In Chap­ter 11, set on the evening before Maun­dy Thurs­day, Blomkvist metic­u­lous­ly edits Svensson’s near­ly com­plete man­u­script for “Mil­len­ni­um,” high­light­ing a few areas need­ing fur­ther evi­dence. The book, crit­i­cal of soci­etal flaws, promis­es to be a pow­er­ful exposé. Despite its poten­tial, it requires water­tight doc­u­men­ta­tion, as Svensson’s bold jour­nal­ism leaves lit­tle room for error. The office is qui­et, with col­leagues away, allow­ing Blomkvist to focus on prepar­ing the man­u­script for print.

In Chap­ter 11 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Saint spends the night in agi­ta­tion, metic­u­lous­ly mark­ing the van’s route on her map. Her home, lack­ing per­son­al touch­es, is filled with books but devoid of any pho­tographs or make­up, reflect­ing her soli­tary life. At dawn, she dis­cov­ers her grand­moth­er at the oak table, show­ing signs of sleep­less­ness from the night before. Their con­ver­sa­tion briefly touch­es on the top­ic of bees, which her grand­moth­er shakes her head at, indi­cat­ing some­thing unspo­ken has affect­ed their lives.

Saint pre­pares her­self for the day, not­ing her disheveled appear­ance and the absence of her retain­er, a rel­ic of chas­ing a boy named Patch through a corn­field. Nos­tal­gia and long­ing seep into her thoughts, prompt­ing a silent prayer for his return. Break­fast at the table, con­sist­ing of uneat­en eggs, serves as a stark reminder of the heav­i­ness in their hearts. The men­tion of school being closed sig­nals a day of uncer­tain­ty, and Saint, despite nev­er hav­ing missed a day, admits she had no inten­tion to attend, dri­ven instead by her desire to learn and per­haps escape the press­ing real­i­ty around her.

After break­fast, she heads to the wood­land, where Chief Nix calls for vol­un­teers to search for the miss­ing boy. The atmos­phere is laden with ten­sion and a grim sense of pur­pose, as he out­lines their mis­sion: to walk in silence and remain vig­i­lant. Among the gath­ered crowd, Saint feels the weight of exclu­sion when Chief Nix dis­miss­es her from par­tic­i­pat­ing, leav­ing her sur­round­ed by labor­ers and teenagers whose eager­ness con­trasts sharply with her own dread.

As they pre­pare to march through the woods, hope mix­es with despair, and the col­lec­tive antic­i­pa­tion of find­ing some­thing ter­ri­ble per­vades the air. The chap­ter cap­tures a poignant blend of per­son­al tur­moil and com­mu­nal grief, echo­ing the larg­er nar­ra­tive of loss and long­ing. Sain­t’s inter­nal strug­gles, along­side the grim search efforts, frame a crit­i­cal moment in her jour­ney, mark­ing a shift in her rela­tion­ship with both hope and real­i­ty.

In Chap­ter 11, we return to a hotel set­ting where Pauline, dressed in navy linen, greets wed­ding guests cheer­ful­ly despite the exhaus­tion from address­ing com­plaints. Lila express­es dis­sat­is­fac­tion with her mat­tress, reflect­ing deep­er emo­tion­al tur­moil linked to an unset­tling funer­al expe­ri­ence dur­ing their sail­ing trip. The inter­ac­tion reveals Lila’s habit of dis­plac­ing her dis­sat­is­fac­tion onto triv­ial mat­ters, dis­play­ing her deter­mi­na­tion to engage the ever-help­ful Pauline in solv­ing these “prob­lems.”

As Lila dis­cuss­es her griev­ances, Phoebe observes Gary’s will­ing­ness to final­ly make deci­sions, con­trast­ing her per­cep­tion of him as over­ly pas­sive. This prompts a moment of reflec­tion about the nature of rela­tion­ships and how peo­ple often box each oth­er into fixed iden­ti­ties. Phoebe grap­ples with her iden­ti­ty, rec­og­niz­ing both the lim­i­ta­tions she places on oth­ers and her own lin­ger­ing inse­cu­ri­ties.

