Laying A Friend To Rest Quotes

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing everyday that scares you. Sing. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone. Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's. Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own. Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. Read the directions, even if you don't follow them. Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out. Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth. But trust me on the sunscreen.

For what it’s worth, I’ll share my intentions. You and me, we aren’t practice for the real thing. It isn’t that too much is at stake with family and friends, it’s because I love you. You’re funny, beautiful and you care about people. I like the way you look at me, especially when you think I don’t notice it. I like that we have history and our kids will have a big family and share that history because there was never a time when their Mom and Dad weren’t together. If you were a terrible lay, I might have second thoughts but you and I are dynamite together. I intend to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you. If that freaks you out, tough, because now we’ve started this, there’s no goin’ back.

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

Listen up, Mount High-Hair," Gustav barked. "Say what you want about me, but lay off the rest of the team. I've been through a lot of stuff with these people. Nobody can tell me that Fancy Dancer and Lady Slick-Pants aren't heroes. Captain Gloom-Cape over there, too. And even Shrimp Charming has his moments." Briar leaned back in her chair. "I admire your ability to insult your friends *while* you defend them. It's a rare talent.

And when I look around the apartment where I now am,—when I see Charlotte’s apparel lying before me, and Albert’s writings, and all those articles of furniture which are so familiar to me, even to the very inkstand which I am using,—when I think what I am to this family—everything. My friends esteem me; I often contribute to their happiness, and my heart seems as if it could not beat without them; and yet—if I were to die, if I were to be summoned from the midst of this circle, would they feel—or how long would they feel—the void which my loss would make in their existence? How long! Yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish,—vanish,—and that quickly. I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent. Sometimes I don’t understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her! I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing. One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything they see? And I! Witness, Heaven, how often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again! And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly; I am alone the cause of my own woe, am I not? Truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my pleasure. Am I not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who at every step saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded towards the whole world? And this heart is now dead; no sentiment can revive it. My eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me,—it is no more. When I look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious Nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart,—I feel that in such a moment I stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. Oftentimes do I then bend my knee to the earth, and implore God for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn.

ALONE One of my new housemates, Stacy, wants to write a story about an astronaut. In his story the astronaut is wearing a suit that keeps him alive by recycling his fluids. In the story the astronaut is working on a space station when an accident takes place, and he is cast into space to orbit the earth, to spend the rest of his life circling the globe. Stacy says this story is how he imagines hell, a place where a person is completely alone, without others and without God. After Stacy told me about his story, I kept seeing it in my mind. I thought about it before I went to sleep at night. I imagined myself looking out my little bubble helmet at blue earth, reaching toward it, closing it between my puffy white space-suit fingers, wondering if my friends were still there. In my imagination I would call to them, yell for them, but the sound would only come back loud within my helmet. Through the years my hair would grow long in my helmet and gather around my forehead and fall across my eyes. Because of my helmet I would not be able to touch my face with my hands to move my hair out of my eyes, so my view of earth, slowly, over the first two years, would dim to only a thin light through a curtain of thatch and beard. I would lay there in bed thinking about Stacy's story, putting myself out there in the black. And there came a time, in space, when I could not tell whether I was awake or asleep. All my thoughts mingled together because I had no people to remind me what was real and what was not real. I would punch myself in the side to feel pain, and this way I could be relatively sure I was not dreaming. Within ten years I was beginning to breathe heavy through my hair and my beard as they were pressing tough against my face and had begun to curl into my mouth and up my nose. In space, I forgot that I was human. I did not know whether I was a ghost or an apparition or a demon thing. After I thought about Stacy's story, I lay there in bed and wanted to be touched, wanted to be talked to. I had the terrifying thought that something like that might happen to me. I thought it was just a terrible story, a painful and ugly story. Stacy had delivered as accurate a description of a hell as could be calculated. And what is sad, what is very sad, is that we are proud people, and because we have sensitive egos and so many of us live our lives in front of our televisions, not having to deal with real people who might hurt us or offend us, we float along on our couches like astronauts moving aimlessly through the Milky Way, hardly interacting with other human beings at all.

They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic. One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe---a woman---had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given an utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these: "I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. "I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. "I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both. "I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, brining a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place---then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement---and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and faltering voice. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

It was dark now as it becomes dark quickly after the sun sets in September. He lay against the worn wood of the bow and rested all that he could. The first stars were out. He did not know the name of Rigel but he saw it and knew soon they would all be out and he would have all his distant friends. 'The fish is my friend too,' he said aloud. 'I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.

What great gravity is this that drew my soul towards yours? What great force, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear, the soul that I loathe, the soul that: if you will love, I will love. I will redeem you, if you will redeem me? Is this our purpose, you and I together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward the lie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption, save the one that you and I invented of our own clay? I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me. I went looking, I wrote out a list, I drew an image, I bled a poem of you. You were pretty and my friends believed I was worthy of you. You were clever, but I was smarter, perhaps the only one smarter, the only one able to lead you. You see, love, I did not love you, I loved me. And you were only a tool that I used to fix myself, to fool myself, to redeem myself. And though I have taught you to lay your lily hand in mine, I walk alone, for I cannot talk to you, lest you talk it back to me, lest I believe that I am not worthy, not deserving, not redeemed. I want desperately for you to be my friend. But you are not my friend; you have slid up warmly to the man I wanted to be, the man I pretended to be, and I was your Jesus and, you were mine. Should I show you who I am, we may crumble. I am not scared of you my love, I am scared of me. I want to be known and loved anyway. Can you do this? I trust by your easy breathing that your are human like me, that you are fallen like me, that you are lonely, like me. My love, do I know you? What is this great gravity that pulls us so painfully toward each other? Why do we not connect? Will we be forever in fleshing this out? And how will we with words, narrow words, come into the knowing of each other?

You and me, we aren’t practice for the real thing. It isn’t that too much is at stake with family and friends. It’s because I love you. You’re funny, beautiful and you care about people. I like the way you look at me, especially when you think I don’t notice it. I like that we have history and our kids will have a big family and share that history because there was never a time when their Mom and Dad weren’t together. If you were a terrible lay, I might have second thoughts, but you and I are dynamite together. I intend to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you. If that freaks you out, tough, because now that we’ve started this, there’s no goin’ back.

Those clothes are Susie's,' my father said calmly when he reached him. Buckley looked down at my blackwatch dress that he held in his hand. My father stepped closer, took the dress from my brother, and then, without speaking, he gathered the rest of my clothes, which Buckley had piled on the lawn. As he turned in silence toward the house, hardly breathing, clutching my clothes to him, it sparked. I was the only one to see the colors. Just near Buckley's ears and on the tips of his cheeks and chin he was a little orange somehow, a little red. Why can't I use them?' he asked. It landed in my father's back like a fist. Why can't I use those clothes to stake my tomatoes?' My father turned around. He saw his son standing there, behind him the perfect plot of muddy, churned-up earth spotted with tiny seedlings. 'How can you ask me that question?' You have to choose. It's not fair,' my brother said. Buck?' My father held my clothes against his chest. I watched Buckley flare and light. Behind him was the sun of the goldenrod hedge, twice as tall as it had been at my death. I'm tired of it!' Buckley blared. 'Keesha's dad died and she's okay?' Is Keesha a girl at school?' Yes!' My father was frozen. He could feel the dew that had gathered on his bare ankles and feet, could feel the ground underneath him, cold and moist and stirring with possibility. I'm sorry. When did this happen?' That's not the point, Dad! You don't get it.' Buckley turned around on his heel and started stomping the tender tomato shoots with his foot. Buck, stop!' my father cried. My brother turned. You don't get it, Dad,' he said. I'm sorry,' my father said. These are Susie's clothes and I just... It may not make sense, but they're hers-something she wore.' ... You act like she was yours only!' Tell me what you want to say. What's this about your friend Keesha's dad?' Put the clothes down.' My father laid them gently on the ground. It isn't about Keesha's dad.' Tell me what it is about.' My father was now all immediacy. He went back to the place he had been after his knee surgery, coming up out of the druggie sleep of painkillers to see his then-five-year-old son sitting near him, waiting for his eyes to flicker open so he could say, 'Peek-a-boo, Daddy.' She's dead.' It never ceased to hurt. 'I know that.' But you don't act that way.' Keesha's dad died when she was six. Keesha said she barely even thinks of him.' She will,' my father said. But what about us?' Who?' Us, Dad. Me and Lindsey. Mom left becasue she couldn't take it.' Calm down, Buck,' my father said. He was being as generous as he could as the air from his lungs evaporated out into his chest. Then a little voice in him said, Let go, let go, let go. 'What?' my father said. I didn't say anything.' Let go. Let go. Let go. I'm sorry,' my father said. 'I'm not feeling very well.' His feet had grown unbelievably cold in the damp grass. His chest felt hollow, bugs flying around an excavated cavity. There was an echo in there, and it drummed up into his ears. Let go. My father dropped down to his knees. His arm began to tingle on and off as if it had fallen asleep. Pins and needles up and down. My brother rushed to him. Dad?' Son.' There was a quaver in his voice and a grasping outward toward my brother. I'll get Grandma.' And Buckley ran. My father whispered faintly as he lay on his side with his face twisted in the direction of my old clothes: 'You can never choose. I've loved all three of you.

When do people ever like it when you write about them? But I had to do something. As I said, from the minute I heard what had happened I could not stop thinking about it. So I did what you do if you're a writer and you're obsessed about something: you turn it into a story that you hope will lay it to rest, or at least help you figure it out what it means. Even if we know from experience that this pretty much never works.

I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evils of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. I see that I hold sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I was in the souls of both. I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place – then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement – and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and faltering voice. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

The customary blizzard of pigeons wheeled briefly across the walk and settled back around an old lady who fed them from a large, wrinkled, paper bag. “I heard a guy on television the other night,” Dillon said. “He was talking about pigeons. Called them flying rats. I thought that was pretty good. He had something in mind, going to feed them the Pill or something, make them extinct. Trouble is, he was serious, you know? There was a guy that got shit on and probably got shit on again and then he got mad. Ruined his suit or something, going to spend the rest of his life getting even with the pigeons because they wrecked a hundred-dollar suit. Now there isn’t any percentage in that. There must be ten million pigeons in Boston alone, laying eggs every day, which will generally produce more pigeons, and all of them dropping tons of shit, rain or shine. And this guy in New York is going to, well, there just aren’t going to be any of them in this world any more.

I refuse to leave you here.' Emerie's pained face told Nesta enough: she understood. Saw the logic. Nesta said to Gwyn. 'It is the only way.' Gwyn screamed. 'IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!' And then she was sobbing. 'I will not abandon you to them. They will kill you.' 'You need to go,' Nesta said, even as her hands began shaking. 'Now.' 'No,' Gwyn wept. 'No, I won't. I'll face it with you.' Something deep in Nesta's chest cracked. Cracked open completely, and what lay within bloomed, full and bright and pure. She wrapped her arms around Gwyn. Let her friend sob into her chest. 'I'll face it with you,' Gwyn whispered, over and over again. 'Promise me we'll face it together.' Nesta couldn't stop her tears. The chill wind froze them on her cheeks. 'I promise,' she breathed, stroking Gwyn's matted hair. 'I promise.' Gwyn sobbed, and Nesta let herself sob with her, squeezing her tightly. Letting her stroking hand come to rest on Gwyn's neck. A pinch in the right spot, exactly on the pressure point Cassina had shown her, and it was done. Gwyn went down. Unconscious.

One day, soon after her disappearance, an attack of abominable nausea forced me to pull up on the ghost of an old mountain road that now accompanied, now traversed a brand new highway, with its population of asters bathing in the detached warmth of a pale-blue afternoon in late summer. After coughing myself inside out I rested a while on a boulder and then thinking the sweet air might do me good, walked a little way toward a low stone parapet on the precipice side of the highway. Small grasshoppers spurted out of the withered roadside weeds. A very light cloud was opening its arms and moving toward a slightly more substantial one belonging to another, more sluggish, heavenlogged system. As I approached the friendly abyss, I grew aware of a melodious unity of sounds rising like vapor from a small mining town that lay at my feet, in a fold of the valley. One could make out the geometry of the streets between blocks of red and gray roofs, and green puffs of trees, and a serpentine stream, and the rich, ore-like glitter of the city dump, and beyond the town, roads crisscrossing the crazy quilt of dark and pale fields, and behind it all, great timbered mountains. But even brighter than those quietly rejoicing colors - for there are colors and shades that seem to enjoy themselves in good company - both brighter and dreamier to the ear than they were to the eye, was that vapory vibration of accumulated sounds that never ceased for a moment, as it rose to the lip of granite where I stood wiping my foul mouth. And soon I realized that all these sounds were of one nature, that no other sounds but these came from the streets of the transparent town, with the women at home and the men away. Reader! What I heard was but the melody of children at play, nothing but that, and so limpid was the air that within this vapor of blended voices, majestic and minute, remote and magically near, frank and divinely enigmatic - one could hear now and then, as if released, an almost articulate spurt of vivid laughter, or the crack of a bat, or the clatter of a toy wagon, but it was all really too far for the eye to distinguish any movement in the lightly etched streets. I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for background, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord.

All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! Yet what can one poor voice avail Against three tongues together? Imperious Prima flashes forth Her edict "to begin it": In gentler tones Secunda hopes "There will be nonsense in it!" While Tertia interrupts the tale Not MORE than once a minute. Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast— And half believe it true. And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, "The rest next time—" "It IS next time!" The happy voices cry. Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out— And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun. Alice! A childish story take, And, with a gentle hand, Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined In Memory's mystic band, Like pilgrim's wither'd wreath of flowers Pluck'd in a far-off land.

