Home Bargains Quotes

She waited as he perused the room, skated over her, stopped, then came slowly back. Their eyes met. Alexa hated clichés, and what she hated most was becoming one. But at that moment, her heartbeat thundered, her palms sweated, and her belly dipped and plunged as if on a rollercoaster ride. Her body went on full alert, begging him to come to her, promising him surrender. If he told her to go home, get in bed, and wait for him, Alexa was sure she’d follow his instructions.

The Pomegranate The only legend I have ever loved is the story of a daughter lost in hell. And found and rescued there. Love and blackmail are the gist of it. Ceres and Persephone the names. And the best thing about the legend is I can enter it anywhere. And have. As a child in exile in a city of fogs and strange consonants, I read it first and at first I was an exiled child in the crackling dusk of the underworld, the stars blighted. Later I walked out in a summer twilight searching for my daughter at bed-time. When she came running I was ready to make any bargain to keep her. I carried her back past whitebeams and wasps and honey-scented buddleias. But I was Ceres then and I knew winter was in store for every leaf on every tree on that road. Was inescapable for each one we passed. And for me. It is winter and the stars are hidden. I climb the stairs and stand where I can see my child asleep beside her teen magazines, her can of Coke, her plate of uncut fruit. The pomegranate! How did I forget it? She could have come home and been safe and ended the story and all our heart-broken searching but she reached out a hand and plucked a pomegranate. She put out her hand and pulled down the French sound for apple and the noise of stone and the proof that even in the place of death, at the heart of legend, in the midst of rocks full of unshed tears ready to be diamonds by the time the story was told, a child can be hungry. I could warn her. There is still a chance. The rain is cold. The road is flint-coloured. The suburb has cars and cable television. The veiled stars are above ground. It is another world. But what else can a mother give her daughter but such beautiful rifts in time? If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift. The legend will be hers as well as mine. She will enter it. As I have. She will wake up. She will hold the papery flushed skin in her hand. And to her lips. I will say nothing.

And this beautiful, wonderful thing that had come into my life, this gift from the Cauldron … It was gone. In my desperation, I clung to that bond. Not the bargain—the bargain was nothing, the bargain was like a cobweb. But I grabbed that bond between us and I tugged, I willed you to hold on, to stay with me, because if we could get free … If we could get free, then all seven of us were there. We could bring you back. And I didn’t care if I had to slice into all of their minds to do it. I’d make them save you.” His hands were shaking. “You’d freed us with your last breath, and my power—I wrapped my power around the bond. The mating bond. I could feel you flickering there, holding on.” Home. Home had been at the end of the bond, I’d told the Bone Carver. Not Tamlin, not the Spring Court, but … Rhysand.

Logan: I don't care who you are or what you've done. Just tell me why you want to leave. Are you in love with this other man? Maddy: Oh, no. It's not that, it's... I promised God that I would go back home if you got well again. Logan: That's not my idea of a good bargain, sweet. Besides, I wasn't consulted.

Now, cherub,” his words roll off his lips like honey, “the first repayment of the day: you’re coming home with me, and you’re not leaving until your debts have all been paid.

Judge Rountree holds half my property in the palm of his hand." Denton's growl broke the silence. "I'd appreciate if you didn't insult him at all, much less in his own home." "He named his children One, Two, Three, and Four," she said. "He deserves to be insulted.

if you cannot find your way back to your original trod, purchase a way out by using the gift mentioned earlier in this guide. If you enter into this type of bargain, make sure to phrase things appropriately. "i'm lost and can't get home" is sure to lead to trouble. Try something different like" I'll pay two jars of honey to a fey who will take me to the mortal realm, alive and whole, with my mind and soul intact, neither physically or mentally harmed, to be placed on solid ground at an altitude and in an environment that can readily sustain human life, no farther than a mile from a human settlement, at a time not more than thirty minutes from now." even then , be careful

Iam a sensitive, introverted woman, which means that I love humanity but actual human beings are tricky for me. I love people but not in person. For example, I would die for you but not, like…meet you for coffee. I became a writer so I could stay at home alone in my pajamas, reading and writing about the importance of human connection and community. It is an almost perfect existence. Except that every so often, while I’m thinking my thoughts, writing my words, living in my favorite spot—which is deep inside my own head—something stunning happens: A sirenlike noise tears through my home. I freeze. It takes me a solid minute to understand: The siren is the doorbell. A person is ringing my doorbell. I run out of my office to find my children also stunned, frozen, and waiting for direction about how to respond to this imminent home invasion. We stare at each other, count bodies, and collectively cycle through the five stages of doorbell grief: Denial: This cannot be happening. ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALLOWED TO BE IN THIS HOUSE ARE ALREADY IN THIS HOUSE. Maybe it was the TV. IS THE TV ON? Anger: WHO DOES THIS? WHAT KIND OF BOUNDARYLESS AGGRESSOR RINGS SOMEONE’S DOORBELL IN BROAD DAYLIGHT? Bargaining: Don’t move, don’t breathe—maybe they’ll go away. Depression: Why? Why us? Why anyone? Why is life so hard? Acceptance: Damnit to hell. You—the little one—we volunteer you. Put on some pants, act normal, and answer the door. It’s dramatic, but the door always gets answered. If the kids aren’t home, I’ll even answer it myself. Is this because I remember that adulting requires door answering? Of course not. I answer the door because of the sliver of hope in my heart that if I open the door, there might be a package waiting for me. A package!

What made more sense was that the bargain she was bound to was to go on living as she had been doing. The bargain was already in force. Days and years and feelings much the same, except that the children would grow up, and there might be one or two more of them and they too would grow up, and she and Brendan would grow older and then old. It was not until now, not until this moment, that she had seen so clearly that she was counting on something happening, something which would change her life. She had accepted her marriage as one big change, but not as the last one. So, nothing now but what she or anybody else could sensibly foresee. That was to be her happiness, that was what she had bargained for, nothing secret, or strange. Pay attention to this, she thought. She had a dramatic notion of getting down on her knees. This is serious... It was a long time ago that this happened. In North Vancouver, when they lived in the Post and Beam house. When she was twenty-four years old and new to bargaining.

People are prepared for everything except for the fact that beyond the darkness of their blindness there is a great light. They are prepared to go on breaking their backs plowing the same old field until the cows come home without seeing, until they stub their toes on it, that there is a treasure buried in that field rich enough to buy Texas. They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour’s work as for a day’s. They are prepared for a mustard-seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian but not for the marriage supper of the Lamb, and when the bridegroom finally arrives at midnight with vine leaves in his hair, they turn up with their lamps to light him on his way all right only they have forgotten the oil to light them with and stand there with their big, bare, virginal feet glimmering faintly in the dark.

When I got to the States and started going to an American high school, which I did for an extremely short time, I thought everyone around me was insane, the way they talked about their parents. I thought the parents were insane too, the way they handled their kids, like every request they made was a bargain they weren't sure would be kept. That little whiny tone at the end of every statement: "Be home by ten, okay?

Meet Chester,” Katie said, holding out a plastic bag with a nervous-looking goldfish darting about in the three inches of water. “What happened to Rudy?” Christy asked. Katie had insisted they buy a goldfish on their way home from Bargain Barn last Saturday. She had situated the fish in his new, twenty-five-cent fishbowl and had named him Rudy. She talked to him every day and fed him way too much. “Rudy went to fish heaven this morning,” Katie said sadly. “Chester wants to live with us now.” “You better get him in the bowl pretty soon,” Christy said. “He looks like he’s drowning in that bag.” “Drowning, ha-ha. Very funny.” “Okay, then, he’s suffocating.

I used to make these bargains with the universe,” I say, smiling a little at the ridiculousness of it. “Like if I got straight As, then everything would be okay. Or if I won the science fair a second time. Or if I was never late to school, or if I always did the dishes before Mom got home from work, or I got her the perfect birthday gift, or whatever. And I know my parents love me. I’ve always known that,” I say tightly. “But the truth is . . .” Wyn squeezes the back of my neck: I’ve got you. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to make it up to them.” Wyn tucks a curl behind my ear, ever patient and calm, warm and safe. “That we cost them so much,” I go on. “That they didn’t get the lives they wanted, because of us. But if I could be good enough . . .” “Harriet,” he says, crushing me in against his chest, tightening his arms against me, a human barricade. “No.

It was funny, I thought, the way women let men think they ruled the world. That was the bargain they made: you take the world, and we’ll take life and death. Sure, fight wars. Make up countries. Call them whatever you want. Make up laws. It all sounds good. But that was only to distract them so that they wouldn’t try to participate in the women’s work, which was the pulling of souls out from the darkness and the projection of light into the future." Dear Fang, with love Rufi Thorpe --(as a midwife this quote really hit home for me)

Oh, you’re home.” She smiled up at him, and he felt all warm inside. Home.

What trunk?" Velkan "My trunk. I'm moving in" Esperetta "In where?" Velkan "My room. Here." Esperetta Completely stunned and flabbgausted, he opened and closed his mouth, unable to speak. Esperetta walked over to him and placed her finger on his chin before she closed his mouth. "I know you dont trust me, but tough shit." "This is my home and you're my husband. I made a mistake and for that I'm sorry, but I'm through being an idiot." Esperetta "Dark-Hunters can't be married." Velkan "Well then, someone should have told Artemis before she made her bargain with you and brought me back to life, huh? You were created as a married Dark-Hunter. I hardly think they can complain now." Esperetta She did have a point about that "But--" Velkan She ended his words with a kiss.

Perhaps if you win this one I can put a word in for you.You know, extra carrots and that sort of thing, a bit of molasses in the evening.A bigger brass plaque for your box at home." "That's bribery," Keeley murmured. Brian turned, his eyes going warm. "That's bargaining," he corrected. "But if I can interest you in a bribe," he began and opened the box door intending to snatch Keeley inside for a much anticipated welcome back kiss. He nearly stepped over Mo. "Sorry. Didn't see you there." "I'm short.That's my cross to bear.

It seemed to me that Babette and I, in the mass and variety of our purchases, in the sheer plenitude those crowded bags suggested, the weight and size and number, the familiar package designs and vivid lettering, the giant sizes, the family bargain packs with Day-Glo sale stickers, in the sense of replenishment we felt, the sense of well-being, the security and contentment these products brought to some snug home in our souls—it seemed we had achieved a fullness of being that is not known to people who need less, expect less, who plan their lives around lonely walks in the evening.

Look back over the last hundred years and you’ll see the pattern. During periods when the very rich took home a much smaller proportion of total income—as in the Great Prosperity between 1947 and 1977—the nation as a whole grew faster, and median wages surged. The basic bargain ensured that the pay of American workers coincided with their output. In effect, the vast middle class received an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth. We created that virtuous cycle in which an ever-growing middle class had the ability to consume more goods and services, which created more and better jobs, thereby stoking demand. The rising tide did in fact lift all boats. On the other hand, during periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion—as between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the present day—growth slowed, median wages stagnated, and we suffered giant downturns.

Me home, the weird older daughter, back in my room. Hanging out with my mother. Taking care of my mother. Bargaining for an evening out now and then. Still no driver's license. Never leaving. It would be like when I was sixteen, insisting that I was an adult, except that I wasn't, in some ways. Was I an adult? Or was I something else? Would I ever grow up?

In South Texas I saw three interesting things. The first was a tiny girl, maybe ten years old, driving in a 1965 Cadillac. She wasn't going very fast, because I passed her, but still she was cruising right along, with her head tilted back and her mouth open and her little hands gripping the wheel. Then I saw an old man walking up the median strip pulling a wooden cross behind him. It was mounted on something like a golf cart with two spoked wheels. I slowed down to read the hand-lettered sign on his chest. JACKSONVILLE FLA OR BUST I had never been to Jacksonville but I knew it was the home of the Gator Bowl and I had heard it was a boom town, taking in an entire county or some such thing. It seemed an odd destination for a religious pilgrim. Penance maybe for some terrible sin, or some bargain he had worked out with God, or maybe just a crazed hiker. I waved and called out to him, wishing him luck, but he was intent on his marching and had no time for idle greetings. His step was brisk and I was convinced he wouldn't bust. The third interesting thing was a convoy of stake-bed trucks all piled high with loose watermelons and cantaloupes. I was amazed. I couldn't believe that the bottom ones weren't crushed under all that weight, exploding and spraying hazardous melon juice onto the highway. One of nature's tricks with curved surfaces. Topology! I had never made it that far in mathematics and engineering studies, and I knew now that I never would, just as I knew that I would never be a navy pilot or a Treasury agent. I made a B in Statics but I was failing in Dynamics when I withdrew from the field. The course I liked best was one called Strength of Materials. Everybody else hated it because of all the tables we had to memorize but I loved it, the sheared beam. I had once tried to explain to Dupree how things fell apart from being pulled and compressed and twisted and bent and sheared but he wouldn't listen. Whenever that kind of thing came up, he would always say - boast, the way those people do - that he had no head for figures and couldn't do things with his hands, slyly suggesting the presence of finer qualities.

