pan. He sits in the cold, arti­fi­cial­ly bright envi­ron­ment, expe­ri­enc­ing hunger and a dull ache in his stom­ach, a result of not being fed since his arrest. Feel­ing trapped, he attempts to sat­is­fy his hunger by search­ing his pock­ets, but he is quick­ly rep­ri­mand­ed by a voice from a tele­screen, sig­nal­ing the intense sur­veil­lance inher­ent in this regime.

He reflects on his recent sur­round­ings in the pre­vi­ous hold­ing cell, where he was among com­mon crim­i­nals. In stark con­trast to the polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, like him­self, these indi­vid­u­als appeared rebel­lious and indif­fer­ent to their plight. The Par­ty pris­on­ers were always silent and ter­ri­fied, while the com­mon crim­i­nals seemed more care­free, express­ing mock­ery towards the guards. Win­ston men­tal­ly con­trasts their sit­u­a­tions against the con­stant fear that envelops him, cul­mi­nat­ing in thoughts of tor­ture and the like­ly fate await­ing him.

As he con­tem­plates his cir­cum­stances, he notices the arrival of Ample­forth, a poet who has also been arrest­ed, cre­at­ing a brief con­nec­tion. They exchange infor­ma­tion about their offens­es, but the gloom per­me­ates their con­ver­sa­tion, as the oppres­sive real­i­ty of the Par­ty hangs over them. More pris­on­ers arrive and leave, high­light­ing the chaot­ic atmos­phere of the cell, par­tic­u­lar­ly when a pan­icked inmate, ter­ri­fied of “Room 101,” is tak­en away, empha­siz­ing the fear that per­me­ates the envi­ron­ment.

The bru­tal­i­ty of the sur­round­ing guards becomes a focal point, illus­trat­ed by the vio­lent treat­ment of a fel­low pris­on­er, Bum­stead. The pas­sage empha­sizes Win­ston’s inter­nal strug­gle between his phys­i­cal pain and the ter­ror sur­round­ing him, as he des­per­ate­ly seeks a glim­mer of hope, cling­ing to thoughts of O’Brien and Julia, albeit ren­dered increas­ing­ly detached by the over­ar­ch­ing real­i­ty of their cir­cum­stances. The arrival of O’Brien turns the chap­ter poignant, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant point of recog­ni­tion for Win­ston as phys­i­cal pain over­takes all oth­er sen­sa­tions.

In the mid­dle of the morn­ing, Win­ston exit­ed his cubi­cle, encoun­ter­ing the girl with dark hair from the Fic­tion Depart­ment. He noticed her arm was in a sling, like­ly from an acci­dent com­mon in their depart­ment. As she approached, she stum­bled and fell, elic­it­ing a pang of con­cern in Win­ston despite the fact that she could be seen as an ene­my. He instinc­tive­ly moved to help her, feel­ing a strange sense of con­nec­tion and shared pain. After a brief exchange regard­ing her injury, she reas­sured him it was noth­ing seri­ous, yet she slipped a small, fold­ed piece of paper into his hand dur­ing the com­mo­tion.

Once in the lava­to­ry, Win­ston cau­tious­ly unfold­ed the note, reveal­ing a star­tling mes­sage: “I love you.” Stunned, he con­tem­plat­ed the impli­ca­tions of this, ques­tion­ing whether the girl could be a Thought Police agent or pos­si­bly a mem­ber of an under­ground orga­ni­za­tion. Despite the dan­ger, a flick­er of hope ignit­ed with­in him.

The rest of the morn­ing dragged on for Win­ston, tor­tured by his inabil­i­ty to focus on rou­tine work while staving off poten­tial expo­sure from the tele­screen. Lunchtime was a tor­ment with Par­sons, a chat­ty cowork­er, invad­ing his space, lim­it­ing his attempts to observe the girl. The day con­tin­ued with dif­fi­cult work and fleet­ing thoughts of their poten­tial future.

After a series of days where he could­n’t locate her in the can­teen, she final­ly returned, her arm healed but keep­ing her dis­tance. Win­ston’s attempts to approach her were thwart­ed time and again by dis­trac­tions or mis­for­tunes like his name being called by an acquain­tance. Final­ly, he man­ages to sit with her dur­ing lunch, exchang­ing secre­tive ques­tions about when they could meet.

On their planned night, Win­ston arrived ear­ly to find her wait­ing among the crowd in Vic­to­ry Square, where ten­sions ran high due to a pass­ing con­voy of Eurasian pris­on­ers. In the excite­ment, they man­aged to com­mu­ni­cate about their upcom­ing pri­vate meet­ing, detail­ing a care­ful route for Win­ston to fol­low. Amidst the urgency and pos­si­ble dan­gers, they shared a brief, intense con­nec­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in a sub­tle yet pro­found clasp of hands, solid­i­fy­ing their bond amidst chaos, mere moments before they sep­a­rat­ed in the crowd.

Win­ston Smith finds him­self on a cold April day in a grim and oppres­sive Lon­don, where the Par­ty’s per­va­sive con­trol is evi­dent every­where, exem­pli­fied by the slo­gan “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” He nav­i­gates through the dusty and dilap­i­dat­ed Vic­to­ry Man­sions to his flat, which is filled with the sounds of state pro­pa­gan­da ema­nat­ing from the telescreen—a device that sur­veils both sound and vision. Win­ston feels the watch­ful pres­ence of the Par­ty and the omnipresent Thought Police, as his every action is poten­tial­ly mon­i­tored. Despite the bru­tal real­i­ty of his liv­ing con­di­tions and the Party’s dra­con­ian rule, he set­tles in to write.

Faced with the con­straints of his envi­ron­ment, he recalls frag­ment­ed child­hood mem­o­ries of Lon­don, now dete­ri­o­rat­ed and grim, and the stun­ning struc­ture of the Min­istry of Truth—his workplace—which ascends omi­nous­ly against the sky­line. Inside, the Min­istry is a labyrinth of bureau­cra­cy, and Win­ston reflects on its role in dis­sem­i­nat­ing pro­pa­gan­da and manip­u­lat­ing truth. Hemmed in by fear and an ingrained sense of para­noia, he har­bors the thrill of rebel­lion in his desire to open a diary—a pro­found act of defi­ance in a world with­out pri­va­cy or per­son­al sov­er­eign­ty.

As he begins to write, he con­tem­plates the sig­nif­i­cance of doc­u­ment­ing his thoughts for a future that may not exist, grap­pling with the futil­i­ty and dan­ger of his actions. Dur­ing this reflec­tion, his thoughts are inter­rupt­ed by the col­lec­tive eupho­ria and aggres­sion gen­er­at­ed dur­ing the dai­ly Two Min­utes Hate, which fuels pub­lic ani­mos­i­ty towards Emmanuel Gold­stein, the Par­ty’s sym­bol­ic ene­my. In this fren­zy, Win­ston strug­gles with the mag­net­ic pull of con­for­mi­ty and his deep-seat­ed resent­ments toward both the Par­ty and the indi­vid­u­als around him, par­tic­u­lar­ly a strik­ing girl from his work­place, who embod­ies every­thing he feels he can­not have.

Win­ston’s encounter with the dark-haired girl is not mere­ly a phys­i­cal attrac­tion but inter­twines with his desire for rebel­lion. The inten­si­ty of his emo­tion­al respons­es dur­ing the Hate crys­tal­lizes his inter­nal bat­tles against the Par­ty’s ide­o­log­i­cal sub­ju­ga­tion. Although spurred into the chaot­ic fray, in a fleet­ing moment, he finds an unex­pect­ed con­nec­tion with O’Brien, an Inner Par­ty mem­ber, per­ceiv­ing a shared and sup­pressed under­stand­ing of dis­con­tent. This moment sym­bol­izes the com­plex­i­ties of human con­nec­tion amid per­va­sive sur­veil­lance.

As Win­ston pours out his thoughts into the diary, he real­izes the enor­mi­ty of the thought­crime he is com­mit­ting. His pan­ic esca­lates; the fear of being caught seems immi­nent as he scrib­bles fran­ti­cal­ly about his rebel­lion against Big Broth­er. With the oppres­sive regime at the fore­front of his mind, he feels the weight of despair but also an irre­press­ible urge to resist, echo­ing the futil­i­ty of his sit­u­a­tion and the ter­ri­fy­ing under­stand­ing that he, like so many, could be “vapor­ized” at any moment. The chap­ter encap­su­lates a world devoid of pri­va­cy, where the desire for per­son­al truth bat­tles the over­whelm­ing force of an oppres­sive state.

In Feb­ru­ary 1997, Stéphane Bre­itwieser and his girl­friend, Anne-Cather­ine Klein­klaus, vis­it the Rubens House in Antwerp, Bel­gium, set­ting the stage for a metic­u­lous­ly planned theft. They blend in with oth­er tourists, enjoy­ing the art around them while Bre­itwieser sizes up secu­ri­ty mea­sures and plans his heist. The cou­ple stands out not for their appearance—Anne-Catherine is chicly dressed, while Bre­itwieser wears a styl­ish but slight­ly over­sized overcoat—but for their focus on what they real­ly desire: an ivory sculp­ture of Adam and Eve that Bre­itwieser had pre­vi­ous­ly spot­ted dur­ing a solo recon­nais­sance trip.

The sculp­ture is sealed with­in a plex­i­glass dis­play case fas­tened to a stur­dy base, but Bre­itwieser has dis­cov­ered a crit­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty: it can be accessed by unscrew­ing two tricky screws hid­den at the back of the box. While the muse­um staff patrols the space, there’s a rou­tine that leaves gaps in their super­vi­sion, espe­cial­ly dur­ing busy lunchtimes. As tourists cir­cu­late, Bre­itwieser skill­ful­ly blends into the role of an art admir­er, feign­ing con­tem­pla­tion while secret­ly itch­ing to exe­cute his plan.

Once the gallery clears, Bre­itwieser springs into action, using a Swiss Army knife to unfas­ten the screws while remain­ing alert to the shift­ing pres­ence of a secu­ri­ty guard. Anne-Cather­ine dis­creet­ly mon­i­tors the hall, ensur­ing no one is watch­ing as Bre­itwieser works method­i­cal­ly to free the sculp­ture. He man­ages to remove both screws, feel­ing the sharp excite­ment of the heist with­in safer yet tense moments of wait­ing for a dis­trac­tion.

Final­ly, he seizes the sculp­ture, tuck­ing it into the waist­band of his pants and cov­er­ing it with his coat. He leaves the plex­i­glass box behind, know­ing he can­not linger. With the museum’s tur­moil around him, he steps out, main­tain­ing a seem­ing­ly calm demeanor as he cross­es through the muse­um grounds.

Once out­side, Bre­itwieser and Anne-Cather­ine enter their parked car, a mid­night blue Opel Tigra. The eupho­ria of their suc­cess surges as they dri­ve away, elat­ed to be young, free, and thriv­ing after com­mit­ting the auda­cious theft. Their thrill and return to nor­mal­cy sig­ni­fy a cathar­tic escape from their planned crim­i­nal act.

The next after­noon, I found myself at the Men’s Wear­house in Strouds­burg to return the tuxe­do I wore to a wed­ding. The same kid with pink hair and pierc­ings wel­comed me, ask­ing how every­thing went. I mum­bled a polite response, still grap­pling with my thoughts from the pre­vi­ous night. After dri­ving back from New Hamp­shire with Tam­my and Abi­gail, I felt exhaust­ed but couldn’t sleep, anx­ious­ly wait­ing for updates from Mag­gie regard­ing the shock­ing inci­dent that had unfold­ed. Even though she had reas­sured me, I could­n’t shake off the wor­ry. After a rest­less night, I checked my phone in the morn­ing, only to find no mes­sages.

In an attempt to dis­tract myself, I start­ed with some chores. I stripped the sheets from Maggie’s child­hood bed­room and tossed them in the wash­ing machine—she had said she was nev­er com­ing back, but I clung to the hope she might change her mind. After return­ing the tuxe­do, I filled a gro­cery cart at ShopRite with her favorite foods, all while fre­quent­ly check­ing my phone for any missed calls. It was late in the after­noon when I final­ly received a call. It was Vicky from Super­cuts, and my stom­ach dropped as I answered, know­ing this con­ver­sa­tion was unavoid­able.