Christ is all in the entire work of salvation. Let me just take you back to the period before this world was made. There was a time when this great world, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all which now exist throughout the whole of the vast universe, lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in an acorn cup. There was a time when the Great Creator lived alone, and yet he could foresee that he would make a world, and that men would be born to people it; and in that vast eternity a great scheme was devised, whereby he might save a fallen race. Do you know who devised it? God planned it from first to last. Neither Gabriel nor any of the holy angels had anything to do with it. I question whether they were even told how God might be just, and yet save the transgressors. God was all in the drawing up of the scheme, and Christ was all in carrying it out. There was a dark and doleful night! Jesus was in the garden, sweating great drops of blood, which fell to the ground; nobody then came to bear the load that had been laid upon him. An angel stood there to strengthen him, but not to bear the sentence. The cup was put into his hands, and Jesus said, "Father, must I drink it?" and his Father replied, "If thou dost not drink, sinners cannot be saved"; and he took the cup and drained it to its very dregs. No man helped him. And when he hung upon that accursed tree of Calvary, when his precious hands were pierced, when: "From his head, his hands, his feet, Sorrow and love flowed mingled down," there was nobody to help him. He was "all" in the work of salvation. And, my friends, if any of you shall be saved, it must be by Christ alone. There must be no patchwork; Christ did it all, and will not be helped in the matter. Christ will not allow you, as some say, to do what you can, and leave him to make up the rest. What can you do that is not sinful? Christ has done all for us; the work of redemption is all finished. Christ planned it all, and worked out all; and we, therefore, preach a full salvation through Jesus Christ.

A Day Away We often think that our affairs, great or small, must be tended continuously and in detail, or our world will disintegrate, and we will lose our places in the universe. That is not true, or if it is true, then our situations were so temporary that they would have collapsed anyway. Once a year or so I give myself a day away. On the eve of my day of absence, I begin to unwrap the bonds which hold me in harness. I inform housemates, my family and close friends that I will not be reachable for twenty-four hours; then I disengage the telephone. I turn the radio dial to an all-music station, preferably one which plays the soothing golden oldies. I sit for at least an hour in a very hot tub; then I lay out my clothes in preparation for my morning escape, and knowing that nothing will disturb me, I sleep the sleep of the just. On the morning I wake naturally, for I will have set no clock, nor informed my body timepiece when it should alarm. I dress in comfortable shoes and casual clothes and leave my house going no place. If I am living in a city, I wander streets, window-shop, or gaze at buildings. I enter and leave public parks, libraries, the lobbies of skyscrapers, and movie houses. I stay in no place for very long. On the getaway day I try for amnesia. I do not want to know my name, where I live, or how many dire responsibilities rest on my shoulders. I detest encountering even the closest friend, for then I am reminded of who I am, and the circumstances of my life, which I want to forget for a while. Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, lovers, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. We need hours of aimless wandering or spates of time sitting on park benches, observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops. If we step away for a time, we are not, as many may think and some will accuse, being irresponsible, but rather we are preparing ourselves to more ably perform our duties and discharge our obligations. When I return home, I am always surprised to find some questions I sought to evade had been answered and some entanglements I had hoped to flee had become unraveled in my absence. A day away acts as a spring tonic. It can dispel rancor, transform indecision, and renew the spirit.

Do you know what day it is?” she asked, peering at him. “Don’t you?” “Here in Spindle Cove, we ladies have a schedule. Mondays are country walks. Tuesdays, sea bathing. Wednesdays, you’d find us in the garden.” She touched the back of her hand to his forehead. “What is it we do on Mondays?” “We didn’t get to Thursdays.” “Thursdays are irrelevant. I’m testing your ability to recall information. Do you remember Mondays?” He stifled a laugh. God, her touch felt good. If she kept petting and stroking him like this, he might very well go mad. “Tell me your name,” he said. “I promise to recall it.” A bit forward, perhaps. But any chance for formal introductions had already fallen casualty to the powder charge. Speaking of the powder charge, here came the brilliant mastermind of the sheep siege. Damn his eyes. “Are you well, miss?” Colin asked. “I’m well,” she answered. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same for your friend.” “Bram?” Colin prodded him with a boot. “You look all of a piece.” No thanks to you. “He’s completely addled, the poor soul.” The girl patted his cheek. “Was it the war? How long has he been like this?” “Like this?” Colin smirked down at him. “Oh, all his life.” “All his life?” “He’s my cousin. I should know.” A flush pressed to her cheeks, overwhelming her freckles. “If you’re his cousin, you should take better care of him. What are you thinking, allowing him to wander the countryside, waging war on flocks of sheep?” Ah, that was sweet. The lass cared. She would see him settled in a very comfortable asylum, she would. Perhaps Thursdays would be her day to visit and lay cool cloths to his brow. “I know, I know,” Colin replied gravely. “He’s a certifiable fool. Completely unstable. Sometimes the poor bastard even drools. But the hell of it is, he controls my fortune. Every last penny. I can’t tell him what to do.” “That’ll be enough,” Bram said. Time to put a stop to this nonsense. It was one thing to enjoy a moment’s rest and a woman’s touch, and another to surrender all pride. He gained his feet without too much struggle and helped her to a standing position, too. He managed a slight bow. “Lieutenant Colonel Victor Bramwell. I assure you, I’m in possession of perfect health, a sound mind, and one good-for-nothing cousin.” “I don’t understand,” she said. “Those blasts…” “Just powder charges. We embedded them in the road, to scare off the sheep.” “You laid black powder charges. To move a flock of sheep.” Pulling her hand from his grip, she studied the craters in the road. “Sir, I remain unconvinced of your sanity. But there’s no question you are male.” He raised a brow. “That much was never in doubt.” Her only answer was a faint deepening of her blush. “I assure you, all the lunacy is my cousin’s. Lord Payne was merely teasing, having a bit of sport at my expense.” “I see. And you were having a bit of sport at my expense, pretending to be injured.” “Come, now.” He leaned forward her and murmured, “Are you going to pretend you didn’t enjoy it?” Her eyebrows lifted. And lifted, until they formed perfect twin archer’s bows, ready to dispatch poison-tipped darts. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.

In the years since the disaster, I often think of my friend Arturo Nogueira, and the conversations we had in the mountains about God. Many of my fellow survivors say they felt the personal presence of God in the mountains. He mercifully allowed us to survive, they believe, in answer to our prayers, and they are certain it was His hand that led us home. I deeply respect the faith of my friends, but, to be honest, as hard as I prayed for a miracle in the Andes, I never felt the personal presence of God. At least, I did not feel God as most people see Him. I did feel something larger than myself, something in the mountains and the glaciers and the glowing sky that, in rare moments, reassured me, and made me feel that the world was orderly and loving and good. If this was God, it was not God as a being or a spirit or some omnipotent, superhuman mind. It was not a God who would choose to save us or abandon us, or change in any way. It was simply a silence, a wholeness, an awe-inspiring simplicity. It seemed to reach me through my own feelings of love, and I have often thought that when we feel what we call love, we are really feeling our connection to this awesome presence. I feel this presence still when my mind quiets and I really pay attention. I don’t pretend to understand what it is or what it wants from me. I don’t want to understand these things. I have no interest in any God who can be understood, who speaks to us in one holy book or another, and who tinkers with our lives according to some divine plan, as if we were characters in a play. How can I make sense of a God who sets one religion above the rest, who answers one prayer and ignores another, who sends sixteen young men home and leaves twenty-nine others dead on a mountain? There was a time when I wanted to know that god, but I realize now that what I really wanted was the comfort of certainty, the knowledge that my God was the true God, and that in the end He would reward me for my faithfulness. Now I understand that to be certain–-about God, about anything–-is impossible. I have lost my need to know. In those unforgettable conversations I had with Arturo as he lay dying, he told me the best way to find faith was by having the courage to doubt. I remember those words every day, and I doubt, and I hope, and in this crude way I try to grope my way toward truth. I still pray the prayers I learned as a child–-Hail Marys, Our Fathers–-but I don’t imagine a wise, heavenly father listening patiently on the other end of the line. Instead, I imagine love, an ocean of love, the very source of love, and I imagine myself merging with it. I open myself to it, I try to direct that tide of love toward the people who are close to me, hoping to protect them and bind them to me forever and connect us all to whatever there is in the world that is eternal. …When I pray this way, I feel as if I am connected to something good and whole and powerful. In the mountains, it was love that kept me connected to the world of the living. Courage or cleverness wouldn’t have saved me. I had no expertise to draw on, so I relied upon the trust I felt in my love for my father and my future, and that trust led me home. Since then, it has led me to a deeper understanding of who I am and what it means to be human. Now I am convinced that if there is something divine in the universe, the only way I will find it is through the love I feel for my family and my friends, and through the simple wonder of being alive. I don’t need any other wisdom or philosophy than this: My duty is to fill my time on earth with as much life as possible, to become a little more human every day, and to understand that we only become human when we love. …For me, this is enough.

I soon saw, however, that Creed's obsession with death was typical of most of the children. This came out in their play. "Let's play funeral" was a favorite game at recess. To me, it seemed bizarre and mawkish play. All that saved it was the spontaneous creativity of the children and the fact that, unerringly, they caught the incongruities and absurdities of their elders. One child would be elected to be "dead" and would lay himself out on the ground, eyes closed, hands dutifully crossed across his chest. Another would be chosen to be the "preacher," all the rest, "mourners." I remember one day when Sam Houston Holcomb was the "corpse" and Creed Allen, always the class clown of the group, was elected "preacher." Creed, already at ten an accomplished mimic, was turning in an outstanding performance. I stood watching, half-hidden in the shado of the doorway. Creed (bellowing in stentorian tones): "You-all had better stop your meanness and I'll tell you for why. Praise the Lord! If you'uns don't stop being so defend ornery, you ain't never goin' gift to see Brother Holcomb on them streets paved with rubies and such-like, to give him the time of day, 'cause you'uns are goin' to be laid out on the coolin' board and then roasted in hellfire." The "congregation" shivered with delight, as if they were hearing a deliciously scary ghost story. The corpse opened one eye to see how his mourners were taking this blast; he sighed contentedly at their palpitations; wriggled right leg where a fly was tickling; adjusted grubby hands more comfortably across chest. Creed then grasped his right ear with his right hand and spat. Only there wasn't enough to make the stream impressive. So preacher paused, working his mouth vigorously, trying to collect more spit. Another pucker and heave. Ah! Better! Sermon now resumed: "Friends and neighbors, we air lookin' on Brother Holcombe's face for the last time." (Impressive pause.). "Praise the Lord! We ain't never goin' see him again in this life." (Impressive pause.). "Praise the Lord!" Small preacher was now really getting warmed up. He remembered something he must have heard at the last real funeral. Hearty spit first, more pulling of ear: "You air enjoyin' life now, folks. Me, I used to git pleasured and enjoy life too. But now that I've got religion, I don't enjoy life no more." At this point I retreated behind the door lest I betray my presence by laughing aloud.

Prefatory Poem All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour, Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! Yet what can one poor voice avail Against three tongues together? Imperious Prima flashes forth Her edict “to begin it”; In gentler tones Secunda hopes “There will be nonsense in it!” While Tertia interrupts the tale Not more than once a minute. Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast— And half believe it true. And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, “The rest next time—” “It is next time!” The happy voices cry. Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out— And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun. Alice! A childish story take, And, with a gentle hand, Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined In Memory’s mystic band, Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers Pluck’d in a far-off land.

Let us remember this history, when we pray for ourselves. We are sometimes tempted to think that we get no good by our prayers, and that we may as well give them up altogether. Let us resist the temptation. It comes from the devil. Let us believe, and pray on. Against our besetting sins, against the spirit of the world, against the wiles of the devil, let us pray on, and not faint. For strength to do duty, for grace to bear our trials, for comfort in every trouble, let us continue in prayer. Let us be sure that no time is so well-spent in every day, as that which we spend upon our knees. Jesus hears us, and in his own good time will give an answer. Let us remember this history, when we intercede for others. Have we children, whose conversion we desire? Have we relatives and friends, about whose salvation we are anxious? Let us follow the example of this Canaanitish woman, and lay the state of their souls before Christ. Let us name their names before Him night and day, and never rest until we have an answer. We may have to wait many a long year. We may seem to pray in vain, and intercede without profit. But let us never give up. Let us believe that Jesus is not changed, and that He who heard the Canaanitish mother, and granted her request, will also hear us, and one day give us an answer of peace.

About his madmen Mr. Lecky was no more certain. He knew less than the little to be learned of the causes or even of the results of madness. Yet for practical purposes one can imagine all that is necessary. As long as maniacs walk like men, you must come close to them to penetrate so excellent a disguise. Once close, you have joined the true werewolf. Pick for your companion a manic-depressive, afflicted by any of the various degrees of mania - chronic, acute, delirious. Usually more man than wolf, he will be instructive. His disorder lies in the very process of his thinking, rather than in the content of his thought. He cannot wait a minute for the satisfaction of his fleeting desires or the fulfillment of his innumerable schemes. Nor can he, for two minutes, be certain of his intention or constant in any plan or agreement. Presently you may hear his failing made manifest in the crazy concatenation of his thinking aloud, which psychiatrists call "flight of ideas." Exhausted suddenly by this riotous expense of speech and spirit, he may subside in an apathy dangerous and morose, which you will be well advised not to disturb. Let the man you meet be, instead, a paretic. He has taken a secret departure from your world. He dwells amidst choicest, most dispendious superlatives. In his arm he has the strength to lift ten elephants. He is already two hundred years old. He is more than nine feet high; his chest is of iron, his right leg is silver, his incomparable head is one whole ruby. Husband of a thousand wives, he has begotten on them ten thousand children. Nothing is mean about him; his urine is white wine; his faeces are always soft gold. However, despite his splendor and his extraordinary attainments, he cannot successfully pronounce the words: electricity, Methodist Episcopal, organization, third cavalry brigade. Avoid them. Infuriated by your demonstration of any accomplishment not his, he may suddenly kill you. Now choose for your friend a paranoiac, and beware of the wolf! His back is to the wall, his implacable enemies are crowding on him. He gets no rest. He finds no starting hole to hide him. Ten times oftener than the Apostle, he has been, through the violence of the unswerving malice which pursues him, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Now that, face to face with him, you simulate innocence and come within his reach, what pity can you expect? You showed him none; he will certainly not show you any. Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, 0 Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all the perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen. Mr. Lecky's maniacs lay in wait to slash a man's head half off, to perform some erotic atrocity of disembowelment on a woman. Here, they fed thoughtlessly on human flesh; there, wishing to play with him, they plucked the mangled Tybalt from his shroud. The beastly cunning of their approach, the fantastic capriciousness of their intention could not be very well met or provided for. In his makeshift fort everywhere encircled by darkness, Mr. Lecky did not care to meditate further on the subject.