In the early eighties, Maureen started to bargain with God to try and turn her marriage around. She went with a neighbor girlfriend to get baptized and then asked God to heal her marriage. Surprisingly, her husband came home early from a trip that night. They talked for hours, and she told herself that God had helped them turn a corner. It did not last a month.

How happily we explored our shiny new world! We lived like characters from the great books I curled up with in the big Draylon armchair. Like Jack Kerouak, like Gatsby, we created ourselves as we went along, a raggle-taggle of gypsies in old army overcoats and bell-bottoms, straggling through the fields that surrounded our granite farmhouse in search of firewood, which we dragged home and stacked in the living room. Ignorant and innocent, we acted as if the world belonged to us, as though we would ever have taken the time to hang the regency wallpaper we damaged so casually with half-rotten firewood, or would have known how to hang it straight, or smooth the seams. We broke logs against the massive tiled hearth and piled them against the sooty fire back, like the logs were tradition and we were burning it, like chimney fires could never happen, like the house didn't really belong to the poor divorcee who paid the rates and mortgage even as we sat around the flames like hunter gatherers, smoking Lebanese gold, chanting and playing the drums, dancing to the tortured music of Luke's guitar. Impelled by the rhythm, fortified by poorly digested scraps of Lao Tzu, we got up to dance, regardless of the coffee we knocked over onto the shag carpet. We sopped it up carelessly, or let it sit there as it would; later was time enough. We were committed to the moment. Everything was easy and beautiful if you looked at it right. If someone was angry, we walked down the other side of the street, sorry and amused at their loss of cool. We avoided newspapers and television. They were full of lies, and we knew all the stuff we needed. We spent our government grants on books, dope, acid, jug wine, and cheap food from the supermarket--variegated cheese scraps bundled roughly together, white cabbage and bacon ends, dented tins of tomatoes from the bargain bin. Everything was beautiful, the stars and the sunsets, the mold that someone discovered at the back of the fridge, the cows in the fields that kicked their giddy heels up in the air and fled as we ranged through the Yorkshire woods decked in daisy chains, necklaces made of melon seeds and tie-dye T-shirts whose colors stained the bath tub forever--an eternal reminder of the rainbow generation. [81-82]

Kestrel didn’t see why carriage seats had to face each other. Why couldn’t they have been designed for moments like these, when all she wanted to do was hide? She took one look at Arin. She had given no order for the carriage lamps to be lit, but the moonlight was strong. Arin was silvered by it. He was staring out the window at the governor’s palace dwindling as the carriage trundled toward home. Then he tore his gaze from the window with a sharp turn of the head and sagged against his seat, face filled with something that looked like shocked relief. Kestrel felt a flicker of instinctive curiosity. Then she reminded herself bitterly that this was what curiosity had bought her: fifty keystones for a singer who refused to sing, a friend who wasn’t her friend, someone who was hers and yet would never be hers. Kestrel looked away from Arin. She swore to herself that she would never look back. Softly, he said, “Why are you crying?” His words made the tears flow faster. “Kestrel.” She drew a shaky breath. “Because when my father comes home, I will tell him that he has won. I will join the military.” There was a silence. “I don’t understand.” Kestrel shrugged. She shouldn’t care whether he understood or not. “You would give up your music?” Yes. She would. “But your bargain with the general was for spring.” Arin still sounded confused. “You have until spring to marry or enlist. Ronan…Ronan would ask the god of souls for you. He would ask you to marry him.” “He has.” Arin didn’t speak. “But I can’t,” she said. “Kestrel.” “I can’t.” “Kestrel, please don’t cry.” Tentative fingers touched her face. A thumb ran along the wet skin of her cheekbone. She suffered for it, suffered for the misery of knowing that whatever possessed him to do this could be no more than compassion. He valued her that much. But not enough. “Why can’t you marry him?” he whispered. She broke her word to herself and looked at him. “Because of you.

We were making a historic leap from one continent to another, yet we were an extremely risk-averse family. Many immigrants carry these twin traits within themselves and some even pass them on to the next generation. As risk takers we leap far from the safety of home. Having left the comforts of home we know all too well that there is no safety net of kinship or citizenship to catch us should we topple. This makes us cautious. We check the lock on the door three times before going out. We save more than we spend. We collect sugar and ketchup packets from McDonald’s and cannot throw anything away. At work, we beat every deadline in the office and never pass up a second gig to make extra money. We tell our children to keep their heads down, study hard, and always look for a bargain. As risk-averse immigrants, we do not rock the boat. If you were a trapeze artist without a net below you, wouldn’t you act the same way? Anything else would be irrational.

Softly, he said, “Why are you crying?” His words made the tears flow faster. “Kestrel.” She drew a shaky breath. “Because when my father comes home, I will tell him that he has won. I will join the military.” There was a silence. “I don’t understand.” Kestrel shrugged. She shouldn’t care whether he understood or not. “You would give up your music?” Yes. She would. “But your bargain with the general was for spring.” Arin still sounded confused. “You have until spring to marry or enlist. Ronan…Ronan would ask the god of souls for you. He would ask you to marry him.” “He has.” Arin didn’t speak. “But I can’t,” she said. “Kestrel.” “I can’t.” “Kestrel, please don’t cry.” Tentative fingers touched her face. A thumb ran along the wet skin of her cheekbone. She suffered for it, suffered for the misery of knowing that whatever possessed him to do this could be no more than compassion. He valued her that much. But not enough. “Why can’t you marry him?” he whispered. She broke her word to herself and looked at him. “Because of you.

Rolf Ekeus came round to my apartment one day and showed me the name of the Iraqi diplomat who had visited the little West African country of Niger: a statelet famous only for its production of yellowcake uranium. The name was Wissam Zahawi. He was the brother of my louche gay part-Kurdish friend, the by-now late Mazen. He was also, or had been at the time of his trip to Niger, Saddam Hussein's ambassador to the Vatican. I expressed incomprehension. What was an envoy to the Holy See doing in Niger? Obviously he was not taking a vacation. Rolf then explained two things to me. The first was that Wissam Zahawi had, when Rolf was at the United Nations, been one of Saddam Hussein's chief envoys for discussions on nuclear matters (this at a time when the Iraqis had functioning reactors). The second was that, during the period of sanctions that followed the Kuwait war, no Western European country had full diplomatic relations with Baghdad. TheVatican was the sole exception, so it was sent a very senior Iraqi envoy to act as a listening post. And this man, a specialist in nuclear matters, had made a discreet side trip to Niger. This was to suggest exactly what most right-thinking people were convinced was not the case: namely that British intelligence was on to something when it said that Saddam had not ceased seeking nuclear materials in Africa. I published a few columns on this, drawing at one point an angry email from Ambassador Zahawi that very satisfyingly blustered and bluffed on what he'd really been up to. I also received—this is what sometimes makes journalism worthwhile—a letter from a BBC correspondent named Gordon Correa who had been writing a book about A.Q. Khan. This was the Pakistani proprietor of the nuclear black market that had supplied fissile material to Libya, North Korea, very probably to Syria, and was open for business with any member of the 'rogue states' club. (Saddam's people, we already knew for sure, had been meeting North Korean missile salesmen in Damascus until just before the invasion, when Kim Jong Il's mercenary bargainers took fright and went home.) It turned out, said the highly interested Mr. Correa, that his man Khan had also been in Niger, and at about the same time that Zahawi had. The likelihood of the senior Iraqi diplomat in Europe and the senior Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer both choosing an off-season holiday in chic little uranium-rich Niger… well, you have to admit that it makes an affecting picture. But you must be ready to credit something as ridiculous as that if your touching belief is that Saddam Hussein was already 'contained,' and that Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair were acting on panic reports, fabricated in turn by self-interested provocateurs.

The typical hero of a Lonoff story—the hero who came to mean so much to bookish Americans in the mid-fifties, the hero who, some ten years after Hitler, seemed to say something new and wrenching to Gentiles about Jews, and to Jews about themselves, and to readers and writers of that recuperative decade generally about the ambiguities of prudence and the anxieties of disorder, about life-hunger, life-bargains, and life-terror in their most elementary manifestations—Lonoff’s hero is more often than not a nobody from nowhere, away from a home where he is not missed, yet to which he must return without delay.

Consequential to the election outcome were the many private contacts in the capital between southern Democrats and Hayes’s northern Republican supporters. At Wormley’s Hotel on February 26, five Hayes people pledged that federal troops would be withdrawn from the South; new “redeemer” governments would be tolerated and “home rule” restored; the four southern Democrats promised, in return, fair treatment of the black community. The influence of the so-called Wormley Conference has been greatly overstated, for it merely culminated months of bargaining and confirmed what was already clear: that Hayes would bring an end to Reconstruction.

Junk is fragile. I ruined tons of stuff, never on purpose. The thought of antiques still makes me sick, but that was our bread and butter. The scrapings of time are sad. . . lousy, sickening. We sold the stuff over the customer's dead body. We'd wear him down. We'd drown his wits in floods of hokum. . . incredible bargains. . . we were merciless. . . He couldn't win. . . If he had any wits to begin with, we demolished them. . . He'd walk out stunned with the Louis XIII cup in his pocket, the openwork fan with cat and shepherdess wrapped in tissue paper. You can't imagine how they revolted me, grown-ups taking such crap home with them.

If yet I have not all thy love, Dear, I shall never have it all, I cannot breathe one other sigh, to move, Nor can entreat one other tear to fall, And all my treasure, which should purchase thee, Sighs, tears, and oaths, and letters I have spent. Yet no more can be due to me, Than at the bargain made was meant; If then thy gift of love were partial, That some to me, some should to others fall, Dear, I shall never have thee all. Or if then thou gravest me all, All was but all, which thou hadst then; But if in thy heart, since, there be or shall New love created be, by other men, Which have their stocks entire, and can in tears, In sighs, in oaths, and letters outbid me, This new love may beget new fears, For, this love was not vowed by thee. And yet it was, thy gift being general; The ground, thy heart, is mine, whatever shall Grow there, dear, I should have it all. Yet I would not have all yet; He that hath all can have no more, And since my love doth every day admit New growth, thou shouldst have new rewards in store; Thou canst not every day give me thy heart, If thou canst give it, then thou never gavest it: Love's riddles are, that though thy heart depart, It stays at home, and thou with losing savest it: But we will have a way more liberal, Than changing hearts, to join them, so we shall Be one, and one another's all.

What, indeed, is to humanise these beings, who rest shut up, for they seldom even open their windows, smoaking, drinking brandy, and driving bargains? I have been almost stifled by these smoakers. They begin in the morning, and are rarely without their pipe till they go to bed. Nothing can be more disgusting than the rooms and men towards the evening: breath, teeth, clothes, and furniture, all are spoilt. It is well that the women are not very delicate, or they would only love their husbands because they were their husbands. Perhaps, you may add, that the remark need not be confined to so small a part of the world; and, entre nous, I am of the same opinion. You must not term this inuendo saucy, for it does not come home.

In striving to fulfill our identities as women, it's important not to confound the various passages of life with each other. What we may need in girlhood or adolescence are not the same qualities we need in maturity. The task of adolescence is to leave home. And women in a sexist society have chronically found this hard to do. Our biology has reinforced the very dependence which our minds have been able to fly beyond. Patriarchal practices like arranged marriages, female sexual mutilation and the denial of abortion have encouraged us to glorify not-leaving as a self-protective strategy. No wonder our creative heroines had to find strategies for leaving. Those who were heterosexual devised the strategy of falling for bad boys as a primal means of separation. We make a mistake in thinking they were only victims. They were adventurers first. That they became victims was not their intent. Sylvia Plath was not merely a masochist but a bold adventurer who perhaps got more than she bargained for. As I get older, I come to understand that the seemingly self-destructive obsessions of my various younger lives were not only self-destructive. They were also self-creative. All through the stages of our lives, we go through transformations that may only manifest themselves when they are safely over. The rebels and bad boys I loved were the harbingers of my loving those very qualities in myself. I loved and left the bad boys, but I thank them for helping to make me the strong survivor I am today.