Vicky expressed her con­do­lences about what hap­pened, hav­ing seen it all over the news and on social media. A wealthy tech tycoon’s son dying in a firearms acci­dent right before his wed­ding was bound to attract atten­tion. When she asked about Mag­gie, I hes­i­tat­ed, unsure how to respond. I didn’t want to lie, but I also couldn’t reveal the truth. I described Mag­gie as very con­fused. Vicky offered to meet up for din­ner to talk about every­thing, and, despite my desire for the emo­tion­al sup­port, I felt the need to main­tain my dis­tance. I point­ed out that she wasn’t a pro­fes­sion­al ther­a­pist, which stung her.

Despite her insis­tence that she wasn’t “just” a hair­cut­ter and her pre­vi­ous will­ing­ness to attend the wed­ding, I felt over­whelmed and abrupt­ly end­ed the call. I took down her busi­ness cards from my refrig­er­a­tor, ready to dis­card them to avoid falling back into the con­ver­sa­tion. I told myself I could wait a month before need­ing anoth­er hair­cut, let­ting the dis­tance build between us.

Morn­ing light filled the room as the pro­tag­o­nist strug­gled to wake up, wracked by pain. Squint­ing against the sun, he brushed away a spi­der lin­ger­ing on his pil­low but chose to ignore anoth­er one on the bed­post. Mem­o­ries were hazy; he had no rec­ol­lec­tion of return­ing to his cot­tage or that night’s events. The last clear mem­o­ry involved an intense con­fronta­tion with Errol Gard­ner. The sit­u­a­tion went from con­fu­sion to pan­ic as he real­ized the state he was in—clothing stained and hair mat­ted with dried blood. Sud­den­ly, nau­sea hit him, lead­ing to an unfor­tu­nate episode of vom­it­ing.

In the bath­room, the pro­tag­o­nist fought through the pain in his head while observ­ing his disheveled appear­ance in the mir­ror. He felt the urgency to leave Osprey Cove, know­ing he had to res­cue his daugh­ter, Mag­gie. After adjust­ing the time on his Timex to East­ern Stan­dard Time, he hasti­ly packed a suit­case, ignor­ing the spi­ders in the clos­et. The desire to leave was over­pow­er­ing and immi­nent.

Before he could escape, he lis­tened to a voice mes­sage from Vicky, warn­ing him about the Gard­ners’ pos­si­ble dan­ger­ous secrets and urg­ing him to con­tact her. Just as he processed the mes­sage, his sis­ter Tam­my appeared, star­tled by his con­di­tion. In a rush, he insist­ed they need­ed to leave. Tam­my, how­ev­er, reas­sured him that Mag­gie was fine and prepar­ing for her wed­ding to Aidan Gard­ner, pre­sent­ing a stark con­trast to his tur­bu­lent mind­set.

In dis­be­lief, he shared the trou­bling details about the Gard­ners, claim­ing that Cather­ine Gard­ner had mur­dered Dawn Tag­gart in a fit of mad­ness. As his sis­ter absorbed this, she hes­i­tat­ed to accept his claims, sug­gest­ing that it was not their busi­ness and that fam­i­lies have secrets. The pro­tag­o­nist, frus­trat­ed, pressed on about Maggie’s pre­car­i­ous choic­es and her trou­bling rela­tion­ship with Errol Gard­ner, her future father-in-law. Tam­my, ground­ed in prac­ti­cal­i­ty, argued that Mag­gie was capa­ble of mak­ing her own deci­sions, prompt­ing a bit­ter­sweet reflec­tion on past fam­i­ly dynam­ics and choic­es.

The con­ver­sa­tion esca­lat­ed as the pro­tag­o­nist plead­ed for action, where­as Tam­my, bur­dened by her life choic­es, sought sta­bil­i­ty over con­flict, stark­ly con­trast­ing their approach­es to fam­i­ly loy­al­ty and moral respon­si­bil­i­ty. She ulti­mate­ly urged him to clean up and pre­pare for Mag­gie’s impend­ing arrival, empha­siz­ing their need for under­stand­ing rather than con­flict .

In the ear­ly hours, the pro­tag­o­nist wakes to the irri­tat­ing sen­sa­tion of spi­ders crawl­ing on him. After switch­ing on the lamp, he finds mul­ti­ple spi­ders in his room and spends time squash­ing them, feel­ing a dis­tinct lack of com­fort as he con­tem­plates mul­ti­ple wor­ries on his mind. Prin­ci­pal among these con­cerns are the strange hap­pen­ings sur­round­ing his daugh­ter, Dawn’s uncle’s unset­tling ques­tion about his men­tal state, and a fake pho­to of Dawn.

As his thoughts spi­ral into a re-exam­i­na­tion of his par­ent­ing fail­ures, he reflects on past regrets, par­tic­u­lar­ly the pres­sure he placed on his daugh­ter Mag­gie over minor issues like din­ner eti­quette and her aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance. A cru­cial mem­o­ry sur­faces regard­ing an inci­dent when Mag­gie, at sev­en­teen, sought his help to buy a veg­an suede jack­et priced at $350 from an online retail­er. He recalled dis­put­ing the coat’s exor­bi­tant price, believ­ing it to be a gim­mick, but ulti­mate­ly relent­ing to her insis­tence and using his cred­it card.

When the jack­et was sup­pos­ed­ly deliv­ered, it dis­ap­peared from their porch—likely snatched by a porch pirate, a real issue in the ship­ping indus­try. After real­iz­ing the jack­et was lost, he con­tact­ed the retail­er explain­ing the sit­u­a­tion, which result­ed in a replace­ment jack­et for Mag­gie. How­ev­er, weeks lat­er, the pro­tag­o­nist encoun­ters Priya, one of Mag­gie’s friends, who reveals that she bought the extra jack­et Mag­gie had received by mis­take.

This rev­e­la­tion hits him hard, trig­ger­ing feel­ings of pro­found dis­ap­point­ment. Upon con­fronting Mag­gie about her actions at din­ner, her casu­al dis­missal of the seri­ous­ness of the mat­ter leads to a heat­ed argu­ment where she jus­ti­fies her actions through var­i­ous excus­es. The ten­sion esca­lates, result­ing in threats to report her to the police, which both he and she know he would­n’t fol­low through with. Even­tu­al­ly, she was made to donate the jack­et to Good­will, an act that infu­ri­at­ed her for an extend­ed peri­od as she defi­ant­ly avoid­ed wear­ing win­ter coats there­after.

Now, with a com­plex strain in their rela­tion­ship, he rec­og­nizes the long-term effects of his past par­ent­ing choic­es and pre­pares to nav­i­gate this ongo­ing con­flict cau­tious­ly, hop­ing to mend the rela­tion­ship despite the brew­ing ten­sions sur­round­ing his daughter’s inter­ac­tions with Gwen­dolyn and Brody Tag­gart. In these rest­less moments, the pro­tag­o­nist remains wide awake, mulling over every­thing.

In the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day, I found myself awake at three-thir­ty, wrestling with mem­o­ries of past fail­ures as a par­ent since my fall­out with Mag­gie. I often reflect on my flaws in par­ent­ing, like the moment we trav­eled to Busch Gar­dens for Maggie’s sev­enth birth­day. Mag­gie real­ized she had left her cher­ished Mr. Pan­da Pal at a high­way rest stop two hours into our jour­ney. Despite her pleas to turn back, I insist­ed on con­tin­u­ing with­out him, believ­ing I could replace the stuffed ani­mal once we arrived. Instead of enjoy­ing the trip, Mag­gie was engulfed in wor­ry for Mr. Pan­da, ruin­ing our week­end and strain­ing our rela­tion­ship.

How­ev­er, amidst the fail­ures, I cher­ish brighter mem­o­ries. I recall the five times I helped Mag­gie paint her bed­room as she explored new col­ors. I also taught her self-defense tech­niques, ensur­ing she felt empow­ered and pre­pared as she approached dri­ving. When Mag­gie got her license on the first attempt, I felt proud of the role I played in her con­fi­dence.

As I dwelled on these moments, I was remind­ed of the times Mag­gie con­fid­ed in me, par­tic­u­lar­ly one morn­ing after she had been unusu­al­ly with­drawn. To uncov­er her con­cerns, I took her to Waf­fle House, a place with sen­ti­men­tal val­ue since her moth­er had once worked there. As we sat togeth­er, I tried to engage her in con­ver­sa­tion, yet she ini­tial­ly brushed me off. When she revealed she had got­ten her peri­od, I felt a mix of sur­prise and pride at her inde­pen­dence. She man­aged this mile­stone with­out my assis­tance, hav­ing learned from friends and fig­ured out how to pro­cure what she need­ed.

Relieved, I offered to pay for the sup­plies so she wouldn’t use her allowance, but I stum­bled when try­ing to dis­cuss “the equip­ment.” Our con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed to the costs of din­ing, high­light­ing her new­found aware­ness of mon­ey as we chat­ted about tip­ping. I explained I was gen­er­ous to the wait­staff in hon­or of her mother’s val­ues, sug­gest­ing that such ges­tures might bring her moth­er joy. The morn­ing exem­pli­fied a cru­cial moment in our evolv­ing rela­tion­ship, filled with laugh­ter and pride in Mag­gie’s growth .

In the open­ing of “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the pro­tag­o­nist receives a call from an UNKNOWN CALLER, typ­i­cal­ly asso­ci­at­ed with scams, yet he decides to answer. To his sur­prise, it is his daugh­ter, Mag­gie. He quick­ly sits up, his excite­ment evi­dent, as the ini­tial shock caus­es him to spill cof­fee on his break­fast. How­ev­er, Mag­gie’s voice is faint and dis­tort­ed, mak­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion dif­fi­cult.

Rec­og­niz­ing the chal­lenge of poor recep­tion in his kitchen, he moves into the liv­ing room, where he mis­tak­en­ly trips over some lum­ber from an unfin­ished car­pen­try project. As he maneu­vers through the clut­ter, he heads to Mag­gie’s child­hood bed­room, know­ing there is a bet­ter sig­nal by the win­dow over­look­ing their back­yard and the Lack­awan­na rail lines.

Once he finds a spot with three bars, he attempts to recon­nect with Mag­gie. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, she still sounds dis­tant, evok­ing images of her being far away or trapped, empha­siz­ing his con­cern. Their con­ver­sa­tion unfolds with esca­lat­ing ten­sion; he can hear her call­ing but strug­gles to under­stand her words. He asks if she is okay, des­per­ate for her reas­sur­ance. Just as he believes they might estab­lish a con­nec­tion, the call abrupt­ly drops, leav­ing him with noth­ing but the short mes­sage of call fail­ure.

This moment encap­su­lates the estrange­ment between father and daugh­ter, high­light­ed by their long silence of three years. It sets the tone for a nar­ra­tive steeped in emo­tion­al dis­tance and the long­ing for recon­nec­tion, under­scor­ing both the chal­lenges of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the pal­pa­ble con­cern a father holds for his child. The chap­ter con­cludes with a sense of urgency and an unre­solved ten­sion, as Maggie’s where­abouts and well­be­ing remain a mys­tery.

In Chap­ter 1, the nar­ra­tive begins with Jim drag­ging Huck­’s bare­ly con­scious body onto the beach after a har­row­ing inci­dent. Injured but alive, Huck is dis­ori­ent­ed and asks ques­tions about where Jim came from and the cir­cum­stances that led them both to the shore. Jim reveals he is from Han­ni­bal, just like Huck, and the two seek refuge in the near­by woods as they hear the chaos and despair from those left on the beach.

Although Huck express­es con­cern for the peo­ple in dis­tress, Jim cau­tions against help­ing them, empha­siz­ing their lack of med­ical exper­tise. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to the antic­i­pat­ed war, with Huck men­tion­ing that the North aims to free slaves, which trou­bles Jim. They both reflect on the fate of the King and Bridge­wa­ter, fel­low trav­el­ers who may have per­ished.

