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.

38
That third year in Vegas, I felt something within me that I hadn’t felt in a really,
really long time. I felt strong. I knew I had to do something.
Once I started to return to myself, my body, my heart, my physicality, and my
spiritual self couldn’t take the conservatorship any longer. There came a point
when my little heart said, I’m not going to stand for this.
For so long, my parents had convinced me that I was the bad one, the crazy
one, and it worked completely in their favor. It hurt my spirit. They put my re
out. I undervalued myself for a decade. But inside, I was screaming about their
bullshit. You have to understand the helplessness in that—the helplessness and
the anger.
After my shows, it made me so mad to see my family drinking and having a
great time when I wasn’t even allowed a sip of Jack and Coke. In the public eye, I
know I looked like a star onstage—I had cute tights on and high heels—but why
the fuck couldn’t I sin in Sin City?
As I became stronger and entered a new phase of my womanhood, I started
to look around for examples of how to wield power in a positive way. Reese
Witherspoon was a great example to me. She’s sweet and she’s nice, and she’s
very smart.
Once you start to see yourself that way—as not just someone who exists to
make everyone else happy but someone who deserves to make their wishes
known—that changes everything. When I started to think that I could be, like
Reese, someone who was nice but also strong, it changed my perspective on who
I was.
If no one is used to you being assertive, they get very freaked out when you
start speaking your mind. I felt myself turning into their worst fear. I was a
queen now, and starting to speak up. I imagined them bowing down to me. I felt
my power surging back.
I knew how to carry myself. I’d become strong, enduring that kind of
schedule. I really had no choice but to be strong, and I think audiences perceived
that. It speaks volumes when you demand respect. It changes everything. And so
when I heard my conservators trying to tell me, once again, that I was stupid if I
tried to turn down a performance or nd a way to give myself some more time
o, I felt myself revolt. I thought, If you guys are trying to trick me into feeling
bad for saying no, I’m not going to fall for it again.
The residency was set to end December 31, 2017. I couldn’t wait. For one thing,
I was so sick of doing the same show week after week for years. I kept begging for
a remix or a new number—anything to break up the monotony.
I’d started to lose the joy in performing that I’d felt when I was younger. I no
longer had the pure, raw love of singing that I’d had as a teenager. Now other
people were telling me what to sing and when. No one seemed to care about
what I wanted. The message I kept getting was that their minds mattered; my
mind was to be ignored. I was just there to perform for them, to make them
money.
It was such a waste. And as a performer who had always taken so much pride
in her musicianship, I can’t stress enough how mad I was that they wouldn’t even
let me change up my show. We had weeks in between each set of shows in Vegas.
So much fucking time was wasted. I wanted to remix my songs for my fans and
give them something new and exciting. When I wanted to perform my favorite
songs, like “Change Your Mind” or “Get Naked,” they wouldn’t let me. It felt
like they wanted to embarrass me rather than let me give my fans the best
possible performance every night, which they deserved. Instead, I had to do the
same show week in and week out: the same routines, the same songs, the same
arrangements. I’d been doing this same kind of show for a long time. I was
desperate to change it up, to give my wonderful, loyal fans a new and electrifying
experience. But all I heard was “no.”
It was so lazy it was actually odd. I worried about what my fans would think
of me. I wished I could communicate that I wanted to give them so much more.
I loved to go to studios for hours at a time and do my own remixes with an
engineer. But they said, “We can’t put remixes in because of the time code of the
show. We would have to redo the whole thing.” I said, “Redo it!” I’m known for
bringing new things to the table, but they always said no.
When I pushed, the best they could oer me, they said, was to play one of my
new songs in the background while I was changing.
They acted like they were doing me a huge favor by playing my favorite new
song while I was underground frantically taking costumes on and o.
It was embarrassing because I know the business. I knew it was totally
possible for us to change up the show. My father was in charge, and it wasn’t a
priority for him. That meant that the people who would need to make it happen
just wouldn’t do it. Singing such old versions of songs made my body feel old. I
craved new sounds, new movement. I feel now that it might have scared them for
me to actually be the star. Instead, my dad was in charge of the star. Me.