Patriotism comes from the same Latin word as father. Blind patriotism is collective transference. In it the state becomes a parent and we citizens submit our loyalty to ensure its protection. We may have been encouraged to make that bargain from our public school education, our family home, religion, or culture in general. We associate safety with obedience to authority, for example, going along with government policies. We then make duty, as it is defined by the nation, our unquestioned course. Our motivation is usually not love of country but fear of being without a country that will defend us and our property. Connection is all-important to us; excommunication is the equivalent of death, the finality we can’t dispute. Healthy adult loyalty is a virtue that does not become blind obedience for fear of losing connection, nor total devotion so that we lose our boundaries. Our civil obedience can be so firm that it may take precedence over our concern for those we love, even our children. Here is an example: A young mother is told by the doctor that her toddler is allergic to peanuts and peanut oil. She lets the school know of her son’s allergy when he goes to kindergarten. Throughout his childhood, she is vigilant and makes sure he is safe from peanuts in any form. Eighteen years later, there is a war and he is drafted. The same mother, who was so scrupulously careful about her child’s safety, now waves goodbye to him with a tear but without protest. Mother’s own training in public school and throughout her life has made her believe that her son’s life is expendable whether or not the war in question is just. “Patriotism” is so deeply ingrained in her that she does not even imagine an alternative, even when her son’s life is at stake. It is of course also true that, biologically, parents are ready to let children go just as the state is ready to draft them. What a cunning synchronic-ity. In addition, old men who decide on war take advantage of the timing too. The warrior archetype is lively in eighteen-year-olds, who are willing to fight. Those in their mid-thirties, whose archetype is being a householder and making a mark in their chosen field, will not show an interest in battlefields of blood. The chiefs count on the fact that young braves will take the warrior myth literally rather than as a metaphor for interior battles. They will be willing to put their lives on the line to live out the collective myth of societies that have not found the path of nonviolence. Our collective nature thus seems geared to making war a workable enterprise. In some people, peacemaking is the archetype most in evidence. Nature seems to have made that population smaller, unfortunately. Our culture has trained us to endure and tolerate, not to protest and rebel. Every cell of our bodies learned that lesson. It may not be virtue; it may be fear. We may believe that showing anger is dangerous, because it opposes the authority we are obliged to appease and placate if we are to survive. This explains why we so admire someone who dares to say no and to stand up or even to die for what he believes. That person did not fall prey to the collective seduction. Watching Jeopardy on television, I notice that the audience applauds with special force when a contestant risks everything on a double-jeopardy question. The healthy part of us ardently admires daring. In our positive shadow, our admiration reflects our own disavowed or hidden potential. We, too, have it in us to dare. We can stand up for our truth, putting every comfort on the line, if only we can calm our long-scared ego and open to the part of us that wants to live free. Joseph Campbell says encouragingly, “The part of us that wants to become is fearless.” Religion and Transference Transference is not simply horizontal, from person to person, but vertical from person to a higher power, usually personified as God. When

Softly, he said, “Why are you crying?” His words made the tears flow faster. “Kestrel.” She drew a shaky breath. “Because when my father comes home, I will tell him that he has won. I will join the military.” There was a silence. “I don’t understand.” Kestrel shrugged. She shouldn’t care whether he understood or not. “You would give up your music?” Yes. She would. “But your bargain with the general was for spring.” Arin still sounded confused. “You have until spring to marry or enlist. Ronan…Ronan would ask the god of souls for you. He would ask you to marry him.” “He has.” Arin didn’t speak. “But I can’t,” she said. “Kestrel.” “I can’t.” “Kestrel, please don’t cry.” Tentative fingers touched her face. A thumb ran along the wet skin of her cheekbone. She suffered for it, suffered for the misery of knowing that whatever possessed him to do this could be no more than compassion. He valued her that much. But not enough. “Why can’t you marry him?” he whispered. She broke her word to herself and looked at him. “Because of you.” Arin’s hand flinched against her cheek. His dark head bowed, became lost in its own shadow. Then he slipped from his seat and knelt before hers. His hands fell to the fists on her lap and gently opened them. He held them as if cupping water. He took a breath to speak. She would have stopped him. She would have wished herself deaf, blind, made of unfeeling smoke. She would have stopped his words out of terror, longing. The way terror and longing had become indistinguishable. Yet his hands held hers, and she could do nothing. He said, “I want the same thing you want.” Kestrel pulled back. It wasn’t possible his words could mean what they seemed. “It hasn’t been easy for me to want it.” Arin lifted his face so that she could see his expression. A rich emotion played across his features, offered itself, and asked to be called by its name. Hope. “But you’ve already given your heart,” she said. His brow furrowed, then smoothed. “Oh. No, not the way you think.” He laughed a little, the sound soft yet somehow wild. “Ask me why I went to the market.” This was cruel. “We both know why.” He shook his head. “Pretend that you’ve won a game of Bite and Sting. Why did I go? Ask me. It wasn’t to see a girl who doesn’t exist.” “She…doesn’t?” “I lied.” Kestrel blinked. “Then why did you go to the market?” “Because I wanted to feel free.” Arin raised a hand to brush the air by his temple, then awkwardly let it fall. Kestrel suddenly understood this gesture she’d seen many times. It was an old habit. He was brushing away a ghost, hair that was no longer there because she had ordered it cut. She leaned forward, and kissed his temple. Arin’s hand held her lightly to him. His cheek slid against hers. Then his lips touched her brow, her closed eyes, the line where her jaw met her throat. Kestrel’s mouth found his. His lips were salted with her tears, and the taste of that, of him, of their deepening kiss, filled her with the feeling of his quiet laugh moments ago. Of a wild softness, a soft wildness. In his hands, running up her thin dress. In his heat, burning through to her skin…and into her, sinking into him.

Patriarchy creates coercive background conditions for women, and thus patriarchy, not capitalism, is to blame for women’s exploitation under capitalism. Women are exploited under capitalism because they are forced by gendered expectations of women’s place into segregated spaces. In the home, gendered expectations about what women ought to do causes them to devote more time and energy to caring activities. Not only are women expected to be the main source of childcare and domestic labor in the home, they are also the psychic caregivers, coordinating social, spiritual, and emotional efforts for families. Their doing this explains the exploitation of women qua women in capitalism. The best evidence for this claim is that women in other economic systems are also exploited. For example, in the Soviet Union women were exploited for their domestic and sexual labor despite living under a noncapitalist economic system.121 I do not mean to say that there is no economic or material component to women’s condition. Women are stuck in these roles in part for material and economic reasons; they do not have enough bargaining power within heterosexual relationships generally to escape these roles. If women are able to gain an economic foothold, as is possible in an enlightened capitalism that eschews discrimination and gender segregation, then they can begin to work their way into better bargaining positions in their homes. And with better bargaining outcomes in their domestic lives, women can do better in the capitalist economy. Thus, capitalism does not provide an easy escape route, but it does point in the direction of escape from patriarchy.

The critical point is that thousands of people are swept into the criminal justice system every year pursuant to the drug war without much regard for their guilt or innocence. The police are allowed by the courts to conduct fishing expeditions for drugs on streets and freeways based on nothing more than a hunch. Homes may be searched for drugs based on a tip from an unreliable, confidential informant who is trading the information for money or to escape prison time. And once swept inside the system, people are often denied attorneys or meaningful representation and pressured into plea bargains by the threat of unbelievably harsh sentences—sentences for minor drug crimes that are higher than many countries impose on convicted murderers. This is the way the roundup works, and it works this way in virtually every major city in the United States.

One day a boy asked his father, “What is the value of this life?” Instead of answering, the father told his son, “Take this rock and go offer it at a market, however do not accept any offer and bring the rock back to me. If anybody asks the price, raise two fingers and don’t say anything.”The boy then went to the market and a man asked,”How much is this rock? I want to put it in my garden.” The boy didn’t say anything and raised two fingers, so the man said… “$2? I’ll take it.” And the boy went home and told his father, “A man at the market wants to buy this rock for $2.” The father then said, “Son I want you to take this rock to the museum, and if you are asked the price, raise two fingers and don’t say a word.” The boy then went to the museum, and quickly a man wanted to buy the rock, The boy didn’t say anything and raised two fingers and the man said… “$200? I’ll take it.” The boy was shocked and went running home with the rock in hand, “Father a man wants to buy this rock for $200.” His father then said, “There is one last place I’d like you to offer this rock, take it to the precious stone store and show it only to the owner and don’t say a word, if he asks the price raise two fingers.” The son then went to the precious stone store and showed the rock to the owner. “Where did you find this?” The owner asked, “This is a most precious unpolished gem, one of the most valuable in the whole world, I must have it. What price would you take for it?” The boy didn’t say anything and raised two fingers to which the man replied “Two million dollars? That is a bargain, I’ll take it!” The boy not knowing what to say went breathlessly running home to his father anxiously clutching this now priceless gem, terrified that he might lose it, “Father there is a man who wants to buy this rock for two million dollars!!!” The father then said, “Son you have been carrying in your hands, one of the most precious objects of our people, it is truly priceless!” The father then said, “Son do you now know the value of your life?” To which the son replied… 'The value of my life, is much like this rock, it depends on who it is offered to. Some place a value of $2, others $200, and still others two million dollars. I must surround myself with other precious Souls who recognize the greatest value of my life, because it is my most precious possession, and I must not allow it to be under valued, it’s true value is priceless.' " In reply the father said, " Son you have actually held in your possession the TWO most precious things that our people have, one is the stone and the other is YOU, that is why I asked you to hold up TWO fingers" What is the value of this life??? Priceless!

One hour later Sophie was in Benedict’s sitting room, perched on the very same sofa on which she had lost her innocence just a few weeks earlier. Lady Bridgerton had questioned the wisdom (and propriety) of Sophie’s going to Benedict’s home by herself, but he had given her such a look that she had quickly backed down, saying only, “Just have her home by seven.” Which gave them one hour together. “I’m sorry,” Sophie blurted out, the instant her bottom touched the sofa. For some reason they hadn’t said anything during the carriage ride home. They’d held hands, and Benedict had brought her fingers to his lips, but they hadn’t said anything. Sophie had been relieved. She hadn’t been ready for words. It had been easy at the jail, with all the commotion and so many people, but now that they were alone . . . She didn’t know what to say. Except, she supposed, “I’m sorry.” “No, I’m sorry,” Benedict replied, sitting beside her and taking her hands in his. “No, I’m—” She suddenly smiled. “This is very silly.” “I love you,” he said. Her lips parted. “I want to marry you,” he said. She stopped breathing. “And I don’t care about your parents or my mother’s bargain with Lady Penwood to make you respectable.” He stared down at her, his dark eyes meltingly in love. “I would have married you no matter what.” Sophie blinked. The tears in her eyes were growing fat and hot, and she had a sneaking suspicion that she was about to make a fool of herself by blubbering all over him. She managed to say his name, then found herself completely lost from there. Benedict squeezed her hands. “We couldn’t have lived in London, I know, but we don’t need to live in London. When I thought about what it was in life I really needed— not what I wanted, but what I needed— the only thing that kept coming up was you.

The president-elect did take the threats seriously. Either he or his friend, Illinois’s new governor, Richard Yates—likely operating with Lincoln’s consent—sent the state’s adjutant general, Thomas Mather, to Washington to discuss the troubling rumors with Winfield Scott. In the bargain, Lincoln hoped that Mather might also learn definitively whether the ancient, Southern-born general could himself be relied upon to remain loyal to the Union in the event the secession crisis widened to include his native state of Virginia. In the capital, the “old warrior, grizzly and wrinkled…breathing [with]…great labor,” wheezed in reply to Mather’s inquiries that Lincoln could confidently “come to Washington as soon as he is ready.” Scott promised to “plant cannon on both ends of Pennsylvania avenue, and if any of them [secessionists] show their faces or raise a finger I’ll blow them to hell.” Mather returned home to “assure Mr. Lincoln that, if Scott were alive on the day of the inauguration, there need be no alarm lest the performance be interrupted by any one.

Why can't we sit together? What's the point of seat reservations,anyway? The bored woman calls my section next,and I think terrible thoughts about her as she slides my ticket through her machine. At least I have a window seat. The middle and aisle are occupied with more businessmen. I'm reaching for my book again-it's going to be a long flight-when a polite English accent speaks to the man beside me. "Pardon me,but I wonder if you wouldn't mind switching seats.You see,that's my girlfriend there,and she's pregnant. And since she gets a bit ill on airplanes,I thought she might need someone to hold back her hair when...well..." St. Clair holds up the courtesy barf bag and shakes it around. The paper crinkles dramatically. The man sprints off the seat as my face flames. His pregnant girlfriend? "Thank you.I was in forty-five G." He slides into the vacated chair and waits for the man to disappear before speaking again. The guy onhis other side stares at us in horror,but St. Clair doesn't care. "They had me next to some horrible couple in matching Hawaiian shirts. There's no reason to suffer this flight alone when we can suffer it together." "That's flattering,thanks." But I laugh,and he looks pleased-until takeoff, when he claws the armrest and turns a color disturbingy similar to key lime pie. I distract him with a story about the time I broke my arm playing Peter Pan. It turned out there was more to flying than thinking happy thoughts and jumping out a window. St. Clair relaxes once we're above the clouds. Time passes quickly for an eight-hour flight. We don't talk about what waits on the other side of the ocean. Not his mother. Not Toph.Instead,we browse Skymall. We play the if-you-had-to-buy-one-thing-off-each-page game. He laughs when I choose the hot-dog toaster, and I tease him about the fogless shower mirror and the world's largest crossword puzzle. "At least they're practical," he says. "What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh,I'm sorry Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall." "At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding "unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?" "I could hide other stuff.Like...failed French tests.Or illegal moonshining equipment." He doubles over with that wonderful boyish laughter, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?" "Use it in the bathtub." He wipes a tear from his cheek. "Ooo,look! A Mount Rushmore garden statue. Just what you need,Anna.And only forty dollars! A bargain!" We get stumped on the page of golfing accessories, so we switch to drawing rude pictures of the other people on the plane,followed by rude pictures of Euro Disney Guy. St. Clair's eyes glint as he sketches the man falling down the Pantheon's spiral staircase. There's a lot of blood. And Mickey Mouse ears. After a few hours,he grows sleepy.His head sinks against my shoulder. I don't dare move.The sun is coming up,and the sky is pink and orange and makes me think of sherbet.I siff his hair. Not out of weirdness.It's just...there. He must have woken earlier than I thought,because it smells shower-fresh. Clean. Healthy.Mmm.I doze in and out of a peaceful dream,and the next thing I know,the captain's voice is crackling over the airplane.We're here. I'm home.