Huck learns that Jim had a friend named Nor­man who was with them before going under. Jim strug­gles with the loss of Nor­man and strange­ly claims Huck as his son, lead­ing to a series of con­fus­ing exchanges about famil­ial ties and iden­ti­ty. Jim’s dec­la­ra­tion stuns Huck, who is con­fused by this rev­e­la­tion and ques­tions the nature of their rela­tion­ship.

As night falls, Huck probes about his father’s iden­ti­ty and learns dis­turb­ing truths, includ­ing that Pap is dead. They dis­cuss Huck­’s self-con­cept, with Jim encour­ag­ing him to tran­scend labels like “nig­ger” or “slave.” Huck grap­ples with the sig­nif­i­cance of these iden­ti­ties but seeks clar­i­ty amid the con­fu­sion.

When they awak­en, Huck queries about Pap’s atti­tude towards Jim, won­der­ing if he hat­ed him for being black or for oth­er rea­sons. They engage in con­ver­sa­tions about their fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships, reveal­ing that both have been har­bor­ing secrets. Jim express­es a desire to return to res­cue his fam­i­ly from slav­ery, while Huck insists on his right to choose his iden­ti­ty, strug­gling against Jim’s cat­e­go­riza­tion of him.

Huck­’s insis­tence on being with Jim con­flicts with Jim’s deter­mi­na­tion to go north alone, lead­ing to argu­ments filled with anger and rejec­tion of iden­ti­ty. Strong emo­tions sur­face as Huck con­fronts Jim, guid­ing the read­er through a nar­ra­tive laden with themes of race, iden­ti­ty, and famil­ial bonds that unrav­el in a charged atmos­phere. They are pre­car­i­ous­ly nav­i­gat­ing their lives amidst soci­etal upheaval and per­son­al loss.

In the open­ing chap­ter titled “A Rustling in Dry Leaves,” the pro­tag­o­nist, Jim, awak­ens at dawn to the sound of rustling leaves, sus­pect­ing a pos­si­ble threat near­by. To his sur­prise, the voice calls his name—it’s Nor­man, a famil­iar fig­ure from his past who now appears in black­face, hav­ing recent­ly escaped a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion. Nor­man explains that upon Jim’s dis­ap­pear­ance, anoth­er char­ac­ter, Emmett, expressed vio­lent inten­tions towards him, moti­vat­ing Nor­man’s flight.

Jim encour­ages Nor­man to catch his breath and reflect on their next steps. As they con­verse, Nor­man shares his desire to buy his wife, reveal­ing that Jim, as a slave, can­not direct­ly pur­chase any­one. Jim pro­pos­es a risky plan: Nor­man should pose as his white own­er, facil­i­tat­ing Jim’s escape while even­tu­al­ly enabling the pur­chase of both their fam­i­lies. Although Nor­man express­es con­cern about the dan­gers of this scheme, Jim reminds him of the sever­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion as slaves, assert­ing that the risks are worth con­tem­plat­ing.

As night falls, the two men share a brief moment of lev­i­ty while walk­ing, laugh­ing to dis­pel their fears. They con­tin­ue their jour­ney over sev­er­al days, ulti­mate­ly arriv­ing at a town where Jim adopts a per­sona to blend in as Nor­man’s prop­er­ty. The ten­sion in the pop­u­lat­ed area is pal­pa­ble, as Nor­man strug­gles to play the role expect­ed of him.

Dur­ing their inter­ac­tion, an old woman queries Nor­man about Jim’s behav­ior, ampli­fy­ing the racial dynam­ics present in their dis­guise. Despite their anx­i­ety, Jim’s brava­do sur­faces as he engages with the old woman, try­ing to ascer­tain poten­tial buy­ers for him­self. How­ev­er, doubt lingers in Jim’s mind regard­ing Norman’s true identity—whether he is gen­uine­ly an ally or a deceit­ful fig­ure.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Jim hand­ing the leather note­book to Nor­man for safe­keep­ing, rec­og­niz­ing the impor­tance of pre­serv­ing his nar­ra­tive despite the loom­ing threat around them. This chap­ter sets the stage for their per­ilous jour­ney, reflect­ing themes of iden­ti­ty, sur­vival, and the com­plex­i­ties of racial dynam­ics amidst their des­per­ate quest for free­dom.

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.

Andrew Fair­banks had antic­i­pat­ed fame, and on a serene Tues­day in ear­ly August, it final­ly came to him—though not in the way he had envi­sioned. Once bet­ter known for his Insta­gram fit­ness videos, a brief affair with a minor pop singer had grant­ed him some media atten­tion, but noth­ing com­pared to the tidal wave of noto­ri­ety he expe­ri­enced on this fate­ful day. A snap­shot of him on a yacht—shirtless, tanned, and hold­ing a Krush­er Ener­gy Drink—had gone viral, thrust­ing his name into glob­al con­ver­sa­tions.

The over­whelm­ing response to the pho­to, filled with heart and fire emo­jis, indi­cat­ed the peak of his brief fame. How­ev­er, not all com­ments were uplift­ing. Phras­es like “Gone too soon” and “So haunt­ing to see that pho­to when you knew what was about to hap­pen” hint­ed at dark­er under­tones, pre­sag­ing a grim real­i­ty. Andrew had quick­ly mor­phed into “Trag­ic Insta­gram influ­encer, Andrew Fair­banks,” though he hard­ly savored the title.

As Wednes­day rolled around, the excite­ment fad­ed. Andrew’s fame began to ebb, over­shad­owed by oth­er news sto­ries. Then came the shock­ing rev­e­la­tion: Andrew Fair­banks had been found dead aboard a yacht in the Atlantic, shot in the head and tied up, with near­ly a mil­lion dol­lars left behind—an eerie clue to a vio­lent end. Despite the tragedy, his fif­teen min­utes of fame was already slip­ping away, under­scor­ing the fleet­ing nature of media atten­tion.

Though spec­u­la­tions about his death flour­ished on social media—ranging from a jeal­ous part­ner to a fit­ness rival—the real­i­ty was unde­ni­able: Andrew Fair­banks was now a mere pho­to and a corpse in a mor­tu­ary. The ques­tion of who killed him remained unan­swered, but the intrigue sur­round­ing it promised a poten­tial pod­cast or true-crime doc­u­men­tary in the future.

In the end, Andrew had become an object of fleet­ing curios­i­ty, con­sumed by the very fame he had sought. The sharks of show busi­ness had devoured him quick­ly, leav­ing noth­ing but rem­nants of a once-desired life and a poignant reminder of fame’s ephemer­al nature.

In the open­ing chap­ter of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” we are intro­duced to Patch, a thir­teen-year-old boy liv­ing in the small town of Mon­ta Clare, over­shad­owed by the St. Fran­cois Moun­tains. From the kitchen’s flat roof, Patch gazes at the oak and pine trees, dream­ing of the adven­tures that lie beyond the Ozark Plateau. He firm­ly believes in the exis­tence of a brighter world, filled with gold and oppor­tu­ni­ties wait­ing just for him.

Lat­er in the chap­ter, the nar­ra­tive shifts to a moment of impend­ing tragedy. Patch imag­ines that his day’s beau­ty will become a cher­ished mem­o­ry, despite the unfore­seen turn of events that may come. He returns to his bed­room, dress­ing elab­o­rate­ly in a tri­corne and waist­coat, trans­form­ing navy slacks into makeshift breech­es. He car­ries a small dag­ger, an arti­fact of his imag­i­na­tive world influ­enced by the pirate tales that cap­ti­vate him. This fan­ta­sy serves as a refuge from his harsh real­i­ty, shaped by his unique circumstances—being born with one eye.

As the chap­ter explores his bed­room’s con­tents, it offers a glimpse into Patch’s life. A black flag hides a hole in the dry­wall, and the clos­et lacks doors—symbolizing a life filled with both adven­ture and neglect. Antique trea­sures, includ­ing a trea­sure chest and props from pirate movies, reflect his dreams. The police inves­ti­ga­tion lat­er uncov­ers these details, depict­ing Patch’s pen­chant for fan­ta­sy and the odd­i­ty of his pos­ses­sions.

Patch’s affin­i­ty for eye patch­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly a pur­ple satin one made by his moth­er, sym­bol­izes his long­ing for accep­tance and his fan­ci­ful aspi­ra­tions. He reflects on his mother’s influ­ence, her strug­gles evi­dent from her sun-dam­aged skin, a mark of her night shifts. The affec­tion­ate ban­ter between them reveals their bond, with Patch appre­ci­at­ing her laugh­ter amidst the chal­lenges they face.

The chap­ter ends on a hope­ful note as Patch declares his deter­mi­na­tion to make each day count, naive­ly believ­ing that today could be the best day of his life, unaware of the trag­ic events lurk­ing ahead. This opti­mism poignant­ly jux­ta­pos­es the rev­e­la­tion of his real­i­ty, fore­shad­ow­ing the chaos that awaits.

In the first chap­ter, Phoebe Stone arrives at the Corn­wall Inn, an ele­gant hotel perched on a cliff over­look­ing the ocean. The hotel evokes a sense of nos­tal­gia and excite­ment for her as she steps out of the cab dressed in a strik­ing emer­ald silk dress, the only item she tru­ly cher­ish­es fol­low­ing her recent divorce. Leav­ing behind her old life in St. Louis, includ­ing her hus­band and all her belong­ings, Phoebe feels both lib­er­at­ed and lost amidst the ongo­ing lock­downs.

Recall­ing her mun­dane exis­tence dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, she rem­i­nisces about the com­fort­able life of a pro­fes­sor, filled with pre­dictable rou­tines and sim­ple joys. How­ev­er, she has come to real­ize that she no longer fits into that nor­mal mold, prompt­ing her jour­ney to New­port. Before board­ing her flight, Phoebe con­scious­ly choos­es the emer­ald dress—a depar­ture from her pro­fes­sor attire—signifying her desire to reclaim her­self.

As she enters the hotel, she expe­ri­ences a mix of antic­i­pa­tion and bewil­der­ment. The check-in line is unex­pect­ed­ly long, filled with guests prepar­ing for wed­dings, con­trast­ing sharply with her state of soli­tude. Phoebe observes the wed­ding peo­ple, feel­ing dis­con­nect­ed from their joy and com­pan­ion­ship. The bride, who appears to be the cen­ter of atten­tion, embod­ies every­thing Phoebe wish­es she could be.

Upon final­ly check­ing in and con­vers­ing with a staff mem­ber, Phoebe reflects on her hap­py place, the Corn­wall Inn, which she has envi­sioned since see­ing it in a trav­el mag­a­zine years ago. How­ev­er, the con­ver­sa­tion with the front desk atten­dant reveals her deep-seat­ed feel­ings of iso­la­tion and her strug­gle with identity—her name, “Phoebe Stone,” now feels like a rem­nant of her past life.

Caught in her dis­con­nec­tion from oth­ers and her mem­o­ries of hap­pi­er times, Phoebe comes to a stark real­iza­tion about her exis­tence and the weight of her soli­tude. The chap­ter ends with her feel­ing that wher­ev­er she goes, her under­ly­ing sad­ness remains, echo­ing the sen­ti­ment that a ‘hap­py place’ is not mere­ly about loca­tion but the emo­tion­al state one car­ries with them.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

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.