When I did the videos for the singles from Glory, I felt so light and so free. Glory
reminded me what it felt like to perform new material and how much I needed
it. When I was told I’d be receiving the rst-ever Radio Disney Icon Award the
year after Glory came out, I thought, This is great! I’ll take the boys and wear a
cute black dress, and it will be a lot of fun.
Well, as I sat in the audience seeing a medley of my songs performed, I had so
many feelings. By the time Jamie Lynn made a surprise appearance to do a bit of
“Till the World Ends” and to hand me my award, I was a ball of emotion.
The whole time I was watching the show, I kept ashing back to the concert
special I’d done for In the Zone. It was a remixed ABC special. I had rehearsed for
a week and sung several new songs. They shot me so beautifully. I felt like a kid.
Frankly, it’s some of my best work. There was a Cabaret vibe to a sultry
rendition of “… Baby One More Time,” and then for “Everytime” I wore a
pretty white dress. It was just really, really beautiful. It had felt so incredible to

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 38
“Do you think Patricia’s all right?” Kitty asked, looking in the
rearview mirror.
They were parked in Maryellen’s minivan at the far end of the
Alhambra Hall parking lot. Maryellen sat in the driver’s seat with
Kitty riding shotgun. Mrs. Greene sat in the back.
“She’s fine,” Maryellen said. “You’re fine. I’m fine. Mrs. Greene,
are you fine?”
“I’m fine,” Mrs. Greene said.
“We’re all fine,” Maryellen said. “Everyone’s fine.”
Kitty let the silence last a full five seconds this time.
“Except Patricia,” she said.
No one had an answer to that.
“It’s seven,” Mrs. Greene said in the dark. No one moved. “Either
Mrs. Campbell has done it by now, or it’s too late.”
Clothes rustled, and the back door thunked open.
“Come on,” she said.
She got out of the minivan and the other two followed. Mrs.
Greene took the red-and-white Igloo cooler out of the back, and Kitty
carried the Bi-Lo grocery bag. The cooler clanked softly as their tools
slid around inside. They wore dark clothes and walked quickly,
turning onto Middle Street, preferring to take the risk of someone
spotting them walking rather than have an extra car parked outside
James Harris’s house for three hours. People in the Old Village had a
habit of writing down license plate numbers, after all.
Middle Street was a long, black tunnel leading straight to his
house, lined with cars spilling out of driveways. The cold wind tugged
at their coats. They put their heads down and forged forward,
walking fast beneath the leafless trees and dead palmettos rattling in
the wind.
“Have you bought your Christmas presents yet?” Kitty asked.
Mrs. Greene perked up at the mention of Christmas. Maryellen
gave Kitty a sideways look.
“I get the big things during the after-Thanksgiving sales,” Kitty
said. “But I start planning people’s gifts in August. This year I’ve still
got more blanks than I normally do. Honey is easy, she needs a
briefcase for job interviews. I mean, it’s not that she needs it but I
thought it would be the kind of thing she’d want. And Parish wants a
tractor and Horse says we need a new one anyway, so that’s taken
care of. Lacy, I’m going to take to Italy as a graduation present next
year so she’ll get something small for now and she’s fun to shop for
anyhow, and as long as whatever I give Merit is bigger than what I
get for Lacy she’s thrilled. But I do not know what to buy for Pony.
It’s different to shop for a man, and he’s got this new girl he’s seeing,
and I don’t know if I have to get her a present or not. I mean, I want
to, but does that make me seem overbearing?”
Maryellen turned to her.
“What on earth are you talking about?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” Kitty said.
“Hush,” Mrs. Greene said, and they passed the last house before
James Harris’s and they all fell silent.
The huge white house loomed over them, dark and still. The only
light came from the living room window. They stepped off the street
into his driveway then sat on the bottom step of his front stairs, took
off their shoes, and hid them underneath. With Mrs. Greene leading
the way, they stepped onto the cold boards and quietly climbed up to
his porch.