I wanted to go home, to Velaris, but I had to stay, to make sure things were set in motion, that you were all right. So I waited as long as I could, then I sent a tug through the bond. Then you came to find me. 'I almost told you then, but... You were so sad. And tired. And for once, you looked at me like... like I was worth something. So I promised myself that the next time I saw you, I'd free you of the bargain. Because I was selfish, and knew that if I let go right then, he'd lock you up and I'd never get to see you again. When I went to leave you... I think transforming you into Fae made the bond lock into place permanently. I'd known it existed, but it hit me then- hit me so strong that I panicked. I knew if I stayed a second longer, I'd damn the consequences and take you with me. And you'd hate me forever. 'I landed at the Night Court, right as Mor was waiting for me, and I was so frantic, so... unhinged, that I told her everything. I hadn't seen her in fifty years, and my first words to her were, "She's my mate." And for three months... for three months I tried to convince myself that you were better off without me. I tried to convince myself that everything I'd done had made you hate me. But I felt you through the bond, through your open mental shields. I felt your pain, and sadness, and loneliness. I felt you struggling to escape the darkness of Amarantha the same way I was. I heard you were going to marry him, and I told myself you were happy. I should you let you be happy, even if it killed me. Even if you were my mate, you'd earned that happiness. 'The day of your wedding, I'd planned to get rip-roaring drunk with Cassian, who had no idea why, but... But then I felt you again, I felt your panic, and despair, and heard you beg someone- anyone- to save you. I lost it. I winnowed to the wedding, and barely remembered who I was supposed to be, the part I was supposed to play. All I could see was you, in your stupid wedding dress- so thin. So, so thin, and pale. And I wanted to kill him for it, but I had to get you out. Had to call in that bargain, just once, to get you away, to see if you were all right.' Rhys looked at me, eyes desolate. 'It killed me, Feyre, to send you back. To see you waste away, month by month. It killed me to know he was sharing your bed. Not just because you were my mate, but because I...' He glanced down, then up at me again. 'I knew... I knew I was in love with you that moment I picked up the knife to kill Amarantha.' 'When you finally came here... I decided I wouldn't tell you. Any of it. I wouldn't let you out of the bargain, because your hatred was better than facing the two alternatives: that you felt nothing for me, or that you... you might feel something similar, and if I let myself love you, you would be taken from me. The way my family was- the way my friends were. So I didn't tell you. I watched as you faded away. Until that day... that day he locked you up. 'I would have killed him if he'd been there. But I broke some very, very fundamental rules in taking you away. Amren said if I got you to admit that we were mates, it would keep any trouble from our door, but... I couldn't force the bond on you. I couldn't try to seduce you into accepting the bond, either. Even if it gave Tamlin license to wage war on me. You had been through so much already. I didn't want you to think that everything I did was to win you, just to keep my lands safe. But I couldn't... I couldn't stop being around you, and loving you, and wanting you. I still can't stay away.' He leaned back, loosing a long breath.

Break the bond. The bargain, the- the mating bond. He- he made me do it, made me swear it-' 'No,' Rhysand said. I ignored him, even as my heart broke, even as I knew that he hadn't meant to say it- 'Do it,' I begged the king, even as I silently prayed he wouldn't notice his ruined wards, the door I'd left wide open. 'I know you can. Just- free me. Free me from it.' 'No,' Rhysand said. But Tamlin was staring between us. And I looked at thim, the High Lord I had once loved, and I breathed. 'No more. No more death- no more killing.' I sobbed through my clenched teeth. Made myself look at my sisters. 'No more. Take me home and let them go. Tell him it's part of the bargain and let them go. But no more- please.' Cassian slowly, every movement pained, stirred enough to look over a shredded wing at me. And in his pain-glazed eyes, I saw it- the understanding. The Court of Dreams. I had belonged to a court of dreams. And dreamers. And for their dreams... for what they had worked for, sacrificed for... I could do it. Get my sisters out, I said to Rhys one last time, sending it into that stone wall between us. I looked to Tamlin. 'No more.' Those green eyes met mine- and the sorrow and tenderness in them was the most hideous thing I'd ever seen. 'Take me home.' Tamlin said flatly to the king, 'Let them go, break her bond, and let's be done with it. Her sisters come with us. You've already crossed too many lines.' Jurian began objecting, but the king said, 'Very well.' 'No,' was all Rhys said again. Tamlin snarled at him, 'I don't give a shit if she's your mate. I don't give a shit if you think you're entitled to her. She is mine- and one day, I am going to repay every bit of pain she felt, every bit of suffering and despair. One day, perhaps when she decides she wants to end you, I'll be happy to oblige her.' Walk away- just go. Take my sisters with you. Rhys was only staring at me. 'Don't.' But I backed away- until I hit Tamlin's chest, until his hands, warm and heavy, landed on my shoulders. 'Do it,' he said to the king. 'No,' Rhys said again, his voice breaking. But the king pointed at me. And I screamed. Tamlin gripped my arms as I screamed and screamed at the pain that tore through my chest, my left arm. Rhysand was on the ground, roaring, and I thought he might have said my name, might have bellowed it as I thrashed and sobbed. I was being shredded, I was dying, I was dying- No. No, I didn't want it, I didn't want to- A crack sounded in my ears. And the world cleaved in two as the bond snapped.

On Sunday, November 10, Kaiser Wilhelm II was dethroned, and he fled to Holland for his life. Britain’s King George V, who was his cousin, told his diary that Wilhelm was “the greatest criminal known for having plunged the world into this ghastly war,” having “utterly ruined his country and himself.” Keeping vigil at the White House, the President and First Lady learned by telephone, at three o’clock that morning, that the Germans had signed an armistice. As Edith later recalled, “We stood mute—unable to grasp the significance of the words.” From Paris, Colonel House, who had bargained for the armistice as Wilson’s envoy, wired the President, “Autocracy is dead. Long live democracy and its immortal leader. In this great hour my heart goes out to you in pride, admiration and love.” At 1:00 p.m., wearing a cutaway and gray trousers, Wilson faced a Joint Session of Congress, where he read out Germany’s surrender terms. He told the members that “this tragical war, whose consuming flames swept from one nation to another until all the world was on fire, is at an end,” and “it was the privilege of our own people to enter it at its most critical juncture.” He added that the war’s object, “upon which all free men had set their hearts,” had been achieved “with a sweeping completeness which even now we do not realize,” and Germany’s “illicit ambitions engulfed in black disaster.” This time, Senator La Follette clapped. Theodore Roosevelt and Senator Lodge complained that Wilson should have held out for unconditional German surrender. Driven down Capitol Hill, Wilson was cheered by joyous crowds on the streets. Eleanor Roosevelt recorded that Washington “went completely mad” as “bells rang, whistles blew, and people went up and down the streets throwing confetti.” Including those who had perished in theaters of conflict from influenza and other diseases, the nation’s nineteen-month intervention in the world war had levied a military death toll of more than 116,000 Americans, out of a total perhaps exceeding 8 million. There were rumors that Wilson planned to sail for France and horse-trade at the peace conference himself. No previous President had left the Americas during his term of office. The Boston Herald called this tradition “unwritten law.” Senator Key Pittman, Democrat from Nevada, told reporters that Wilson should go to Paris “because there is no man who is qualified to represent him.” The Knickerbocker Press of Albany, New York, was disturbed by the “evident desire of the President’s adulators to make this war his personal property.” The Free Press of Burlington, Vermont, said that Wilson’s presence in Paris would “not be seemly,” especially if the talks degenerated into “bitter controversies.” The Chattanooga Times called on Wilson to stay home, “where he could keep his own hand on the pulse of his own people” and “translate their wishes” into action by wireless and cable to his bargainers in Paris.

The kid in the newspaper was named Stevie, and he was eight. I was thirty-nine and lived by myself in a house that I owned. For a short time our local newspaper featured an orphan every week. Later they would transition to adoptable pets, but for a while it was orphans, children your could foster and possibly adopt of everything worked out, the profiles were short, maybe two or three hundred words. This was what I knew: Stevie liked going to school. He made friends easily. He promised he would make his bed every morning. He hoped that if he were very good we could have his own dog, and if he were very, very good, his younger brother could be adopted with him. Stevie was Black. I knew nothing else. The picture of him was a little bigger than a postage stamp. He smiled. I studied his face at my breakfast table until something in me snapped. I paced around my house, carrying the folded newspaper. I had two bedrooms. I had a dog. I had so much more than plenty. In return he would make his bed, try his best in school. That was all he had to bargain with: himself. By the time Karl came for dinner after work I was nearly out of my mind. “I want to adopt him,” I said. Karl read the profile. He looked at the picture. “You want to be his mother?” “It’s not about being his mother. I mean, sure, if I’m his mother that’s fine, but it’s like seeing a kid waving from the window of a burning house, saying he’ll make his bed if someone will come and get him out. I can’t leave him there.” “We can do this,” Karl said. We can do this. I started to calm myself because Karl was calm. He was good at making things happen. I didn’t have to want children in order to want Stevie. In the morning I called the number in the newspaper. They took down my name and address. They told me they would send the preliminary paperwork. After the paperwork was reviewed, there would be a series of interviews and home visits. “When do I meet Stevie?” I asked. “Stevie?” “The boy in the newspaper.” I had already told her the reason I was calling. “Oh, it’s not like that,” the woman said. “It’s a very long process. We put you together with the child who will be your best match.” “So where’s Stevie?” She said she wasn’t sure. She thought that maybe someone had adopted him. It was a bait and switch, a well-written story: the bed, the dog, the brother. They knew how to bang on the floor to bring people like me out of the woodwork, people who said they would never come. I wrapped up the conversation. I didn’t want a child, I wanted Stevie. It all came down to a single flooding moment of clarity: he wouldn’t live with me, but I could now imagine that he was in a solid house with people who loved him. I put him in the safest chamber of my heart, he and his twin brother in twin beds, the dog asleep in Stevie’s arms. And there they stayed, going with me everywhere until I finally wrote a novel about them called Run. Not because I thought it would find them, but because they had become too much for me to carry. I had to write about them so that I could put them down.

He tried to answer the question of why the Italians have produced the greatest artistic, political and scientific minds of the ages, but have still never become a major world power. Why are they the planet’s masters of verbal diplomacy, but still so inept at home government? Why are they so individually valiant, yet so collectively unsuccessful as an army? How can they be such shrewd merchants on the personal level, yet such inefficient capitalists as a nation? His answers to these questions are more complex than I can fairly encapsulate here, but have much to do with a sad Italian history of corruption by local leaders and exploitation by foreign dominators, all of which has generally led Italians to draw the seemingly accurate conclusion that nobody and nothing in this world can be trusted. Because the world is so corrupted, misspoken, unstable, exaggerated and unfair, one should trust only what one can experience with one’s own senses, and this makes the senses stronger in Italy than anywhere in Europe. This is why, Barzini says, Italians will tolerate hideously incompetent generals, presidents, tyrants, professors, bureaucrats, journalists and captains of industry, but will never tolerate incompetent “opera singers, conductors, ballerinas, courtesans, actors, film directors, cooks, tailors…” In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.

I quickly learned that the congressional delegation from Alaska was deeply committed to the oil industry and other commercial interests, and senatorial courtesy prevented other members from disputing with Senators Ted Stevens (Republican) and Mike Gravel (Democrat) over a matter involving their home state. Former Idaho governor Cecil Andrus, my secretary of interior, and I began to study the history of the controversy and maps of the disputed areas, and I flew over some of them a few times. Environmental groups and most indigenous natives were my allies, but professional hunters, loggers, fishers, and the Chambers of Commerce were aligned with the oil companies. All the odds were against us until Cecil discovered an ancient law, the Antiquities Act of 1906, which permitted a president to set aside an area for “the protection of objects of historic and scientific interest,” such as Indian burial grounds, artifacts, or perhaps an ancient church building or the site of a famous battle. We decided to use this authority to set aside for preservation large areas of Alaska as national monuments, and eventually we had included more than 56 million acres (larger than the state of Minnesota). This gave me the bargaining chip I needed, and I was able to prevail in the subsequent debates. My efforts were extremely unpopular in Alaska, and I had to have extra security on my visits. I remember that there was a state fair where people threw baseballs at two targets to plunge a clown into a tank of water. My face was on one target and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini’s on the other, and few people threw at the Ayatollah’s.