ONE
MILLIE
“Tell me about your­self, Mil­lie.”
Nina Win­ches­ter leans for­ward on her caramel-col­ored leather sofa, her
legs crossed to reveal just the slight­est hint of her knees peek­ing out under
her silky white skirt. I don’t know much about labels, but it’s obvi­ous
every­thing Nina Win­ches­ter is wear­ing is painful­ly expen­sive. Her cream
blouse makes me long to reach out to feel the mate­r­i­al, even though a move
like that would mean I’d have no chance of get­ting hired.
To be fair, I have no chance of get­ting hired any­way.
“Well…” I begin, choos­ing my words care­ful­ly. Even after all the
rejec­tions, I still try. “I grew up in Brook­lyn. I’ve had a lot of jobs doing
house­work for peo­ple, as you can see from my resume.” My care­ful­ly
doc­tored resume. “And I love chil­dren. And also…” I glance around the
room, look­ing for a dog­gy chew toy or a cat lit­ter box. “I love pets as
well?”
The online ad for the house­keep­er job didn’t men­tion pets. But bet­ter to
be safe. Who doesn’t appre­ci­ate an ani­mal lover?
“Brook­lyn!” Mrs. Win­ches­ter beams at me. “I grew up in Brook­lyn, too.
We’re prac­ti­cal­ly neigh­bors!”
“We are!” I con­firm, even though noth­ing could be fur­ther from the
truth. There are plen­ty of cov­et­ed neigh­bor­hoods in Brook­lyn where you’ll
fork over an arm and a leg for a tiny town­house. That’s not where I grew
up. Nina Win­ches­ter and I couldn’t be more dif­fer­ent, but if she’d like to
believe we’re neigh­bors, then I’m only too hap­py to go along with it.
Mrs. Win­ches­ter tucks a strand of shiny, gold­en-blond hair behind her
ear. Her hair is chin-length, cut into a fash­ion­able bob that de-empha­sizes
her dou­ble chin. She’s in her late thir­ties, and with a dif­fer­ent hair­style and
dif­fer­ent cloth­ing, she would be very ordi­nary-look­ing. But she has used her
con­sid­er­able wealth to make the most of what she’s got. I can’t say I don’t
respect that.
I have gone the exact oppo­site direc­tion with my appear­ance. I may be
over ten years younger than the woman sit­ting across from me, but I don’t
want her to feel at all threat­ened by me. So for my inter­view, I select­ed a
long, chunky wool skirt that I bought at the thrift store and a poly­ester white
blouse with puffy sleeves. My dirty-blond hair is pulled back into a severe
bun behind my head. I even pur­chased a pair of over­sized and unnec­es­sary
tor­toise­shell glass­es that sit perched on my nose. I look pro­fes­sion­al and
utter­ly unat­trac­tive.
“So the job,” she says. “It will be most­ly clean­ing and some light
cook­ing if you’re up for it. Are you a good cook, Mil­lie?”
“Yes, I am.” My ease in the kitchen is the only thing on my resume that
isn’t a lie. “I’m an excel­lent cook.”
Her pale blue eyes light up. “That’s won­der­ful! Hon­est­ly, we almost
nev­er have a good home-cooked meal.” She tit­ters. “Who has the time?”
I bite back any kind of judg­men­tal response. Nina Win­ches­ter doesn’t
work, she only has one child who’s in school all day, and she’s hir­ing
some­body to do all her clean­ing for her. I even saw a man in her enor­mous
front yard doing her gar­den­ing for her. How is it pos­si­ble she doesn’t have
time to cook a meal for her small fam­i­ly?
I shouldn’t judge her. I don’t know any­thing about what her life is like.
Just because she’s rich, it doesn’t mean she’s spoiled.
But if I had to bet a hun­dred bucks either way, I’d bet Nina Win­ches­ter
is spoiled rot­ten.
“And we’ll need occa­sion­al help with Cecelia as well,” Mrs. Win­ches­ter
says. “Per­haps tak­ing her to her after­noon lessons or play­dates. You have a
car, don’t you?”
I almost laugh at her ques­tion. Yes, I do have a car—it’s all I have right
now. My ten-year-old Nis­san is stink­ing up the street in front of her house,
and it’s where I am cur­rent­ly liv­ing. Every­thing I own is in the trunk of that
car. I have spent the last month sleep­ing in the back­seat.
After a month of liv­ing in your car, you real­ize the impor­tance of some
of the lit­tle things in life. A toi­let. A sink. Being able to straight­en your legs
out while you’re sleep­ing. I miss that last one most of all.
“Yes, I have a car,” I con­firm.
“Excel­lent!” Mrs. Win­ches­ter claps her hands togeth­er. “I’ll pro­vide you
with a car seat for Cecelia, of course. She just needs a boost­er seat. She’s
not quite at the weight and height lev­el to be with­out the boost­er yet. The
Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics rec­om­mends…”
While Nina Win­ches­ter drones on about the exact height and weight
require­ments for car seats, I take a moment to glance around the liv­ing
room. The fur­nish­ing is all ultra-mod­ern, with the largest flat-screen
tele­vi­sion I’ve ever seen, which I’m sure is high def­i­n­i­tion and has
sur­round-sound speak­ers built into every nook and cran­ny of the room for
opti­mal lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence. In the cor­ner of the room is what appears to be
a work­ing fire­place, the man­tle lit­tered with pho­tographs of the Win­ches­ters
on trips to every cor­ner of the world. When I glance up, the insane­ly high
ceil­ing glows under the light of a sparkling chan­de­lier.
“Don’t you think so, Mil­lie?” Mrs. Win­ches­ter is say­ing.
I blink at her. I attempt to rewind my mem­o­ry and fig­ure out what she
had just asked me. But it’s gone. “Yes?” I say.
What­ev­er I agreed to has made her very hap­py. “I’m so pleased you
think so too.”
“Absolute­ly,” I say more firm­ly this time.
She uncross­es and re-cross­es her some­what stocky legs. “And of
course,” she adds, “there’s the mat­ter of reim­burse­ment for you. You saw
the offer in my adver­tise­ment, right? Is that accept­able to you?”
I swal­low. The num­ber in the adver­tise­ment is more than accept­able. If I
were a car­toon char­ac­ter, dol­lar signs would have appeared in each of my
eye­balls when I read that adver­tise­ment. But the mon­ey almost stopped me
from apply­ing for the job. Nobody offer­ing that much mon­ey, liv­ing in a
house like this one, would ever con­sid­er hir­ing me.
“Yes,” I choke out. “It’s fine.”
She arch­es an eye­brow. “And you know it’s a live-in posi­tion, right?”
Is she ask­ing me if I’m okay with leav­ing the splen­dor of the back­seat
of my Nis­san? “Right. I know.”
“Fab­u­lous!” She tugs at the hem of her skirt and ris­es to her feet.
“Would you like the grand tour then? See what you’re get­ting your­self
into?”
I stand up as well. In her heels, Mrs. Win­ches­ter is only a few inch­es
taller than I am in my flats, but it feels like she’s much taller. “Sounds
great!”
She guides me through the house in painstak­ing detail, to the point
where I’m wor­ried I got the ad wrong and maybe she’s a real­tor think­ing
I’m ready to buy. It is a beau­ti­ful house. If I had four or five mil­lion dol­lars
burn­ing a hole in my pock­et, I would snap it up. In addi­tion to the ground
lev­el con­tain­ing the gigan­tic liv­ing room and the new­ly ren­o­vat­ed kitchen,
the sec­ond floor of the house fea­tures the Win­ches­ters’ mas­ter bed­room, her
daugh­ter Cecelia’s room, Mr. Winchester’s home office, and a guest
bed­room that could be straight out of the best hotel in Man­hat­tan. She
paus­es dra­mat­i­cal­ly in front of the sub­se­quent door.
“And here is…” She flings the door open. “Our home the­ater!”
It’s a legit movie the­ater right inside their home—in addi­tion to the
over­sized tele­vi­sion down­stairs. This room has sev­er­al rows of sta­di­um
seat­ing, fac­ing a floor-to-ceil­ing mon­i­tor. There’s even a pop­corn machine
in the cor­ner of the room.
After a moment, I notice Mrs. Win­ches­ter is look­ing at me, wait­ing for a
response.
“Wow!” I say with what I hope is appro­pri­ate enthu­si­asm.
“Isn’t it mar­velous?” She shiv­ers with delight. “And we have a full
library of movies to choose from. Of course, we also have all the usu­al
chan­nels as well as stream­ing ser­vices.”
“Of course,” I say.
After we leave the room, we come to a final door at the end of the
hall­way. Nina paus­es, her hand lin­ger­ing on the door­knob.
“Would this be my room?” I ask.
“Sort of…” She turns the door­knob, which creaks loud­ly. I can’t help
but notice the wood of this door is much thick­er than any of the oth­ers.
Behind the door­way, there’s a dark stair­well. “Your room is upstairs. We
have a fin­ished attic as well.”
This dark, nar­row stair­case is some­what less glam­orous than the rest of
the house—and would it kill them to stick a light­bulb in here? But of
course, I’m the hired help. I wouldn’t expect her to spend as much mon­ey
on my room as she would on the home the­ater.
At the top of the stairs is a lit­tle nar­row hall­way. Unlike on the first
floor of the house, the ceil­ing is dan­ger­ous­ly low here. I’m not tall by any
means, but I almost feel like I need to stoop down.
“You have your own bath­room.” She nods at a door on the left. “And
this would be your room right here.”
She flings open the last door. It’s com­plete­ly dark inside until she tugs
on a string and the room lights up.
The room is tiny. There’s no two ways about it. Not only that, but the
ceil­ing is slant­ed with the roof of the house. The far side of the ceil­ing only
comes about up to my waist. Instead of the huge king-size bed in the
Win­ches­ters’ mas­ter bed­room with their armoire and chest­nut van­i­ty table,
this room con­tains a small sin­gle cot, a half-height book­case, and a small
dress­er, lit by two naked bulbs sus­pend­ed from the ceil­ing.
This room is mod­est, but that’s fine with me. If it were too nice, it
would be a cer­tain­ty I have no shot at this job. The fact that this room is
kind of crap­py means maybe her stan­dards are low enough that I have a
tee­ny, tiny chance.
But there’s some­thing else about this room. Some­thing that’s both­er­ing
me.
“Sor­ry it’s small.” Mrs. Win­ches­ter pulls a frown. “But you’ll have a lot
of pri­va­cy here.”
I walk over to the sin­gle win­dow. Like the room, it’s small. Bare­ly
larg­er than my hand. And it over­looks the back­yard. There’s a land­scap­er
down there—the same guy I saw out at the front—hacking at one of the
hedges with an over­sized set of clip­pers.
“So what do you think, Mil­lie? Do you like it?”
I turn away from the win­dow to look at Mrs. Winchester’s smil­ing face.
I still can’t quite put my fin­ger on what’s both­er­ing me. There’s some­thing
about this room that’s mak­ing a lit­tle ball of dread form in the pit of my
stom­ach.
Maybe it’s the win­dow. It looks out on the back of the house. If I were
in trou­ble and try­ing to get somebody’s atten­tion, nobody would be able to
see me back here. I could scream and yell all I want­ed, and nobody would
hear.
But who am I kid­ding? I would be lucky to live in this room. With my
own bath­room and an actu­al bed where I could straight­en my legs out all
the way. That tiny cot looks so good com­pared to my car, I could cry.
“It’s per­fect,” I say.
Mrs. Win­ches­ter seems ecsta­t­ic about my answer. She leads me back
down the dark stair­well to the sec­ond floor of the house, and when I exit
that stair­well, I let out a breath I didn’t real­ize I was hold­ing. There was
some­thing about that room that was very scary, but if I some­how man­age to
get this job, I’ll get past it. Eas­i­ly.
My shoul­ders final­ly relax and my lips are form­ing anoth­er ques­tion
when I hear a voice from behind us:
“Mom­my?”
I stop short and turn around to see a lit­tle girl stand­ing behind us in the
hall­way. The girl has the same light blue eyes as Nina Win­ches­ter, except a
few shades paler, and her hair is so blond that it’s almost white. The girl is
wear­ing a very pale blue dress trimmed in white lace. And she’s star­ing at
me like she can see right through me. Right through my soul.
Do you know those movies about the scary cult of, like, creepy kids
who can read minds and wor­ship the dev­il and live in the corn­fields or
some­thing? Well, if they were cast­ing for one of those movies, this girl
would get the part. They wouldn’t even have to audi­tion her. They would
take one look at her and be like, Yes, you are creepy girl num­ber three.
“Cece!” Mrs. Win­ches­ter exclaims. “Are you back already from your
bal­let les­son?”
The girl nods slow­ly. “Bella’s mom dropped me off.”
Mrs. Win­ches­ter wraps her arms around the girl’s skin­ny shoul­ders, but
the girl’s expres­sion nev­er changes and her pale blue eyes nev­er leave my
face. Is there some­thing wrong with me that I am scared this nine-year-old
girl is going to mur­der me?
“This is Mil­lie,” Mrs. Win­ches­ter tells her daugh­ter. “Mil­lie, this is my
daugh­ter, Cecelia.”
Lit­tle Cecelia’s eyes are two lit­tle pools of the ocean. “It’s nice to meet
you, Mil­lie,” she says polite­ly.
I’d say there’s at least a twen­ty-five per­cent chance she’s going to
mur­der me in my sleep if I get this job. But I still want it.
Mrs. Win­ches­ter pecks her daugh­ter on the top of her blond head, and
then the lit­tle girl scur­ries off to her bed­room. She doubt­less has a creepy
doll house in there where the dolls come to life at night. Maybe one of the
dolls will be the one to kill me.
Okay, I’m being ridicu­lous. That lit­tle girl is prob­a­bly extreme­ly sweet.
It’s not her fault she’s been dressed in a creepy Vic­to­ri­an ghost-child’s
out­fit. And I love kids, in gen­er­al. Not that I’ve inter­act­ed with them much
over the last decade.
Once we get back down to the first floor, the ten­sion leaves my body.
Mrs. Win­ches­ter is nice and nor­mal enough—for a lady this rich—and as
she chat­ters about the house and her daugh­ter and the job, I’m only vague­ly
lis­ten­ing. All I know is this will be a love­ly place to work. I would give my
right arm to get this job.
“Do you have any ques­tions, Mil­lie?” she asks me.
I shake my head. “No, Mrs. Win­ches­ter.”
She clucks her tongue. “Please, call me Nina. If you’re work­ing here, I
would feel so sil­ly with you call­ing me Mrs. Win­ches­ter.” She laughs. “Like
I’m some sort of rich old lady.”
“Thank you… Nina,” I say.
Her face glows, although that could be the sea­weed or cucum­ber peel or
what­ev­er rich peo­ple apply to their faces. Nina Win­ches­ter is the sort of
woman who has reg­u­lar spa treat­ments. “I have a good feel­ing about this,
Mil­lie. I real­ly do.”
It’s hard not to get caught up in her enthu­si­asm. It’s hard not to feel that
glim­mer of hope as she squeezes my rough palm in her baby smooth one. I
want to believe that in the next few days, I’ll get a call from Nina
Win­ches­ter, offer­ing me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to come work at her house and
final­ly vacate Casa Nis­san. I want to believe that so bad­ly.
But what­ev­er else I can say about Nina, she’s no dum­my. She’s not
going to hire a woman to work and live in her home and take care of her
child with­out doing a sim­ple back­ground check. And once she does…
I swal­low a lump in my throat.
Nina Win­ches­ter bids a warm good­bye to me at the front door. “Thank
you so much for com­ing by, Mil­lie.” She reach­es out to clasp my hand in
hers one more time. “I promise you’ll be hear­ing from me soon.”
I won’t. This will be the last time I set foot in that mag­nif­i­cent house. I
should nev­er have come here in the first place. I should have tried for a job
I had a chance of get­ting instead of wast­ing both of our time here. Maybe
some­thing in the fast-food indus­try.
The land­scap­er who I saw from the win­dow in the attic is back on the
front lawn. He’s still got those giant clip­pers and he’s shap­ing one of the
hedges right in front of the house. He’s a big guy, wear­ing a T‑shirt that
shows off impres­sive mus­cles and just bare­ly hides the tat­toos on his upper
arms. He adjusts his base­ball cap and his dark, dark eyes lift briefly from
the clip­pers to meet mine across the lawn.

