Mercury And Me Quotes

I am a romantic, but I do put up a barrier around myself, so it is hard for people to get in and to know the real me

I always knew I was a star, and now the rest of the world seems to agree with me.

Fang: “Let them blow up the world, and global-warm it, and pollute it. You and me and the others will be holed up somewhere, safe. We’ll come back out when they’re all gone, done playing their games of world domination." Max: “That’s a great plan. Of course, by then we won’t be able to go outside because we’ll get fried by the lack of the ozone layer. We’ll be living at the bottom of the food chain because everything with flavor will be full of mercury or radiation or something! And there won’t be any TV or cable because all the people will be dead! So our only entertainment will be Gazzy singing the constipation song! And there won’t be amusement parks and museums and zoos and libraries and cute shoes! We’ll be like cavemen, trying to weave clothes out of plant fibers. We’ll have nothing! Nothing! All because you and the kids want to kick back in a La-Z-Boy during the most important time in history!” Fang: “So maybe we should sign you up for a weaving class. Get a jump start on all those plant fibers.” Max: "I HATE YOU!!!" Fang: "NO YOU DOOOOOON'T!!" Voice: "You two are crazy about each other.

It's a beautiful day, the sun is shining, I feel good, and no one's gonna stop me now.

For a long time I believed the opposite of passion was death. I was wrong. Passion and death are implicit, one in the other. Past the border of a fiery life lies the netherworld. I can trace this road, which took me through places so hot the very air burned the lungs. I did not turn back. I pressed on, and eventually passed over the border, beyond which lies a place that is wordless and cold, so cold that it, like mercury, burns a freezing blue flame.

yeah, i'm a rocket ship on my way to mars on a collision course i am a satellite i'm out of control i am a sex machine ready to reload like an atom bomb about to oh oh oh oh oh explode i'm burnin' through the sky yeah two hundred degrees that's why they call me mister fahrenheit i'm trav'ling at the speed of light i wanna make a supersonic woman of you

Hey, don't you ever fake orgasms with me." She huffed. "I don't get why guys get so pissed when girls do that. Hell, your gender can fake an actual relationship.

A strange thing happened to me in my dream. I was rapt into the Seventh Heaven. There sat all the gods assembled. As a special dispensation I was granted the favor to have one wish. "Do you wish for youth," said Mercury, "or for beauty, or power, or a long life; or do you wish for the most beautiful woman, or any other of the many fine things we have in our treasure trove? Choose, but only one thing!" For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed the gods in this wise: "Most honorable contemporaries, I choose one thing — that I may always have the laughs on my side." Not one god made answer, but all began to laugh. From this I concluded that my wish had been granted and thought that the gods knew how to express themselves with good taste: for it would surely have been inappropriate to answer gravely: your wish has been granted.

He stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, the picture of nonchalance, and even as a human, he was too gorgeous for words. His dark hair had been combed back, falling softly around his face, and his mercury eyes, though they should've seemed pale against all the white, glimmered more brightly than anything. And they were fixed solely on me.

To me, the most autobiographical line was: ‘My make-up may be flaking but my smile still stays on.’ That was true. No matter how ill Freddie felt, he never grumbled to anyone or sought sympathy of any kind. It was his battle, no one else’s, and he always wore a brave face against the ever-increasing odds against him.

The waitress gave Dale the stink eye while collecting his discarded food and drink. While she performed the removal, Dale read the text on her shirt. I’VE MASTERED MY SHIT, SO IF WE’RE ARGUING DURING MERCURY RETROGRADE, YOU’RE THE ONE BEING A BITCH, NOT ME. I’M ENLIGHTENED, ASSHOLE.

Sun stares at Mercury. Mercury stares at Venus. Venus stares at Earth. Earth stares at Mars. Mars states at Jupiter. Jupiter stares at Saturn. Saturn stares at Uranus. Uranus stares at Neptune. Neptune stares at Moon. Moon stares at me. Me stares at Sun.

I hate Breeds,” she muttered. “Do you know that? You and your sharp, damned noses. Just because I want to doesn’t mean I should. Hell, I want cheesecake but I know better. It goes right to my hips. Does that mean I have to eat it anyway?” He stared back at her in disbelief. “You’re comparing me to cheesecake?” Offended male fury and outrage glittered in his eyes. She huffed, “Well, the same principle applies.

I thought about the way my mind wanders, how I drift through days losing hours, forgetting to remain in my body. How they call me absentminded, forgetful. The way I am mercury spilling over surfaces—solid and liquid, here and not.

You love me?” He smiled. “Fuck yeah.” “I'm glad, because it's rare for one-sided relationships to work out well.” His smile widened. “Is that your very poor way of telling me you love me?” “It was pretty poor, wasn't it?

Although his teeth were so prominent, I think he had a lovely smile. He became self-conscious and embarrassed only when he was having a really hearty laugh - when he guffawed like a donkey and showed all his teeth off. Then his hand would fly to hide the lower part of his face.