GCHQ has traveled a long and winding road. That road stretches from the wooden huts of Bletchley Park, past the domes and dishes of the Cold War, and on towards what some suggest will be the omniscient state of the Brave New World. As we look to the future, the docile and passive state described by Aldous Huxley in his Brave New World is perhaps more appropriate analogy than the strictly totalitarian predictions offered by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Bizarrely, many British citizens are quite content in this new climate of hyper-surveillance, since its their own lifestyle choices that helped to create 'wired world' - or even wish for it, for as we have seen, the new torrents of data have been been a source of endless trouble for the overstretched secret agencies. As Ken Macdonald rightly points out, the real drives of our wired world have been private companies looking for growth, and private individuals in search of luxury and convenience at the click of a mouse. The sigint agencies have merely been handed the impossible task of making an interconnected society perfectly secure and risk-free, against the background of a globalized world that presents many unprecedented threats, and now has a few boundaries or borders to protect us. Who, then, is to blame for the rapid intensification of electronic surveillance? Instinctively, many might reply Osama bin Laden, or perhaps Pablo Escobar. Others might respond that governments have used these villains as a convenient excuse to extend state control. At first glance, the massive growth of security, which includes includes not only eavesdropping but also biometric monitoring, face recognition, universal fingerprinting and the gathering of DNA, looks like a sad response to new kinds of miscreants. However, the sad reality is that the Brave New World that looms ahead of us is ultimately a reflection of ourselves. It is driven by technologies such as text messaging and customer loyalty cards that are free to accept or reject as we choose. The public debate on surveillance is often cast in terms of a trade-off between security and privacy. The truth is that luxury and convenience have been pre-eminent themes in the last decade, and we have given them a much higher priority than either security or privacy. We have all been embraced the world of surveillance with remarkable eagerness, surfing the Internet in a global search for a better bargain, better friends, even a better partner. GCHQ vast new circular headquarters is sometimes represented as a 'ring of power', exercising unparalleled levels of surveillance over citizens at home and abroad, collecting every email, every telephone and every instance of internet acces. It has even been asserted that GCHQ is engaged in nothing short of 'algorithmic warfare' as part of a battle for control of global communications. By contrast, the occupants of 'Celtenham's Doughnut' claim that in reality they are increasingly weak, having been left behind by the unstoppable electronic communications that they cannot hope to listen to, still less analyse or make sense of. In fact, the frightening truth is that no one is in control. No person, no intelligence agency and no government is steering the accelerating electronic processes that may eventually enslave us. Most of the devices that cause us to leave a continual digital trail of everything we think or do were not devised by the state, but are merely symptoms of modernity. GCHQ is simply a vast mirror, and it reflects the spirit of the age.

Where is she?' Amren snapped one more time. I couldn't bring myself to say the words. So Mor said them for me as she knelt over Azriel, both of my brothers mercifully unconscious. 'Tamlin offered passage through his lands and our heads on platters to the kings in exchange for trapping Feyre, breaking her bond, and getting to bring her back to the Spring Court. But Ianthe betrayed Tamlin- told the king where to find Feyre's sisters. So the king had Feyre's sisters brought with the queens- to prove he could make immortal. He put them in to the Cauldron. We could do nothing as they were turned. He had us by the balls.' Those quicksilver eyes shot to me. 'Rhysand.' I managed to say, 'We Were out of options, and Feyre knew it. So she pretended to free herself from the control Tamlin thought I'd kept on her mind. Pretended that she... hated us. And told him she'd go home- but only if the killing stopped. If we went free.' 'And the bond,' Amren breathed, Cassian's blood shining on her hands as she slowed its dribbling. Mor said, 'She asked the king to breath the bond. He obliged.' I thought I might be dying- thought my chest might actually be cleaved in two. 'That's impossible,' Amren said. 'That sort of bond cannot be broken.' 'The king said he could do it.' 'The king is a fool,' Amren barked. 'That sort of bond cannot be broken.' 'No, it can't,' I said. They both looked at me. I cleared my head, my shattering heart- breaking for what my mate had done, sacrificed for me and my family. For her sisters. Because she hadn't thought... hadn't thought she was essential. Even after all she had done. 'The king broke the bargain between us. Hard to do, but he couldn't tell that it wasn't the mating bond.' More started. 'Does- does Feyre know-' 'Yes,' I breathed. 'And now my mate is in my enemy's hands.

Softly, he said, “Why are you crying?” His words made the tears flow faster. “Kestrel.” She drew a shaky breath. “Because when my father comes home, I will tell him that he has won. I will join the military.” There was a silence. “I don’t understand.” Kestrel shrugged. She shouldn’t care whether he understood or not. “You would give up your music?” Yes. She would. “But your bargain with the general was for spring.” Arin still sounded confused. “You have until spring to marry or enlist. Ronan…Ronan would ask the god of souls for you. He would ask you to marry him.” “He has.” Arin didn’t speak. “But I can’t,” she said. “Kestrel.” “I can’t.” “Kestrel, please don’t cry.” Tentative fingers touched her face. A thumb ran along the wet skin of her cheekbone. She suffered for it, suffered for the misery of knowing that whatever possessed him to do this could be no more than compassion. He valued her that much. But not enough. “Why can’t you marry him?” he whispered. She broke her word to herself and looked at him. “Because of you.” Arin’s hand flinched against her cheek. His dark head bowed, became lost in its own shadow. Then he slipped from his seat and knelt before hers. His hands fell to the fists on her lap and gently opened them. He held them as if cupping water. He took a breath to speak. She would have stopped him. She would have wished herself deaf, blind, made of unfeeling smoke. She would have stopped his words out of terror, longing. The way terror and longing had become indistinguishable. Yet his hands held hers, and she could do nothing. He said, “I want the same thing you want.” Kestrel pulled back. It wasn’t possible his words could mean what they seemed. “It hasn’t been easy for me to want it.” Arin lifted his face so that she could see his expression. A rich emotion played across his features, offered itself, and asked to be called by its name. Hope.

The Addams dwelling at 25 West Fifty-fourth Street was directly behind the Museum of Modern Art, at the top of the building. It was reached by an ancient elevator, which rumbled up to the twelfth floor. From there, one climbed through a red-painted stairwell where a real mounted crossbow hovered. The Addams door was marked by a "big black number 13," and a knocker in the shape of a vampire. ...Inside, one entered a little kingdom that fulfilled every fantasy one might have entertained about its inhabitant. On a pedestal in the corner of the bookcase stood a rare "Maximilian" suit of armor, which Addams had bought at a good price ("a bargain at $700")... It was joined by a half-suit, a North Italian Morion of "Spanish" form, circa 1570-80, and a collection of warrior helmets, perched on long stalks like decapitated heads... There were enough arms and armaments to defend the Addams fortress against the most persistent invader: wheel-lock guns; an Italian prod; two maces; three swords. Above a sofa bed, a spectacular array of medieval crossbows rose like birds in flight. "Don't worry, they've only fallen down once," Addams once told an overnight guest. ... Everywhere one looked in the apartment, something caught the eye. A rare papier-mache and polychrome anatomical study figure, nineteenth century, with removable organs and body parts captioned in French, protected by a glass bell. ("It's not exactly another human heart beating in the house, but it's close enough." said Addams.) A set of engraved aquatint plates from an antique book on armor. A lamp in the shape of a miniature suit of armor, topped by a black shade. There were various snakes; biopsy scissors ("It reaches inside, and nips a little piece of flesh," explained Addams); and a shiny human thighbone - a Christmas present from one wife. There was a sewing basket fashioned from an armadillo, a gift from another. In front of the couch stood a most unusual coffee table - "a drying out table," the man at the wonderfully named antiques shop, the Gettysburg Sutler, had called it. ("What was dried on it?" a reporter had asked. "Bodies," said Addams.)...

The boy's smile was a mockery of innocence. 'Are you frightened?' 'Yes,' I said. Never lie- that had been Rhys's first command. The boy stood, but kept to the other side of the cell. 'Feyre,' he murmured, cocking his head. The orb of faelight glazed the inky hair in silver. 'Fay-ruh,' he said again, drawing out the syllables as if he could taste them. At last, he straightened his head. ''Where did you go when you died?' 'A question for a question,' I replied, as I'd been instructed over breakfast. ... Rhys gave me a subtle nod, but his eyes were wary. Because what the boy had asked... I had to calm my breathing to think- to remember. But there was blood and death and pain and screaming- and she was breaking me, killing me so slowly, and Rhys was there, roaring in fury as I died. Tamlin begging for my life on his knees before her throne... But there was so much agony, and I wanted it to be over, wanted it all to stop- Rhys had gone rigid while he monitored the Bone Carver, as if those memories were freely flowing past the mental shields I'd made sure were intact this morning. And I wondered if he thought I'd give up then and there. I bunched my hands into fists. I had lived; I had gotten out. I would get out today. 'I heard the crack,' I said. Rhys's head whipped toward me. 'I heard the crack when she broke my neck. It was in my ears, but also inside my skull. I was gone before I felt anything more than the first lash of pain.' The Bone Carver's violet eyes seemed to glow brighter. 'And then it was dark. A different sort of dark than this place. But there was a... thread,' I said. 'A tether. And I yanked on it- and suddenly I could see. Not through my eyes, but- but his,' I said, inclining my head toward Rhys. I uncurled the finger of my tattooed hand. 'And I knew I was dead, and this tiny scrap was all that was left of me, clinging to the thread of our bargain.' 'But was there anyone there- were you seeing anything beyond?' 'There was only that bond in the darkness.' Rhysand's face had gone pale, his mouth a tight line. 'And when I was Made anew,' I said, 'I followed that bond back- to me. I knew that home was on the other end of it. There was light then. Like swimming up through sparkling wine-' 'Were you afraid?' 'All I wanted was to return to- to the people around me. I wanted it badly enough I didn't have room for fear. The worst had happened and the darkness was calm and quiet. It did not seem like a bad thing to fade into. But I wanted to go home. So I followed the bond home.' 'There was no other world,' the Bone Carver pushed. 'If there was or is, I did not see it.' 'No light, no portal?' Where is it that you want to go? The question almost leaped off my tongue. 'It was only peace and darkness.' 'Did you have a body?' 'No.' 'Did-' 'That's enough from you,' Rhysand purred- the sound like velvet over sharpest steel. 'You said a question for a question. Now you've asked...' He did a tally on his fingers. 'Six.' The Bone Carver leaned back against the wall and slid to a sitting position. 'It is a rare day when I meet someone who comes back from true death. Forgive me for wanting to peer behind the curtain.

Today I had a lively discussion with a merchant in Fez with a view to finding out what the Moors think of European civilization.... He was a fine man, about forty years old, with an honest and serious face, who had made business visits to the most important cities in Western Europe and had lived for a long time in Tangier, where he learnt Spanish.... I asked him therefore what kind of impression the large cities of Europe had made on him.... He looked hard at me and answered coldly: “Large streets, fine shops, beautiful palaces, good workshops, everything clean.” He gave the impression that with these words, he had mentioned everything in our countries that was worthy of praise. “Have you not found anything else in Europe that is beautiful and good?” I asked. He looked at me questioningly. “Is it possible,” I went on, “that an intelligent man like you, who has visited several countries so marvelously superior to your own can speak about them without astonishment, or at least without the emotion of a country boy who has seen the pasha’s palace? What can you possibly admire in the world? What sort of people are you? Who can possibly understand you?” “Perdone Usted”, he answered coldly, “it is for me to say that I cannot understand you. I have told you all the things which I consider to be better in Europe. What more can I say? Have I to say something that I do not believe to be true? I repeat that your streets are larger than ours, your shops finer, that you have workshops such as we do not have, and also rich palaces. That is all. I can only add one more thing: that you know more than we do, because you have many books, and read more.” I became impatient. “Do not lose patience, Caballero,” he said, “let us speak together calmly. Is not a man’s first duty honesty? Is it not honesty more than anything else that makes a man worthy of respect, and one country superior to another? Very well, then. As far as honesty is concerned, your countries are certainly not better than ours. That much I can say right away.” “Gently, gently!” I said, “Tell me first what you mean by honesty!” “Honesty in business, Caballero. The Moors, for example, sometimes cheat the Europeans in trade, but you Europeans cheat the Moors much more often.” “There must be a few cases,” I replied, in order to say something. “Casos raros?” he exclaimed angrily. “It happens every day! Proof: I go to Marseilles. I buy cotton. I choose a particular thread, give the exact reference number and brand-name, as well as the amount required. I ask for it to be sent, I pay, and I return home. Back in Morocco, I receive the cotton. I open the consignment, and take a look. I find the same number, the same brand-name, and a thread that is of one third the thickness! This is anything but good, and I lose thousands of francs! I rush to the consulate, but in vain. Another case: A merchant from Fez places an order in Europe for blue cloth, so many pieces, of such and such a length and breadth. He pays for it when the bargain is made. In due course he receives the cloth, opens the package, and checks the measurements. The first pieces are all right, those underneath are shorter, and those lowest down are half a meter too short! The cloth cannot be used for cloaks, and the merchant is ruined. . . . And so on and so on!