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
1
I vom­it­ed into the toi­let, hug­ging the cool sides, try­ing to con­tain the sounds
of my retch­ing.
Moon­light leaked into the mas­sive mar­ble bathing room, pro­vid­ing the
only illu­mi­na­tion as I was qui­et­ly, thor­ough­ly sick.
Tam­lin hadn’t stirred as I’d jolt­ed awake. And when I hadn’t been able to
tell the dark­ness of my cham­ber from the end­less night of Amarantha’s
dun­geons, when the cold sweat coat­ing me felt like the blood of those
faeries, I’d hur­tled for the bathing room.
I’d been here for fif­teen min­utes now, wait­ing for the retch­ing to sub­side,
for the lin­ger­ing tremors to spread apart and fade, like rip­ples in a pool.
Pant­i­ng, I braced myself over the bowl, count­ing each breath.
Only a night­mare. One of many, asleep and wak­ing, that haunt­ed me
these days.
It had been three months since Under the Moun­tain. Three months of
adjust­ing to my immor­tal body, to a world strug­gling to piece itself togeth­er
after Ama­ran­tha had frac­tured it apart.
I focused on my breathing—in through my nose, out through my mouth.
Over and over.
When it seemed like I was done heav­ing, I eased from the toilet—but
didn’t go far. Just to the adja­cent wall, near the cracked win­dow, where I
could see the night sky, where the breeze could caress my sticky face. I
leaned my head against the wall, flat­ten­ing my hands against the chill
mar­ble floor. Real.
This was real. I had sur­vived; I’d made it out.
Unless it was a dream—just a fever-dream in Amarantha’s dun­geons, and
I’d awak­en back in that cell, and—
I curled my knees to my chest. Real. Real.
I mouthed the words.
I kept mouthing them until I could loosen my grip on my legs and lift my
head. Pain splin­tered through my hands—
I’d some­how curled them into fists so tight my nails were close to
punc­tur­ing my skin.
Immor­tal strength—more a curse than a gift. I’d dent­ed and fold­ed every
piece of sil­ver­ware I’d touched for three days upon return­ing here, had
tripped over my longer, faster legs so often that Alis had removed any
irre­place­able valu­ables from my rooms (she’d been par­tic­u­lar­ly grumpy
about me knock­ing over a table with an eight-hun­dred-year-old vase), and
had shat­tered not one, not two, but five glass doors mere­ly by acci­den­tal­ly
clos­ing them too hard.
Sigh­ing through my nose, I unfold­ed my fin­gers.
My right hand was plain, smooth. Per­fect­ly Fae.
I tilt­ed my left hand over, the whorls of dark ink coat­ing my fin­gers, my
wrist, my fore­arm all the way to the elbow, soak­ing up the dark­ness of the
room. The eye etched into the cen­ter of my palm seemed to watch me, calm
and cun­ning as a cat, its slit­ted pupil wider than it’d been ear­li­er that day.
As if it adjust­ed to the light, as any ordi­nary eye would.
I scowled at it.
At who­ev­er might be watch­ing through that tat­too.
I hadn’t heard from Rhys in the three months I’d been here. Not a
whis­per. I hadn’t dared ask Tam­lin, or Lucien, or anyone—lest it’d
some­how sum­mon the High Lord of the Night Court, some­how remind him
of the fool’s bar­gain I’d struck Under the Moun­tain: one week with him
every month in exchange for his sav­ing me from the brink of death.
But even if Rhys had mirac­u­lous­ly for­got­ten, I nev­er could. Nor could
Tam­lin, Lucien, or any­one else. Not with the tat­too.
Even if Rhys, at the end … even if he hadn’t been exact­ly an ene­my.
To Tam­lin, yes. To every oth­er court out there, yes. So few went over the
bor­ders of the Night Court and lived to tell. No one real­ly knew what
exist­ed in the north­ern­most part of Pry­thi­an.
Moun­tains and dark­ness and stars and death.
But I hadn’t felt like Rhysand’s ene­my the last time I’d spo­ken to him, in
the hours after Amarantha’s defeat. I’d told no one about that meet­ing, what
he’d said to me, what I’d con­fessed to him.
Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don’t feel any­thing at
all.
I squeezed my fin­gers into a fist, block­ing out that eye, the tat­too. I
uncoiled to my feet, and flushed the toi­let before padding to the sink to
rinse out my mouth, then wash my face.
I wished I felt noth­ing.
I wished my human heart had been changed with the rest of me, made
into immor­tal mar­ble. Instead of the shred­ded bit of black­ness that it now
was, leak­ing its ichor into me.
Tam­lin remained asleep as I crept back into my dark­ened bed­room, his
naked body sprawled across the mat­tress. For a moment, I just admired the
pow­er­ful mus­cles of his back, so lov­ing­ly traced by the moon­light, his
gold­en hair, mussed with sleep and the fin­gers I’d run through it while we
made love ear­li­er.
For him, I had done this—for him, I’d glad­ly wrecked myself and my
immor­tal soul.
And now I had eter­ni­ty to live with it.
I con­tin­ued to the bed, each step heav­ier, hard­er. The sheets were now
cool and dry, and I slipped in, curl­ing my back to him, wrap­ping my arms
around myself. His breath­ing was deep—even. But with my Fae ears …
some­times I won­dered if I heard his breath catch, only for a heart­beat. I
nev­er had the nerve to ask if he was awake.
He nev­er woke when the night­mares dragged me from sleep; nev­er woke
when I vom­it­ed my guts up night after night. If he knew or heard, he said
noth­ing about it.
I knew sim­i­lar dreams chased him from his slum­ber as often as I fled
from mine. The first time it had hap­pened, I’d awoken—tried to speak to
him. But he’d shak­en off my touch, his skin clam­my, and had shift­ed into
that beast of fur and claws and horns and fangs. He’d spent the rest of the
night sprawled across the foot of the bed, mon­i­tor­ing the door, the wall of
win­dows.
He’d since spent many nights like that.

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.