He’d left his porch lights off so they were concealed by darkness,
but Kitty still looked around nervously, trying to see if anyone was
watching them from their windows. A cheer drifted to them on the
wind, and they all froze for a moment. Then Kitty put down the
paper Bi-Lo bag around the corner of the porch away from the living
room light, and Mrs. Greene carefully placed the cooler in the
shadows next to it. Kitty pulled an aluminum baseball bat out of the
grocery bag and gave the sheathed hunting knife to Maryellen, who
didn’t know how to hold it. She decided it was just like a kitchen
knife and that made it easier.
“My feet are freezing,” Kitty whispered.
“Shhh,” Mrs. Greene said.
The rushing wind helped hide the sounds they made as Maryellen
carefully opened the screen door then tried the door handle while
Kitty held the bat down by her leg, just in case. Mrs. Greene stood on
Kitty’s other side, holding a hammer.
The door popped open, silently and easily.
They stepped inside fast. The wind wanted to slam the door shut,
but Maryellen eased it gently into its frame. They stood in the quiet
downstairs hall, listening, worried that the howling wind rushing
through the door had alerted James Harris. Nothing moved. All they
heard was a piano concerto surging softly from a radio in the living
room to their left.
Mrs. Greene pointed to the stairs leading up into darkness, and
Kitty took the lead, palms sweating on the rubberized grip of her
baseball bat. She held it straight up by her right shoulder and walked
sideways, left foot first, right foot coming behind, one carpeted step
at a time. Mrs. Greene walked in the middle, Maryellen in the rear.
They needed to get him down before she could use the knife.
Every footstep was soft, soundless. Mrs. Greene jumped when a
plummy man’s voice started announcing the next selection from
WSCI’s Classical Twilight down below them in the living room.
Every step took an hour, and any second they expected to hear James
Harris’s voice from the top of the dark stairs.
They regrouped in the darkness of the upstairs hall. All around
them were closed doors. A CRACK echoed through every room in the
house and Maryellen almost screamed before realizing it was the
wind shifting the window frames.
The master bedroom doorway stood dark in front of them and
from it they heard a soft, wet suckling sound. They crept toward it,
until they stood full in the doorway and the bright moonlight showed
what lay on the bed.
Patricia lay back, arms flung over her head, a carnal half-smile on
her lips, naked, her legs spread, and between them, blocking their
view, crouched a shirtless James Harris, back muscles pulsing. His
shoulder blades spread and retracted like wings as he fed on Patricia,
his head by the join of her thighs, one large hand on her left thigh,
gently pushing it open, the other on her stomach, fingers squirming
on her pale flesh.
The sheer ravenous hunger of the sight paralyzed them. They
could smell it, thick and carnal, filling the cramped room.
Kitty recovered before either of the other two women. She adjusted
her grip, took three steps forward, ending with her left foot almost on
James Harris’s right ankle, and brought the bat straight off her
shoulder, swinging hard in a powerful line drive.
The bat caught him in the side of the head with a metallic TONK,
like a sledgehammer hitting stone, and Kitty let go with her lead
hand and let the bat come around in a full arc, almost popping Mrs.
Greene in the chin. A gout of regurgitated blood pulsed once out of
James Harris’s mouth and splattered across Patricia’s pubic hair and
belly, but otherwise he kept sucking, uninterrupted.
Patricia moaned once in sexual ecstasy, in heat, in pain, and Kitty
brought the bat around again, even though her left shoulder ached.
This time she swung for the fences.
The second blow got his attention, too much of it, in fact, and he
whirled in a crouch, eyes feral, blood pouring down his face and
dripping off something that hung from his chin. Blood poured from
the wound in Patricia’s thigh. Kitty saw the muscles in James
Harris’s stomach and shoulders tense and the planes of his face
moved impossibly, and the thing hanging there disappeared, and
Kitty thought, He’s going to, and even though she wasn’t a left-
handed hitter she didn’t have a choice—that was the side the bat was
on and he wasn’t going to give her time to get her stance back or even
finish her thought. She brought the bat back at him as hard as she
could but she knew it wasn’t hard enough.