Lila pro­pos­es get­ting a mat­tress top­per as a poten­tial fix, which results in more com­mu­ni­ca­tion between her and Pauline. Mean­while, Phoebe and Gary engage in a play­ful act of “free­ing the books” on the hotel shelf, show­cas­ing their bud­ding con­nec­tion. This light­heart­ed moment con­trasts with Lila’s wor­ries about her upcom­ing wed­ding events, includ­ing her friend Vivian’s delayed arrival.

After a brief encounter with Lila’s moth­er, who cri­tiques the hotel decor, the chap­ter delves into the macro­cosm of human con­nec­tion and emo­tion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty dur­ing life tran­si­tions. Phoebe finds her­self laugh­ing amidst dis­cus­sions of logis­tics and fam­i­ly pres­sures, reveal­ing how cama­raderie may arise in unex­pect­ed set­tings.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Phoebe’s inter­nal strug­gles sur­face along­side her grow­ing bond with Gary. She reflects on their brief con­nec­tion and how her past influ­ences her present out­look on inti­ma­cy and lone­li­ness. The inten­si­ty of her past leads to a moment of self-real­iza­tion, where she intends to adopt a more engaged approach to life.

By the end, there’s a turn of events as Lila seeks sup­port, and Phoebe agrees to step in as her maid of hon­or, mark­ing a cru­cial shift in their inter­ac­tion. This rev­e­la­tion hints at new begin­nings for Phoebe as she moves past her pre­vi­ous intent of iso­la­tion, open­ing up to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of rebuild­ing con­nec­tions with oth­ers .

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.