C AN YOU COME INTO MY office?”
I look around at the desks beside me and then back at Frankie,
try­ing to con­firm to whom, exact­ly, she’s talk­ing. I point to myself. “Do
you mean me?”
Frankie has very lit­tle patience. “Yes, Monique, you. That’s why I
said, ‘Monique, can you come into my office?’ ”
“Sor­ry, I just heard the last part.”
Frankie turns. I grab my notepad and fol­low her.
There is some­thing very strik­ing about Frankie. I’m not sure that
you’d say she was con­ven­tion­al­ly attractive—her fea­tures are severe,
her eyes very wide apart—but she is nev­er­the­less some­one you can’t
help but look at and admire. With her thin, six-foot-tall frame, her
short-cropped Afro, and her affin­i­ty for bright col­ors and big jew­el­ry,
when Frankie walks into a room, every­one takes notice.
She was part of the rea­son I took this job. I have looked up to her
since I was in jour­nal­ism school, read­ing her pieces in the very pages
of the mag­a­zine she now runs and I now work for. And if I’m being
hon­est, there is some­thing very inspir­ing about hav­ing a black woman
run­ning things. As a bira­cial woman myself—light brown skin and
dark brown eyes cour­tesy of my black father, an abun­dance of face
freck­les cour­tesy of my white mother—Frankie makes me feel more
sure that I can one day run things, too.
“Take a seat,” Frankie says as she sits down and ges­tures toward an
orange chair on the oppo­site side of her Lucite desk.
I calm­ly sit and cross my legs. I let Frankie talk first.
“So, puz­zling turn of events,” she says, look­ing at her com­put­er.
“Eve­lyn Hugo’s peo­ple are inquir­ing about a fea­ture. An exclu­sive
inter­view.”
My gut instinct is to say Holy shit but also Why are you telling me
this? “About what in par­tic­u­lar?” I ask.
“My guess is it’s relat­ed to the gown auc­tion she’s doing,” Frankie
says. “My under­stand­ing is that it’s very impor­tant to her to raise as
much mon­ey for the Amer­i­can Breast Can­cer Foun­da­tion as pos­si­ble.”
“But they won’t con­firm that?”
Frankie shakes her head. “All they will con­firm is that Eve­lyn has
some­thing to say.”
Eve­lyn Hugo is one of the biggest movie stars of all time. She
doesn’t even have to have some­thing to say for peo­ple to lis­ten.
“This could be a big cov­er for us, right? I mean, she’s a liv­ing
leg­end. Wasn’t she mar­ried eight times or some­thing?”
“Sev­en,” Frankie says. “And yes. This has huge poten­tial. Which is
why I hope you’ll bear with me through the next part of this.”
“What do you mean?”
Frankie takes a big breath and gets a look on her face that makes
me think I’m about to get fired. But then she says, “Eve­lyn specif­i­cal­ly
request­ed you.”
“Me?” This is the sec­ond time in the span of five min­utes that I have
been shocked that some­one was inter­est­ed in speak­ing with me. I
need to work on my con­fi­dence. Suf­fice it to say, it’s tak­en a beat­ing
recent­ly. Although why pre­tend it was ever real­ly soar­ing?
“To be hon­est, that was my reac­tion, too,” Frankie says.
Now I’ll be hon­est, I’m a lit­tle offend­ed. Although, obvi­ous­ly, I can
see where she’s com­ing from. I’ve been at Vivant for less than a year,
most­ly doing puff pieces. Before that, I was blog­ging for the Dis­course,
a cur­rent events and cul­ture site that calls itself a news­magazine but is,
effec­tive­ly, a blog with punchy head­lines. I wrote main­ly for the
Mod­ern Life sec­tion, cov­er­ing trend­ing top­ics and opin­ion pieces.
After years of free­lanc­ing, the Dis­course gig was a life­saver. But
when Vivant offered me a job, I couldn’t help myself. I jumped at the
chance to join an insti­tu­tion, to work among leg­ends.
On my first day of work, I walked past walls dec­o­rat­ed with icon­ic,
cul­ture-shift­ing covers—the one of women’s activist Deb­bie Palmer,
naked and care­ful­ly posed, stand­ing on top of a sky­scraper over­look­ing
Man­hat­tan in 1984; the one of artist Robert Turn­er in the act of
paint­ing a can­vas while the text declared that he had AIDS, back in
1991. It felt sur­re­al to be a part of the Vivant world. I have always
want­ed to see my name on its glossy pages.
But unfor­tu­nate­ly, for the past twelve issues, I’ve done noth­ing but
ask old-guard ques­tions of peo­ple with old mon­ey, while my col­leagues
back at the Dis­course are attempt­ing to change the world while going
viral. So, sim­ply put, I’m not exact­ly impressed with myself.
“Look, it’s not that we don’t love you, we do,” Frankie says. “We
think you’re des­tined for big things at Vivant, but I was hop­ing to put
one of our more expe­ri­enced, top hit­ters on this. And so I want to be
up front with you when I say that we did not sub­mit you as an idea to
Evelyn’s team. We sent five big names, and they came back with this.”
Frankie turns her com­put­er screen toward me and shows me an e-
mail from some­one named Thomas Welch, who I can only assume is
Eve­lyn Hugo’s pub­li­cist.
From: Thomas Welch
To: Troupe, Frankie
Cc: Stamey, Jason; Pow­ers, Ryan
It’s Monique Grant or Evelyn’s out.
I look back up at Frankie, stunned. And to be hon­est, a lit­tle bit
starstruck that Eve­lyn Hugo wants any­thing to do with me.
“Do you know Eve­lyn Hugo? Is that what’s going on here?” Frankie
asks me as she turns the com­put­er back toward her side of the desk.
“No,” I say, sur­prised even to be asked the ques­tion. “I’ve seen a few
of her movies, but she’s a lit­tle before my time.”
“You have no per­son­al con­nec­tion to her?”
I shake my head. “Def­i­nite­ly not.”
“Aren’t you from Los Ange­les?”
“Yeah, but the only way I’d have any con­nec­tion to Eve­lyn Hugo, I
sup­pose, is if my dad worked on one of her films back in the day. He
was a still pho­tog­ra­ph­er for movie sets. I can ask my mom.”
“Great. Thank you.” Frankie looks at me expec­tant­ly.
“Did you want me to ask now?”
“Could you?”
I pull my phone out of my pock­et and text my moth­er: Did Dad ever
work on any Eve­lyn Hugo movies?
I see three dots start to appear, and I look up, only to find that
Frankie is try­ing to get a glimpse of my phone. She seems to
rec­og­nize the inva­sion and leans back.
My phone dings.
My moth­er texts: Maybe? There were so many it’s hard to keep track.
Why?
Long sto­ry, I reply, but I’m try­ing to fig­ure out if I have any con­nec­tion
to Eve­lyn Hugo. Think Dad would have known her?
Mom answers: Ha! No. Your father nev­er hung out with any­body
famous on set. No mat­ter how hard I tried to get him to make us some
celebri­ty friends.
I laugh. “It looks like no. No con­nec­tion to Eve­lyn Hugo.”
Frankie nods. “OK, well, then, the oth­er the­o­ry is that her peo­ple
chose some­one with less clout so that they could try to con­trol you
and, thus, the nar­ra­tive.”
I feel my phone vibrate again. That reminds me that I want­ed to send
you a box of your dad’s old work. Some gor­geous stuff. I love hav­ing it
here, but I think you’d love it more. I’ll send it this week.
“You think they’re prey­ing on the weak,” I say to Frankie.
Frankie smiles soft­ly. “Sort of.”
“So Evelyn’s peo­ple look up the mast­head, find my name as a low­er-
lev­el writer, and think they can bul­ly me around. That’s the idea?”
“That’s what I fear.”
“And you’re telling me this because . . .”
Frankie con­sid­ers her words. “Because I don’t think you can be
bul­lied around. I think they are under­es­ti­mat­ing you. And I want this
cov­er. I want it to make head­lines.”
“What are you say­ing?” I ask, shift­ing slight­ly in my chair.
Frankie claps her hands in front of her and rests them on the desk,
lean­ing toward me. “I’m ask­ing you if you have the guts to go toe-to-toe
with Eve­lyn Hugo.”
Of all the things I thought some­one was going to ask me today, this
would prob­a­bly be some­where around num­ber nine mil­lion. Do I have
the guts to go toe-to-toe with Eve­lyn Hugo? I have no idea.
“Yes,” I say final­ly.
“That’s all? Just yes?”
I want this oppor­tu­ni­ty. I want to write this sto­ry. I’m sick of being
the low­est one on the totem pole. And I need a win, god­dammit. “Fuck
yes?”
Frankie nods, con­sid­er­ing. “Bet­ter, but I’m still not con­vinced.”
I’m thir­ty-five years old. I’ve been a writer for more than a decade. I
want a book deal one day. I want to pick my sto­ries. I want to
even­tu­al­ly be the name peo­ple scram­ble to get when some­one like
Eve­lyn Hugo calls. And I’m being under­used here at Vivant. If I’m
going to get where I want to go, some­thing has to let up. Some­one has
to get out of my way. And it needs to hap­pen quick­ly, because this
god­damn career is all I have any­more. If I want things to change, I
have to change how I do things. And prob­a­bly dras­ti­cal­ly.
“Eve­lyn wants me,” I say. “You want Eve­lyn. It doesn’t sound like I
need to con­vince you, Frankie. It sounds like you need to con­vince
me.”
Frankie is dead qui­et, star­ing right at me over her steepled fin­gers.
I was aim­ing for for­mi­da­ble. I might have over­shot.
I feel the same way I did when I tried weight train­ing and start­ed
with the forty-pound weights. Too much too soon makes it obvi­ous you
don’t know what you’re doing.
It takes every­thing I have not to take it back, not to apol­o­gize
pro­fuse­ly. My moth­er raised me to be polite, to be demure. I have long
oper­at­ed under the idea that civil­i­ty is sub­servience. But it hasn’t
got­ten me very far, that type of kind­ness. The world respects peo­ple
who think they should be run­ning it. I’ve nev­er under­stood that, but
I’m done fight­ing it. I’m here to be Frankie one day, maybe big­ger than
Frankie. To do big, impor­tant work that I am proud of. To leave a
mark. And I’m nowhere near doing that yet.
The silence is so long that I think I might crack, the ten­sion
build­ing with every sec­ond that goes by. But Frankie cracks first.
“OK,” she says, and puts out her hand as she stands up.
Shock and sear­ing pride run through me as I extend my own. I
make sure my hand­shake is strong; Frankie’s is a vise.
“Ace this, Monique. For us and for your­self, please.”
“I will.”
We break away from each oth­er as I walk toward her door. “She
might have read your physi­cian-assist­ed sui­cide piece for the
Dis­course,” Frankie says just before I leave the room.
“What?”
“It was stun­ning. Maybe that’s why she wants you. It’s how we
found you. It’s a great sto­ry. Not just because of the hits it got but
because of you, because it’s beau­ti­ful work.”
It was one of the first tru­ly mean­ing­ful sto­ries I wrote of my own
voli­tion. I pitched it after I was assigned a piece on the rise in
pop­u­lar­i­ty of micro­greens, espe­cial­ly on the Brook­lyn restau­rant
scene. I had gone to the Park Slope mar­ket to inter­view a local farmer,
but when I con­fessed that I didn’t get the appeal of mus­tard greens, he
told me that I sound­ed like his sis­ter. She had been high­ly car­niv­o­rous
until the past year, when she switched to a veg­an, all-organ­ic diet as
she bat­tled brain can­cer.
As we spoke more, he told me about a physi­cian-assist­ed sui­cide
sup­port group he and his sis­ter had joined, for those at the end of their
lives and their loved ones. So many in the group were fight­ing for the
right to die with dig­ni­ty. Healthy eat­ing wasn’t going to save his sister’s
life, and nei­ther of them want­ed her to suf­fer any longer than she had
to.
I knew then that I want­ed, very deeply, to give a voice to the peo­ple
of that sup­port group.
I went back to the Dis­course office and pitched the sto­ry. I thought
I’d be turned down, giv­en my recent slate of arti­cles about hip­ster
trends and celebri­ty think pieces. But to my sur­prise, I was greet­ed
with a green light.
I worked tire­less­ly on it, attend­ing meet­ings in church base­ments,
inter­view­ing the mem­bers, writ­ing and rewrit­ing, until I felt con­fi­dent
that the piece rep­re­sent­ed the full complexity—both the mer­cy and
the moral code—of help­ing to end the lives of suf­fer­ing peo­ple.
It is the sto­ry I am proud­est of. I have, more than once, gone home
from a day’s work here and read that piece again, remind­ing myself of

The chap­ter dives into the roots of upbring­ing in the South, empha­siz­ing tra­di­tion­al val­ues of respect and silence towards par­ents, a stark con­trast to the narrator’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence of expres­sion through singing. Born in McComb, Mis­sis­sip­pi, and raised in Kent­wood, Louisiana, the nar­ra­tor paints a vivid pic­ture of a tight-knit com­mu­ni­ty where life revolves around church gath­er­ings, famil­ial out­ings, and Civ­il War reen­act­ments. Singing emerges as a spir­i­tu­al quar­an­tine, pro­vid­ing solace and an escape from mun­dane wor­ries.

The narrator’s child­hood was swathed in the sim­plic­i­ty of small-town life – from attend­ing Chris­t­ian schools to shar­ing in com­mu­nal cel­e­bra­tions – yet it was deeply enriched by music. An encounter with a house­keep­er’s gospel singing sparks a pro­found pas­sion in the nar­ra­tor, trans­form­ing singing into an essen­tial mode of self-expres­sion and con­nec­tion with some­thing greater than one­self.

The back­drop of famil­ial his­to­ry intro­duces a dual­i­ty of tragedy and aspi­ra­tion. The nar­ra­tor shares the dis­tress­ing sto­ry of their grand­moth­er, Jean, who faced immense grief and ulti­mate­ly took her own life, cast­ing a shad­ow of sor­row and com­plex­i­ty over the fam­i­ly’s lega­cy. This his­to­ry con­trasts sharply with the narrator’s mother’s lin­eage, which car­ries hints of ele­gance and sophis­ti­ca­tion from Lon­don, under­scor­ing a con­flict between the worlds of aspi­ra­tion and the harsh real­i­ties of rur­al Amer­i­can life.

Ear­ly on, the nar­ra­tor devel­ops a strong sense of iden­ti­ty and ambi­tion, fueled by a desire to tran­scend the con­fines of their sur­round­ings through art and imag­i­na­tion. The act of singing becomes not just a way to bridge the gap between real­i­ty and fan­ta­sy but also a means to cope with the bur­dens of famil­ial his­to­ry and per­son­al dreams.