What would you have me do? Seek for the patronage of some great man, And like a creeping vine on a tall tree Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone? No thank you! Dedicate, as others do, Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon In the vile hope of teasing out a smile On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad For breakfast every morning? Make my knees Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,- Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust? No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right Too proud to know his partner's business, Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire God gave me to burn incense all day long Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you! Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps And licking fingers?-or-to change the form- Navigating with madrigals for oars, My sails full of the sighs of dowagers? No thank you! Publish verses at my own Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint Of a small group of literary souls Who dine together every Tuesday? No I thank you! Shall I labor night and day To build a reputation on one song, And never write another? Shall I find True genius only among Geniuses, Palpitate over little paragraphs, And struggle to insinuate my name In the columns of the Mercury? No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be afraid, Love more to make a visit than a poem, Seek introductions, favors, influences?- No thank you! No, I thank you! And again I thank you!-But... To sing, to laugh, to dream To walk in my own way and be alone, Free, with a voice that means manhood-to cock my hat Where I choose-At a word, a Yes, a No, To fight-or write.To travel any road Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne- Never to make a line I have not heard In my own heart; yet, with all modesty To say:"My soul, be satisfied with flowers, With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them In the one garden you may call your own." So, when I win some triumph, by some chance, Render no share to Caesar-in a word, I am too proud to be a parasite, And if my nature wants the germ that grows Towering to heaven like the mountain pine, Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes- I stand, not high it may be-but alone!

A soft mist blew around them. Raindrops glistened in his hair, shimmering under the pale glow of the light post. His eyes were shadowed beneath wispy fringes, but the silver in them glinted like pools of liquid mercury. Her breath caught. It must have made a sound because his fingers tightened. His shaky exhale whispered across her face. “This,” he whispered so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. “Is why you are so bad for me.

Don’t interrupt me while I’m ignoring you—that’s just rude.

... Turn over that stone" - she pointed to a flint nearby - "and you will find a charlatan who will dazzle you with the favorable conjunction of Mercury and Venus, flatter your future, and sell you colored water for a gold piece. I can't be bothered with it. From me you get the actuality.

They used to call me Quicksilver,” he whispered, smiling hollowly. “Fastest hands in the world.” Then the smile vanished. his eyes flashed. And, like a silver of deadly mercury, he attacked…

The brick is neither here nor there,' interrupted the stranger in an imposing fashion, 'it never merely falls on someone's head from out of nowhere. In your case, I can assure you that a brick poses no threat whatsoever. You will die another kind of death." 'And you know just what that will be?' queried Berlioz with perfectly understandable irony, letting himself be drawn into a truly absurd conversation. 'And can you tell me what that is?' 'Gladly,' replied the stranger. He took Berlioz's measure as if intending to make him a suit and muttered something through his teeth that sounded like 'One, two.. Mercury in the Second House... the moon has set... six-misfortune...evening-seven...' Then he announced loudly and joyously, 'Your head will be cut off!

Tell me,” Shay said. “Do you think God is a man or a woman?” “I’d say God isn’t an or,” Lennox answered. “God is an and.

I'm burning through the sky, yeah... Two hundred degrees, That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit...

Home isn’t always a place, sweetheart. Home is something that anchors you, comforts you, and is a safe haven for you.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “Let me be that for you, Harley.

Yyou forgive me for baiting him, don't you baby?" He asked Ally. Not really, but she'd have him make it up to her later with multiple orgasms. Hearing Cain and her uncles growl, Ally smiled weakly at Derren. "I said that out loud, didn't I?

Time. Particles of darkness configured mysterious patterns on my retina. Patterns that degenerated without a sound, only to be replaced by new patterns. Darkness but darkness alone was shifting, like mercury in motionless space. I put a stop to my thoughts and let time pass. Let time carry me along. Carry me to where a new darkness was configuring yet newer patterns.

Mercury dropped the purple car and shot up into the air, whistling like a shooting star. The woman in the car next to me looked up at me like I was a superhero. I smiled at her and jumped down, trying to be smooth. I landed wrong and went sliding on my face. I glanced back at her. She appeared less impressed than before.

The Lake Isle O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop, With the little bright boxes piled up neatly upon the shelves And the loose fragrant cavendish and the shag, And the bright Virginia loose under the bright glass cases, And a pair of scales not too greasy, And the whores dropping in for a word or two in passing, For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit. O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves, Lend me a little tobacco-shop, or install me in any profession Save this damn’d profession of writing, where one needs one’s brains all the time.

Fuck, yes. I want you with me. I want you in my pack. I want you to be there when I wake up.

She's a Mercury, with the full hotness of the sun beating down on her. I'm a Pluto. Sure, my friend's appreciate me, but I'm barely holding on to the far reaches of the galaxy.

I gave a friend a bottle of mercury for his eightieth birthday—a special bottle that could neither leak nor break—he gave me a peculiar look, but later sent me a charming letter in which he joked, “I take a little every morning for my health.

I felt that I was breaking him apart as much as I was breaking myself apart. I imagined that pain in his mercury eyes and the silent tears whispered their way down my cheeks. Silent tears are the worst kind, the kind that shows the most pain and they were all I had left. The Fates had left me cold, with half a heart and a torn apart soul.

Know this: I, Mercurius, have here set down a full, true and infallible account of the Great Work. But I give you fair warning that unless you seek the true philosophical gold and not the gold of the vulgar, unless you heart is fixed with unbending intent on the true Stone of the Philosophers, unless you are steadfast in your quest, abiding by God’s laws in all faith and humility and eschewing all vanity, conceit, falsehood, intemperance, pride, lust and faint-heartedness, read no farther lest I prove fatal to you. For I am the watery venomous serpent who lies buried at the earth’s centre; I am the fiery dragon who flies through the air. I am the one thing necessary for the whole Opus. I am the spirit of metals, the fire which does not burn, the water which does not wet the hands. If you find the way to slay me you will find the philosophical mercury of the wise, even the White Stone beloved of the Philosophers. If you find the way to raise me up again, you will find the philosophical sulphur, that is, the Red Stone and Elixir of Life. Obey me and I will be your servant; free me and I will be your friend. Enslave me and I am a dangerous enemy; command me and I will make you mad; give me life and you will die.