11
There was hard­ly any time to rehearse. I only had a week to get ready. I was
per­form­ing at the 2001 Super Bowl half­time show along­side Aero­smith, Mary J.
Blige, Nel­ly, and NSYNC. Justin and the rest of his band had spe­cial gloves that
shot foun­tains of sparks! I sang “Walk This Way” wear­ing a sexy ver­sion of a
foot­ball uni­form, with shiny sil­ver pants, a crop shirt, and an ath­let­ic sock on
one of my arms. I was brought to Steven Tyler’s trail­er to meet him right before
the show, and his ener­gy was incred­i­ble: he was such an idol to me. When we
�nished, the sta­di­um lit up with �reworks.
The half­time show was just one of the seem­ing­ly end­less good things
hap­pen­ing for me. I land­ed the “most pow­er­ful woman” spot on the Forbes list
of most pow­er­ful celebrities—the fol­low­ing year I’d be num­ber one over­all. I
learned that tabloids were mak­ing so much mon­ey o� pho­tos of me, I was
almost sin­gle-hand­ed­ly keep­ing some mag­a­zines in busi­ness. And I was start­ing
to get amaz­ing o�ers.
At the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards that Sep­tem­ber, the plan was for me
to sing “I’m a Slave 4 U,” and we decid­ed I would use a snake as a prop. It’s
become an icon­ic moment in VMAs his­to­ry, but it was even more ter­ri­fy­ing
than it appeared.
The �rst time I saw the snake was when they brought it to a lit­tle back room
of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera House in Man­hat­tan, where we would be doing the
show. The girl who hand­ed it over was even small­er than me—she looked so
young, and she was very tiny, with blond hair. I couldn’t believe they didn’t have
some big guy in charge—I remem­ber think­ing, You’re let­ting us two lit­tle
munchkins han­dle this huge snake…?
But there we were, and there was no going back: she lift­ed up the snake and
put it over my head and around me. To be hon­est, I was a lit­tle scared—that
snake was a huge ani­mal, yel­low and white, crinkly, gross-look­ing. It was okay
because the girl who gave it to me was right there, plus a snake han­dler and a
bunch of oth­er peo­ple.
Every­thing changed, though, when I actu­al­ly had to do the song onstage with
the snake. Onstage I’m in per­for­mance mode: I’m in a cos­tume, and there’s
nobody else there but me. Once again the lit­tle munchkin came to me and
hand­ed me that huge snake, and all I knew was to look down, because I felt if I
looked up and caught its eye, it would kill me.
In my head I was say­ing, Just per­form, just use your legs and per­form. But
what nobody knows is that as I was singing, the snake brought its head right
around to my face, right up to me, and start­ed hiss­ing at me. You didn’t see that
shot on the TV, but in real life? I was think­ing, Are you fuck­ing seri­ous right now?
The fuck­ing god­damn snake’s tongue is flick­ing out at me. Right. Now. Final­ly, I
got to the part where I hand­ed it back, thank God.
The next night at Madi­son Square Gar­den in New York City, just days before
Sep­tem­ber 11, I per­formed a duet of “The Way You Make Me Feel” with
Michael Jack­son to cel­e­brate the thir­ti­eth anniver­sary of his solo career. In my
heels, I prowled all over that stage. The audi­ence went crazy. At one point it felt
like the whole crowd of twen­ty thou­sand was singing along with us.
Pep­si hired me to do com­mer­cials for them. In “The Joy of Pep­si,” I start­ed
out as a deliv­ery dri­ver and then wound up in a huge dance num­ber. In “Now
and Then,” I got to wear cute out�ts from var­i­ous eras. For the eight­ies sec­tion, I
got made up as Robert Palmer for a ver­sion of “Sim­ply Irre­sistible.” I was in hair
and make­up for four hours, and they still didn’t quite man­age to make me
con­vinc­ing as a man. But in the �fties part, I loved danc­ing at the dri­ve-in. I had
Bet­ty Boop hair. Work­ing in all those di�erent gen­res, I was amazed at how
intel­li­gent­ly done those com­mer­cials were.
The �rst movie I did was Cross­roads, writ­ten by Shon­da Rhimes and direct­ed by
Tam­ra Davis. We had �lmed it in March 2001, around the same time I was
record­ing the album Brit­ney. In the �lm, I was play­ing a “good girl” named Lucy
Wag­n­er. The expe­ri­ence wasn’t easy for me. My prob­lem wasn’t with any­one
involved in the pro­duc­tion but with what act­ing did to my mind. I think I
start­ed Method acting—only I didn’t know how to break out of my char­ac­ter. I
real­ly became this oth­er per­son. Some peo­ple do Method act­ing, but they’re
usu­al­ly aware of the fact that they’re doing it. But I didn’t have any sep­a­ra­tion at
all.
This is embar­rass­ing to say, but it’s like a cloud or some­thing came over me
and I just became this girl named Lucy. When the cam­era came on, I was her,
and then I couldn’t tell the di�erence between when the cam­era was on and
when it wasn’t. I know that seems stu­pid, but it’s the truth. I took it that
seri­ous­ly. I took it seri­ous­ly to the point where Justin said, “Why are you walk­ing
like that? Who are you?”
All I can say is it’s a good thing Lucy was a sweet girl writ­ing poems about
how she was “not a girl, not yet a woman,” and not a ser­i­al killer.
I end­ed up walk­ing di�erently, car­ry­ing myself di�erently, talk­ing di�erently.
I was some­one else for months while I �lmed Cross­roads. Still to this day, I bet
the girls I shot that movie with think, She’s a lit­tle… quirky. If they thought that,
they were right.
I was a baby, just like the char­ac­ter. I should’ve played myself on cam­era. But
I was so eager to do a good job that I kept try­ing to go deep with this char­ac­ter. I
had been me my whole life, and I want­ed to try some­thing di�erent! I should
have said to myself, It’s a teen road movie. It’s not that deep. Hon­est­ly, just have a
good time.
After the movie wrapped, one of my girl­friends from a club in LA came to
vis­it me. We went to CVS. I swear to God, I walked into the store, and as I talked
to her while we shopped, I �nal­ly came back to myself. When I came out­side
again I was cured of the spell that movie had cast. It was so strange. My lit­tle
spir­it showed back up in my body. That trip to buy make­up with a friend was
like wav­ing some mag­ic wand.
Then I was pissed.
I thought, Oh my God, what have I been doing the past few months? Who was
I?