I needed something to distract me-anything far away from my parents’ drama-just for a second. And when I saw my chance I didn’t stop to think about how much I’d regret it later. An opportunity sat on the bar stool beside me, and I lunged at it. Literally. I kissed Wesley Rush. One second his hand lay on my shoulder, and his gray eyes rested, for once, on my face, and the next my mouth was on his. My lips were fierce with bottled emotion, and he seemed to tense, his body frozen in shock. That didn’t last very long. An instant later, he returned the aggression, his hands flying to my sides and pulling me toward him. It felt like a battle between our mouths. My hands clawed into his curly hair, tugging it way harder than necessary, and his fingertips dug into my waist. It worked better than punching someone would have. Not only did it help me release the agonizing pressure, but it definitely distracted me. I mean, it’s hard to think about your dad when you’re making out with somebody. And as disturbing as it sounds, Wesley was a really good kisser. He leaned into me, and I tugged at him so hard that he nearly fell off his bar stool. In that moment, we just couldn’t get close enough to each other. Our separate seats seemed like they were miles apart. All of my thoughts vanished, and I became a sort of physical being. Emotions disappeared. Nothing existed but our bodies, and our warring lips were at the center of everything. It was bliss! It was amazing not to think. Nothing! Nothing… until he screwed it up.

Those are the moments I’m proud of. The times I saw through them. The times I made them work to break me, even though I knew they would. The times I questioned the lies being fed to me, though everyone around me believed. I learned early that if everyone around you has their head bowed, their eyes shut tight—keep your eyes open and look around. I’m reflexively suspicious of anyone who stands on a soapbox. Tell me you have the answers and I’ll know you’re trying to sell me something. I’m as wary of certainty as I am of good vibes and positive thinking. They’re delusions that allow you to ignore reality and lay the blame at the feet of those suffering. They just didn’t follow the rules, or think positively enough. They brought it on themselves. I don’t have the answers. Maybe depression’s the natural reaction to a world full of cruelty and pain. But the thing I know about depression is if you want to survive it, you have to train yourself to hold on; when you can see no reason to keep going, you cannot imagine a future worth seeing, you keep moving anyway. That’s not delusion. That’s hope. It’s a muscle you exercise so it’s strong when you need it. You feed it with books and art and dogs who rest their head on your leg, and human connection with people who are genuinely interested and excited; you feed it with growing a tomato and baking sourdough and making a baby laugh and standing at the edge of oceans and feeling a horse’s whiskers on your palm and bear hugs and late-night talks over whiskey and a warm happy sigh on your neck and the unexpected perfect song on the radio, and mushroom trips with a friend who giggles at the way the trees aren’t acting right, and jumping in creeks, and lying in the grass under the stars, and driving with the windows down on a swirly two-lane road. You stock up like a fucking prepper buying tubs of chipped beef and powdered milk and ammo. You stock up so some part of you knows and remembers, even in the dark, all that’s worth saving in this world. It’s comforting to know what happens next. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that no one fucking knows. And it’s terrifying. I don’t dream of a home and a family, a career and financial stability. I dream of living. And my inner voice, defective though it may be, still tells me happiness and peace, belonging and love, all lie just around the next corner, the next city, the next country. Just keep moving and hope the next place will be better. It has to be. Just around the next bend, everything is beautiful. And it breaks my heart.

These trees were dying. My friends told me I should uproot them to spare the rest of the forest. But I could feel too much life in their trunks to pluck them from the ground.' 'How did you save them?' Biana asked. 'I listened. And I realized their voices had been silenced. So I gave them mine. I sang of sunlight and rain and rich soil. And hope. Always hope.' Calla moved to another tree, one that had the widest curve of them all, and lay in the slope of its trunk. 'For a week, I stayed right here. I didn't stop, even to rest my throat. I could barely rasp by the end, but I could feel their strength returning. They'll forever bear the mark of their trials, but they are survivors. Proof that anything can be overcome.' Keefe sat on one of the curved trunks, and Sophie waited for him to make a joke. But he just slid his fingers over the rough bark.

That wasn’t necessary,” Benix told Kestrel. “It was,” she said. “He’s tiresome. I don’t mind taking his money, but I cannot take his company.” “You couldn’t spare a thought for me before chasing him away? Maybe I would like a chance to win his gold.” “Lord Irex can spare it,” Ronan added. “Well, I don’t like poor losers,” said Kestrel. “That’s why I play with you two.” Benix groaned. “She’s a fiend,” Ronan agreed cheerfully. “Then why do you play with her?” “I enjoy losing to Kestrel. I will give anything she will take.” “While I live in hope to one day win,” Benix said, and gave Kestrel’s hand a friendly pat. “Yes, yes,” Kestrel said. “You are both fine flatterers. Now ante up.” “We lack a fourth player,” Benix pointed out. Bite and Sting was played in pairs or fours. Despite herself, Kestrel looked at Arin standing not too far away, considering the garden or the house beyond it. From his position he would have had a view of Irex’s tiles, and Ronan’s. He would not, however, have been able to see hers. She wondered what he had made of the game--if he had bothered to follow it. Perhaps feeling her gaze on him, Arin glanced her way. His eyes were calm, uninterested. She could read nothing in them. “I suppose our game is over then,” she told the two lords in a bright voice. “Shall we join the others?” Ronan poured the gold into her purse and slipped its velvet strap over her wrist, unnecessarily fiddling with the broad ribbon until it lay flat against Kestrel’s skin without a winkle. He offered his arm and she took it, resting her palm on the cool silk of his sleeve. Benix fell in step, and the three walked toward the heart of the murmuring party. Kestrel knew, rather than saw, that Arin shifted position and followed, like the shadow line of a sundial. This was precisely what he was supposed to do as her attendant at Lady Faris’s picnic, yet she had the uncomfortable impression of being tracked.

I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. "I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. "I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both. "I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, brining a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place---then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement---and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and faltering voice. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

I’m a decade her senior. I was a friend of her father, and I’m sure she looks upon me like a benevolent uncle. Even if she didn’t, I promised Charles I wouldn’t lay a hand on her.” The Earl of Marsden had been one of his dearest friends-practically his only friend. A promise to such a friend should not be easily broken. Archer jerked back, disbelief coloring his angular features. “Why the hell did you do that?” Grey shrugged. “He asked it of me.” Shaking his head, Archer exhaled a breath. “You never told me that before.” “I suppose I was ashamed.” And hurt, even though he understood his friend only made the request to protect his only child from a man whose sexual conquests had resulted in his being marked for like. Were the situation reversed, Grey might have very well demanded the same promise. And despite being a libertine, he was a man of his word. Archer stared at him for a long moment, elbow braced on the table, chin resting on his thumb as his index finger stroked his stubbled upper lip. “Devil take it, Grey. Charles Danvers was one cruel bugger.” A bitter smile curved Grey’s lips at the insult to his late friend. “Quite.

Iorek Byrnison moved around to the upper side. It was a good shelter from an enemy below, but not good enough; for among the hail of bullets that had chipped fragments off the rock had been a few that had found their target, and that lay where they had come to rest, in the body of the man lying stiff in the shadow. He was a body, still, and not a skeleton, because the witch had laid a spell to preserve him from corruption. Iorek could see the face of his old comrade drawn and tight with the pain of his wounds, and see the jagged holes in his garments where the bullets had entered. The witch's spell did not cover the blood that must have spilled, and insects and the sun and the wind had dispersed it completely. Lee Scoresby looked not asleep, nor at peace; he looked as if he had died in battle; but he looked as if he knew that his fight had been successful. And because the Texan aeronaut was one of the very few humans Iorek had ever esteemed, he accepted the man's last gift to him. With deft movements of his claws, he ripped aside the dead man's clothes, opened the body with one slash, and began to feast on the flesh and blood of his old friend. It was his first meal for days, and he was hungry.

This is a friendly forty winks, Mrs. FitzEngle.” He snagged her wrist. “Join me.” She regarded him where he lay. “Ellen.” The teasing tone in Val’s voice faded. “I will not ravish you in broad daylight unless you ask it of me, though I would hold you.” She nodded uncertainly and gingerly lowered herself beside him, flat on her back. “You’re out of practice,” Val observed, rolling to his side. “We must correct this state of affairs if we’re to get our winks.” Before she could protest, he arranged her so she was on her side as well, his body curved around hers, her head resting on his bicep, his arm tucking her back against him. “The benefit of this position,” his said, speaking very close to her ear, “is that I cannot behold your lovely face if you want to confide secrets, you see? I am close enough to hear you whisper, but you have a little privacy, as well. So confide away, and I’ll just cuddle up and perhaps even drift off.” “You would drift off while I’m confiding?” “I would allow you the fiction. It’s one of the rules of gentlemanly conduct owed on summer days to napping companions.” His arm was loosely draped over her middle so he could sense the tension in her. “I can hear your thoughts turning like a mill wheel. Let your mind rest too, Ellen.” “I am unused to this friendly napping.” “You and your baron never stole off for an afternoon nap?” Val asked, his fingers tracing the length of her arm. “Never kidnapped each other for a picnic on a pretty day?” “We did not.” Ellen sighed as his fingers stroked over her arm again. “He occasionally took tea with me, though, and we often visited at the end of the day.” But, Val concluded with some satisfaction, they did not visit in bed or on blankets or with their clothes off. Ellen had much to learn about napping. His right hand drifted up to her shoulder, where he experimentally squeezed at the muscles joining her neck to her back. “Blazes,” he whispered, “you are strong. Relax, Ellen.” His right hand was more than competent to knead at her tense muscles, and when he heard her sigh and felt her relax, he realized he’d found the way to stop her mill wheel from spinning so relentlessly. “Close your eyes, Ellen,” he instructed softly. “Close your eyes and rest.” In minutes, her breathing evened out, her body went slack, and sleep claimed her. Gathering her a little more closely, he planted a kiss on her nape and closed his eyes. His hand wasn’t throbbing anymore, his belly was full, and he was stealing a few private moments with a pretty lady on a pretty day. God

He felt as my papa felt,” Sara thought. “He was ill as my papa was; but he did not die.” So her heart was more drawn to him than before. When she was sent out at night she used sometimes to feel quite glad, because there was always a chance that the curtains of the house next door might not yet be closed and she could look into the warm room and see her adopted friend. When no one was about she used sometimes to stop, and, holding to the iron railings, wish him good night as if he could hear her. “Perhaps you can feel if you can’t hear,” was her fancy. “Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted, and don’t know why, when I am standing here in the cold and hoping you will get well and happy again. I am so sorry for you,” she would whisper in an intense little voice. “I wish you had a ‘Little Missus’ who could pet you as I used to pet papa when he had a headache. I should like to be your ‘Little Missus’ myself, poor dear! Good night--good night. God bless you!” She would go away, feeling quite comforted and a little warmer herself. Her sympathy was so strong that it seemed as if it must reach him somehow as he sat alone in his armchair by the fire, nearly always in a great dressing gown, and nearly always with his forehead resting in his hand as he gazed hopelessly into the fire. He looked to Sara like a man who had a trouble on his mind still, not merely like one whose troubles lay all in the past.