On Selling His Beloved 1967 Two-Door Mercury Cougar “This is what happens when you have a family. You sacrifice. [Pause] You sacrifice a lot. [Long pause] It’s gonna be in your best interest to stay away from me for the next couple days.

Then they began saying, "Get hold of him. Put him in Mercury." Now as you know I have two sculptures by Brancusi and several pretty things and I did not want them to start getting rough, so I said, pacifically, "Dear sweet clodhoppers, if you knew anything of sexual psychology you would know that nothing could give me keener pleasure than to be manhandled by you meaty boys. It would be an ecstasy of the very naughtiest kind. So if any of you wishes to be my partner in joy come and seize me. If, on the other hand, you simply wish to satisfy some obscure and less easily classified libido and see me bathe, come with me quietly, dear louts, to the fountain.

The Laws Of God, The Laws Of Man The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Now I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn, Yet when did I make laws for them? Please yourselves, say I, and they Need only look the other way. But no, they will not; they must still Wrest their neighbour to their will, And make me dance as they desire With jail and gallows and hell-fire. And how am I to face the odds Of man’s bedevilment and God’s? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made. They will be master, right or wrong; Though both are foolish, both are strong, And since, my soul, we cannot fly To Saturn or Mercury, Keep we must, if keep we can, These foreign laws of God and man.

She left for the Mercury, but I stayed on the roof for a while. I breathed in the city: its warming wind, its noise. And I was one young man on a roof who had just spent the night with a beautiful woman...and the sunlight suggested winter and hard days to come, but we would all survive somehow, and the seasons were bigger than any of us anyway--and we were all tumbling along on the breeze of something enormous and eternal and gloriously busy.

This car had the wings of Mercury, I thought, for higher yet we climbed, and dangerously fast, and the danger pleased me because it was new to me, because I was young.

Don’t get smart with me.” She snickered. “Are you sure you’d know if I did?

flabbergasted

I’m not going to say you’re perfect—nobody is. But you’re, like, imperfectly perfect, and you’re perfect for me.

Son of a bitch. What was it with all these stalkers lately? Was it me? Was I giving off some weird, come-at-me pheromone? Or was Mercury in retrograde again?

When I woke up this morning and you were right there, I felt…calm.” It was hard to him to explain, but he wanted her to know. “I’m used to feeling restless Inside. You bring me peace.

When she says margarita she means daiquiri. When she says quixotic she means mercurial. And when she says, "I'll never speak to you again," she means, "Put your arms around me from behind as I stand disconsolate at the window." He's supposed to know that. When a man loves a woman he is in New York and she is in Virginia or he is in Boston, writing, and she is in New York, reading, or she is wearing a sweater and sunglasses in Balboa Park and he is raking leaves in Ithaca or he is driving to East Hampton and she is standing disconsolate at the window overlooking the bay where a regatta of many-colored sails is going on while he is stuck in traffic on the Long Island Expressway. When a woman loves a man it is one ten in the morning she is asleep he is watching the ball scores and eating pretzels drinking lemonade and two hours later he wakes up and staggers into bed where she remains asleep and very warm. When she says tomorrow she means in three or four weeks. When she says, "We're talking about me now," he stops talking. Her best friend comes over and says, "Did somebody die?" When a woman loves a man, they have gone to swim naked in the stream on a glorious July day with the sound of the waterfall like a chuckle of water rushing over smooth rocks, and there is nothing alien in the universe. Ripe apples fall about them. What else can they do but eat? When he says, "Ours is a transitional era," "that's very original of you," she replies, dry as the martini he is sipping. They fight all the time It's fun What do I owe you? Let's start with an apology Ok, I'm sorry, you dickhead. A sign is held up saying "Laughter." It's a silent picture. "I've been fucked without a kiss," she says, "and you can quote me on that," which sounds great in an English accent. One year they broke up seven times and threatened to do it another nine times. When a woman loves a man, she wants him to meet her at the airport in a foreign country with a jeep. When a man loves a woman he's there. He doesn't complain that she's two hours late and there's nothing in the refrigerator. When a woman loves a man, she wants to stay awake. She's like a child crying at nightfall because she didn't want the day to end. When a man loves a woman, he watches her sleep, thinking: as midnight to the moon is sleep to the beloved. A thousand fireflies wink at him. The frogs sound like the string section of the orchestra warming up. The stars dangle down like earrings the shape of grapes.

I'm keeping you, Ally Marshall." And she'd just have to accept it, because he wouldn't let her go "You're mine." Startled and spooked by that very sincere announcement that almost sounded....binding, Ally didn't speak for a moment. "Yours?" "All mine. You got under my skin, became my obsession. There's no going back." She swallowed nervously. "What do you want from me?" "Everything you have to give. And I'll get it.

When I was fourteen, a girl with wounded gold eyes brought me back from the dead. She made me want to live. Saved me from a self-imposed hell. How could that girl not be more important to me than anything, Harley?