His eyes flickered with amusement, reflecting sunlight and shade. The rough beard on his chin gave him a wild, dangerous look. Stiffly, she lifted herself onto her toes, bracing a hand against his shoulders. He was steel beneath her grasp. Did he have to watch her so intently? She closed her eyes. It was the only way she would have the courage to do this. Still he waited. It would be a brief meeting of lips. Nothing to be afraid of. If only her heart would remember to keep beating. Holding her breath, she let her lips brush over his. It was the first time she’d ever kissed a man and her mind raced with it. She hardly had a sense of his mouth at all, though the shock of the single touch rushed like liquid fire to her toes. Her part of the bargain was fulfilled. It could be done and over right then. Recklessly, after a moment’s hesitation, she touched her lips once again to him. This time she lingered, exploring the feel of him little by little. His mouth was warm and smooth and wonderful, all of it new and unexpected. He still hadn’t moved, even though her knees threatened to crumble and her heart beat like a thunder drum. Finally he responded with the barest hint of pressure. The warmth of his breath mingled with hers. Without thinking, she let her fingers dig into the sleek muscle of his arms. A low, husky sound rumbled in his throat before he wrapped his arms around her. Heaven and earth. She hadn’t been kissing him at all. The thin ribbon of resistance uncoiled within her as he took control of the kiss. His stubble scraped against her mouth, raking a raw path of sensation through her. She could do nothing but melt against him, clutching the front of his tunic to stay on her feet. A delicious heat radiated from him. His hands sank low against the small of her back to draw her close as he teased her mouth open. His breath mingled with hers for one anguished second before his tongue slipped past her lips to taste her in a slow, indulgent caress. A sigh of surrender escaped from her lips, a sound she hadn’t imagined she was capable of uttering. His hands slipped from her abruptly and she opened her eyes to see his gaze fixed on her. ‘Well,’ he breathed, ‘you do honour your bets.’ Though he no longer touched her, it was as if the kiss hadn’t ended. He was still so close, filling every sense and thought. She stumbled as she tried to step away and he caught her, a knowing smile playing over his mouth. Her balance was impeccable. She never lost her footing like that, just standing there. His grip tightened briefly before he let her go. Even that tiny, innocent touch filled her with renewed longing. In a daze, she bent to pick up her fallen swords. Her pulse throbbed as if she had run a li without stopping. In her head she was still running, flying fast. ‘Now that our bargain is settled…’ she began hoarsely ‘…we should be going.’ To her horror her hands would not stop shaking. Brushing past him, she gathered up her knapsack and slung it over her shoulder. ‘You said the next town was hours from here?’ He collected his sword while a slow grin spread over his face. She couldn’t look at him without conjuring the feel and the taste of him. Head down, she ploughed through the tall grass. ‘A good match,’ she attempted. He caught up to her easily with his long stride. ‘Yes, quite good,’ he replied, the tone rife with meaning. Her cheeks burned hot as she forced her gaze on the road ahead. She could barely tell day from night, couldn’t give her own name if asked. She had to get home and denounce Li Tao. Warn her father. She had thought of nothing else since her escape, until this blue-eyed barbarian had appeared. It was fortunate they were parting when they reached town. When he wasn’t looking she pressed her fingers over her lips, which were still swollen from that first kiss. She was outmatched, much more outmatched than when they had crossed swords.

The real point here, however, is not that innocent people are locked up. That has been true since penitentiaries first opened in America. The critical point is that thousands of people are swept into the criminal justice system each year pursuant to the drug war without much regard for their guilt or innocence. The police are allowed by the courts to conduct fishing expeditions for drugs on streets and freeways based on nothing more than a hunch. Homes may be searched for drugs based on a tip from an unreliable, confidential informant who is trading the information for money or to escape prison time. And once swept inside the system, people are often denied attorneys or meaningful representation and pressured into plea bargains by the threat of unbelievably harsh sentences - sentences for minor drug crimes that are higher than many countries impose on convicted murderers. This is the way the roundup works, and it works this way in virtually every major city in America.

Right now nobody really knows where to go from here. Everyone is stuck in the tunnel vision called democracy. The only 'solution' that people can think of is ‘more democracy’, i.e. more government intervention. Are young people drinking too much alcohol? Raise the drinking age! Are the chronically ill neglected in nursing homes? Send in more government inspectors! Is there a lack of innovation? Install a government Innovation Board! Do children learn too little at school? Mandate more tests! Is crime on the increase? Set up a new government department! Regulate, forbid, force, discourage, check, inspect, pamper, reform and, above all, throw money at the problem. And what if it all won’t work? Eventually the call for a Great Leader will be heard, a strong man to put an end to all the cackling and will deliver Law and Order. There is a certain logic to this. If everything needs to be regulated by the State, then why not have it done properly by a benevolent dictator? Away with the endless dithering, the indecisiveness, the quarreling, the inefficiency. But this would be a devil’s bargain. We would get law and order, that’s true. But the price would be an end to freedom, dynamism and growth.

When I was a little older, about twelve, I went to work at a nearby house. It was owned by old Mrs. Cromby and oh, I was so homesick! I cried myself to sleep for a fortnight it seemed, until it was my day off and I could go home to see Mam." He frowned at this, not liking to think of his infant housekeeper in tears. "Why did they send you then if you were so upset?" She gave him a look. "Because I needed to learn a trade, naturally. And it was a good position. Mrs. Cromby was very strict but I learned so much from her and her housekeeper, Mrs. Little. How to keep records and how to make wood polish and brass polish and silver polish. When to turn linen and how to store cheese. What cuts of beef are the cheapest and how to bargain down the butcher. How to judge when a fish is fresh and when to buy shellfish and when not to. How to keep moths from woolen and mice from the pantry. How to get wine stains out of white linen and how to dye faded cloth black again. All that and so much more." She drew breath and he looked at her, deeply appalled. "That all sounds frightfully boring." "And yet without that knowledge you'd live in dirty, messy, vermin-infested chaos," she said sweetly. "Mm.

Amid this social intercourse, however, he avoided sedulously a meeting with Mrs. Annice; he had decided not to see her for a while. Indeed, it was not till an evening late in February, after dinner, that he took a cab to her house near Washington Square. He found her at home, and had not waited a minute before she came into the room. She was a tall woman, and wonderfully handsome by gaslight; but she had that tiresome habit, which many women have, of talking intensely--in italics, as it were: a habit found generally in women ill brought up-women without control of their feelings, or command of the expression of them. ("The Bargain of Rupert Orange")

The little boy touched his dust-streaked hand to Loretta’s hair and made a breathless “ooh” sound. He smelled like any little boy who had been hard at play, a bit sweaty yet somehow sweet, with the definite odor of dog and horse clinging to him. Blackbird concentrated on Loretta’s blue eyes, staring into them with unflinching intensity. The younger girl ran reverent fingertips over the flounces on Loretta’s bloomers, saying, “Tosi wannup,” over and over again. Loretta couldn’t help but smile. She was as strange to them as they were to her. She longed to gather them close and never let go. Friendly faces and human warmth. Their giggles made her long for home. With a throat that responded none too well to the messages from her brain, Loretta murmured, “Hello.” The sound of her own voice seemed unreal--an echo from the past. “Hi, hites.” Blackbird linked her chubby forefingers in an unmistakable sign of friendship. “Hah-ich-ka sooe ein conic?” Loretta had no idea what the child had asked until Blackbird steepled her fingers. “Oh--my house?” Loretta cupped a hand over her brow as if she were squinting into the distance. “Very far away.” Blackbird’s eyes sparkled with delight, and she burst into a long chain of gibberish, chortling and waving her hands. Loretta watched her, fascinated by the glow of happiness in her eyes, the innocence in her small face. She had always imagined Comanches, young and old, with blood dripping from their fingers. A deep voice came from behind her. “She asks how long you will eat and keep warm with us.” Startled, Loretta glanced over her shoulder to find Hunter reclining on a pallet of furs. Because he lay so low to the floor, she hadn’t seen him the first time she’d looked. Propping himself up on one elbow, he listened to his niece chatter for a moment. His eyes caught the light coming through the lodge door, glistening, fathomless. “You will tell her, ‘Pihet tabbe.’” Trust didn’t come easily to Loretta. “What does that mean?” A smile teased the corners of his mouth. “Pihet, three. Tabbe, the sun. Three suns. It was our bargain.” Relieved that she hadn’t dreamed his promise to take her home, Loretta repeated “pihet tabbe” to Blackbird. The little girl looked crestfallen and took Loretta’s hand. “Ka,” she cried. “Ein mea mon-ach.” “Ka, no. You are going a long way,” Hunter translated, pushing to his feet as he spoke. “I think she likes you.” He came to the bed and, with an indulgent smile, shooed the children away as Aunt Rachel shooed chickens. “Poke Wy-ar-pee-cha, Pony Girl,” he said as he scooped the unintimidated toddler off the furs and set her on the floor. His hand lingered a moment on her hair, a loving gesture that struck Loretta as totally out of character for a Comanche warrior. The fragile child, his rugged strength. The two formed a fascinating contrast. “She is from my sister who is dead.” Nodding toward the boy, he added, “Wakare-ee, Turtle, from Warrior.” Loretta didn’t want the children to leave her alone with their uncle. She gazed after them as they ran out the lodge door.

By the fifth night his perseverance was rewarded with a smile from Amy after Swift Antelope escorted her home from their daily walk. With flushed cheeks, Amy regaled Loretta with the details of her time spent with Swift Antelope, about the doe and twin fawns they had spied upon, about the flowers Swift Antelope had picked for her, about the birdcalls and sign language he was teaching her, about the silly tricks he played on her. Clearly Swift Antelope was making headway with Amy; the girl was beginning to heal. Hunter’s already low spirits plummeted. It was a sad state of affairs when an untried boy had more luck with women than a grown man. It was especially upsetting because Hunter knew he had paid dearly, not once but twice, for the right to possess Loretta, that he could exercise his rights at any time he chose, yet found himself hesitating because of the shadows in her eyes. Recalling his father’s advice, he could only scoff. The way things were going, if he was to become his woman’s friend before he became her lover, they might never move on to the second stage of their relationship. The more disgruntled Hunter became over the situation, the more he glowered, and the more he glowered, the more uneasy Loretta was in his presence. The worst part was, Hunter couldn’t blame her. Their bargain hung over them like a dark cloud, her promises binding her to him yet holding them apart. He knew she dreaded the moment when he would confront her, demanding that she lie with him. With each passing day, the prospect seemed to grow more frightening to her. Hunter was perceptive enough to realize that waiting patiently for her to come around wasn’t abetting him in his cause, yet he couldn’t bring himself to force her, either.

Pharaoh and the Persian Bazaar The truth is, why Moses needed to ask for just a three-day work holiday is really part of a larger question: Why did Moses need to ask Pharaoh for anything at all? Over the course of the Exodus, Moses bargains with Pharaoh repeatedly, seeking his consent to let the slaves go. Moses exhibits extraordinary patience as the Egyptian king gives in partially, retracts his consent, and then gives in just a little more next time. For example: a plague occurs in which wild animals are unleashed into Egyptian homes and marketplaces. Pharaoh tells Moses that he will allow the Hebrews to worship for three days, but could they please do it right here, in the Land of Egypt, rather than out there in the desert? (Exodus 8:21) Moses refuses, on grounds that the Egyptians wouldn’t react kindly to Israel slaughtering these animals, since the Egyptians hold them sacred (Exodus 8:22). Pharaoh concedes the point and says that Israel can leave the country for three days—but then he adds, almost hopelessly: Just make sure you don’t go too far away! (Exodus 8:24) It all seems faintly ridiculous, the squabbling back and forth. One wonders: Isn’t all this a little beneath Moses’s dignity? Isn’t it beneath God’s? God doesn’t need to bargain with Pharaoh. God doesn’t even need Pharaoh to say yes at all! The Master of the Universe is perfectly capable of delivering His people to the Promised Land, whether Pharaoh agrees to the plan or not. So why go through all of this?

I made a home in the woods. I thatched a roof and built the walls. And it was there, in a room of stick and stone, that the bargain was struck, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. —MIRIAM MOORE

Winnie and Big Leo Chao were serving scallion pancakes decades before you could find them outside of a home kitchen. Leo, thirty-five years ago, winning his first poker game against the owners of a local poultry farm, exchanged his chips for birds that Winnie transformed into the shining, chestnut-colored duck dishes of far-off cities. Dear Winnie, rolling out her bing the homemade way, two pats of dough together with a seal of oil in between, letting them rise to a steaming bubble in the piping pan. Leo, bargaining for hard-to-get ingredients; Winnie subbing wax beans for yard-long beans, plus home-growing the garlic greens, chives, and hot peppers you used to never find in Haven. Their garden giving off a glorious smell.