The Unknown Soldier A tale to tell in bloody rhyme, A story to last ’til the dawn of end’s time. Of a loving boy who left dear home, To bear his countries burdens; her honor to sow. –A common boy, I say, who left kith and kin, To battle der Kaiser and all that was therein. The Arsenal of Democracy was his kind, –To make the world safe–was their call and chime. Trained he thus in the far army camps, Drilled he often in the march and stamp. Laughed he did with new found friends, Lived they together for the noble end. Greyish mottled images clipp’ed and hack´ed– Black and white broke drum Ʀ…ɧ..λ..t…ʮ..m..ȿ —marching armies off to ’ttack. Images scratched, chopped, theatrical exaggerate, Confetti parades, shouts of high praise To where hell would sup and partake with all bon hope as the transport do them take Faded icons board the ship– To steel them away collaged together –joined in spirit and hip. Timeworn humanity of once what was To broker peace in eagles and doves. Mortal clay in the earth but to grapple and smite As warbirds ironed soar in heaven’s light. All called all forward to divinities’ kept date, Heroes all–all aces and fates. Paris–Used to sing and play at some cards, A common Joe everybody knew from own heart. He could have been called ‘the kid’ by the ‘old man,’ But a common private now taking orders to stand. Receiving letters from his shy sweet one, Read them over and over until they faded to none. Trained like hell with his Commander-in-Arms, –To avoid the dangers of a most bloody harm. Aye, this boy was mortal, true enough said, He could be one of thousands alive but now surely dead. How he sang and cried and ate the gruel of rations, And grumbled as soldiers do at war’s great contagions. Out–out to the battle this young did go, To become a man; the world to show. (An ocean away his mother cried so– To return her boy safe as far as the heavens go). Lay he down in trenched hole, With balls bursting overhead upon the knoll. Listened hardnfast to the “Sarge” bearing the news, —“We’re going over soon—” was all he knew. The whistle blew; up and over they went, Charging the Hun, his life to be spent (“Avoid the gas boys that’ll blister yer arse!!”). Running through wires razored and deadened trees, Fell he into a gouge to find in shelter of need (They say he bayoneted one just as he–, face to face in War’s Dance of trialed humanity). A nameless sonnuvabitch shell then did untimely RiiiiiiiP the field asunder in burrrstzʑ–and he tripped. And on the field of battle’s blood did he die, Faceless in a puddle as blurrs of ghosting men shrieked as they were fleeing by–. Perished he alone in the no man’s land, Surrounded by an army of his brother’s teeming bands . . . And a world away a mother sighed, Listened to the rain and lay down and cried. . . . Today lays the grave somber and white, Guarded decades long in both the dark and the light. Silent sentinels watch o’er and with him do walk, Speak they neither; their duty talks. Lone, stark sentries perform the unsmiling task, –Guarding this one dead–at the nation’s bequest. Cared over day and night in both rain or sun, Present changing of the guard and their duty is done (The changing of the guard ’tis poetry motioned A Nation defining itself–telling of rifles twirl-clicking under the intensest of devotions). This poem–of The Unknown, taken thus, Is rend eternal by Divinity’s Iron Trust. How he, a common soldier, gained the estate Of bearing his countries glory unto his unknown fate. Here rests in honored glory a warrior known but to God, Now rests he in peace from the conflict path he trod. He is our friend, our family, brother, our mother’s son –belongs he to us all, For he has stood in our place–heeding God’s final call.

Summer spirit, now she closes book’s end, Days of youth spent, carefree with friends. Kari plays now to that what she does not wish, Lost summers days and angelic youth a’ missed. Seasons do change and children grow up, Passing through lives, life never stops. Endless years, bleak they the mind, Adventures of youth, throttle in time. Desires entwine, one grows old, Love loses her grasp, love slips from her hold. Bygone dreams, sleep they soundly by, Hopes for another child, not her soul-self I. Grasped for never, dreams never learn to fly (Within one’s dungeon, the darkest place to die). And Winter’s chill, lays she to rest, Dreams unobtained, fallen in the quest. Kari knew she was but a dream, solo in its flight, Ne’er taking wing again to caress innocence’s light. And to live and live as she once is and now, Stands she forever, stranded on time’s fallowed ground. The love she lost she can never now have, Graspless eternity plucked burning from her hands. Love forsaken, the summer, silent and high, Tears shed for what was once and not now, I. Dreamless hopes far long spent, Lie shallow within, deep strength relents. A hollow traverse of endless life, Lives she the knowing of eternalness light. Aye, silent dreams slip they the day’s long night, To tell of loves once beholden now lost in her sight. In love’s abandonment, Kari, spills she away, To dream upon those clouds again on some somber, summer day. Thus, before evening rusts corrode the golden days, Before innocence is raped and youth spirited away, Before night blossoms forth, and day forgets day, Summer’s love requests of us that we all do stay– To hear a tale one has long since heard before, To tell our souls twice over now and forevermore– Graves are full of those who never lived but could, Heaven and Hell are packed with those who knew they should, And eternity, relentless eternity, brims with those that would. --Garden of the Dragons c h. 23

All beauty calls you to me, and you seem, Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea, To reach me. You are as the wind I breathe Here on the ship's sun-smitten topmost deck, With only light between the heavens and me. I feel your spirit and I close my eyes, Knowing the bright hair blowing in the sun, The eager whisper and the searching eyes. Listen, I love you. Do not turn your face Nor touch me. Only stand and watch awhile The blue unbroken circle of sea. Look far away and let me ease my heart Of words that beat in it with broken wing. Look far away, and if I say too much, Forget that I am speaking. Only watch, How like a gull that sparking sinks to rest, The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the world. I am so weak a thing, praise me for this, That in some strange way I was strong enough To keep my love unuttered and to stand Altho' I longed to kneel to you that night You looked at me with ever-calling eyes. Was I not calm? And if you guessed my love You thought it something delicate and free, Soft as the sound of fir-trees in the wind, Fleeting as phosphorescent stars in foam. Yet in my heart there was a beating storm Bending my thoughts before it, and I strove To say too little lest I say too much, And from my eyes to drive love’s happy shame. Yet when I heard your name the first far time It seemed like other names to me, and I Was all unconscious, as a dreaming river That nears at last its long predestined sea; And when you spoke to me, I did not know That to my life’s high altar came its priest. But now I know between my God and me You stand forever, nearer God than I, And in your hands with faith and utter joy I would that I could lay my woman’s soul. Oh, my love To whom I cannot come with any gift Of body or of soul, I pass and go. But sometimes when you hear blown back to you My wistful, far-off singing touched with tears, Know that I sang for you alone to hear, And that I wondered if the wind would bring To him who tuned my heart its distant song. So might a woman who in loneliness Had borne a child, dreaming of days to come, Wonder if it would please its father’s eyes. But long before I ever heard your name, Always the undertone’s unchanging note In all my singing had prefigured you, Foretold you as a spark foretells a flame. Yet I was free as an untethered cloud In the great space between the sky and sea, And might have blown before the wind of joy Like a bright banner woven by the sun. I did not know the longing in the night– You who have waked me cannot give me sleep. All things in all the world can rest, but I, Even the smooth brief respite of a wave When it gives up its broken crown of foam, Even that little rest I may not have. And yet all quiet loves of friends, all joy In all the piercing beauty of the world I would give up– go blind forevermore, Rather than have God blot from out my soul Remembrance of your voice that said my name. For us no starlight stilled the April fields, No birds awoke in darking trees for us, Yet where we walked the city’s street that night Felt in our feet the singing fire of spring, And in our path we left a trail of light Soft as the phosphorescence of the sea When night submerges in the vessel’s wake A heaven of unborn evanescent stars.

Suddenly he felt his foot catch on something and he stumbled over one of the trailing cables that lay across the laboratory floor. The cable went tight and pulled one of the instruments monitoring the beam over, sending it falling sideways and knocking the edge of the frame that held the refractive shielding plate in position. For what seemed like a very long time the stand wobbled back and forth before it tipped slowly backwards with a crash. ‘Take cover!’ Professor Pike screamed, diving behind one of the nearby workbenches as the other Alpha students scattered, trying to shield themselves behind the most solid objects they could find. The beam punched straight through the laboratory wall in a cloud of vapour and alarm klaxons started wailing all over the school. Professor Pike scrambled across the floor towards the bundle of thick power cables that led to the super-laser, pulling them from the back of the machine and extinguishing the bright green beam. ‘Oops,’ Franz said as the emergency lighting kicked in and the rest of the Alphas slowly emerged from their hiding places. At the back of the room there was a perfectly circular, twenty-centimetre hole in the wall surrounded by scorch marks. ‘I am thinking that this is not being good.’ Otto walked cautiously up to the smouldering hole, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the beam emitter that was making a gentle clicking sound as it cooled down. ‘Woah,’ he said as he peered into the hole. Clearly visible were a series of further holes beyond that got smaller and smaller with perspective. Dimly visible at the far end was what could only be a small circle of bright daylight. ‘Erm, I don’t know how to tell you this, Franz,’ Otto said, turning towards his friend with a broad grin on his face, ‘but it looks like you just made a hole in the school.’ ‘Oh dear,’ Professor Pike said, coming up beside Otto and also peering into the hole. ‘I do hope that we haven’t damaged anything important.’ ‘Or anyone important,’ Shelby added as she and the rest of the Alphas gathered round. ‘It is not being my fault,’ Franz moaned. ‘I am tripping over the cable.’ A couple of minutes later, the door at the far end of the lab hissed open and Chief Dekker came running into the room, flanked by two guards in their familiar orange jumpsuits. Otto and the others winced as they saw her. It was well known already that she had no particular love for H.I.V.E.’s Alpha stream and she seemed to have a special dislike for their year in particular. ‘What happened?’ she demanded as she strode across the room towards the Professor. Her thin, tight lips and sharp cheekbones gave the impression that she was someone who’d heard of this thing called smiling but had decided that it was not for her. ‘There was a slight . . . erm . . . malfunction,’ the Professor replied with a fleeting glance in Franz’s direction. ‘Has anyone been injured?’ ‘It doesn’t look like it,’ Dekker replied tersely, ‘but I think it’s safe to say that Colonel Francisco won’t be using that particular toilet cubicle again.’ Franz visibly paled at the thought of the Colonel finding out that he had been in any way responsible for whatever indignity he had just suffered. He had a sudden horribly clear vision of many laps of the school gym somewhere in his not too distant future.

All beauty calls you to me, and you seem” All beauty calls you to me, and you seem, Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea, To reach me. You are as the wind I breathe Here on the ship's sun-smitten topmost deck, With only light between the heavens and me. I feel your spirit and I close my eyes, Knowing the bright hair blowing in the sun, The eager whisper and the searching eyes. Listen, I love you. Do not turn your face Nor touch me. Only stand and watch awhile The blue unbroken circle of the sea. Look far away and let me ease my heart Of words that beat in it with broken wing. Look far away, and if I say too much, Forget that I am speaking. Only watch, How like a gull that sparkling sinks to rest, The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the world. I am so weak a thing, praise me for this, That in some strange way I was strong enough To keep my love unuttered and to stand Altho' I longed to kneel to you that night You looked at me with ever-calling eyes. Was I not calm? And if you guessed my love You thought it something delicate and free, Soft as the sound of fir-trees in the wind, Fleeting as phosphorescent stars in foam. Yet in my heart there was a beating storm Bending my thoughts before it, and I strove To say too little lest I say too much, And from my eyes to drive love's happy shame. Yet when I heard your name the first far time It seemed like other names to me, and I Was all unconscious, as a dreaming river That nears at last its long predestined sea; And when you spoke to me, I did not know That to my life's high altar came its priest. But now I know between my God and me You stand forever, nearer God than I, And in your hands with faith and utter joy I would that I could lay my woman's soul. Oh, my love To whom I cannot come with any gift Of body or of soul, I pass and go. But sometimes when you hear blown back to you My wistful, far-off singing touched with tears, Know that I sang for you alone to hear, And that I wondered if the wind would bring To him who tuned my heart its distant song. So might a woman who in loneliness Had borne a child, dreaming of days to come, Wonder if it would please its father's eyes. But long before I ever heard your name, Always the undertone's unchanging note In all my singing had prefigured you, Foretold you as a spark foretells a flame. Yet I was free as an untethered cloud In the great space between the sky and sea, And might have blown before the wind of joy Like a bright banner woven by the sun. I did not know the longing in the night-- You who have waked me cannot give me sleep. All things in all the world can rest, but I, Even the smooth brief respite of a wave When it gives up its broken crown of foam, Even that little rest I may not have. And yet all quiet loves of friends, all joy In all the piercing beauty of the world I would give up--go blind forevermore, Rather than have God blot from out my soul Remembrance of your voice that said my name. For us no starlight stilled the April fields, No birds awoke in darkling trees for us, Yet where we walked the city's street that night Felt in our feet the singing fire of spring, And in our path we left a trail of light Soft as the phosphorescence of the sea When night submerges in the vessel's wake A heaven of unborn evanescent stars.

The seventh day, and no wind—the burning sun Blister’d and scorch’d, and, stagnant on the sea, They lay like carcasses; and hope was none, Save in the breeze that came not; savagely They glared upon each other—all was done, Water, and wine, and food,—and you might see The longings of the cannibal arise (Although they spoke not) in their wolfish eyes. At length one whisper’d his companion, who Whisper’d another, and thus it went round, And then into a hoarser murmur grew, An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound; And when his comrade’s thought each sufferer knew, ’Twas but his own, suppress’d till now, he found: And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood, And who should die to be his fellow’s food. But ere they came to this, they that day shared Some leathern caps, and what remain’d of shoes; And then they look’d around them and despair’d, And none to be the sacrifice would choose; At length the lots were torn up, and prepared, But of materials that much shock the Muse— Having no paper, for the want of better, They took by force from Juan Julia’s letter. The lots were made, and mark’d, and mix’d, and handed, In silent horror, and their distribution Lull’d even the savage hunger which demanded, Like the Promethean vulture, this pollution; None in particular had sought or plann’d it, ’Twas nature gnaw’d them to this resolution, By which none were permitted to be neuter— And the lot fell on Juan’s luckless tutor. He but requested to be bled to death: The surgeon had his instruments, and bled Pedrillo, and so gently ebb’d his breath, You hardly could perceive when he was dead. He died as born, a Catholic in faith, Like most in the belief in which they’re bred, And first a little crucifix he kiss’d, And then held out his jugular and wrist. The surgeon, as there was no other fee, Had his first choice of morsels for his pains; But being thirstiest at the moment, he Preferr’d a draught from the fast-flowing veins: Part was divided, part thrown in the sea, And such things as the entrails and the brains Regaled two sharks, who follow’d o’er the billow The sailors ate the rest of poor Pedrillo. The sailors ate him, all save three or four, Who were not quite so fond of animal food; To these was added Juan, who, before Refusing his own spaniel, hardly could Feel now his appetite increased much more; ’Twas not to be expected that he should, Even in extremity of their disaster, Dine with them on his pastor and his master. ’Twas better that he did not; for, in fact, The consequence was awful in the extreme; For they, who were most ravenous in the act, Went raging mad—Lord! how they did blaspheme! And foam and roll, with strange convulsions rack’d, Drinking salt water like a mountain-stream, Tearing, and grinning, howling, screeching, swearing, And, with hyaena-laughter, died despairing. Their numbers were much thinn’d by this infliction, And all the rest were thin enough, Heaven knows; And some of them had lost their recollection, Happier than they who still perceived their woes; But others ponder’d on a new dissection, As if not warn’d sufficiently by those Who had already perish’d, suffering madly, For having used their appetites so sadly. And if Pedrillo’s fate should shocking be, Remember Ugolino condescends To eat the head of his arch-enemy The moment after he politely ends His tale: if foes be food in hell, at sea ’Tis surely fair to dine upon our friends, When shipwreck’s short allowance grows too scanty, Without being much more horrible than Dante.