If I were to sit on the ocean floor and look toward the sky, I might see a whale or electric eel or octopus pass by. And if I decided to jump straight up and reach with open arms, I might feel the pleasure of ocean flight propel me ’mid their swarms. But if I were seated upon the shore and looking toward the stars, I might see a comet or falling star near Mercury or Mars. Then if I decided to jump straight up and reach with open hands, I might feel despair when my feet refused to leave the shoreline sand. And so I return to the ocean depths where swimming creatures fly, For there I can soar with the whales and fish that daily touch the sky.

I drive a beat-up Mercury Cougar, with the windows down and the music up. I seek my identity in toughness - but it is Morrie's softness that draws me, and because he doesn't look at me as a kid trying to be something more than I am, I relax.

I can’t win. Love is Russian roulette for me. No one loves the real me inside. they're all in love with my fame, my stardom. I fall in love far too quickly and end up getting hurt all the time. I've got scars all over. But I can't help myself because basically I'm a softie I have this hard, macho shell — which I project on stage but there's a much softer side. too, which melts like butter.

Something wonderful has happened to me. I was carried up into the seventh heaven. There all the gods sat assembled. By special grace I was granted the favor of a wish. "Will you," said Mercury, "have youth, or beauty, or power, or a long life, or the most beautiful maiden, or any of the other glories we have in the chest? Choose, but only one thing." For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed myself to the gods as follows: "Most honorable contemporaries, I choose this one thing, that I may always have the laugh on my side." Not one of the gods said a word, on the contrary, they all began to laugh. Hence, I concluded that my request was granted, and found that the gods knew how to express themselves with great taste; for it would hardly have been suitable for them to answer gravely: "It is granted thee.

I’m not the leader of the band, by the way. Everybody calls me the leader of Queen, but I’m just the lead singer. I’m not the General, or anything like that. We are all four equal people. We all wanted to be pop stars but the group comes first. Without the others I would be nothing.

You’re not my other half. You’re my center. No lie, baby. You brought me back from the dead, remember? Everything was dark and bleak and empty. My soul was in pieces. You changed that. I can’t be without my center, can I? I need that. And that’s you … It’ll always be you. Don’t ever, ever doubt that.

The transience of human feeling is nothing short of ludicrous. My mercurial fluctuations in the course of a single evening made me feel as if I had a character made pf chewing gum. I had fallen into the ugly depths of self-pity, a terrain just above the even more hideous lowlands of despair. Then, easily distracted twit that I am, I had, soon after, found myself on maternal heights, where I had practically swooned with pleasure as I bobbed and fondled the borrowed homunculus next door. I had eaten well, drunk too much wine, and embraced a young woman I hardly knew. In short, I had thoroughly enjoyed myself and had every intention of doing so again. [p. 59]

It is often said that Freddie Mercury is "one of the best" showmen in history. To me, he is THE best. Why? Two reasons - he wrote what is generally-considered the greatest song of all-time (Bohemian Rhapsody) AND gave the greatest live performance ever (Live Aid). To do one of those things is extremely difficult, to do both is a genius-level achievement.

He bit her jaw. “Hey, don’t you ever fake orgasms with me.” She huffed. “I don’t get why guys get so pissed when girls do that. Hell, your gender can fake an actual relationship.

Again the room starts to tilt and twist around me. I am liquid mercury trapped inside a maze. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to flow in the right direction.

I seem to have fallen victim to the illusion, so common on the Mundane Plane, that committing facts to paper will somehow help me make sense of them.

If you fuck me over I will claw your face right off your skull.

Freddy Mercury's reflections about supersonic women are making me glad that I've never met one: they sound like a bit of a handful - not very easy-going.

He wants me. He’s burning up with the need to touch me, please me. This is all inevitable, right? I blame Mercury. The Virgo and the Gemini, we were always meant to collide.

Watch the Film You Paid to See" In my bedroom my weight is three times more than what I’d weigh on Jupiter. If your kitchen was on Mercury I’d be heavier by half of you while sitting at your table. On Uranus, a quarter of my weight is meat, or an awareness of myself as flesh. On Venus the light would produce a real volume around me that would make me look happy in photographs. This is how it is with quantity in any life. It’s a fact that on certain planets I’d actually be able to mount the stairs four at a time. Think of the most beautiful horse in the world: a ridiculously beautiful golden horse, with a shimmering coat; it would weigh no more than an empty handbag on Mars. You need to get real about these things.

Otro hombre toca lo que es mío y lo mato. Lo destrozaría, Ria. Cualquiera que se atreva a intentar hacerte daño, y la locura será la menor de mis debilidades. Me destruirá. Eres mía-Mercury

They were different colors: the right one blue, the left green. And her face in the light of the candle on the table startled me at first, just as it had in the icy night air. After seeing it on the street, I was afraid I had only imagined it: a still, luminous face with a silvery sheen. Finely hewn, with a long, straight nose and a wide mouth, it was nearly identical to another face, which I had photographed years before. Not on a person, bu on the fragment of a frieze I found in some ruins near Verona, The frieze, which depicted a band of musicians, had once been shadowed beneath a cornice high on the temple of Mercury, god of magic. Belonging to one of the musicians, it was a riveting face - like a puzzle that could not be solved - which I had never found, or expected to find, on a living woman.