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 11
After they put Blue and Korey to bed, Patri­cia told Carter every­thing.
“I’m not say­ing it was your imag­i­na­tion,” he said when she’d
fin­ished. “But you’re always keyed up after your meet­ings. Those are
mor­bid books y’all read.”
“I want an alarm sys­tem,” she told him.
“How would that have helped?” he asked. “Lis­ten, I promise for
the next lit­tle while I’ll make sure I’m home before dark.”
“I want an alarm sys­tem,” she repeat­ed.
“Before we go to all that trou­ble and expense, let’s see how you feel
after the next few weeks.”
She stood up from the end of the bed.
“I’m going to check on Miss Mary,” she told him, and left the room.
She checked the dead­bolts on the front, back, and sun porch doors,
leav­ing the lights on behind her, then went to Miss Mary’s room. The
room was lit by the orange glow of Miss Mary’s night-light. She
moved soft­ly in case Miss Mary was asleep, then saw the night-light
reflect­ing off her open eyes.
“Miss Mary?” Patri­cia asked. Miss Mary’s eyes cut side­ways at her.
“Are you awake?”
The sheet moved and Miss Mary’s claw strug­gled out, then ran out
of ener­gy and flopped down on her chest with­out get­ting where it
was going.
“I’m.” Miss Mary wet­ted her lips. “I’m.”
Patri­cia stepped to the bed rail­ing. She knew what Miss Mary
meant.
“It’s all right,” she said.
The two women stayed like that for a long qui­et moment, lis­ten­ing
to the hot wind press on the win­dows behind the drawn cur­tains.
“Who’s Hoyt Pick­ens?” Patri­cia asked, not expect­ing a reply.
“He killed my dad­dy,” Miss Mary said.
That took the air out of Patricia’s lungs. She’d nev­er heard that
name before. Besides which, Miss Mary usu­al­ly for­got about the
peo­ple who float­ed to the sur­face of her mind sec­onds after she’d
spo­ken their names. Patri­cia had nev­er heard her link the per­son and
their impor­tance togeth­er.
“Why do you say that?” she asked soft­ly.
“I have a pic­ture of Hoyt Pick­ens,” Miss Mary rasped. “In his ice
cream suit.”
Her ragged voice made Patricia’s scarred ear itch. The wind tried
to open the hid­den win­dows, rat­tled the glass, looked for a way in.
Miss Mary’s hand found some more ener­gy and slith­ered across the
blan­kets toward Patri­cia, who reached down and took the smooth,
cold hand in her own.
“How did he know your father?” she asked.
“Before sup­per, the men and my dad­dy used to sit on the back
porch pass­ing a jar,” Miss Mary said. “Us chil­dren had our sup­per
ear­ly and played in the front yard, then we saw a man in a suit the
col­or of vanil­la ice cream come up the road. He turned into our yard
and the men hid their jar because drink­ing was against the law. This
man walked up to my dad­dy and said his name was Hoyt Pick­ens and
he asked if my dad­dy knew where he could get him­self some rab­bit
spit. That’s what they called my daddy’s corn whiskey, because it
could make a rab­bit spit in a bulldog’s eye. He said he’d been on the
Cincin­nati train and his throat was dusty and it’d be worth two bits
to him to wet it. Mr. Lukens brought out the jar and Hoyt Pick­ens
tast­ed it. He said he’d been from Chica­go to Mia­mi and that was the
best corn liquor he ever had.”
Patri­cia didn’t breathe. It had been years since Miss Mary had put
this many sen­tences togeth­er.
“That night Mama and Dad­dy argued. Hoyt Pick­ens want­ed to buy
some of Daddy’s rab­bit spit and sell it in Colum­bia, but Mama said
no. It was ten-cent cot­ton and forty-cent meat back then. Rev­erend
Buck told us the boll wee­vil had come because there were too many
pub­lic swim­ming pools. The gov­ern­ment taxed every­thing from
cig­a­rettes to bow legs, but Daddy’s rab­bit spit made sure we always
had molasses on our corn­bread.
“Mama told him the snake that stuck out its head usu­al­ly got it
chopped off, but Dad­dy was tired of scratch­ing a liv­ing so he ignored
Mama and sold twelve jars of rab­bit spit to Hoyt Pick­ens and Hoyt
went to Colum­bia and sold those right quick and came back for
twelve more. He sold those, too, and soon Dad­dy had a sec­ond still
and was gone from the house from sun­down to sunup and sleep­ing
all day.
“Hoyt Pick­ens sat reg­u­lar at our table every Sun­day and some
Wednes­days and Fri­days, too. He told Dad­dy all the things he should
want. He told Dad­dy he could get more mon­ey if he laid up his rab­bit
spit in bar­rels until it turned brown. That meant Dad­dy had to lay
out con­sid­er­able and he wouldn’t see his mon­ey back for six months
until Hoyt took it to Colum­bia and got paid. But the first time Hoyt
laid that thick stack of bills on the table we all got excit­ed.”
Some­thing sharp tick­led Patricia’s palm. Miss Mary was scratch­ing
her nails against Patricia’s skin, back and forth, back and forth, like
insects creep­ing across the inside of her hand.
“Soon every­thing became about the rab­bit spit. Once the sher­iff
saw what Dad­dy was doing he touched him for a taste of that mon­ey.
Dad­dy need­ed oth­er men to work the stills and he paid them in scrip
while they wait­ed for the rab­bit spit to turn brown. Banks closed
faster than you could remem­ber their names so every­one held on to
their mon­ey, but Dad­dy bought a set of ency­clo­pe­dias, and a man­gle
for the wash, and the men all smoked store-bought cig­ars when they
sat out back.”
Patri­cia remem­bered Ker­shaw. They’d dri­ven the hun­dred and
fifty miles upstate many times to vis­it Carter’s cousins, and Miss
Mary when she lived alone. They hadn’t been in a long while, but
Patri­cia remem­bered a dry land pop­u­lat­ed by dry peo­ple, cov­ered in
dust, with fill­ing sta­tions at every cross­roads sell­ing evap­o­rat­ed milk
and gener­ic cig­a­rettes. She remem­bered fal­low fields and aban­doned
farms. She under­stood the appeal of some­thing fresh, and clean, and
green to peo­ple who lived in a small, hot place like that.
“Around then the Beck­ham boy went miss­ing,” Miss Mary said.
Her throat rasped now. “He was a pale lit­tle red­head­ed thing, six
years old, who’d fol­low any­one any­where. When he didn’t come