James Harris caught the bat on his ribs with a meaty THWACK.
He brought his arm down and clamped it against his body, then spun
and sent it clattering into the corner. Patricia moaned in pleasure,
mindlessly grinding her thighs together, and James Harris was up,
both hands grabbing Kitty’s shoulders so hard she felt bone grind
against bone. He drove her backward into the open bedroom door,
brushing past Mrs. Greene and Maryellen, sending them spinning
aside, slamming Kitty into the door so hard the knob embedded itself
in the wall. Then he hurled her across the bedroom, sending her
staggering toward the corner by the window, sprawling over an
armchair on her way, tipping it over backward, as Mrs. Greene
brought the hammer down on his head.
It glanced off his skull, and he plucked it easily out of her hand.
She screamed and stepped backward, panicking, getting out of the
room, wanting to get away from him as fast as possible, shoulder-
checking Maryellen, getting turned around and winding up standing
in the open doorway to the master bath instead.
Maryellen stood between James Harris and Mrs. Greene. She met
his eyes and wet her pants. Her numb hands seemed to belong to
someone else, someone far away, and her urine and the sheathed
hunting knife hit the floorboards at the same time.
James Harris shoved Maryellen out of the way and advanced on
Mrs. Greene. His powerful chest muscles stood out against his body
like white armor, his thick forearms flexing as his fingers formed
claws, and Mrs. Greene turned fast and tried to get into the
bathroom. If she could get the heavy porcelain lid off the toilet tank
she stood a chance. Instead, she tripped over the threshold where the
tile began and sprawled forward, cracking both knees on the floor.
Blood drooled from James Harris’s mouth and formed patterns on
his chest and flat belly, and Mrs. Greene scrabbled onto tile so cold it
burned, and then he had her right ankle in what felt like an iron
band. With no effort at all, he pulled her back into the bedroom. Mrs.
Greene rolled onto her back and brought her arms up to defend
herself. When he got close she’d go for his eyes, but then she saw the
fury in his face and knew that her arms were twigs in the face of this
hurricane with teeth.
He leaned down, clawed fingers outstretched, and Kitty hit him
from behind like a freight train, plowing into the small of his back,
legs pumping, pushing him ahead of her all the way into the
bathroom, both of them stepping on Mrs. Greene, feet bruising her
stomach, one of them kicking her in the chin.
There was a loud SMASH and an oomph as James Harris took the
edge of the sink in his stomach and went face-first into the tile wall.
Kitty rode his back all the way to the floor. He landed with his arms
beneath him. He was stronger but she outweighed him by fifty
pounds.
He tried to flip over but she rolled her hips and pressed him into
the floor. She grabbed his ears and smeared his face into the tiles. He
tried to get an arm beneath him but she slapped it away.
“The knife! The knife!” she screamed, but Maryellen just stood
numbly in the bedroom over a puddle of her cooling urine.
Mrs. Greene dragged herself out of the bathroom and into the
safety of the bedroom. She watched as James Harris and Kitty
wrestled, dark shapes on cold tiles. James Harris got both legs under
him, lifting Kitty up on his hunched back as he stood.
“The knife, Maryellen! The knife!” Kitty shrieked, her voice
hysterical.
Mrs. Greene looked and saw Maryellen staring down at the knife
by her feet and realized she was too far away to grab it and James
Harris was too close to standing up.
“Maryellen!” Mrs. Greene shouted, using her first name. “Throw
me the knife!”
Maryellen looked up, saw her, looked down, saw the knife, and
suddenly squatted. She tossed it underhanded to Mrs. Greene, who,
for the first time in her life, caught something thrown to her. She
unsnapped the button of the strap that held it in its sheath.
In the bathroom, Kitty wrapped a leg around James Harris’s right
leg, hooked his ankle, and kicked out. He went down on one knee,
cracking it hard against the tile with Kitty’s full weight on top of him.