I told myself being a Perez meant more than being Cuban, that my responsibility to my family, to do what was expected, to be the woman my parents wanted me to be meant more than fighting for what I believed in, for speaking out against Batista's tyranny. And the whole time we were pretending our way of life was fine, the "paradise" we'd created was really a fragile deal with a mercurial devil, and the ground beneath us shifted and cracked, destroying the world as we knew it. Fidel has shown us the cost of our silence. The danger of waiting too long to speak, of another's voice being louder than ours because we were too busy living in the bubbles we'd created to realize the rest of Cuba had changed and left us behind.

We both want this. We’ve both wanted it for a long time. Really, it was inevitable. I’ll tell you how it’s going to work; I’ll claim you, you’ll claim me, you’ll come to trust the pack, you’ll settle here, we’ll imprint, and we can be fucking happy.

Let's do it,Gregori." Her long eyelashes swept down to cover her expression, and that little infuriating smile brought his attention to her soft mouth. "You might pick up some pointers. After all,these guys are probably professionals." Gregori felt the laughter welling up from somewhere in hi soul. The silver eyes warmed to molten mercury, quicksilver. "You think they might be able to help me out?" Savannah nodded solemnly. "It says right on the brochure, no drunks. That has to mean they know what they're doing, don't you think?

Dad was mercurial, swinging between extremes. Guilty and full of remorse one day, drunk as a skunk the next. I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t. I could see the same traits welling up within me, and that scared me. I didn’t want to turn out like him. I was desperate to be better. Explains a lot about my life, really, but he had this poem hanging on the wall of our living room. I guess it was a prayer. Lord, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

You put it in wrong," said Ilaria in a provocative tone. I didn't pay attention to her, but Gianni checked and with a look of reproof showed me that I had put the side without the mercury under his armpit. Attention: attention alone could help me. I put it in correctly, Ilaria appeared satisfied, she said: I noticed it. I nodded yes, good, I made a mistake. Why—I thought—must I do a thousand things at once, for almost ten years you've been forcing me to live like this, and I'm not completely awake yet, I haven't had my coffee, I haven't made breakfast.

And do not try to be so brave. I am your lifemate.You cannot hide from me something as powerful as fear." "Trepidation," she corrected, nibbling at the pad of his thumb. "Is there a difference?" His pale eyes had warmed to molten mercury. Just that fast, her body ent liquid in answer. "You know very well there is." She laughed again, and the sound traveled down from his heart to pool in his groin, a heavy,familiar ache. "Slight, perhaps, but very important." "I will try to make you happy, Savannah," he promised gravely. Her fingers went up to brush at the thick mane of hair falling around his face. "You are my lifemate, Gregori. I have no doubt you will make me happy." He had to look away,out the window into the night. She was so good, with so much beauty in her, while he was so dark, his goodness drained into the ground with the blood of all the lives he had taken while he waited for her. But now,faced with the reality of her, Gregori could not bear her to witness the blackness within him, the hideous stain across his soul. For beyond his killing and law-breaking, he had committed the gravest crime of all. And he deserved the ultimate penalty, the forfeit of his life. He had deliberately tempered with nature.He knew he was powerful enough, knew his knowledge exeeded the boundaries of Carpathian law. He had taken Savannah's free will, manipulated the chemistry between them so that she would believe he was her true lifemate. And so she was with him-less than a quarter of a century of innocence pitted against his thousand years of hard study.Perhaps that was his punishment, he mused-being sentenced to an eternity of knowing Savannah could never really love him, never really accept his black soul.That she would be ever near yet so far away. If she ever found out the extent of his manipulation, she would despise him. Yet he could never,ever, allow her to leave him. Not if mortals and immortals alike were to be safe. His jaw hardened, and he stared out the window, turning slightly away from her. His mind firmly left hers, not wanting to alert her to the grave crime he had committed.He could bear torture and centuries of isolation, he could bear his own great sins, but he could not endure her loathing him. Unconsciously, he took her hand in his and tightened his grip until it threatened to crush her fragile bones. Savannah glanced at him, let out a breath slowly to keep from wincing, and kept her hand passively in his.He thought his mind closed to her.Didn't believe she was his true lifemate. He truly believed he had manipulated the outcome of their joining unfairly and that somewhere another Carpathian male with the chemistry to match hers might be waiting.Though he had offered her free access to his mind, had himself given her the power,to meld her mind with his,both as her wolf and as her healer before she was born,he likely didn't think a woman,a fledging, and one who was not his true lifemate, could possibly have the skill to read his innermost secrets.But Savannah could. And completing the ancient ritual of lifemates had only strengthened the bond.

I tried very hard to write something today, but it was like drawing blood from a stone. In spite of promising myself not to be influenced by the decision of the Mercury--and I know from what they publish that their canon is wrong--the rejection of my things has made me rather despond...