home for sup­per we all went look­ing. We expect­ed to find him curled
up under a pecan tree, but no. Some peo­ple said the gov­ern­ment
inoc­u­la­tion men took him away, oth­ers said there was a col­ored gal
in the woods who churned white chil­dren into a stew she sold as a
love spell for a nick­el a taste. Some folks said he fell in the riv­er and
got car­ried away, but it didn’t mat­ter what they said—he was gone.
“The next lit­tle boy to van­ish was Avery Dubose. He was a tin
buck­et tot­er and Hoyt told every­one he must have fell in one of the
machines at the mill and the boss lied about it. That stirred up bad
feel­ings between the mill and the farm­ers, and with so much rab­bit
spit around tem­pers ran hot. Men start­ed show­ing up at church with
their arms in slings and bruis­es on their faces. Mr. Beck­ham shot
him­self.
“But we had presents under the tree that Christ­mas and Dad­dy
con­vinced Mama sweet times were here. In Jan­u­ary her bel­ly got
tight and round. I was their only baby who’d lived out of three, but
now anoth­er baby had tak­en root.
“They’d nev­er have found Char­lie Beck­ham if that com­bine
sales­man hadn’t stopped his hors­es at the Moores’ old place and seen
the water from their pump flow thick with mag­gots. They had to let
that lit­tle boy’s body sit in the ice­house for three days to let all the
water drain before he’d fit in his cof­fin. Even then, they had to build
it extra wide.”
White spit formed gum­my balls in the cor­ners of Miss Mary’s
mouth, but Patri­cia didn’t move. She wor­ried that if she did any­thing
to break the spell this thread might snap, and Miss Mary might nev­er
speak like this again.
“That spring, nobody could afford to plant noth­ing,” Miss Mary
went on. “Nobody had noth­ing in the ground so Dad­dy and Hoyt had
to spend big to bring corn all the way from Rock Hill, and they had
all their mon­ey tied up in the rab­bit spit bar­rels. The banks didn’t
care about no scrip and they start­ed tak­ing everyone’s tools, and
their hors­es, and mules, and no one could do noth­ing. Every­one
wait­ed for those bar­rels.
“The third lit­tle boy to go miss­ing was Rev­erend Buck’s baby and
the men got togeth­er on our back porch and I heard them spec­u­late
through my win­dow about one per­son or anoth­er, and the jar kept
get­ting passed, and then Hoyt Pick­ens said he’d seen Leon Simms
around the Moore farm one night, and I want­ed to laugh because
only a stranger would say that. Leon was a col­ored fel­low and
some­thing had hap­pened to his head in the war. He sat in the sun
out­side Mr. Early’s store, and if you gave him can­dy he’d play
some­thing for you on the spoons and sing. His moth­er took care of
him and he got a gov­ern­ment check. Some­times he helped peo­ple
car­ry pack­ages and they always paid him in can­dy.
“But Hoyt Pick­ens said Leon liked to wan­der at night and had been
creep­ing in places he shouldn’t. He said this is what hap­pens when
peo­ple come down from up north and spread ideas in places that
weren’t ready for them. He said that Leon Simms sat out­side Mr.
Early’s store and licked his lips over chil­dren and took them to secret
places where he slaked his unnat­ur­al appetite.
“The more Hoyt Pick­ens talked, the more the men thought he
sound­ed right. I must have nod­ded off because when I opened my
eyes it was full dark and the back­yard was emp­ty. I heard the train
pass, and a hoot owl car­ry­ing on out in the woods, and I was slip­ping
back to sleep when the land lit up.
“A crowd of men came in fol­low­ing a wag­on and they had lanterns
and flash­lights. They were qui­et but I heard one hard voice talk­ing
loud, giv­ing orders, and it was my dad­dy. Next to him stood Hoyt
Pick­ens and his ice cream suit glowed in the dark. They pulled
some­thing off the back of the cart, a big burlap bag we used for
pick­ing cot­ton, and they lift­ed one end and some­thing flowed out wet
and black onto the dirt. It was Leon, all tied with rope.
“The men got shov­els, and they dug a deep hole under­neath the
peach tree and dragged Leon to it and he must not have been dead
because I heard him call my dad­dy ‘boss’ and say, ‘Please, boss, I’ll
play you some­thing, boss,’ and they threw him down in that hole and
piled dirt on top of him until his beg­ging got muf­fled, and after a
while you couldn’t hear it any­more, but I still could.
“When I woke up ear­ly there was mist on the ground and I went
out back to see if maybe I’d had a bad dream. But I could see the
fresh-dug dirt and then I heard a noise and saw my dad­dy sit­ting real
qui­et in the cor­ner of the porch and he had a jar of rab­bit spit
between his legs. His eyes were swollen red and when he saw me he
gave me a grin that came straight out of Hell.”
Patri­cia real­ized that was why Miss Mary let the peach­es rot. The
mem­o­ry of the fruit’s sweet juice run­ning down her chin, its meat
fill­ing her stom­ach, now tast­ed sour with Leon Simms’s blood.
“Hoyt Pick­ens left before the rab­bit spit turned brown,” Miss Mary
croaked. “Dad­dy took the wag­on to Colum­bia but he couldn’t find
who’d been buy­ing from Hoyt. All our mon­ey was in those bar­rels
but no one in Ker­shaw could buy the rab­bit spit at the price Dad­dy
need­ed and he drank up most of it him­self over the next few years.
Mama lost my broth­er child and Dad­dy sold his stills for eat­ing
mon­ey. He nev­er worked anoth­er day, just sat out back, drink­ing that
brown rab­bit spit alone because no one would come by our place
know­ing what we had buried there. When he final­ly hanged him­self
in the barn it was a mer­cy. When hard times came a few years lat­er
some peo­ple say it was Leon Simms that poi­soned the land, but I’ll
always know it was Hoyt.”
In the long silence, water over­flowed Miss Mary’s twitch­ing eye­lids
and ran down her face. She licked her lips, and Patri­cia saw that a
white film coat­ed her tongue. Her skin looked thin as paper, her
hands felt cold as ice. Her breath­ing sound­ed like tear­ing cloth.
Slow­ly, Patri­cia watched her blood­shot eyes lose their focus, and she
real­ized telling the sto­ry had set Miss Mary adrift. Patri­cia start­ed to