Notice that Jesus knows exactly who he is asking to lead his community: a sinner. As all Christian leaders have been, are, and will be, Peter is imperfect. And as all good Christian leaders are, Peter is well aware of his imperfections. The disciples too know who they are getting as their leader. They will not need—or be tempted—to elevate Peter into some semi-divine figure; they have seen him at his worst. Jesus forgives Peter because he loves him, because he knows that his friend needs forgiveness to be free, and because he knows that the leader of his church will need to forgive others many times. And Jesus forgives totally, going beyond what would be expected—going so far as to establish Peter as head of the church.11 It would have made more earthly sense for Jesus to appoint another, non-betraying apostle to head his church. Why give the one who denied him this important leadership role? Why elevate the manifestly sinful one over the rest? One reason may be to show the others what forgiveness is. In this way Jesus embodies the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who not only forgives the son, but also, to use a fishing metaphor, goes overboard. Jesus goes beyond forgiving and setting things right. A contemporary equivalent would be a tenured professor stealing money from a university, apologizing, being forgiven by the board of trustees, and then being hired as the school’s president. People would find this extraordinary—and it is. In response, Peter will ultimately offer his willingness to lay down his life for Christ. But on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he can’t know the future. He can’t understand fully what he is agreeing to. Feed your sheep? Which sheep? The Twelve? The disciples? The whole world? This is often the case for us too. Even if we accept the call we can be confused about where God is leading us. When reporters used to ask the former Jesuit superior general Pedro Arrupe where the Jesuit Order was going, he would say, “I don’t know!” Father Arrupe was willing to follow, even if he didn’t know precisely what God had in mind. Peter says yes to the unknowable, because the question comes from Jesus. Both Christ’s forgiveness and Peter’s response show us love. God’s love is limitless, unconditional, radical. And when we have experienced that love, we can share it. The ability to forgive and to accept forgiveness is an absolute requirement of the Christian life. Conversely, the refusal to forgive leads ineluctably to spiritual death. You may know families in which vindictiveness acts like a cancer, slowly eating away at love. You may know people whose marriages have been destroyed by a refusal to forgive. One of my friends described a couple he knew as “two scorpions in a jar,” both eagerly waiting to sting the other with barbs and hateful comments. We see the communal version of this in countries torn by sectarian violence, where a climate of mutual recrimination and mistrust leads only to increasing levels of pain. The Breakfast by the Sea shows that Jesus lived the forgiveness he preached. Jesus knew that forgiveness is a life-giving force that reconciles, unites, and empowers. The Gospel by the Sea is a gospel of forgiveness, one of the central Christian virtues. It is the radical stance of Jesus, who, when faced with the one who denied him, forgave him and appointed him head of the church, and the man who, in agony on the Cross, forgave his executioners. Forgiveness is a gift to the one who forgives, because it frees from resentment; and to the one who needs forgiveness, because it frees from guilt. Forgiveness is the liberating force that allowed Peter to cast himself into the water at the sound of Jesus’s voice, and it is the energy that gave him a voice with which to testify to his belief in Christ.

Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '99: Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4:00 pm on some idle Tuesday. Do one thing everyday that scares you. Sing. Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours. Floss. Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead; sometimes you’re behind; the race is long, and in the end it’s only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements. Stretch. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you wanna do with your life; the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees; you’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry -- maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children -- maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40 -- maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either -- your choices are half chance; so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body; use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own. Dance. even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do not read beauty magazines; they will only make you feel ugly. Get to know your parents; you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography, in lifestyle, because the older you get the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel. Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will rise; politicians will philander; you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders. Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund; maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out. Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia: dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it’s worth. But trust me on the sunscreen. Baz Luhrmannk, William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (1996)

But you don’t wear an engagement ring.” “I don’t have one.” He studied the bangle, turning it slowly around. “What kind of man proposes without a ring?” She explained, then, that there had not been a proposal, that she hardly knew Navin. She was looking away, at a dried-out plant on the terrace, but she felt his eyes on her, intrigued, unafraid. “Then why are you marrying him?” She told him the truth, a truth she had not told anybody. “I thought it might fix things.” He did not question her further. Unlike her friends back in America, who either thought she was doing something outrageously stupid or thrillingly bold, Kaushik neither judged nor commended her, and the formal presentation of the facts, the declaration that she was taken, opened the door. Only his kisses, rough, aggressive kisses that were nothing like Navin’s schoolboy behavior at her door, made Hema feel guilty. But the rest of what they did that night felt fresh, new, because she and Navin had never done them before, and there was nothing with which to compare. Navin had never looked at her body unclothed, never explored her with his hands, never told her she was beautiful. Hema remembered that it was Kaushik’s mother who had first paid her that compliment, in a fitting room shopping for bras, and she told this to Kaushik. It was the first mention, between them, of his mother, and yet it did not cause them to grow awkward. If anything it bound them closer together, and Hema knew, without having to be told, that she was the first person he’d ever slept with who’d known his mother, who was able to remember her as he did. His bare feet were warm, surprisingly smooth against her soles as they lay afterward side by side. He slept on his back and at one point was startled awake by a nightmare, lunging forward and springing off the edge of the bed before falling asleep again. It was Hema who stayed awake, listening to him breathing, craving his touch again as light came into the sky. In the morning, looking into the small mirror over the sink in Kaushik’s bathroom, she saw that the area around her lips, at the sides of her mouth, was covered with small red bumps. And she was pleased by that unbecoming proof, pleased that already he had marked her.

BEHIND THE WALL The Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989, twenty-five years ago this month, but the first attempts to breach it came immediately after it went up, just past midnight on August 13, 1961. The East German regime had been secretly stockpiling barbed wire and wooden sawhorses, which the police, who learned of their mission only that night, hastily assembled into a barrier. For many Berliners, the first sign that a historic turn had been taken was when the U-Bahn, the city’s subway, stopped running on certain routes, leaving late-night passengers to walk home through streets that were suddenly filled with soldiers. As realization set in, so did a sense of panic. By noon the next day, as Ann Tusa recounts in “The Last Division,” people were trying to pull down the barbed wire with their hands. Some succeeded, in scattered places, and a car drove through a section of the Wall to the other side. In the following weeks, the authorities began reinforcing it. Within a year, the Wall was nearly eight feet high, with patrols and the beginnings of a no man’s land. But it still wasn’t too tall for a person to scale, and on August 17, 1962, Peter Fechter, who was eighteen years old, and his friend Helmut Kulbeik decided to try. They picked a spot on Zimmerstrasse, near the American Checkpoint Charlie, and just after two o’clock in the afternoon they made a run for it. Kulbeik got over, but Fechter was shot by a guard, and fell to the ground. He was easily visible from the West; there are photographs of him, taken as he lay calling for help. Hundreds of people gathered on the Western side, shouting for someone to save him. The East German police didn’t want to, and the Americans had been told that if they crossed the border they might start a war. Someone tossed a first-aid kit over the Wall, but Fechter was too weak to pick it up. After an hour, he bled to death. Riots broke out in West Berlin, and many asked angrily why the Americans had let Fechter die. He was hardly more than a child, and he wanted to be a free man. It’s a fair question, though one can imagine actions taken that day which could have led to a broader confrontation. It was not a moment to risk grand gestures; Fechter died two months before the Cuban missile crisis. (When the Wall went up, John F. Kennedy told his aides that it was “not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”) And there was something off key about Germans, so soon after the end of the Second World War, railing about others being craven bystanders. Some observers came to see the Wall as the necessary scaffolding on which to secure a postwar peace. That’s easy to say, though, when one is on the side with the department stores, and without the secret police. Technically, West Berlin was the city being walled in, a quasi-metropolis detached from the rest of West Germany. The Allied victors—America, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union—had divided Germany into four parts, and, since Berlin was in the Soviet sector, they divided the city into four parts, too. In 1948, the Soviets cut off most road and rail access to the city’s three western sectors, in an effort to assert their authority. The Americans responded with the Berlin Airlift, sending in planes carrying food and coal, and so much salt that their engines began to corrode. By the time the Wall went up, it wasn’t the West Berliners who were hungry. West Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder , or economic miracle, was under way, while life in the East involved interminable shortages. West Berliners were surrounded by Soviet military encampments, but they were free and they could leave—and so could anyone who could get to their part of the city. The East Berliners were the prisoners. In the weeks before the Wall went up, more than a thousand managed to cross the border each day; the Wall was built to keep them from leaving. But people never stopped trying to tear it down.

It was a Sunday at the end of November, which meant summertime in Australia. My water broke at night, and this time I knew what was coming. I remember thinking, There’s no turning back now. Immediately after my water broke, the contractions started. I had been sleeping in Bindi’s room because I was so awkward and uncomfortable that I kept waking everybody up. Plus, Bindi loved being able to snuggle down in bed with her daddy. I crept into their room quietly. As I stood beside the bed, I leaned in next to Steve’s ear. I could feel his breath. He smelled warm and sweet and familiar. He is going to be a daddy again, I thought, his favorite job in the world. When I whispered “Steve,” he opened his eyes without moving. Bindi slept on at his side. It was about midnight, and I told Steve that we didn’t have to leave for the hospital yet, but it would be soon. Once he was satisfied that I was okay, I headed back to Bindi’s bed to get some rest. Throughout our life together, I never knew what Steve was going to say next. True to form, he came to my bedside, not long after I lay down, and said, “I’m putting my foot down.” “What?” “The baby is going to be named Robert Clarence Irwin if it’s a boy,” he said. Robert after his dad, Bob, and Clarence after my dad. “You don’t need to put your foot down,” I whispered to him. “I think it’s a beautiful name.” When my contractions were four minutes apart, I knew it was time to head to the hospital. It was five o’clock in the morning. Steve got everything organized to take me. Of course, one of the things he grabbed was a camera. He was determined that we would capture everything on film. We called Trevor, our friend and cinematographer who had filmed Bindi’s birth, to meet us at the hospital, and Thelma, Bindi’s nanny, came over to get her off to school. As we drove in the car, Steve filmed me from the driver’s seat. As he shot, the Ute slowly edged toward the side of the road. He looked up, grabbed the wheel, and corrected the steering. Then he went back to filming and the whole thing happened again. After two or three veers, I had had enough. “Stop filming,” I yelled. He quickly put the camera down. I think he realized that this was no time to argue with mama bear.

I’ve told you before, Alera--Andrius lives on in you. I see him in you every day.” I smiled, tipping my head in acceptance of the compliment. “And in you--” she said, once more turning to Narian, tapping a finger against her lips in thought “--I see Cannan.” She was lightly cajoling him, exactly as a parent would do. I couldn’t imagine what was going on in his mind, but he was no longer eager to leave, his eyes never once flicking toward me or the door. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Cannan is strong and decisive. He seems unemotional, untouchable, but underneath he has more heart than most men taken together. And he could so easily have buried that compassion. In some ways, he would have hurt less throughout the years had he done so, but he would be half the man he is today.” I was remembering things Baelic had told me, vague things about Cannan and their father. I had never considered that my mother would have knowledge on the subject, although I should have surmised it. She had grown up in the nobility with the men of her generation, and Cannan had been one of Crown Prince Andrius’s best friends. Seeing the curiosity on Narian’s face, she went on, “It was no secret that Baron Burvaul--Cannan’s father--was a tyrant. In their family, everyone wore smiles for fear of what Burvaul might do if they did not, and everything stayed behind closed doors--except for bruises and broken bones, the vast majority of which were bestowed on Cannan. At that time, of course, Cannan could not fight his father, and so he fought the world instead. “But when he was eighteen and was sent into the field of war, he changed. He gained perspective. And when Andrius died and Cannan was called back to become Sergeant at Arms, and later Captain of the Guard, he was more powerful than his father, in position and character. He never abused that power, but his victory lay in the fact that Burvaul could not bear the reversal of control. He lived the rest of his life in fear of his own son, who never punished him. “I see that personality in you, Narian. Just like Cannan, you will never become the man who controlled you.” “He didn’t control me,” Narian abruptly said. “He didn’t in the end, did he?” she agreed, taking a sip of her tea. “Of course, the real question is about your mother. What was she like?” “You know my mother,” Narian replied, his expression strange. I’d never seen him this way before--he seemed younger, less defensive. He was hesitant, but not guarded like he had been upon entering the room. It was almost as if he wanted to open up to her. “I mean the woman who raised you. Your Cokyrian mother.” Narian was shaking his head, despite the change I had detected in him. “I didn’t have a mother in Cokyri.” “You’re far too well-mannered not to have had a mother growing up.” Her blue eyes were twinkling, unthreatening. Again, she was teasing him, and although I expected him to simply sidestep her a third time, he did not. “To the extent I had a mother, she was the High Priestess.” I looked incredulously back and forth between the two of them, for in half an hour, my mother had enticed Narian to divulge as much to her as I had gleaned in two years. Though I was now bursting to speak, I refrained, and she pressed him further.