Gregori brought Savannah's hand to the warmth of his mouth,his breath heating the pulse beating in her wrist. The night is especially beautiful, mon petit amour.Your hero saved the girl, walks among humans, and converses with a fool.That alone should bring a smile to your face.Do not weep for what we cannot change.We will make certain that this human with us comes to no harm. Are you my hero,then? There were tears in her voice, in her mind, like an iridescent prism. She needed him, his comfort,his support under her terrible weight of guilt and love and loss. Always,for all eternity, he answered instantly,without hesitation, his eyes hot mercury. He tipped her chin up so that she met the brilliance of his silver gaze.Always, mon amour.His molten gaze trapped her blue one and held her enthralled. Your heart grows lighter.The burden of your sorrow becomes my own. He held her gaze captive for a few moments to ensure that she was free of the heaviness crushing her. Savannah blinked and moved a little away from him, wondering what she had been thinking of.What had they been talking about? "Gary." Gregori drawled the name slowly and sat back in his chair,totally relaxed. He looked like a sprawling tiger,dangerous and untamed. "Tell us about yourself." "I work a lot.I'm not married. I'm really not much of a people person. I'm basically a nerd." Gregori shifted, a subtle movement of muscles suggesting great power. "I am not familiar with this term." "Yeah,well,you wouldn't be," Gary said. "It means I have lots of brains and no brawn.I don't do the athlete thing. I'm into computers and chess and things requiring intellect. Women find me skinny,wimpy,and boring. Not something they would you." There was no bitterness in his voice,just a quiet acceptance of himself,his life. Gregori's white teeth flashed. "There is only one woman who matters to me, Gary, and she finds me difficult to live with.I cannot imagine why,can you?" "Maybe because you're jealous, possessive, concerned with every single detail of her life?" Gary plainly took the question literally, offering up his observations without judgement. "You're probably domineering,too. I can see that. Yeah.It might be tough." Savannah burst out laughing, the sound musical, rivaling the street musicians. People within hearing turned their heads and held their breath, hoping for more. "Very astute, Gary.Very, very astute. I bet you have an anormous IQ." Gregori stirred again, the movement a ripple of power,of danger. He was suddenly leaning into Gary. "You think you are intelligent? Baiting the wild animal is not too smart.

THEREFORE I SAY UNTO THEE: COME FORTH UNTO ME FROM THINE ABODE IN THE SILENCE, UNUTTERABLE WISDOM, ALL-LIGHT, ALL-POWER! THOTH, HERMES, MERCURY, ODIN, BY WHATEVER NAME I CALL THEE, THOU ART STILL UN-NAMED AND NAMELESS TO ETERNITY! COME THOU FORTH, I SAY, AND AID AND GUARD ME IN THIS WORK OF ART.

If I could just have him until the day was over. Just a few more hours. But he was gone. I clasped my hand tightly over my mouth and felt a trembling that started deep inside move out to make all of me shake. I had a mighty impulse, it truly was mighty, to rise to my feet and howl. To overturn the chair and nightstand, to rip at my clothes, to bring down the very walls around us. But of course I did not do that. I pulled an elemental sense of outrage back inside and smoothed it down. I forced something far too big into something far too small, and this made for a surprising and unreasonable weight, as mercury does. I noticed sounds coming from my throat, little unladylike grunts. I saw that everything I’d ever imagined about what it would feel like when was pale. Was wrong. Was the shadow and not the mountain. And then, “It’s all right,” I said, quickly. “It’s all right.” To whom? I wondered later.

My dad at the baccarat table, in the air-conditioned midnight. There’s always more to things, a hidden level. Luck in its darker moods and manifestations. Consulting the stars, waiting to make the big bets when Mercury was in retrograde, reaching for a knowledge just beyond the known. Black his lucky color, nine his lucky number. Hit me again pal. There’s a pattern and we’re a part of it. Yet if you scratched very deep at that idea of pattern (which apparently he had never taken the trouble to do), you hit an emptiness so dark that it destroyed, categorically, anything you’d ever looked at or thought of as light.

You don’t have to like me. In fact, you probably wouldn’t, even if it wasn’t for Mia. I’m not a likeable person. I’m rude. Stubborn. Sarcastic. Snarky. I only have respect for the people who’ve earned it—you haven’t. My cat, who has no patience for anyone other than Jesse and would protect him against even his own pack mates, would sure like to claw open your gut and watch you bleed. It’s actually hard to hold her back. And, to be honest, I don’t particularly want to.” “I wouldn’t object if your cat did,” Shaya muttered. “So if you’re determined to dislike me, Fern, fine—I can’t say I care if you do or you don’t.

I learned that strength, like height, is measured by who you’re standing next to. I was considered a scrawny guy in the gym. [...] Yet sometimes when I stood in front of my own mirror at home, I saw a powerful me. I couldn’t hold onto the image, though. It slipped like a globule of mercury from under my index finger.

If you’re going to have guests,” the ghost said with a sigh, “would it be so hard to give me a little advance warning?” Her eyes were dark with heavy lids. She had soft cheekbones and gentle features, framed neatly by twin locks of hair, which swept her cheeks on either side. The rest was tucked behind her ears and spilled down her back and shoulders in silvery waves, like a mercurial waterfall. She had a slim, spritely figure, and her movements were as smooth as smoke in a soft breeze. She placed the cup on the tray with a gentle clink, and drifted to a seat on the windowsill. Through her opaque figure, I could see the swaying branches of a weeping willow in the yard. “How

Harley leaned into her mate. “Done brooding now?” He grunted again. “I’ll take that as a no.” She tried to stand, but he held her in place. Harley wagged her finger. “Nu-uh, you don’t get to sulk and pout and keep me here with you.” “I don’t pout.” “You so pout.” “No, I don’t.” “You hear that? That’s the sound of someone pouting.

Later on, a long sheet of paper was given to me by some spirits from Mercury. It was irregularly shaped because it was made up of a number of individual pages glued together. It seemed to have typeset printing on it, the kind we have in our world. I asked whether they had that sort of thing in their world and they said that they did not, but that they knew that we had printed pages like that in our world. They did not want to say more than that, but I perceived they were thinking that knowledge in our world exists on paper and not in human minds. In fact, they made jokes about pieces of paper on Earth knowing things that the people there do not know. However, the reality of the situation was explained to them.