After metic­u­lous plan­ning, I orches­trate my first “acci­den­tal” encounter with Emi­ly Clark and Camp­bell Reed from Thorn­field Estates. The aim is to intro­duce myself not as the dog-walk­er but as Eddie’s girl­friend, sub­tly shift­ing their per­cep­tion of me from an out­sider to an inte­gral part of their cir­cle. Walk­ing Adele, Eddie and my shared dog, gives me the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty. Upon spot­ting me, their reac­tions are reserved, obscured by large sun­glass­es, but the sur­prise is evi­dent when they learn of my rela­tion­ship with Eddie.

Our con­ver­sa­tion swift­ly moves from the streets to Emi­ly’s house, where the dynam­ic begins to change. As a guest, I nav­i­gate their curios­i­ty and skep­ti­cism with care­ful charm, aim­ing to win them over with­out appear­ing boast­ful. The sce­nario unfolds with Emi­ly and Camp­bel­l’s cau­tious inter­ro­ga­tion about my sud­den close­ness with Eddie, which I man­age with a bal­ance of mod­esty and assertive­ness. This tact­ful engage­ment earns me an accep­tance hint­ed at by Emi­ly’s enthu­si­asm and a reluc­tant con­grats from Camp­bell, sig­nal­ing a ten­ta­tive wel­come into their fold.