The chap­ter weaves togeth­er themes of cul­tur­al her­itage, per­son­al tragedy, and the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of music, illus­trat­ing how one’s ori­gins and fam­i­ly lega­cies can deeply influ­ence one’s jour­ney towards self-expres­sion and ful­fill­ment. The narrator’s jour­ney is marked by a long­ing to escape into a world of dreams, under­scored by a com­mit­ment to pur­sue singing as a path­way to free­dom and dis­cov­ery.

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 1
In 1988, George H. W. Bush had just won the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion by
invit­ing every­one to read his lips while Michael Dukakis lost it by
rid­ing in a tank. Dr. Huxtable was America’s dad, Kate & Allie were
America’s moms, The Gold­en Girls were America’s grand­moms,
McDonald’s announced it was open­ing its first restau­rant in the
Sovi­et Union, every­one bought Stephen Hawking’s A Brief His­to­ry of
Time and didn’t read it, Phan­tom of the Opera opened on Broad­way,
and Patri­cia Camp­bell got ready to die.
She sprayed her hair, put on her ear­rings, and blot­ted her lip­stick,
but when she looked at her­self in the mir­ror she didn’t see a
house­wife of thir­ty-nine with two chil­dren and a bright future, she
saw a dead per­son. Unless war broke out, the oceans rose, or the
earth fell into the sun, tonight was the month­ly meet­ing of the
Lit­er­ary Guild of Mt. Pleas­ant, and she hadn’t read this month’s
book. And she was the dis­cus­sant. Which meant that in less than
nine­ty min­utes she would stand up in front of a room full of women
and lead them in a con­ver­sa­tion about a book she hadn’t read.
She had meant to read Cry, the Beloved Country—honestly—but
every time she picked up her copy and read There is a love­ly road
that runs from Ixopo into the hills, Korey rode her bike off the end of
the dock because she thought that if she ped­aled fast enough she
could skim across the water, or she set her brother’s hair on fire
try­ing to see how close she could get a match before it caught, or she
spent an entire week­end telling every­one who called that her moth­er
couldn’t come to the phone because she was dead, which Patri­cia
only learned about when peo­ple start­ed show­ing up at the front door
with con­do­lence casseroles.
Before Patri­cia could dis­cov­er why the road that runs from Ixopo
was so love­ly, she’d see Blue run past the sun porch win­dows buck
naked, or she’d real­ize the house was so qui­et because she’d left him
at the down­town library and had to jump in the Vol­vo and fly back
over the bridge, pray­ing that he hadn’t been kid­napped by Moonies,
or because he’d decid­ed to see how many raisins he could fit up his
nose (twen­ty-four). She nev­er even learned where Ixopo was exact­ly
because her moth­er-in-law, Miss Mary, moved in with them for a six-
week vis­it and the garage room had to have clean tow­els, and the
sheets on the guest bed had to be changed every day, and Miss Mary
had trou­ble get­ting out of the tub so they had one of those bars
installed and she had to find some­body to do that, and the chil­dren
had laun­dry that need­ed to be done, and Carter had to have his shirts
ironed, and Korey want­ed new soc­cer cleats because every­one else
had them but they real­ly couldn’t afford them right now, and Blue
was only eat­ing white food so she had to make rice every night for
sup­per, and the road to Ixopo ran on to the hills with­out her.
Join­ing the Lit­er­ary Guild of Mt. Pleas­ant had seemed like a good
idea at the time. Patri­cia real­ized she need­ed to get out of the house
and meet new peo­ple the moment she leaned over at sup­per with
Carter’s boss and tried to cut up his steak for him. A book club made
sense because she liked read­ing, espe­cial­ly mys­ter­ies. Carter had
sug­gest­ed it was because she went through life as if the entire world
were a mys­tery to her, and she didn’t dis­agree: Patri­cia Camp­bell
and the Secret of Cook­ing Three Meals a Day, Sev­en Days a Week,
with­out Los­ing Your Mind. Patri­cia Camp­bell and the Case of the
Five-Year-Old Child Who Keeps Bit­ing Oth­er Peo­ple. Patri­cia
Camp­bell and the Mys­tery of Find­ing Enough Time to Read the
News­pa­per When You Have Two Chil­dren and a Moth­er-in-Law
Liv­ing with You and Every­one Needs Their Clothes Washed, and to
Be Fed, and the House Needs to Be Cleaned and Some­one Has to
Give the Dog His Heart­worm Pills and You Should Prob­a­bly Wash
Your Own Hair Every Few Days or Your Daugh­ter Is Going to Ask
Why You Look Like a Street Per­son. A few dis­creet inquiries, and
she’d been invit­ed to the inau­gur­al meet­ing of the Lit­er­ary Guild of
Mt. Pleas­ant at Mar­jorie Fretwell’s house.
The Lit­er­ary Guild of Mt. Pleas­ant picked their books for that year
in a very demo­c­ra­t­ic process: Mar­jorie Fretwell invit­ed them to select
eleven books from a list of thir­teen she found appro­pri­ate. She asked
if there were oth­er books any­one want­ed to rec­om­mend, but
every­one under­stood that wasn’t a real ques­tion, except for Slick
Paley, who seemed chron­i­cal­ly unable to read social cues.
“I’d like to nom­i­nate Like Lambs to the Slaugh­ter: Your Child and
the Occult,” Slick said. “With that crys­tal store on Cole­man
Boule­vard and Shirley MacLaine on the cov­er of Time mag­a­zine
talk­ing about her past lives, we need a wake-up call.”
“I’ve nev­er heard of it,” Mar­jorie Fretwell said. “So I imag­ine it
falls out­side our man­date of read­ing the great books of the West­ern
world. Any­one else?”
“But—” Slick protest­ed.
“Any­one else?” Mar­jorie repeat­ed.
They select­ed the books Mar­jorie wrote down for them, assigned
each book to the month Mar­jorie thought best, and picked the
dis­cus­sants Mar­jorie thought were most appro­pri­ate. The dis­cus­sant
would open the meet­ing by deliv­er­ing a twen­ty-minute pre­sen­ta­tion
on the book, its back­ground, and the life of its author, then lead the
group dis­cus­sion. A dis­cus­sant could not can­cel or trade books with
any­one else with­out pay­ing a stiff fine because the Lit­er­ary Guild of
Mt. Pleas­ant was not fool­ing around.
When it became clear she wasn’t going to be able to fin­ish Cry, the
Beloved Coun­try, Patri­cia called Mar­jorie.
“Mar­jorie,” she said over the phone while putting a lid on the rice
and turn­ing it down from a boil. “It’s Patri­cia Camp­bell. I need to
talk to you about Cry, the Beloved Coun­try.”
“Such a pow­er­ful work,” Mar­jorie said.
“Of course,” Patri­cia said.
“I know you’ll do it jus­tice,” Mar­jorie said.
“I’ll do my best,” Patri­cia said, real­iz­ing that this was the exact
oppo­site of what she need­ed to say.
“And it’s so time­ly with the sit­u­a­tion in South Africa right now,”
Mar­jorie said.
A cold bolt of fear shot through Patri­cia: what was the sit­u­a­tion in
South Africa right now?
After she hung up, Patri­cia cursed her­self for being a cow­ard and a
fool, and vowed to go to the library and look up Cry, the Beloved
Coun­try in the Direc­to­ry of World Lit­er­a­ture, but she had to do
snacks for Korey’s soc­cer team, and the babysit­ter had mono, and
Carter had a sud­den trip to Colum­bia and she had to help him pack,
and then a snake came out of the toi­let in the garage room and she
had to beat it to death with a rake, and Blue drank a bot­tle of Wite-
Out and she had to take him to the doc­tor to see if he would die (he
wouldn’t). She tried to look up Alan Paton, the author, in their World
Book Ency­clo­pe­dia but they were miss­ing the P vol­ume. She made a
men­tal note that they need­ed new ency­clo­pe­dias.
The door­bell rang.
“Mooooom,” Korey called from the down­stairs hall. “Pizza’s here!”
She couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to face Mar­jorie.
—
Mar­jorie had hand­outs.
“These are just a few arti­cles about cur­rent events in South Africa,
includ­ing the recent unpleas­ant­ness in Van­der­bi­jl­park,” she said.
“But I think Patri­cia will sum things up nice­ly for us in her dis­cus­sion
of Mr. Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Coun­try.”
Every­one turned to stare at Patri­cia sit­ting on Marjorie’s enor­mous
pink-and-white sofa. Not being famil­iar with the design of Marjorie’s
home, she had put on a flo­ral dress and felt like all any­one saw were
her head and hands float­ing in midair. She wished she could pull
them into her dress and dis­ap­pear com­plete­ly. She felt her soul exit
her body and hov­er up by the ceil­ing.
“But before she begins,” Mar­jorie said, and every head turned back
her way, “let’s have a moment of silence for Mr. Alan Paton. His
pass­ing ear­li­er this year has shak­en the lit­er­ary world as much as it’s
shak­en me.”
Patricia’s brain chased itself in cir­cles: the author was dead?
Recent­ly? She hadn’t seen any­thing in the paper. What could she
say? How had he died? Was he mur­dered? Torn apart by wild dogs?
Heart attack?
“Amen,” Mar­jorie said. “Patri­cia?”
Patricia’s soul decid­ed that it was no fool and ascend­ed into the
after­life, leav­ing her at the mer­cy of the women sur­round­ing her.
There was Grace Cavanaugh, who lived two doors down from Patri­cia
but whom she’d only met once when Grace rang her door­bell and
said, “I’m sor­ry to both­er you, but you’ve lived here for six months
and I need to know: is this the way you intend for your yard to look?”
Slick Paley blinked rapid­ly, her sharp foxy face and tiny eyes glued
to Patri­cia, her pen poised above her note­book. Louise Gibbes
cleared her throat. Cuffy Williams blew her nose slow­ly into a
Kleenex. Sadie Funche leaned for­ward, nib­bling on a cheese straw,
eyes bor­ing into Patri­cia. The only per­son not look­ing at Patri­cia was
Kit­ty Scrug­gs, who eyed the bot­tle of wine in the cen­ter of the cof­fee
table that no one had dared open.
“Well…,” Patri­cia began. “Didn’t we all love Cry, the Beloved
Coun­try?”
Sadie, Slick, and Cuffy nod­ded. Patri­cia glanced at her watch and
saw that sev­en sec­onds had passed. She could run out the clock. She
let the silence linger hop­ing some­one would jump in and say
some­thing, but the long pause only prompt­ed Mar­jorie to say,
“Patri­cia?”
“It’s so sad that Alan Paton was cut down in the prime of his life
before writ­ing more nov­els like Cry, the Beloved Coun­try,” Patri­cia
said, feel­ing her way for­ward, word by word, guid­ed by the nods of
the oth­er women. “Because this book has so many time­ly and
rel­e­vant things to say to us now, espe­cial­ly after the ter­ri­ble events in
Vander…Vanderbill…South Africa.”
The nod­ding got stronger. Patri­cia felt her soul descend­ing back
into her body. She forged ahead.
“I want­ed to tell you all about Alan Paton’s life,” she said. “And
why he wrote this book, but all those facts don’t express how
pow­er­ful this sto­ry is, how much it moved me, the great cry of
out­rage I felt when I read it. This is a book you read with your heart,
not with your mind. Did any­one else feel that way?”
The nods were gen­er­al, all over the liv­ing room.
“Exact­ly.” Slick Paley nod­ded. “Yes.”
“I feel so strong­ly about South Africa,” Patri­cia said, and then
remem­bered that Mary Brasington’s hus­band was in bank­ing and
Joanie Wieter’s hus­band did some­thing with the stock mar­ket and
they might have invest­ments there. “But I know there are many sides
to the issue, and I won­der if any­one want­ed to present anoth­er point
of view. In the spir­it of Mr. Paton’s book, this should be a
con­ver­sa­tion, not a speech.”
Every­one was nod­ding. Her soul set­tled back into her body. She
had done it. She had sur­vived. Mar­jorie cleared her throat.
“Patri­cia,” Mar­jorie asked. “What did you think about what the
book had to say about Nel­son Man­dela?”
“So inspi­ra­tional,” Patri­cia said. “He sim­ply tow­ers over
every­thing, even though he’s real­ly just men­tioned.”
“I don’t believe he is,” Mar­jorie said, and Slick Paley stopped
nod­ding. “Where did you see him men­tioned? On which page?”
Patricia’s soul began ascend­ing into the light again. Good-bye, it
said. Good-bye, Patri­cia. You’re on your own now…
“His spir­it of free­dom?” Patri­cia said. “It per­vades every page?”
“When this book was writ­ten,” Mar­jorie said. “Nel­son Man­dela
was still a law stu­dent and a minor mem­ber of the ANC. I’m not sure
how his spir­it could be any­where in this book, let alone per­vad­ing
every page.”
Mar­jorie drilled into Patricia’s face with her ice-pick eyes.
“Well,” Patri­cia croaked, because she was dead now and
appar­ent­ly death felt very, very dry. “What he was going to do. You
could feel it build­ing. In here. In this book. That we read.”
“Patri­cia,” Mar­jorie said. “You didn’t read the book, did you?”
Time stopped. No one moved. Patri­cia want­ed to lie, but a life­time
of breed­ing had made her a lady.
“Some of it,” Patri­cia said.
Mar­jorie let out a soul-deep sigh that seemed to go on for­ev­er.
“Where did you stop?” she asked.
“The first page?” Patri­cia said, then began to bab­ble. “I’m sor­ry, I
know I’ve let you down, but the babysit­ter had mono, and Carter’s
moth­er is stay­ing with us, and a snake came out of the com­mode,
and everything’s just been so hard this month. I real­ly don’t know
what to say except I’m so, so sor­ry.”
Black crept in around the edges of her vision. A high-pitched tone
shrilled in her right ear.
“Well,” Mar­jorie said. “You’re the one who’s lost out, by rob­bing
your­self of what is pos­si­bly one of the finest works of world
lit­er­a­ture. And you’ve robbed all of us of your unique point of view.
But what’s done is done. Who else would be will­ing to lead the
dis­cus­sion?”
Sadie Funche retract­ed into her Lau­ra Ash­ley dress like a tur­tle,
Nan­cy Fox start­ed shak­ing her head before Mar­jorie even reached
the end of her sen­tence, and Cuffy Williams froze like a prey ani­mal
con­front­ed by a preda­tor.
“Did any­one actu­al­ly read this month’s book?” Mar­jorie asked.
Silence.
“I can­not believe this,” Mar­jorie said. “We all agreed, eleven
months ago, to read the great books of the West­ern world and now,
less than one year lat­er, we’ve come to this. I am deeply dis­ap­point­ed
in all of you. I thought we want­ed to bet­ter our­selves, expose
our­selves to thoughts and ideas from out­side Mt. Pleas­ant. The men
all say, ‘It’s not too clever for a girl to be clever,’ and they laugh at us
and think we only care about our hair. The only books they give us
are cook­books because in their minds we are sil­ly, light­weight know-
noth­ings. And you’ve just proven them right.”
She stopped to catch her breath. Patri­cia noticed sweat glis­ten­ing
in her eye­brows. Mar­jorie con­tin­ued:
“I strong­ly sug­gest y’all go home and think about whether you
want to join us next month to read Jude the Obscure and—”
Grace Cavanaugh stood, hitch­ing her purse over one shoul­der.
“Grace?” Mar­jorie asked. “Are you not stay­ing?”
“I just remem­bered an appoint­ment,” Grace said. “It entire­ly
slipped my mind.”
“Well,” Mar­jorie said, her momen­tum under­mined. “Don’t let me
keep you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Grace said.
And with that, the tall, ele­gant, pre­ma­ture­ly gray Grace float­ed out
of the room.
Robbed of its veloc­i­ty, the meet­ing dis­solved. Mar­jorie retreat­ed to
the kitchen, fol­lowed by a con­cerned Sadie Funche. A dispir­it­ed
clump of women lin­gered around the dessert table mak­ing chitchat.
Patri­cia lurked in her chair until no one seemed to be watch­ing, then
dart­ed out of the house.
As she cut across Marjorie’s front yard, she heard a noise that
sound­ed like Hey. She stopped and looked for the source.
“Hey,” Kit­ty Scrug­gs repeat­ed.
Kit­ty lurked behind the line of parked cars in Marjorie’s dri­ve­way,
a cloud of blue smoke hov­er­ing over her head, a long thin cig­a­rette
between her fin­gers. Next to her stood Maryellen some­thing-or-
oth­er, also smok­ing. Kit­ty waved Patri­cia over with one hand.
Patri­cia knew that Maryellen was a Yan­kee from Mass­a­chu­setts
who told every­one that she was a fem­i­nist. And Kit­ty was one of
those big women who wore the kind of clothes peo­ple char­i­ta­bly
referred to as “fun”—baggy sweaters with mul­ti­col­ored hand­prints
on them, chunky plas­tic jew­el­ry. Patri­cia sus­pect­ed that get­ting
entan­gled with women like this was the first step on a slip­pery slope
that end­ed with her wear­ing felt rein­deer antlers at Christ­mas, or
stand­ing out­side Citadel Mall ask­ing peo­ple to sign a peti­tion, so she
approached them with cau­tion.
“I liked what you did in there,” Kit­ty said.
“I should have found time to read the book,” Patri­cia told her.
“Why?” Kit­ty asked. “It was bor­ing. I couldn’t make it past the first
chap­ter.”
“I need to write Mar­jorie a note,” Patri­cia said. “To apol­o­gize.”
Maryellen squint­ed against the smoke and sucked on her cig­a­rette.
“Mar­jorie got what she deserved,” she said, exhal­ing.
“Lis­ten.” Kit­ty placed her body between the two of them and
Marjorie’s front door, just in case Mar­jorie was watch­ing and could
read lips. “I’m hav­ing some peo­ple read a book and come over to my
house next month to talk about it. Maryellen’ll be there.”
“I couldn’t pos­si­bly find the time to belong to two book clubs,”
Patri­cia said.
“Trust me,” Kit­ty said. “After today, Marjorie’s book club is done.”
“What book are you read­ing?” Patri­cia asked, grop­ing for rea­sons
to say no.
Kit­ty reached into her den­im shoul­der bag and pulled out the kind
of cheap paper­back they sold at the drug­store.
“Evi­dence of Love: A True Sto­ry of Pas­sion and Death in the
Sub­urbs,” she said.
It took Patri­cia aback. This was one of those trashy true crime
books. But clear­ly Kit­ty was read­ing it and you couldn’t call some­one
else’s taste in books trashy, even if it was.
“I’m not sure that’s my kind of book,” Patri­cia said.
“These two women were best friends and they chopped each oth­er
up with axes,” Kit­ty said. “Don’t pre­tend you don’t want to know
what hap­pened.”
“Jude is obscure for a rea­son,” Maryellen growled.