I will tell you, as it was taught to me, the four spirits and the seven bodies, by order, as I oft heard my Master name them. The first spirit is called quicksilver, the second is arsenic, the third is sal ammoniac, and the fourth is brimstone. The seven bodies, lo, are here anon: the Sun is gold, the Moon is silver, Mars is iron, Mercury is quicksilver, Saturn is lead, Jupiter is tin, and Venus is copper.

Many helped me part life into Before X and After segments, many brought joy and sorrow, many threw my life off course, while others made no difference whatsoever, so that Oliver, who for so long had loomed like a fulcrum on the scale of life, eventually acquired successors who either eclipsed him or reduced him to an early milepost, a minor fork in the road, a small, fiery Mercury on a voyage out to Pluto and beyond.

You protest, and with justice, each time Hitler jails an opponent; but you forget that Stalin and company have jailed and murdered a thousand times as many. It seems to me, and indeed the evidence is plain, that compared to the Moscow brigands and assassins, Hitler is hardly more than a common Ku Kluxer and Mussolini almost a philanthropist. [In an open letter to Upton Sinclair, printed in The American Mercury, June 1936]

All right, I confess . . . I ransacked my apartment for fun, falsely accused a bunch of well-meaning youths, attacked my Beta female, and then stuck around long enough to be detained and possibly executed.” She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Clint’s face flushed again—most likely because when she put it like that, it became clear just how pitiful their argument really was. “Don’t get smart with me.” She snickered. “Are you sure you’d know if I did?

Had you asked me back then, I would have described this compulsion as a pressure, a sort of tension building in my head. It was like mercury slowly rising in an old-fashioned thermometer. At first it was barely noticeable, just a blip on my otherwise peaceful cognitive radar. But over time it would get stronger. The quickest way to relieve the pressure was to do something undeniably wrong, something I knew would absolutely make anyone else feel one of the emotions I couldn’t. So that’s what I did.

She blushed softly as she viewed herself in the mirror, suddenly aware that he was once more behind her eyes, seeing her just as she did. “You could at least warn me,” she said aloud, cocking a scolding brow at her reflection. And deprive myself of this side of you? I would not dream of it. Legna smiled, moving closer to her looking glass. She gasped when she got a closer look at herself, her hand coming up to her cheek in shock as she looked into her eyes. “My eyes!” she exclaimed. My eyes, he said. He couldn’t have spoken a clearer truth. It was his mercury-colored irises that had become part of her reflection, the multicolored gray and green gone from their familiar place. She sighed with resignation, supposing to herself that since it wasn’t likely she could do anything about it, she would have to get used to it. “I do not suppose you will show up here suddenly sprouting coffee-colored hair?” she asked hopefully. No, sweet, that is not likely. “Well, this is a highly unfair situation!” she cried with exaggerated petulance. “An exchange historically indicates one thing being swapped for another. So far I only see you in me, but none of me in you. It feels terribly high-handed. How typical of you.” He did not respond, only a soft impression of laughter flitting through her mind. Odd, but she realized then that she had hardly ever heard him laugh before. She was surprised by how comfortable it sounded on him. He had always been so serious, so . . . Self-possessed. “If you do not mind, do refrain from editing my personal thoughts,” she scolded, her arching tone taunting and haughty.

I wonder if I have ever felt more alive, more competent in my mind and more at ease with myself and my world, than I feel for a few minutes on the shoulder of that known hill while I watch the sun climb powerfully and confidently and see below me the unchanged village, the lake like a pool of mercury, the varying greens of hayfields and meadows and sugarbush and black spruce woods, all of it lifting and warming as the stretched shadows shorten. There it was, there it is, the place where during the best time of our lives friendship had its home and happiness its headquarters.

Love Me Like There's No Tomorrow You had to kill the conversation You always had the upper hand Got caught in love and stepped in sinking sand You had to go and ruin all our plans Packed your bags and you're leaving home Got a one-way ticket and you're all set to go But we have one more day together, so Love me like there's no tomorrow Hold me in your arms, tell me you mean it This is our last goodbye and very soon it will be over But today just love me like there's no tomorrow I guess we drift alone in separate ways I don't have all that far to go God knows I learnt to play the lonely man I've never felt so low in all my life We were born to be just losers So I guess there's a limit on how far we go But we only have one more day together so Love me like there's no tomorrow Hold me in your arms, tell me you mean it This is our last goodbye and very soon it will be over But today just love me like there's no tomorrow Tomorrow god knows just where I'll be Tomorrow who knows just what's in store for me Anything can happen but we only have one more day together, yeah Just one more day forever, so Love me like there's no tomorrow Hold me in your arms, tell me you mean it This is our last goodbye and very soon it will be over But today just love me like there's no tomorrow

Look, I fetched some Fat Hen for you.' Jem offered me a bunch of wilting greens. I reached for the plants, rubbed the leaves with a snap of my finger and thumb and sniffed. They were as fresh as spinach but not so peppery and warm. And wasn't that a faint whiff of cat's piss? Mrs G always said I could sniff a drop of honey in a pail of milk. I used my nose then and saved us all from a night of gripes. 'That's not Fat Hen, you noddle. That's Dog's Mercury. Once I knew a band of tinkers that made a soup of it and near died. If I serve that up to the new mistress I could be hanged for murder.' 'God help us. Give it back here. It's ill-omened.' He hurled the plants towards the hog's trough.