She leaned up and kissed me. Her mouth tasted like lipstick, blood, and gunpowder. It was also the softest thing that I’d ever felt, and in spite of the pain I felt my mouth opening so that my tongue could flick out to taste hers. The heat came off her face like a furnace. Our tongues moved around each other’s, swirling and dueling. Finally she broke the kiss. It was like surfacing after a long, intoxicating dive through a sea of Red Bull. “What was that for?”I managed. “I am beginning to like you, Perry.”I shivered out a breath. “You’ve got a kooky way of showing it.”“Have you ever felt more alive?”“Once or twice, yes.”Gobi was still looking at me, lips half parted, eyes searching the depths of whatever was inside me. She looked lost and young and totally uncontrolled, a reflection of how I felt now, in a place that I’d never been before, somewhere that nobody would ever think to look for me. I had the sudden, ridiculous, absolutely compelling vision of chucking everything—school, music, my family and friends—and running away with her, away from the rest of the world. I figured we’d last about a week. “Are you all right?”she asked. “My head hurts.”“Is the lipstick,”she smiled. “There is a mind-control drug in it. You are now completely under my power ... By dawn you will be mine.”“Just promise me you won’t hurt my family.”She went serious. “Families get hurt, Perry. There are no guarantees this side of the grave.”“You’re a real bitch, you know that?”“I never denied it.”I swung at her. She caught my fist. “Too slow.”I let myself tilt forward just enough for our foreheads to touch, then reached for her neck and put my fingers on the scar, tracing the thin curve of raised tissue. “What happened there?”Her gaze shifted away. “A painful memory.”“Like what, getting your throat cut and coming back from the grave?”Gobi straightened up. The mood didn’t just break—it shattered into a million sharp and spiky pieces that lay all over the sidewalk like dragon’s teeth. Then she shuddered and fell still. “Gobi?”She leaned forward again, and I caught her. For a moment we just stood there together in front of the dive bar, and when I felt her legs starting to give way, I lowered her back down the front steps.

Do we well to be thus unbelieving? Why should we be ungrateful and distrustful? Jesus is our friend; all heaven is interested in our welfare; and our anxiety and fear grieve the Holy Spirit of God. We should not indulge in a solicitude that only frets and wears us, but does not help us to bear trials. No place should be given to that distrust of God which leads us to make a preparation against future want the chief pursuit of life, as though our happiness consisted in these earthly things. It is not the will of God that his people should be weighed down with care. But our Lord does not tell us that there are no dangers in our path. He does not propose to take his people out of the world of sin and evil, but he points us to a never-failing refuge. He invites the weary and care-laden, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Lay off the yoke of anxiety and worldly care that you have placed on your own neck, and “take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Matthew 11:28, 29. We may find rest and peace in God, casting all our care upon him; for he careth for us. See 1 Peter 5:7. Says the apostle Paul, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” Hebrews 3:12. In view of all that God has wrought for us, our faith should be strong, active, and enduring. Instead of murmuring and complaining, the language of our hearts should be, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” Psalm 103:1, 2.

The opposition between women who are people and women who are something less does not only rest in the vague contrast between the women of the comedies and the women of the tragedies. There are more explicit examples of women who may earn love, like Helena who pursued her husband through military brothels to marriage and honour in All’s Well, and women who must lose it through inertia and gormlessness, like Cressida. In The Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare contrasted two types in order to present a theory of marriage which is demonstrated by the explicit valuation of both kinds of wooing in the last scene. Kate is a woman striving for her own existence in a world where she is a stale, a decoy to be bid for against her sister’s higher market value, so she opts out by becoming unmanageable, a scold. Bianca has found the women’s way of guile and feigned gentleness to pay better dividends: she woos for herself under false colours, manipulating her father and her suitors in a perilous game which could end in her ruin. Kate courts ruin in a different way, but she has the uncommon good fortune to find Petruchio who is man enough to know what he wants and how to get it. He wants her spirit and her energy because he wants a wife worth keeping. He tames her like he might a hawk or a high-mettled horse, and she rewards him with strong sexual love and fierce loyalty. Lucentio finds himself saddled with a cold, disloyal woman, who has no objection to humiliating him in public. The submission of a woman like Kate is genuine and exciting because she has something to lay down, her virgin pride and individuality: Bianca is the soul of duplicity, married without earnestness or good-will. Kate’s speech at the close of the play is the greatest defence of Christian monogamy ever written. It rests upon the role of a husband as protector and friend, and it is valid because Kate has a man who is capable of being both, for Petruchio is both gentle and strong (it is a vile distortion of the play to have him strike her ever). The message is probably twofold: only Kates make good wives, and then only to Petruchios; for the rest, their cake is dough.

So, why didn't you? There's bound to be some gadget in your computer that would have let you get out of there." This was a question Tori had been burning to ask ever since Donald decided to stay behind in spite of being able to run. She didn't understand it, simply couldn't fathom why he'd lay down his life like that. Fighting for friends and family was one thing, but they could have evacuated with the rest of the club.

River searched the world for her girls. She dug up every anthill she could find. The army ants were too frightened to tell her what they'd done, but they did tell her that the ant god had gone to live among the humans. River searched for Ant. She dug through entire lineages trying to find him. When, after three hundred years, the sky god dared to mention the neglected waters of the world, she dried up entire countries out of spite. This is our River, one god reminded the other, our sweet River. Let us help, not hinder. And so they sent emissaries from every spirit realm, second daughters and minor spirits of similar powers, godlings all, promising their aid for a hundred years. But River's grief became their own. They forgot their mothers and their brothers and the lovers they'd promised to return to; they forgot that they'd had a past before this grief removed everything form inside of them. How, they wondered, can a body feel full to bursting with grief but also hollow? These godlings of land and air and memory resisted this loss of themselves, but River's sorrow drowned them. Their husbands, their children, their homes became like reflections in a rough stream, fractured beyond recognition. They tore the world apart. Unprecedented rains. Earthquakes that ravaged every region. One godling who had come from the house of flames sent an entire cite on fire trying to find River's girls. It was a dark century for humankind and godkind alike. Then the female godlings got craftier in their search. They made themselves visible to human eyes, tempting men and women, threatening men and women, building a network of spies across the globe who lit candles and prayed to them and passed this new religion on to their children. Every new convert was a new set of eyes in the world, a new set of ears to catch whispers of men who didn't seem to fit in, or men who rose to ungodly success but never seemed to pray. Many a good man was lost to angry godlings who peeled his skin away, searching for the god that might be hidden inside. But after seven hundred fruitless years and countless human believers in her service, it dawned on River that she might never see her twins again. She collapsed where she stood, and every emissary lay down as well. Dust settled on them, then grime and so much debris that they became part of the earth, hills of hips and buttocks and woe. All but one. That only one who felt the rage of River, multiplied by that most powerful feeling that won't let a person rest: guilt. River's sister, not quite goddess. The guilt turned in her belly like a ship in a storm. She'd slept while her sister's children were taken. Blame, so like a god itself, shadowed her, occupied her bed like a lover, whispered to her like a dearest friend. Her name was eventually forgotten.

Perhaps we as a nation need a rest too - a breathing space, an amnesty, a season of mourning, a month of indulgence, a year of reprieve, a century of celebration. A laying down of arms, a laying on of hands. A long, cool rain of forgiveness.

The two friends enjoyed wandering through this place. It was small. Only a city block. Unobtrusive. This was where some of the pioneer workers of Seattle were laid to rest. Laborers who worked in sawmills. Regular folk born when Seattle was a mill town. Regular working class, now buried under ground stones. These folk had to fight to simply survive. Remembered by their children and grandchildren, they worked for a better tomorrow for those they loved. These people had smiled, and danced, and hoped. They had lived. Now buried, most had no fancy education to show for their troubles. They were not part of the elite, yet those who lay here were great. These souls were not the most renowned or powerful, but were, in truth, the best of the world. As Zin and Obia wandered through, they saw various headstones were flat, unobtrusive, and resting in the grass. Right in the ground, without any markers.

Ashton took her hand, resting his other palm against her waist. He moved in a slow tempo, giving her time to pick up each foot in the dance step. But every time he attempted to turn her, her feet seemed to tangle together. “I’m so clumsy,” she apologized. “My feet won’t move the way I want them to.” She lacked the physical ability to keep the rhythm, and it heightened her frustration. “I don’t even know what I was thinking. No one waltzes this slowly.” He didn’t deny it, but his hand pressed lightly at her waist, turning her once more. “You knew it wouldn’t be easy.” “You’re right. And besides that, I only took my first steps a week ago. It could take months before I’m nimble enough to dance.” In answer to that, the earl lifted her up and held her body aloft while he spun her in the waltz step. The sudden motion caught her unawares, and she began to laugh. “You cannot lift me up in a ballroom, Lord Ashton. Please put me down.” Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment, though the Irishman didn’t seem to care. He stopped spinning her, but held her up a moment longer. “Iain,” he corrected. But he did not set her down just yet. He kept his arms beneath her hips, and Rose was caught up in his green eyes. He stared at her with unveiled interest, and his dark hair framed a chiseled face. She could half-imagine him carrying her across the garden and laying her down against the grass before he kissed her again. The thought brought her attention back to his firm mouth. She had enjoyed his kiss, and it had soothed her pride to know that she’d kindled his interest. It had been so long since she’d seen Thomas, she didn’t know what remained between them. But it felt good to have a man watching her as if he wanted her. “Iain,” she murmured. He brought her down, but the entire time, her body was pressed close to his. She kept her arms upon his shoulders a moment longer before she took slow, limping steps back to the garden bench. Why did she allow her imagination to trespass into thoughts of what could never be? He needed an heiress who would return with him to Ireland. Not a woman like her. They were friends, and that was all.

All five of these Exorcists trained several other men and included in their instruction the wisdom and the selflessness needed for anyone who would voluntarily give himself as hostage in order to liberate another from the bondage of Possession. The epitaph on the tombstone of the gentle Father Gerald is testimony to the vocation of all these men, and it is witness to the source of their strength. For that epitaph is from the mouth of the loving Lord in whose glory Gerald now rests: “Greater love than this no man hath, than that a man lay down his life for his friend.” Malachi Martin New York April 1992

Huh?” she said. “What’s this?” “I think you have a fever. Might be from damn near freezing to death, might be from something else. First we try aspirin.” “Yeah,” she said, taking them in her small hand. “Thanks.” While Marcie took the aspirin with water, he fixed up the tea. They traded, water cup for mug of tea. He stayed across the room at his table while she sipped the tea. When she was almost done, he said, “Okay, here’s the deal. I have to work this morning. I’ll be gone till noon or so—depends how long it takes. When I get back, you’re going to be here. After we’re sure you’re not sick, then you’ll go. But not till I tell you it’s time to go. I want you to sleep. Rest. Use the pot, don’t go outside. I don’t want to stretch this out. And I don’t want to have to go looking for you to make sure you’re all right. You understand?” She smiled, though weakly. “Aw, Ian, you care.” He snarled at her, baring his teeth like an animal. She laughed a little, which turned into a cough. “You get a lot of mileage out of that? The roars and growls, like you’re about to tear a person to pieces with your teeth?” He looked away. “Must keep people back pretty good. Your old neighbor said you were crazy. You howl at the moon and everything?” “How about you don’t press your luck,” he said as meanly as he could. “You need more tea?” “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll nap. I don’t want to be any trouble, but I’m awful tired.” He went to her and took the cup out of her hand. “If you didn’t want to be any trouble, why didn’t you just leave me the hell alone?” “Gee, I just had this wild urge to find an old friend…” She lay back on the couch, pulling that soft quilt around her. “What kind of work do you do?” “I sell firewood out of the back of my truck.” He went to his metal box, which was nailed to the floor from the inside so it couldn’t be stolen if someone happened by his cabin, which was unlikely. He unlocked it and took out a roll of bills he kept in there and put it in his pocket, then relocked it. “First snowfall of winter—should be a good day. Maybe I’ll get back early, but no matter what, I want you here until I say you go. You get that?” “Listen, if I’m here, it’s because it’s where I want to be, and you better get that. I’m the one who came looking for you, so don’t get the idea you’re going to bully me around and scare me. If I wasn’t so damn tired, I might leave—just to piss you off. But I get the idea you like being pissed off.” He stood and got into his jacket, pulled gloves out of the pockets. “I guess we understand each other as well as we can.” “Wait—it’s

I am never one to judge others; I am so eccentric myself that I have no right to cast aspersions. A person may or may not like a thing, and I have little to say other than I love it too or how could you dare not like it please die promptly, but I leave everyone to find their own niches in time. We are all avid about certain things; I happen to rave over many subjects, all of which have a place in the Kingdom of Nerdonia, and whenever I hear someone unjustly disparage a thing I consider sacred, I lay it down that the person is either mistaken or a dunderwhelp, the latter being the likeliest of the two. There is a great difference between knowledge accompanied by bias and ignorance accompanied by gallantry, and while all tastes may be what they are, there are bare necessities that will immediately define a character and relationship, these things usually being how many Monty Python lines one knows and whether or not they know what Iocaine is. The strength of lasting friendships rests on whether one can sing the theme to Neverending Story.