She bore down on her hips, pressing them into his buttocks. He had
his left arm beneath him now, elbow braced against his ribs, so she
used her left hand to try to pull it out of position, but it was like
stone. In a desperate move, she drove her fingertips up hard into his
wide-open left armpit and the shock made him lose his hold and
drop to the floor with the sound of a side of beef hitting the slab.
She couldn’t do this for much longer.
Kitty wriggled from side to side up his body, trying to keep her
center of gravity over his as he thrashed, and she reached out for
anything that might give her an advantage. She felt him mustering
his strength again and suddenly she was a piece of paper riding a
wave that was about to break and she knew this time it would take
her under.
Something hard knocked the back of her hand and she understood
what it was without the thought even consciously entering her mind.
She grabbed it and turned it around, and there was one still, perfect
moment when she saw the bowed back of James Harris’s white neck
and the ridges of his spine sticking out through his skin, perfectly
outlined in the moonlight coming through the master bathroom
skylight. She held the hunting knife with both hands and pushed the
tip down.
He screamed, a sound so loud in the tiny, echoing bathroom that
her right eardrum vibrated. She felt the knife grind bone. She
dragged the point up and felt tissue give and she pressed down on
the handle again. He threw his head back and trapped the blade
between his vertebrae but she raised up her body so all her weight
came down on her wrists, pushing the hilt down, and the steel tip of
the blade gritted and squealed and crunched slowly, inch by inch, as
she forced it deeper and deeper through his spine.
He tried to throw her off but his legs weren’t kicking as hard as
before, and he began squirming on the floor as she rode the handle,
bearing down on the blade, and then his screams turned to gurgles,

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.

38
The first few days at Emily’s are nice. I get a pretty guest room and Emily orders takeout for me,
brings me more ice cream for my throat, and this concoction she makes out of pineapple juice and
sparkling water is actually pretty delicious. And it’s nicer than I’d thought it would be, having Adele.
She sleeps on the foot of my bed every night, her presence a warm, comforting weight.
So it’s fine in the beginning.
Really, the shit doesn’t start until the fifth day I’ve been there, when I’m up and walking around,
basically recovered from the fire.
It’s small at first.
Can I run into the village and pick up some croissants for her book club? Oh, and on my way
back, can I run into Whole Foods? She has a list!
And now here I am, three weeks after I left the hospital, walking Major the shih tzu through the
neighborhood.
As we walk, I wonder if I imagined the past six months. Maybe this was all just some kind of
extended hallucination, and I never even met Eddie Rochester, never lived in the house set back from
the road where, briefly, most of my dreams came true.
But our morning walk reminds me that no, it happened. There’s only an empty lot where the house
Eddie and Bea built used to stand. Ashes and crime scene tape, that’s all that’s left, but I take Major
there anyway, waiting for … what? A sign? Bea to magically appear wearing a veiled hat and
sunglasses, telling me it was all worth something?
That’s not happening.
I’m just a girl who got caught up in other people’s bullshit. Who got to taste a different life only to
have it taken away, because that’s how it always goes.
Still, it makes me sad to stand there, seeing the spot where the house used to be, remembering
how I’d felt, cooking in that kitchen, sleeping in that bedroom, soaking in that bathtub.
Except that every time I think of that, I have to remember that Bea was always there, sharing the
space with me. Waiting.
I’ve just turned to go back to Emily’s house, Major happily trotting along, when my phone buzzes
in my pocket. It’s not a number I recognize, but since it’s a 205 number, which means Birmingham, I
answer.
“Is this Jane Bell?” a man asks.
He sounds like what I’d imagine a basset hound would sound like if it could talk, his voice deep
and drawling, and I tug at Major’s leash as I say, “Yes?”
“I’m Richard Lloyd. Edward Rochester’s lawyer.”
I remember that name, remember Eddie handing Richard’s business card to John, and my grip
tightens on my phone.
“Okay,” I say, and he sighs.
“Could you come down to my office this week? The sooner the better, really.”
I want to tell him no. What good can come of meeting with lawyers?
But then I look back at the ruin of what was Eddie’s house and remember that daydream I’d had,
Bea striding out of the ashes to hand me something, some reward for everything I’d been through.