A blonde went to an appliance store sale and found a bargain. “I would like to buy this TV,” she told the salesman. “Sorry, we don’t sell to blondes,” he replied. She hurried home and dyed her hair, then came back and again told the salesman, “I would like to buy this TV.” “Sorry, we don’t sell to blondes,” he replied. “Darn, he recognized me,” she thought. She went for a complete disguise this time: a brown curly wig, big baggy clothes, and big sunglasses. Then she waited a few days before she approached the salesman again and said, “I would like to buy this TV.” “Sorry, we don’t sell to blondes,” he replied. Frustrated, she exclaimed, “How do you know I’m a blonde?” “Because that’s a microwave,” he replied.

Here's to thee, old apple-tree, To buds in the spring and roots in the loam, To the Fae who brings the apples home. ---Wassail song

Suddenly, Charlene leaned toward me and put her thin hand under my chin. She turned my face to the French doors that looked out on our elegant patio, our green garden, our lofty, sunstruck trees: our family’s gorgeous little universe built on compromise, of course; ill-gotten gains, I suppose; bargains with the Devil, no doubt. But also luck, grace. Whatever it took to get us, to keep us, safely home.

Mala’s bloodline shall bleed again to forge the Lock anew. And you will lead them, a lamb to slaughter, to pay the price of this choice you made to waste its power here, for this petty battle. You will show this future scion how to forge a new Lock with Mala’s gifts, how to then use it to wield the keys and send us home. Our original bargain still holds: we will take the Dark King with us. Tear him apart in our own world, where he will be but dust and memory. When we are gone—you will show this scion how to seal the gate behind us, the Lock holding it intact eternally. By yielding every last drop of their life force. As your father was prepared to do when the time was right.

To bring home the centrality of consciousness to life, consider a devil’s bargain in which you gain unlimited wealth at the expense of your conscious experiences. You get all the money you want but must relinquish all subjective feeling, turning into a zombie. From the outside, everything appears normal—you speak, act, dispose of your vast riches, engage in a vigorous social life, and so on. Yet your inner life is gone; no more seeing, hearing, smelling, loving, hating, suffering, remembering, thinking, planning, imagining, dreaming, regretting, wanting, hoping, dreading. From your point of view, you might as well be dead, for it would feel the same—like nothing.

Us fae-touched had been blessed by one of the fae at some point in our lives. Some had let a pedlar into their homes and treated them well, only to find no sign of them come morning. Years later, when their young child grew up and their magic awoke, they realised the pedlar had been a fae and they’d passed a test.

My mother is genetically wired to love bargains and free things, irrespective of whether they actually save her money in the long run. There was, during my childhood, many a trip halfway across the county to use a coupon worth a few coins, likely using up more than the equivalent saving in fuel. A collection of napkins, salt, sugar, and other condiments purloined from local restaurants alway seems to fill the kitchen cupboards at home.

Dear moon, ⁠ Blood moon. Scorpion moon. Moon with a potent sting. Moon of riotous bloom. Moon of the letting go. Of the going, going, going, gone. Moon of the bittersweet. Of melancholia. Of inevitability. Moon of open palms and whatever comes after the grasping is done. Moon that holds the keys to invisible doors. Moon of my own undoing. ⁠ ⁠ Unfolding moon. Don’t come back moon. Welcome home moon. Moon of liminality and borderlands. Moon of cutting cords. Of loosening my own grip. Of admitting when the doing is done. Of days of honey and days of onion. Moon rising over picnic blankets in the park, and gasping tears in the shower, and the taste of copper and salt.⁠ ⁠ Hello, moon of what the hell now and here you are, as if you never left. Recentering moon. Moon of plaintive howl and puzzle piece heart. Moon of the space that comes when the bargaining has ended and the terms are set. Moon of never again what we were. Moon who knows what we might become but will not say. ⁠ ⁠ Moon of I need to go now and moon of the I’m not going anywhere. Moon of paradox and the space where the weapons are laid down and the hurting is done and also just beginning. Moon who won’t say what she knows. Moon of music with no lyrics and the words waiting for their melody. Of broken hope and shattered heart. ⁠ ⁠ Moon of come cuddle me, please. Of the hard fall and the soft forgiveness. Moon of severed threads. Moon of it has come to this. After all of what has been, it has come to this. ⁠ ⁠ Dear moon, hear my prayer. ⁠ Dear moon, hold me now. ⁠ Dear moon, this meant everything. ⁠ Dear moon, don’t forget what we were. ⁠ Dear moon, remember me. ⁠ Dear moon, don't let me forget myself.

The sound, the smell, the feel of the ocean all steady my pulse. I am home. Clothes and all, I dive into the sea. I surface only to dive back under again. Down here in the sea’s watery depths, there’s a quiet peace. Second by second, I feel my worries and insecurities wash away. There’s just me, the night, and the ocean.

He found a few natives left there, the remnant of the tribes whom Te Whero Whero had either destroyed or carried into slavery. These few people had taken refuge up in the awful solitudes of the giant Mount Egmont, but had come back to dwell, a sorrow-stricken handful, in the homes of their fathers. Barrett was left to arrange a bargain with them, and in return for a quantity of goods they sold all the land along sixty miles of coast with a depth of fifteen miles inland. This was the land which Wakefield recommended for the new settlers, and he lent them a ship to take them round.

Remy told me,” he says. “How you saw the mom with the day care. I thought maybe … He said Day Care Mom wasn’t happy with this one. So I thought maybe you could give it a home.” He turns the painting around. It’s the red dock, jutting out into the water, with the bright sun beating down, warming it from the inside out. If you squint, it almost looks like Bree’s dock. “How did you get it?” “Remy went back with me,” he says. “She really wanted to get rid of it. It was a bargain. She was asking almost fifty grand less than Jack Fine.” “You didn’t have to do that.” “You didn’t have to do what you did. Any of it. But you did.” “Yeah, well. You know. It was … for a good cause.” “What cause?” “You.” We look at each other for a moment, and it’s Gabe who looks away first.

Kestrel had forgotten. She had thought that she remembered only too well the lines of his face. The restless quality to how he would stand still. The way he looked fully into her eyes as if each glance was an irrevocable choice. Her blood felt laced with black powder. How could she have forgotten what it was like to burn on a fuse before him? He looked at her, and she knew that she had remembered nothing at all. “I can’t be seen with you,” she said. Arin’s eyes flashed. He raked the curtain shut behind him. The closed-off balcony became deeply dark. “Better?” he said. Kestrel backed away until the heel of her shoe met the balustrade and her bare shoulder blades touched the glass. The air had changed. It was warm now. And scented, strangely, with brine. “The sea,” she managed to say. “You came by sea.” “It seemed wiser than riding my horse to death through the mountains.” “My horse.” “If you want Javelin, come home and claim him.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you sailed here.” “Technically, the ship’s captain did, cursing me the entire time. Except when I got sick. Then he just laughed.” “I thought you weren’t coming.” “I changed my mind.” Arin came to lean against the balustrade beside her. It was too much. He was too close. “I’ll thank you to keep your distance.” “Ah, the empress speaks. Well, I must obey.” Yet he didn’t move except to turn his head toward her. Light from the curtain’s seam cut a thin line down his cheek in a bright scar. “I saw you. With the prince. He seems bitter medicine to swallow, even for the sweets of the empire.” “You know nothing of him.” “I know you helped him cheat. Yes, I watched you. I saw you play at Borderlands. Others might not have noticed, but I know you.” His voice grew rough. “Gods, how can you respect someone like that? You’ll make a fool of him.” “I wouldn’t.” “You’re a bad liar.” “I won’t.” Arin went quiet. “Maybe you won’t mean to.” He edged away, and that line of light no longer touched him. His form was pure shadow. But her sight had adjusted, and she saw him tip his head back against the window. “Kestrel…” An emotion clamped down on her heart. It squeezed her into a terrible silence. But he said nothing after that, only her name, as if her name were not a name but a question. Or perhaps that wasn’t how he had said it, and she was wrong, and she’d heard a question simply because the sound of him speaking her name made her wish that she were his answer. Something was tugging inside her. It yanked at her soul. Tell him, that part of her said. He needs to know. Yet those words had a quality of horror to them. Her mind was sluggish to understand why, so caught it was in the temptation to tell Arin that her engagement had been the bargain for Herran’s freedom.

back over the last hundred years and you’ll see the pattern. During periods when the very rich took home a much smaller proportion of total income—as in the Great Prosperity between 1947 and 1977—the nation as a whole grew faster, and median wages surged. The basic bargain ensured that the pay of American workers coincided with their output. In effect, the vast middle class received an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth. America created that virtuous cycle in which an ever-growing middle class had the ability to consume more goods and services, which created more and better jobs, thereby stoking demand. The rising tide did in fact lift all boats. On the other hand, during periods when the very rich took home a larger proportion—as between 1918 and 1933, and in the Great Regression from 1981 to the present day—growth slowed, median wages stagnated, and the nation suffered giant downturns.

Life expectancy rose only modestly between the Neolithic era of 8500 to 3500 BC and the Victorian era of 1850 to 1900.13 An American born in the late nineteenth century had an average life expectancy of around forty-five years, with a large share never making it past their first birthdays.14 Then something remarkable happened. In countries on the frontier of economic development, human health began to improve rapidly, education levels shot up, and standards of living began to grow and grow. Within a century, life expectancies had increased by two-thirds, average years of schooling had gone from single to double digits, and the productivity of workers and the pay they took home had doubled and doubled and then doubled again. With the United States leading the way, the rich world crossed a Great Divide—a divide separating centuries of slow growth, poor health, and anemic technical progress from one of hitherto undreamed-of material comfort and seemingly limitless economic potential. For the first time, rich countries experienced economic development that was both broad and deep, reaching all major segments of society and producing not just greater material comfort but also fundamental transformations in the health and life horizons of those it touched. As the French economist Thomas Piketty points out in his magisterial study of inequality, “It was not until the twentieth century that economic growth became a tangible, unmistakable reality for everyone.”15 The mixed economy was at the heart of this success—in the United States no less than in other Western nations. Capitalism played an essential role. But capitalism was not the new entrant on the economic stage. Effective governance was. Public health measures made cities engines of innovation rather than incubators of illness.16 The meteoric expansion of public education increased not only individual opportunity but also the economic potential of entire societies. Investments in science, higher education, and defense spearheaded breakthroughs in medicine, transportation, infrastructure, and technology. Overarching rules and institutions tamed and transformed unstable financial markets and turned boom-bust cycles into more manageable ups and downs. Protections against excessive insecurity and abject destitution encouraged the forward-looking investments and social integration that sustained growth required. At every level of society, the gains in health, education, income, and capacity were breathtaking. The mixed economy was a spectacularly positive-sum bargain: It redistributed power and resources, but as its impacts broadened and diffused, virtually everyone was made massively better off.

So demons are just opportunists? They don’t create their own opportunities?” “Consider them salesmen you let into your home. Once there, they may convince you to buy more than you bargained for, but you still let them in.” “I’ve

Comprehensive reform of bankruptcy laws—from the treatment of derivatives to underwater homes and to student loans. Bankruptcy law offers another example of how the basic rules of the game that determine how markets work have strong distributional consequences, as well as effects on efficiency. As in many other areas, the rules have increasingly favored those at the top. Every loan is a contract between a willing borrower and a willing lender, but one side is supposed to understand the market far better than the other; there is a massive asymmetry in information and bargaining power. Accordingly, the lender should bear the brunt of the consequences of a mistake, not the borrower. Making bankruptcy law more debtor-friendly would give banks an incentive to be more careful in lending. We would have fewer credit bubbles and fewer Americans deeply in debt. One of the most egregious examples of bad lending, as we’ve noted, is the student loan programs; and bad lending there has been encouraged by the nondischargeability of the debt. In

The state has an advantage in the domestic use of force, but its power is largely constrained by its internationally recognized borders. While states work to monitor and repress dissent at home (Bates, Greif, and Singh 2002; Hardin 1995; Olson 2001), they are limited in their ability to exercise force in territories where they are not sovereign. Understanding this limitation on state power, rebel groups often evade repression by strategically positioning themselves outside of the state’s reach. Thus, territorially unbridled, transnational actors—although apparently weak—have a significant advantage against geographically constrained states, whose power and authority are defined by a particular sovereign space. Conditions in neighboring states and the ability to organize in external sanctuaries, therefore, critically affect the bargain between states and challengers by altering the apparent internal asymmetry of force (on asymmetric warfare see Arreguin-Toft 2001 and Mack 1975).