He tips his glass and drinks. So does Matt. And everyone in the crowd. Except me. “What’s wrong?” Matt asks. “Nothing,” I say. I motion my mother forward, and she puts a box in my hands. It’s small, but it’s weighty at the same time. “I have a present for you.” “I thought our honeymoon was our present to each other,” he reminds me with a scowl. We’re leaving for the Carolina coast for a week with the kids tonight. I can’t wait. I motion for him to take my package. “The vacation is our gift. This is just extra.” I blink back the tears that are already forming in my eyes. He makes a face and opens up the box. He looks inside and then gets confused. He pulls the tiny little item out of the box. It’s a onesie that has tattoo designs all over it, and on the back, it has the name Reed. “What’s this?” he asks, confused. Then his eyes grow wide. Friday gasps when she realizes what’s going on, and the rest of the crowd rumbles and fidgets. “Is this…?” he asks. He stops, because he’s choked with emotion. “Yes,” I say. Tears roll down my face, and I don’t care. I lean close to him. “You knocked me up.” He takes me in his arms and pulls me close, and a sob rolls through him. “Are you serious?” “Completely serious, Matt,” I say. “But wait.” I look down and shake the onesie out. A second one falls out, and Matt catches it in the air. “Two?” he asks. I nod, so broken by his reaction that I can’t speak. “Two tiny little heartbeats,” I say as soon as I can. “Holy fuck,” he breathes into my ear. He squeezes me so tightly that I chirp. “I love you so fucking much,” he says to me. He takes a second to breathe me in and compose himself, then he drops to his knees and lays his forehead on my belly. He says something quietly to his unborn children, and I’m not even sure what it was, but I do know it was between him and them. Or him and God. I’m not sure which. Then he stands and looks up at the crowd. Half of them are as teary-eyed as we are. “Do you know what this means?” he asks our friends and family. They rumble, but he can’t hear one voice over another. He points to Logan. “This means my sperm are better swimmers than yours, little brother!” he says. He signs while he talks, and Logan flips him off. But he’s laughing. He wraps his arms around Emily and lays his hands on the small swell of her belly. I slap his shoulder. “What if it’s my eggs that are amazing and not your sperm?” “What if it’s just us?” he asks quietly, and he kisses me. “Us together.” “I told you I believe in miracles, Matt,” I say when I can finally lift my head. “You’re my miracle,” he says. “You. Just you.

Bear fat for the burn. You will lie on your face.” Their gazes locked, laughter still shimmering in his. Seconds dragged by, measured by the wild thumping of her heart. He wanted to rub her down? Oh, God, what was she going to do? She clutched the fur more tightly. Hunter shrugged as if her defiance bothered him not at all and tossed down the pouch. “You are sure enough not smart, Blue Eyes. You will lie on your face,” he said softly. “Don’t fight the big fight. If my strong arm fails me, I will call my friends. And in the end, you will lie on your face.” Loretta imagined sixty warriors swooping down on her. As if he needed more of an advantage. Hatred and helpless rage made her tremble. Hunter watched her, his expression unreadable as he waited. She wanted to fly at him, scratching and biting. Instead she loosened her hold on the buffalo robe and rolled onto her stomach. As she pressed her face into the stench-ridden buffalo fur, tears streamed down her cheeks, pooling and tickling in the crevices at each side of her nose. She clamped her arms to her sides and lay rigid, expecting him to jerk back the robe. Shame swept over her in hot, rolling waves as she imagined all those horrible men looking at her. She felt the fur shift and braced herself. His greased palm touched her back and slid downward with such agonizing slowness that her skin shriveled and her buttocks quivered. So focused was she on his touch, on the shame of it, that several seconds passed before she realized he had slipped his arm beneath the fur, that no one, not even he, could see her. Relief, if she felt any at all, was short-lived, for he laved every inch of her back with grease and then tried to nudge her arms aside to get at the burned skin along her ribs. She resisted him, but in the end his strength won out. When his fingertips grazed the swell of her left breast, her lungs ceased working and her body snapped taut. He hesitated, then resumed the rubbing, diving his fingertips between her and the fur to graze her nipple. She wasn’t burned there, and she knew he pressed the issue only to drive home his point. She belonged to him, and he would touch her whenever and wherever he pleased. A sob caught in her throat. Once again she felt his hand pause. His gaze burned into the back of her head, tangible in its intensity. At last he withdrew his arm from under the fur and sat back. Loretta twisted her neck to look up at his dark face, not bothering to wipe away her tears, too defeated to care if he saw them. He set the leather pouch on the pallet beside her. For an instant she thought she glimpsed pity in his eyes. “You rub the rest, eh? And put yourself into the clothes.” With that, he rose, presented his broad back to her, and walked away to crouch by the only remaining fire. Loretta clutched the fur to her breasts and sat up, not quite able to believe he had left her alone to dress.

Loretta awoke shortly after dawn, alone in a cocoon of fur. She had only the haziest memory of Hunter carrying her to bed after making love to her last night. She sat up, clutching the buffalo robe to her naked breasts. Her clothing lay neatly folded on the foot of the bed, the rawhide wrappings for her braids resting on top. Her blond hair fascinated Hunter, and he had never yet made love to her without first unfastening her braids. A sad smile touched her mouth. Hunter, the typical slovenly Indian, picking up after his tosi wife. She had been so wrong about so many things. She hugged her knees and rested her chin on them, gazing sightlessly into the shadows, listening to the village sounds. A woman was calling her dog. Somewhere a child was crying. The smell of roasting meat drifted on the breeze. Familiar sounds, familiar smells, the voices of friends. When had the village begun to seem like home? Loretta closed her eyes, searching desperately within herself for her own identity and memories, but white society was no longer a reality to her. Hunter had become the axis of her world, Hunter and his people. Amy lay sleeping on her pallet a short distance away. Loretta listened to her even breathing. Amy, Aunt Rachel, home. Could she return there now and pick up the threads of her old life? The answer wasn’t long in coming. Life without Hunter would be no life at all.

Jenny, what can I do to help?” Westhaven’s expression was merely genial, but in his words, Jenny heard determination and that most dratted of holiday gifts, sibling concern. “Help?” “You’re quiet as a dormouse. Maggie says you’re chewing your nails. Louisa reports that you’re taking odd notions, and Sophie won’t say anything, but she’s clearly worried. Her Grace muttered something about regretting all the time she’s permitted you to spend among the paint fumes.” “What would Her Grace know of paint fumes?” What would the duchess know of anything relating to painting? “She’s our mother. Where knowledge fails, maternal instinct serves. Is Bernward troubling you?” Westhaven was an excellent dancer, and if Jenny did not finish the dance with him, Her Grace would casually suggest that tomorrow be a day to rest from the activity in the studio. The idea made Jenny desperate. “Westhaven, you must not involve yourself in anything to do with Elijah.” “Elijah.” Westhaven’s gaze shifted to a spot over Jenny’s shoulder. “And does he call you Jenny?” He calls me Genevieve, and sometimes he even calls me “woman.” “He calls me talented and brilliant but uneducated and unorthodox too. I’ve enjoyed working with him these past weeks more than anything—” “Excuse me.” Elijah had tapped Westhaven on the shoulder. “May I cut in?” Westhaven’s smile was diabolical. “Of course. Jenny would never decline an opportunity to dance with a family friend.” Family friend? Her blighted, interfering, perishing brother was laying it on quite thick. Elijah bowed. “Lady Genevieve, may I have what remains of this dance?” Two days remained. Two days and three nights. Jenny curtsied and assumed waltz position. As Elijah’s hand settled on her back, his scent wafted to her, enveloping her in his presence. “You’re avoiding me,” he said. “You needn’t. I’ll be leaving soon, and I hope we can at least part friends.” With her siblings, she could dissemble and maintain appearances, but with Elijah… “I am honored you think me a friend, Elijah.” And he danced wonderfully, with the same sense of assurance and mastery that he undertook painting… and lovemaking. “I am your friend too, Genevieve.

Life was so much simpler when going “eeny-meeny-miney-mo” made decisions, and mistakes were corrected by simply shouting “overs.” The rest of your life lay in front of you, rolled out like a red carpet. And you and your friends would live forever.

Warm, buttery sunlight through the leaves, setting them glowing like rubies and citrines. The damp, earthen scent of rotting things beneath the leaves and roots she lay upon. Had been thrown and left upon. Everything hurt. Everything. She couldn't move. Couldn't do anything but watch the sun drift through the rich canopy far overhead, listen to the wind between the silvery trunks. And the centre of that pain, radiating outward like living fire with each uneven, rasping breath... Light, steady steps crunched on the leaves. Six sets. A border guard, a patrol. Help. Someone to help- A male voice, foreign and deep, swore. Then went silent. Went silent as a single pair of steps approached. She couldn't turn her head, couldn't bear the agony. Could do nothing but inhale each wet, shuddering breath. 'Don't touch her.' Those steps stopped. It was not a warning to protect her. Defend her. She knew the voice that spoke. Had dreaded hearing it. She felt him approach now. Felt each reverberation in the leaves, the moss, the roots. As if the very land shuddered before him. 'No one touches her,' he said. Eris. 'The moment we do, she's our responsibility.' Cold, unfeeling words. 'But- but they nailed a-' 'No one touches her.' Nailed. They had spiked nails into her. Had pinned her down as she screamed, pinned her down as she roared at them, then begged them. And then they had taken out those long, brutal iron nails. And the hammer. Three of them. Three strikes of the hammer, drowned out by her screaming, by the pain. She began shaking, hating it as much as she'd hated the begging. Her body bellowed in agony, those nails in her abdomen relentless. A pale, beautiful face appeared above her, blocking out the jewel-like leaves above. Unmoved. Impassive. 'I take it you do not wish to live here, Morrigan.' She would rather die here, bleed out here. She would rather die and return- return as something wicked and cruel, and shred them all apart. He must have read it in her eyes. A small smile curved her lips. 'I thought so.' Eris straightened, turning. Her fingers curled in the leaves and loamy soil. She wished she could grow claws- grow claws as Rhys could- and rip out that pale throat. But that was not her gift. Her gift... her gift had left her here. Broken and bleeding. Eris took a step away. Someone behind him blurted, 'We can't just leave her to-' 'We can, and we will,' Eris said simply, his pace unfaltering as he strode away. 'She chose to sully herself; her family chose to deal with her like garbage. I have already told them my decision in this matter.' A long pause, crueller than the rest. 'And I am not in the habit of fucking Illyrian leftovers.' She couldn't stop it, then. The tears that slid out, hot and burning. Alone. They would leave her alone here. Her friends did not know where she had gone. She barely knew where she was. 'But-' That dissenting voice cut in again. 'Move out.' There was no dissension after that. And when their steps faded away, then vanished, the silence returned. The sun and the wind and the leaves. The blood and the iron and the soil beneath her nails. The pain.

I refuse to leave you here.' Emerie's pained face told Nesta enough: she understood. Saw the logic. Nesta said to Gwyn. 'It is the only way.' Gwyn screamed. 'IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!' And then she was sobbing. 'I will not abandon you to them. They will kill you.' 'You need to go,' Nesta said, even as her hands began shaking. 'Now.' 'No,' Gwyn wept. 'No, I won't. I'll face it with you.' Something deep in Nesta's chest cracked. Cracked open completely, and what lay within bloomed, full and bright and pure. She wrapped her arms around Gwyn. Let her friend sob into her chest. 'I'll face it with you,' Gwyn whispered, over and over again. 'Promise me we'll face it together.' Nesta couldn't stop her tears. The chill wind froze them on her cheeks. 'I promise,' she breathed, stroking Gwyn's matted hair. 'I promise.' Gwyn sobbed, and Nesta let herself sob with her, squeezing her tightly. Letting her stroking hand come to rest on Gwyn's neck. A pinch in the right spot, exactly on the pressure point Cassian had shown her, and it was done. Gwyn went down. Unconscious.

She hadn’t lived since her childhood either. Why had she not contracted the mark back then and died with her mother? If this was to be the end, it should have come sooner. It might have spared her years of misery and loneliness. And she was so very alone. As she lay staring at the raftered ceiling, she knew more keenly than ever how alone she was. The rest of the staff, tucked safely away inside the inn or the stable loft, slept peacefully oblivious to her midnight turmoil. No one would come looking for her. No one would care when she died. In an instant, her panting breaths twisted into feeble laughter. She was alone, just as she always had been, and fighting against things she had no power to overcome. Everything had changed, but nothing had changed at all. The laughter grew in strength until she gasped, on the verge of hysterics. It didn’t matter whether she was alone or surrounded by scores of friends and loved ones. She would die either way. That naked truth infused her with a blissful, ludicrous peace. Death was the one constant of the deathmark, the one thing she could count on. For Nell, who had lived her whole life trying to protect herself, who had never been able to count on anyone or anything, that realization was most liberating. She would die. But she wasn’t dead yet. The events of her life fluttered through her mind—her distant, naïve childhood, the bleak orphanage, the years at Baker’s Inn. She had wasted time catering to fear. She had been timid, docile, no better than a mule. She had done everything in her power to protect herself from ridicule and punishment, but where had that caution brought her? Sentenced to death, with a million regrets piled on her shoulders. “No more.” She forced those words through her lips, determination etched between her brows. “I will fear no more.” Spoken aloud, the oath seemed binding. Death would come—she had no power to stop it—but until the day it collected her, she would live as she saw fit.

He [The Northman] has but one view of man; man asserting himself, maintaining his honour, as he calls it. All that moves within a man must be twisted round until it becomes associated with honour, before he can grasp it; and all his passion is thrust back and held, until it finds its way out in that one direction. His friendship of man and love of woman never find expression for the sake of the feeling itself; they are only felt consciously as a heightening of the lover's self-esteem and consequently as an increase of responsibility. This simplicity of character shows in his poetry, which is at heart nothing but lays and tales of great avengers, because revenge is the supreme act that concentrates his inner life and forces it out in the light. His poems of vengeance are always intensely human, because revenge to him is not an empty repetition of a wrong done, but a spiritual self-assertion, a manifestation of strength and value; and thus the anguish of an affront or the triumph of victory is able to open up the sealed depths of his mind and suffuse his words with passion and tenderness. But the limitation which creates the beauty and strength of Teuton poetry is revealed in the fact that only those feelings and thoughts which make man an avenger and furthers the attainment of revenge, are expressed; all else is overshadowed. Woman finds a place in poetry only as a valkyrie or as inciting to strife; for the rest, she is included among the ordinary inventory of life. Friendship, the highest thing on earth among the Teutons, is only mentioned when friend joins hands with friend in the strife for honour and restitution.