On a drea­ry Feb­ru­ary day, amidst relent­less rain, the pro­tag­o­nist dri­ves from Cen­ter Point to Moun­tain Brook to ful­fill her duty as a dog walk­er in the afflu­ent Thorn­field Estates. The jour­ney begins at the Reeds’ house­hold, where Mrs. Reed express­es a per­for­ma­tive sym­pa­thy for the pro­tag­o­nist hav­ing to walk her col­lie, Bear, in such unpleas­ant weath­er. This act under­scores the pri­ma­ry con­cern in Thorn­field Estates: appear­ances.

Mrs. Reed’s disin­gen­u­ous empa­thy con­trasts sharply with the pro­tag­o­nist’s indif­fer­ence towards her and the super­fi­cial­i­ty of the res­i­dents’ char­i­ta­ble endeav­ors, which seem more about social sta­tus than gen­uine phil­an­thropy. The pro­tag­o­nist, equipped with a prag­mat­ic army-green rain­coat against the rain, sets out with Bear, pon­der­ing on the lux­u­ri­ous yet hol­low lifestyle of her employ­ers ver­sus her own mod­est liv­ing con­di­tions.

Her obser­va­tions reveal a stark dis­par­i­ty; while every McMan­sion boasts lush back­yards ren­der­ing dog walk­ers tech­ni­cal­ly unnec­es­sary, the demand for such ser­vices is dri­ven by desire rather than need, high­light­ing the extrav­a­gance that defines the com­mu­ni­ty. Not only does Mrs. Reed live in a lav­ish home far too large for mere inhab­i­tants, but this opu­lence is mir­rored through­out the estate. The pro­tag­o­nist reflects on her employ­ment with var­i­ous fam­i­lies with­in the neigh­bor­hood, such as the McLarens, the Clarks, and Tripp Ingra­ham, not­ing the token ges­tures of respect afford­ed to her as the help — a shal­low attempt by the wealthy to assuage their guilt.

As she nav­i­gates the neigh­bor­hood, the con­trast between the man­i­cured per­fec­tion of Thorn­field Estates and the drab real­i­ty of her apart­ment becomes evi­dent. Despite her attempts to beau­ti­fy her small, leaky apart­ment, it can­not com­pare to the vibrant, metic­u­lous­ly main­tained homes she ser­vices. The neigh­bor­hood, alive with the buzz of main­te­nance crews, stands in stark oppo­si­tion to her own sim­ple exis­tence. Even as she mus­es on the lux­u­ry of a Burber­ry jack­et she saw at Mrs. Clark’s, the pro­tag­o­nist is sharply aware of the chasm between her world and that of her employ­ers — a chasm under­scored by her rain-soaked, prag­mat­ic attire and a yearn­ing for some­thing bet­ter amidst the afflu­ence that sur­rounds her.

In the open­ing chap­ter of “The Beasts of Tarzan”, the nar­ra­tive thrusts John Clay­ton, Lord Greystoke—formerly Tarzan of the Apes—into a sin­is­ter plot brewed by his old neme­sis, Niko­las Rokoff. The sto­ry unfolds in Lieu­tenant Paul D’Arnot’s Paris apart­ment, where Tarzan and D’Arnot learn of Rokof­f’s escape from prison. Sub­se­quent­ly, Tarzan, who had brought his fam­i­ly to Lon­don to escape the rainy sea­son in Uziri, decides to return to them, fear­ing Rokoff might harm his wife, Jane, or their son, Jack, to enact revenge.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, in a seclud­ed cot­tage on the out­skirts of Lon­don, Rokoff and his asso­ciate Alex­is plot to kid­nap Tarzan’s fam­i­ly as part of a deep­er scheme for revenge and prof­it. A mes­sage soon dis­rupts the tran­quil­i­ty of Tarzan’s Lon­don home, inform­ing him that Jack has been kid­napped, prompt­ing a fran­tic return to res­cue his child. Jane recounts the episode of Jack­’s kidnapping—how a new house­man, Carl, tricked the nan­ny, lead­ing to the baby’s abduc­tion via a taxi­cab orches­trat­ed by Rokoff and his asso­ciates.

Tarzan receives a mys­te­ri­ous call offer­ing infor­ma­tion on his son’s where­abouts in exchange for immu­ni­ty from pros­e­cu­tion. Fear­ing a trap but des­per­ate to find his son, Tarzan heads to Dover to meet the infor­mant, secret­ly fol­lowed by Jane, who decides to act despite the poten­tial dan­ger. Once in Dover, Tarzan is led to believe Jack is aboard a steam­er, but as he fol­lows the infor­man­t’s instruc­tions, he real­izes too late that he has walked into a trap, becom­ing a pris­on­er aboard the ship him­self.

This chap­ter is a tense set­up for the ensu­ing adven­ture, illus­trat­ing Tarzan’s unwa­ver­ing resolve amidst betray­al and his innate con­nec­tion to his jun­gle-honed instincts. It adept­ly posi­tions fam­i­ly loy­al­ty against a back­drop of sin­is­ter machi­na­tions, set­ting the stage for a grip­ping nar­ra­tive of sur­vival and vengeance.