Here is why the wellbeing economy comes at the right time. At the international level there have been some openings, which can be exploited to turn the wellbeing economy into a political roadmap. The first was the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. The SDGs are a loose list of 17 goals, ranging from good health and personal wellbeing to sustainable cities and communities as well as responsible production and consumption. They are a bit scattered and inconsistent, like most outcomes of international negotiations, but they at least open up space for policy reforms. For the first time in more than a century, the international community has accepted that the simple pursuit of growth presents serious problems. Even when it comes at high speed, its quality is often debatable, producing social inequalities, lack of decent work, environmental destruction, climate change and conflict. Through the SDGs, the UN is calling for a different approach to progress and prosperity. This was made clear in a 2012 speech by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who explicitly connected the three pillars of sustainable development: ‘Social, economic and environmental wellbeing are indivisible.’82 Unlike in the previous century, we now have a host of instruments and indicators that can help politicians devise different policies and monitor results and impacts throughout society. Even in South Africa, a country still plagued by centuries of oppression, colonialism, extractive economic systems and rampant inequality, the debate is shifting. The country’s new National Development Plan has been widely criticised because of the neoliberal character of the main chapters on economic development. Like the SDGs, it was the outcome of negotiations and bargaining, which resulted in inconsistencies and vagueness. Yet, its opening ‘vision statement’ is inspired by a radical approach to transformation. What should South Africa look like in 2030? The language is uplifting: We feel loved, respected and cared for at home, in community and the public institutions we have created. We feel understood. We feel needed. We feel trustful … We learn together. We talk to each other. We share our work … I have a space that I can call my own. This space I share. This space I cherish with others. I maintain it with others. I am not self-sufficient alone. We are self-sufficient in community … We are studious. We are gardeners. We feel a call to serve. We make things. Out of our homes we create objects of value … We are connected by the sounds we hear, the sights we see, the scents we smell, the objects we touch, the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the thoughts we think, the emotions we feel, the dreams we imagine. We are a web of relationships, fashioned in a web of histories, the stories of our lives inescapably shaped by stories of others … The welfare of each of us is the welfare of all … Our land is our home. We sweep and keep clean our yard. We travel through it. We enjoy its varied climate, landscape, and vegetation … We live and work in it, on it with care, preserving it for future generations. We discover it all the time. As it gives life to us, we honour the life in it.83 I could have not found better words to describe the wellbeing economy: caring, sharing, compassion, love for place, human relationships and a profound appreciation of what nature does for us every day. This statement gives us an idea of sufficiency that is not about individualism, but integration; an approach to prosperity that is founded on collaboration rather than competition. Nowhere does the text mention growth. There’s no reference to scale; no pompous images of imposing infrastructure, bridges, stadiums, skyscrapers and multi-lane highways. We make the things we need. We, as people, become producers of our own destiny. The future is not about wealth accumulation, massive

all paid for in stone money. There is much tomfoolery and people play-act, overdo the bargaining and generally have fun. Coming home from churcha and chutok haats, everyone is served a few rounds of landa and mel before all the stone money is counted, while the base flute is played for the puda if it is to be invited home. A net increase – there is never a loss – signifies that the family will prosper.

To sit beside Eve and not touch her was difficult. To sit beside her and not argue his case was making Deene clench his jaw and ball his fists and recite the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, Greek, French, and German. Marrying Eve made such sense. When last he’d considered the notion, he hadn’t been dealing with nasty rumors that had Mildred Staines eyeing his crotch and the clubs going oddly silent when Deene walked into the room. The idea of taking Eve to wife loomed as not just right, but necessary for them both. The list of arguments in support of their wedding circled through his head faster than the wheels of their conveyance bore them toward a reckoning: He and Eve were of appropriate rank. They had shared interests. Their lands marched. They were compatible in ways both mundane and intimate. He needed to marry well, and Eve needed to marry a man who’d be a true husband to her if she was to have the children and loving family that was her God-given right. He’d give her all the children she wanted and delight in doing so… A white marriage, for God’s sake… As Eve turned the cart up the Moreland drive, it occurred to Deene that in some convoluted, unfathomable female manner, Eve was probably seeking to relieve her family of worrying over her and punish herself in the bargain with this notion of a white marriage. Which he could not allow. She deserved so much better. She deserved every happiness a family and home of her own could afford, and more, given… given everything. She

The 2013 collective bargaining agreement governing working conditions for SEC nonsupervisory employees goes as far as to provide that a certain number of employees can work from home five days a week.

I bargained with God, promising him anything if he could just let Liam bring Lucy home safely.

Lucy was not alone. Nearly 3.3 million Appalachians left their homes between 1950 and 1969 after John L. Lewis’s infamous bargain with the big coal companies. Mechanization proved a far more dangerous enemy to their way of life than the company-owned sheriff. Three out of four eastern Kentucky miners were out of work by the mid-1950s. By then, Look was calling Central Appalachia America’s “underdeveloped country.

Do not go back to that village, Liska." He holds her gaze, steadfast. "Stay here with me. Stay, and you can have all the power and magic you desire. Stay, and you can be anyone you want." *Oj,* she should hesitate. It would be the rational thing to do. But she cannot. It is far too late. In a way, her heart has turned into a forest too - the Driada is in her veins now, and she has begun to love it, all its treachery and darkness and monsters. "Very well," she whispers, though guilt rises within her at the thought of leaving home. "Very well, then, Eliasz; I will stay. But this is a bargain, and I ask something in return." "What is that?" She takes his face in her hands, curls her fingers in his down-soft hair, and kisses him.

You’ve made me feel like there’s a reason to even bother! You gave me eternity. You gave me hope that there’s a chance to start over! A chance to have a life that isn’t so fucked up...even if it isn’t really life at all. You showed me places where I felt welcomed, where I didn’t feel like everyone just thought of me as a freak. You...you wanted me. I don’t care about the bargain, Zane, I care about you. I can’t lose you. I can’t. You let me feel like I found home.” She sniffed, roughly rubbing her eyes again. “I love you, okay? You did it, you fucking did. You broke the wall down and fucking smashed it to bits. You said you wanted all of me, so there it is. You’ve got it. How the hell can I risk losing that?

Types of Forex Strategy Traders Figuring out how to exchange isn't simple particularly with regards to the unfamiliar trade market. You will presumably need to learn it through a Forex exchanging framework. A few people believe that dealers are jack of all methodologies of exchanging yet that is not how things work. The way to fruitful exchanging is to turn into the expert of a couple of exchanging techniques. These couple of exchanging methodologies can take you far. Forex procedure dealer frameworks are broadly utilized by various individuals since they give you structure, a bunch of rules and an arrangement to follow as well. There are sure techniques that are at present utilized in the Forex market and they can even cause you to pick what Forex system broker would be best for you to make due in this market. Indicator Driving Trading Systems These exchanging bargains are planned by the individuals who look at that as a specific set up is working at the present time, yet utilizing this framework calls for wary managing. That is on the grounds that it simply works for the current second. This Forex exchanging framework can't give you uphold for quite a while. The framework utilizes pointers for producing an exchanging signal against the value activity. The pointers consistently slack and subsequently, they will in general give late just as false signals. They are not forward-thinking regardless. Something to be thankful for about this exchanging bargain is that it takes a gander at the graphs and numerous beginner merchants think that it’s valuable and enticing. They think of it as' not difficult to utilize and comprehend. Harmonic trading system The Harmonic trading system framework perceives value designs with the Fibonacci augmentations just as following data and afterward it figures the defining moments in the business sectors. It is an intricate type of exchanging which will call for significant practice. On the off chance that you ace it by training, at that point you will discover it among outstanding amongst other exchanging frameworks as it can offer more significant yields against the danger. You can utilize it for exchanging any sort of market. Technical Trading Systems These are perhaps the most ordinarily utilized exchanging bargains that are basic among Forex merchants. They incorporate climbing triangles, banner examples, shoulder examples, heads and various different examples to allow you to exchange the business sectors. These exchanging frameworks are truly useful and you utilize monetary information from earlier years to anticipate the market patterns and take an action. The Forex technique broker or the Forex exchanging frameworks empower you to ensure that you don't lose while you exchange from the solace of your own home. In any case, be certain that Forex exchanging frameworks are not lucrative aides. You actually need to utilize your own insight in exchanging and assemble loads of exchanging data request to put your cash in the perfect spot. Exchanging isn't some tea. On the off chance that you think by utilizing the exchanging gives you can guarantee making enormous amounts of cash, at that point you are incorrect. You should utilize your experience and viable information to guarantee that the Forex procedure broker you use demonstrates to control you in productive exchanging.

Welcome to the Valentine residence. This is a neutral area where you can rest and plan your delve. Please use caution and wipe your feet before entering the home. Beware of Doug.

I am no mere kitten. Nae, I am the Great and Mighty Doug, caretaker and advisor to this home.

If one settles, instead, for a substitute past, an illusion of it, then that fragile construct must be protected from the challenge of complex or contradictory evidence, from any test of evidence at all. That explains Americans' extraordinary tacit bargain with each other not to challenge Reagan's version of the past. The power of his appeal is the great joint confession that we cannot live with our real past, that we not only prefer but need a substitute.

Happily, when temptation bundling works, tough goals are dreaded no longer and wasted time can be recovered in the bargain. And I’ve learned bundling can be used to solve all kinds of problems ranging from making more home-cooked meals (no wine unless you’re at the stove) to finishing projects (by, say, reserving podcast listening for scrapbooking time).

I will never come further than this from my home, I will never be a person who crosses the border. I will never leave my sisters again Bargain, or realization, or both.

It would be one thing if such scorekeeping worked, but it never has and never will, not where the heart is concerned. When one person’s gain equals the other’s loss, the relationship between them always suffers. We become competitors rather than teammates. Moreover, like a husband pointing out the dishes he’s done in order to leverage some gratitude from his wife, the second we harness our good deeds for credit is the second they become less good. All of a sudden, a price tag is dangling off of what was supposed to be a gift. “If I knew that you’d require a ton of affirmation and thanks, or that you’d hold it over my head, I would’ve done the dishes myself!” And that’s just the petty stuff. The language of scorekeeping is the language of conditionality. “I’ll do this for you because you do that for me.” “I’ll hold up my end of the bargain as long as you hold up yours,” we say. However egalitarian our intention, that kind of nonassurance sets us up for a life of accounting. But what works at the office runs out of gas at home.

You’re going to win this bargain between us, darling girl. And I know one thing for certain: you’re going to lay waste to the Boogeyman when you do. Because taking you home will be the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do in my

Yet neither was allowed to rest until now. You're more like them than not, part earth saint, restless with your past. When your wanderings are over, when your bargain is served and you are ready, you, too, will come home.

Frankly, I thought you’d have given up by now and begged to go home,” Azoth admits. I raise my eyebrows. “You promised to ruin all mortal men for me, so you’ll forgive me if I take what I can get, while I can get it.

He’d deny that I was his prisoner. Technically, if I wanted to leave, I could, but the only condition is that I have to have someone with me. Of course, he wants that to be him. He’s taking his role as my husband very seriously, from eating dinner with me each night, bringing me home a trinket every time he leaves me behind, and climbing into bed with me so that he can perform his husbandly duties by making me scream his name into the darkness.

The next time you go to the supermarket, look closely at a can of peas. Think about all the work that went into it—the farmers, truckers, and supermarket employees, the miners and metalworkers who made the can—and think how miraculous it is that you can buy this can for under a dollar. At every step of the way, competition among suppliers rewarded those whose innovations shaved a penny off the cost of getting that can to you. If God is commonly thought to have created the world and then arranged it for our benefit, then the free market (and its invisible hand) is a pretty good candidate for being a god. You can begin to understand why libertarians sometimes have a quasi-religious faith in free markets. Now let’s do the devil’s work and spread chaos throughout the marketplace. Suppose that one day all prices are removed from all products in the supermarket. All labels too, beyond a simple description of the contents, so you can’t compare products from different companies. You just take whatever you want, as much as you want, and you bring it up to the register. The checkout clerk scans in your food insurance card and helps you fill out your itemized claim. You pay a flat fee of $10 and go home with your groceries. A month later you get a bill informing you that your food insurance company will pay the supermarket for most of the remaining cost, but you’ll have to send in a check for an additional $15. It might sound like a bargain to get a cartload of food for $25, but you’re really paying your grocery bill every month when you fork over $2,000 for your food insurance premium. Under such a system, there is little incentive for anyone to find innovative ways to reduce the cost of food or increase its quality. The supermarkets get paid by the insurers, and the insurers get their premiums from you. The cost of food insurance begins to rise as supermarkets stock only the foods that net them the highest insurance payments, not the foods that deliver value to you. As the cost of food insurance rises, many people can no longer afford it. Liberals (motivated by Care) push for a new government program to buy food insurance for the poor and the elderly. But once the government becomes the major purchaser of food, then success in the supermarket and food insurance industries depends primarily on maximizing yield from government payouts. Before you know it, that can of peas costs the government $30, and all of us are paying 25 percent of our paychecks in taxes just to cover the cost of buying groceries for each other at hugely inflated costs. That, says Goldhill, is what we’ve done to ourselves. As long as consumers are spared from taking price into account—that is, as long as someone else is always paying for your choices—things will get worse.