He [The Northman] has but one view of man; man asserting himself, maintaining his honour, as he calls it. All that moves within a man must be twisted round until it becomes associated with honour, before he can grasp it; and all his passion is thrust back and held, until it finds its way out in that one direction. His friendship of man and love of woman never find expression for the sake of the feeling itself; they are only felt consciously as a heightening of the lover's self-esteem and consequently as an increase of responsibility. This simplicity of character shows in his poetry, which is at heart nothing but lays and tales of great avengers, because revenge is the supreme act that concentrates his inner life and forces it out in the light. His poems of vengeance are always intensely human, because revenge to him is not an empty repetition of a wrong done, but a spiritual self-assertion, a manifestation of strength and value; and thus the anguish of an affront or the triumph of victory is able to open up the sealed depths of his mind and suffuse his words with passion and tenderness. But the limitation which creates the beauty and strength of Teuton poetry is revealed in the fact that only those feelings and thoughts which make man an avenger and furthers the attainment of revenge, are expressed; all else is overshadowed. Woman finds a place in poetry only as a valkyrie or as inciting to strife; for the rest, she is included among the ordinary inventory of life. Friendship, the highest thing on earth among the Teutons, is only mentioned when friend joins hands with friend in the strife for honour and restitution.

P4 - The good news is that there is at least one emerging technology out there that is looking mighty promising right now: it’s called helium persufflation, and I’m currently orchestrating the funding of the most critical research into making it work. Over the course of 2023 LEV Foundation has coordinated an effort, conceived by Martin O’Dea and Dr. Aubrey de Grey, to lay to rest the lamentable opinion that aging, along with the disease and death it brings, is inevitable - and by extension, that attempts to combat it are unworthy of serious recognition or support. We assert instead that an immediate expansion of work to extend healthy lifespans is not only credible, but indeed crucial to the quality of our collective future. In collaboration with primary author Professor Brian Kennedy, with input and enthusiastic endorsement from iconic researchers and leaders across the field of longevity medicine and allied fields, we are now able to publish the result of that effort - the Dublin Longevity Declaration: Consensus Recommendation to Immediately Expand Research on Extending Healthy Human Lifespans. Whatever your background, we encourage everyone who reads the Declaration and agrees with its message to add your signature, and encourage your friends and colleagues to consider doing the same: www. dublinlongevitydeclaration. org More on all of this here: www. quora. com/profile/Aubrey-de-Grey/answers

P4 - The good news is that there is at least one emerging technology out there that is looking mighty promising right now: it’s called helium persufflation, and I’m currently orchestrating the funding of the most critical research into making it work. Over the course of 2023 LEV Foundation has coordinated an effort, conceived by Martin O’Dea and Dr. Aubrey de Grey, to lay to rest the lamentable opinion that aging, along with the disease and death it brings, is inevitable - and by extension, that attempts to combat it are unworthy of serious recognition or support. We assert instead that an immediate expansion of work to extend healthy lifespans is not only credible, but indeed crucial to the quality of our collective future. In collaboration with primary author Professor Brian Kennedy, with input and enthusiastic endorsement from iconic researchers and leaders across the field of longevity medicine and allied fields, we are now able to publish the result of that effort - the Dublin Longevity Declaration: Consensus Recommendation to Immediately Expand Research on Extending Healthy Human Lifespans. Whatever your background, we encourage everyone who reads the Declaration and agrees with its message to add your signature, and encourage your friends and colleagues to consider doing the same: www. dublinlongevitydeclaration. org More on all of this here: www. quora. com/profile/Aubrey-de-Grey/answers

Spirit In The Sky" When I die and they lay me to rest Gonna go to the place that's the best When I lay me down to die Goin' up to the spirit in the sky Goin' up to the spirit in the sky That's where I'm gonna go when I die When I die and they lay me to rest Gonna go to the place that's the best Prepare yourself you know it's a must Gotta have a friend in Jesus So you know that when you die He's gonna recommend you To the spirit in the sky Gonna recommend you To the spirit in the sky That's where you're gonna go when you die When you die and they lay you to rest You're gonna go to the place that's the best Never been a sinner I never sinned I got a friend in Jesus So you know that when I die He's gonna set me up with The spirit in the sky Oh set me up with the spirit in the sky That's where I'm gonna go when I die When I die and they lay me to rest I'm gonna go to the place that's the best Go to the place that's the best

Suddenly a group of the bishop’s knights entered the tent. “What is this?” Christian demanded. “We’re here to arrest the witch.” Christian felt the color fade from his face. “Then you’ve come to the wrong place. There is no witch here.” Without hesitation, they moved to take Adara from his side. Christian came off the bed at the same time Ioan, Lutian, and Phantom entered. He staggered, but refused to fall. “Release her!” “Nay, we are under the order of the Church. The witch is to be tried for her crimes.” “What has she done?” Christian and Ioan asked at the same time. “According to her accuser, she summoned the devil to save you. You, by all normal rights, should be dead.” “That is ludicrous!” Christian snarled. “There is no devil here.” “I have done nothing,” Adara said. “Silence, witch.” One of the knights drew back his hand to strike her. Christian grabbed the man and, even while near death, he shoved him away from her. “You lay one hand to my wife, and there’s no power on this earth or beyond to save you from my wrath. None. If you want a prisoner, then take me.” “Bishop Innocent wishes to interrogate her himself for the charges against her.” “It will be all right, Christian,” Adara said. “I am innocent. You rest and I will be back soon.” But he knew better. He’d studied the Church’s laws extensively. He knew firsthand the devices they would use to wrest a confession from her. “You tell the bishop that he is not to go near her until I speak with him.” The knight laughed at him. “The bishop doesn’t speak to heathens who are in league with witches.” Before Christian could move, they had dragged her from the tent. Christian sat back on the bed, too weak to stop this travesty. “What do we do?” Ioan asked. Christian looked to Phantom. It would take too long to get to the pope. By then, Adara would most likely be condemned and executed…that is, if she survived interrogation. “Follow them and see where they take her.” Phantom left immediately. Christian went to his trunk to pull out his monk’s robe. Ioan put his hand out to stop him. “You can barely stand, Christian.” He shrugged his friend’s hand away. “You know as well as I do what they’ll do to her. I cannot allow this.” “If you go to her defense, they could label you a witch as well.” “Then I will die.” Ioan shook his head. “Fine. We die together, then.

His morning hours were set apart for the nourishment of his own soul; not, however, with the view of laying up a stock of grace for the rest of the day--for manna will corrupt if laid by--but rather with the view of "giving the eye the habit of looking upward all the day, and drawing down gleams from the reconciled countenance." He was sparing in the hours devoted to sleep, and resolutely secured time for devotion before breakfast, although often wearied and exhausted when he laid himself to rest. "A soldier of the cross," was his remark, "must endure hardness." Often he sang a psalm of praise, as soon as he arose, to stir up his soul. Three chapters of the Word was his usual morning portion. This he thought little enough, for he delighted exceedingly in the Scriptures: they were better to him than thousands of gold or silver. "When you write," he said to a friend, "tell me the meaning of Scriptures." To another, in expressing his value for the Word, he said, "One gem from that ocean is worth all the pebbles of earthly streams." His chief season of relaxation seemed to be breakfast time. He would come down with a happy countenance and a full soul; and after the sweet season of family prayer, immediately begin forming plans for the day. When he was well, nothing seemed to afford him such true delight as to have his hands full of work. Indeed, it was often remarked that in him you found--what you rarely meet with--a man of high poetic imagination and deep devotion, who nevertheless was engaged unceasingly in the busiest and most laborious activities of his office. His

Brothers, beseech our Lord God, that he comfort Holy Christianity with His Grace, and His Peace, and protect it from all evil. Pray to Our God for our spiritual father, the Pope, and for the Empire and for all our leaders and prelates of Christianity, lay and ecclesiastical, that God use them in His service. And also for all spiritual and lay judges, that they may give Holy Christianity peace and such good justice that God’s Judgement will not come over them. Pray for our Order in which God has assembled us, that the Lord will give us Grace, Purity, a Spiritual Life, and that he take away all that is found in us or other Orders that is unworthy of praise and opposed to His Commandments. Pray for our Grand Master and all the regional commanders, who govern our lands and people, and for all the brothers who exercise office in our Order, that they act in their office of the Order in such a way as not to depart from God. Pray for the brothers who hold no office, that they may use their time purposefully and zealously in worship, so that those who hold office and they themselves may be useful and pious. Pray for those who are fallen in deadly sin, that God may help them back into his Grace and that they may escape eternal punishment. Pray for the lands that lie near the pagans, that God may come to their aid with his Counsel and Power, that belief in God and Love can be spread there, so that they can withstand all their enemies. Pray for those who are friends and associates of the Order, and also for those who do good actions or who seek to do them, that God may reward them. Pray for all those who have left us inheritances or gifts that neither in life nor in death does God allow them to depart from Him. Especially pray for Duke Friedrich of Swabia and King Heinrich his brother, who was Emperor, and for the honourable burghers of Lübeck and Bremen, who founded our Order. Remember also Duke Leopold of Austria, Duke Conrad of Masovia, and Duke Sambor of Pomerellia . . . Remember also our dead brothers and sisters . . . Let each remember the soul of his father, his mother, his brothers and sisters. Pray for all believers, that God may give them eternal peace. May they rest in peace. Amen.

Eric, clean up here. Make certain no one will find their bodies,” he added as he lent his large frame as a shelter from the wild storm over Raven. “She is not dead,” Mikhail hissed, seeing the compassion in his brother’s eyes. “She is dying, Mikhail.” Jacques’s chest hurt with the knowledge. Mikhail dragged her to him, bent his head until his cheek lay against hers. I know you can hear me; you must drink, Raven. Drink deeply. He felt the faint stirring in his mind. Warmth, regret. So much pain. Let me go. I’m sorry. No! Never, sivamet--my love, do not talk. Just drink. For me, if you love me, for me, for my life, drink what I offer. Before Jacques could guess his intent and try to stop him, Mikhail jabbed deeply into his own jugular. Dark blood spurted. Mikhail forced her mouth to him, using every considerable power he possessed to force compliance. Her will obeyed, her body was almost too weak to follow. She swallowed what poured into her but could not draw deeply on her own. Bolt after bolt of lightning slammed to earth. A tree exploded, and rained fiery sparks. The earth heaved again, rolled, came apart at the seams. Gregori loomed over them, the darkest of the Carpathians, his pale eyes ice cold and holding the stark promise of death. “The wolves did their job,” Eric reported grimly. “The lightning and earthquakes will do the rest.” Jacques ignored him, gripping Mikhail’s shoulder. “Enough, Mikhail. You grow too weak. She has lost too much blood. She has internal injuries.” Black rage filled Mikhail. He threw back his head and roared his denial, the sound exploding through the forest and mountains like the booming of the thunder. Trees burst into flames around them, exploding like sticks of dynamite. “Mikhail.” Jacques refused to relinquish his hold. “Stop her now.” “She has my blood; it will heal her. If we can keep blood in her, get her into the soil, and perform the healing ritual, then she will live.” “Kaćak--stars, Mikhail. It’s enough.” Jacques’s voice held very real fear. Gregori touched Mikhail to draw his attention. Those pale eyes held command. “If you die, my old friend, we have no chance of saving her. We must work together if we are to do this thing.

You are our greatest healer, the greatest asset to our people.” “That is why they whisper my name in fear and dread.” Beneath their feet the ground suddenly shook, heaved and bucked, rolling perilously. The center of the earthquake was obviously a great distance away, but there was no mistaking the howl of rage produced by a powerful vampire at the destruction of his lair. The undead had entered his lair confidently, until he found the body of the first wolf. Each turn or passage entrance was marked with one of his minions, until his entire pack lay dead at his feet. The burned bodies of his sentinels, the bats, lay in a mound of blackened ashes. Fear turned to terror. It would not be Mikhail, whose sense of justice and fair play would be his downfall, but the dark one. Gregori--the most feared of all Carpathians. It had not occurred to the vampire that the dark one might take a hand in this game. Andre hurtled himself from the safety of his favorite lair just as the mountain heaved and the chamber walls collapsed in on themselves. Cracks widened in the narrow passageway, and the rock faces inched closer and closer together. The clap of granite grinding against granite nearly burst his eardrums. A true vampire making numerous kills was far more susceptible to the sun, and to the terrible lethargy that claimed Carpathian bodies in the day. Andre had little time to find a safe hole. As he burst from the collapsing mountain, the sun hit his body, and he screamed with the agony of it. Dust and rock spewed from his home, and the echo of Gregori’s taunting laughter drifted down with the debris from the earthquake. “No, Gregori.” There was amusement in Mikhail’s soft voice as he floated into the soothing arms of the earth. “That is a good example of why they whisper your name in fear and dread. No one understands your dark humor the way I do.” “Mikhail?” Mikhail stayed the hand closing the blanket of soil over him. “I would not endanger you or Jacques with my challenge. The vampire cannot get through my safeguards.” “I have never feared Andre. And I know your spells are strong. I think our friend has his own problems finding somewhere to rest out of the sun. He will not be disturbing us this day.