Despite this, my inter­ac­tion with them at Emi­ly’s kitchen counter reveals the com­plex social under­cur­rents of Thorn­field Estates. Their shared his­to­ry, marked by the absence of Bea and Blanche, hints at a depth of rela­tion­ships and ten­sions I’ve yet to ful­ly grasp. The juice drink­ing and the casu­al talk mask an intri­cate web of friend­ships, rival­ries, and secrets that I’m only just begin­ning to per­ceive. My new­found accep­tance by Emi­ly and Camp­bell is a step into their world, yet as we dis­cuss the past, I’m remind­ed of the intri­cate social lay­ers that dis­tin­guish insid­ers from new­com­ers, chal­leng­ing my sense of belong­ing in this com­mu­ni­ty.

In Chap­ter 11 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” after bury­ing the loy­al Kincaid’s cook, Tarzan relent­less­ly con­tin­ues his pur­suit of Rokoff, now cer­tain that his wife, Jane, is once again in the Rus­sian’s clutch­es. The jun­gle presents Tarzan with numer­ous chal­lenges, includ­ing con­fus­ing trails and a severe storm that wipes away any tracks left by Rokof­f’s par­ty. For a week, heavy rains and winds hin­der Tarzan’s progress, mak­ing him feel lost in the jun­gle for the first time. He wor­ries for Jane and their son, imag­in­ing the hor­rors they might be endur­ing at the hands of Rokoff.

Deter­mined to locate Rokoff, Tarzan decides to head north­east, hop­ing to encounter natives who could pro­vide infor­ma­tion. He soon finds a vil­lage, but the inhab­i­tants flee, fear­ing him due to Rokof­f’s warn­ings of a “white dev­il” and his demon­ic pack. Tarzan cap­tures a young war­rior who, under duress, reveals that Rokoff had indeed passed through, turn­ing the locals against Tarzan with tales of ter­ror. The vil­lage chief, M’gan­wazam, sees an oppor­tu­ni­ty to claim the reward for Tarzan’s death and shifts from hos­til­i­ty to hos­pi­tal­i­ty, hop­ing to trap Tarzan.

Tarzan’s instincts alert him to dan­ger, and he nar­row­ly avoids an assas­si­na­tion attempt in his hut, real­iz­ing too late M’ganwazam’s duplic­i­ty. An old woman, Tam­budza, whom Tarzan had pre­vi­ous­ly shown kind­ness, warns him of the plot on his life, explain­ing that M’gan­wazam is eager to col­lect a reward by killing him. She reveals that Rokoff hasn’t trav­eled far and offers to lead Tarzan to him. Unseen by them, the chief’s son, Buu­laoo, over­hears their con­ver­sa­tion, like­ly plan­ning to use the infor­ma­tion against Tam­budza.

This chap­ter, rich with pur­suit and intrigue, high­lights Tarzan’s strug­gle against both human treach­ery and the mer­ci­less jun­gle, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing his quest to res­cue his fam­i­ly. The intro­duc­tion of local pol­i­tics and betray­al adds depth to the nar­ra­tive, show­cas­ing Tarzan’s reliance on both his pri­mal instincts and the unex­pect­ed kind­ness of strangers.