“Sure,” I tell him. “I can be there tomorrow.”
The office is exactly what I thought it would be. Expensive, masculine leather furniture, pictures of
dogs with dead ducks in their mouths, magazines about hunting, fishing, and golf littering the coffee
table in front of me.
And when a slightly florid-faced man in an ugly suit walks into the lobby and says, “Miss Bell?”
he’s exactly what I was expecting, too.
There was none of Tripp’s air of dereliction around him, but they were clearly from the same
genus, Southernus drunkus.
I imagine he walks over to the pub I saw on the corner for lunch every day, orders the same thing,
has at least two beers before coming back to sexually harass the pretty college student currently
answering phones.
But I make myself give him that tremulous smile Eddie had liked as I stand up, taking his
proffered hand and shaking it. “Please,” I say, “call me Jane.”
“Jane,” he repeats. “Don’t meet many Janes these days.”
I just keep the same insipid smile on my face and let him lead me to his private office.
More leather here, more pictures of hunting, only now they are photographs of this man, smiling
broadly in a bright orange vest, holding up the head of a deer, its eyes glassy, its tongue lolling out.
Not for the first time, I think to myself that I am going to be relieved to get out of this place. The
coddled bubble of Thornfield Estates has been nice, but everything else around here is pretty fucked.
“Now,” he says as he settles behind his massive desk. “I have to admit, I was a little surprised
when Eddie wanted to change his will so soon after getting engaged to you. Honestly, I actually tried
to talk him out of it. No offense.”
“None taken,” I say, but I can hardly hear him over the ringing in my ears.
Eddie put me in his will.
Did he think Bea might get out one day? That she’d kill him? Was this his way of preemptively
saying sorry, or was it just another play in their sick game? A way of putting her own fortune out of
her reach, by giving it to me?
I’ll never know.
“In any case, he had control over all of Bea’s finances after she disappeared. Her shares in the
company, all of that. And now,” he says, handing a thick leather portfolio across the desk to me, “it’s
yours.”
My fingers are numb as I place it in my lap, feeling the weight of it on my legs.
“The company is yours as well, of course,” he goes on, writing something on a legal pad.

Chapter 38 of “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë is steeped in the mounting tragedies and moral turmoils of its characters, illuminating the bleakness of a society wedded to appearances and the silent sufferings of those ensnared within it. On the fifth anniversary of her marriage, Helen reflects on her resolve to leave her husband, Arthur Huntington, and the derelict life he represents. This chapter foregrounds Helen’s internal conflict and determination, juxtaposed against the backdrop of a society party that brings together the same individuals as before, including Mrs. Hargrave and Lady Lowborough, hinting at the upcoming storm.

Helen warns Lady Lowborough of revealing her affair with Arthur if it continues, a confrontation that lays bare the limits of her influence and the duplicity of those around her. Lord Lowborough’s discovery of his wife’s betrayal and his subsequent agony mark a turning point in the narrative. His anguish and the resolution to endure, rather than seeking revenge, highlight a depth of suffering and moral resilience that contrasts sharply with Arthur’s callousness and the general moral bankruptcy of their social circle.

During a tormented night, Lord Lowborough grapples with suicidal impulses, a testament to his despair. The destructive relationships and the societal norms that foster such betrayals and misery are laid bare, with Helen, despite her own painful circumstances, feeling a profound empathy for Lord Lowborough’s plight.

The departure of Lady Lowborough with her apathetic husband the next morning leaves Helen in quiet contemplation of the ruinous nature of their society, where reputations are tethered to appearances, and genuine suffering is often belittled or ignored. Arthur’s mocking farewell to Lord Lowborough underscores his moral degeneration and foreshadows the continuing descent into chaos at Grassdale.

This chapter paints a vivid portrait of a world where integrity and despair coexist closely, where the societal façade of propriety masks deep-seated vices and personal agonies. Anne Brontë uses these events to further critique the societal norms that bind individuals to unhappy fates and the personal resolve needed to confront and, possibly, escape them.