Something wonderful has happened to me. I was carried up into the seventh heaven. There all the gods sat assembled. By special grace I was granted the favor of a wish. "Will you," said Mercury, "have youth, or beauty, or power, or a long life, or the most beautiful maiden, or any of the other glories we have in the chest? Choose, but only one thing." For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed myself to the gods as follows: "Most honorable contemporaries, I choose this one thing, that I may always have the laugh on my side." Not one of the gods said a word, on the contrary, they all began to laugh. Hence, I concluded that my request was granted, and found that the gods knew how to express themselves with great taste; for it would hardly have been suitable for them to answer gravely: "It is granted thee".

For those whose life together is not one shiny, sunny thing, and often a mixed blessing, Mercury is the natural ruler. We were not easy, you and I. You were trouble and I am difficult. You were faithless and I am fixed. You said you had struck gold when you met me--but you loved bonds that could be broken--gold dissolves in mercury just as salt dissolves in water--but, in reality, nothing is lost. Death, though, is a different reality. You are dissolved. Into what? Into time, into space, into the leaky container that is me, who will also dissolve into time, into space. No. 80 on the Periodic Table, you are gone. But before I take up my role as the long-suffering one--the gold-band-wearing survivor who was always there and is still--I am aware that mercury makes possible the extraction of gold from poorer-quality ores. You brought out the best in me.

At first Paelen remained silent. But when the man repeated the question, he thought this would be a good time to start his own investigation. Breaking his silence, he replied, 'Subject.' 'That is not your name,' the man said. 'Perhaps not,' Paelen agreed. 'However, it is the name you have given me. One name is as good as any other, is it not?' 'I didn't call you Subject.' 'Yes, you did.' 'I don't think so,' the older man said. 'But you did,' Paelen insisted. 'Just now. You were speaking into that little black box and said, "Subject has multiple broken bones, which are healing at a remarkable rate." Then you said, "Subject is strong despite his small size and youthful outward appearance." So if it pleases you to call me Subject, then that shall be my name. I am Subject.' 'I don't want to call you Subject,' the man said, becoming irritated. 'I just want to know how we address you before we start with our other questions.' Paelen noticed that this man was easily flustered. He was worse than Mercury. And Mercury was always the easiest of the Olympians to upset. Lines of frustration and anger already showed on the man's face. His lips were pressed tightly together, and his brows were knitted in a deep frown. Paelen decided to push the man a little further to test him. 'You seem confused,' he said. 'If this happens so easily over the simple issue of my name, I am certain you would be far too challenged to understand the answers to any questions you might pose.' The man shook his head in growing frustration. 'I am not confused,' he said angrily. "And I know your nae isn't Subject. Subject isn't a name. It is what you are.' 'And yet you still insist on calling me it.' Paelen lay back against the pillows, enjoying the game. 'I do not understand you. You are obviously a man of questionable intelligence. Please leave.

Bohemian Rhapsody" Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide No escape from reality Open your eyes Look up to the skies and see I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy Because I'm easy come, easy go Little high, little low Any way the wind blows Doesn't really matter to me, to me Mama, just killed a man Put a gun against his head Pulled my trigger, now he's dead Mama, life had just begun But now I've gone and thrown it all away Mama, ooh Didn't mean to make you cry If I'm not back again this time tomorrow Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters Too late, my time has come Sends shivers down my spine Body's aching all the time Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth Mama, ooh (Any way the wind blows) I don't wanna die I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all I see a little silhouetto of a man Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning very, very frightening me (Galileo) Galileo (Galileo) Galileo Galileo Figaro Magnifico-o-o-o-o I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me He's just a poor boy from a poor family Spare him his life from this monstrosity Easy come, easy go, will you let me go? Bismillah! No, we will not let you go (Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let me go!) Will not let you go (Let me go!) Never let you go (Never, never, never, never let me go) Oh oh oh oh No, no, no, no, no, no, no Oh, mamma mia, mamma mia (Mamma mia, let me go) Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye? So you think you can love me and leave me to die? Oh, baby, can't do this to me, baby Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here Ooh, ooh yeah, ooh yeah Nothing really matters Anyone can see Nothing really matters Nothing really matters to me Any way the wind blows Freddie Mercury, A Night At The Opera (1975)

Shaya crossed one leg over the other. “How do you feel about Derren?” “Look, I’m a very self-aware person. I know I have plenty of flaws. I know I’m not very forthcoming when it comes to feelings or my past. I have constant nightmares and prefer sleeping outside in my hammock. I cook when I’m stressed—even if I’m not hungry or it’s three o’clock in the morning. Being a Seer, feeling people’s emotions all the time, means I sometimes get struck by a sensory overload, and so I’ll have my days when I need space, time, and privacy. “Derren is a very dominant, forceful, intrusive male who thinks my business is his and who is determined to have his own way all the time. But even though he pushes me to tell him things, he never pushes too hard—he shares with me so that I’ll share with him. Even though he doesn’t like any distance between us, he lets me have my space and privacy when I need it. And even though he very rarely gets a peaceful night’s sleep because of me, he never complains or sleeps anywhere but beside me. How can I not care about the fucker?

I encounter forms of this attitude every day. The producers who work at the Ostankino channels might all be liberals in their private lives, holiday in Tuscany, and be completely European in their tastes. When I ask how they marry their professional and personal lives, they look at me as if I were a fool and answer: “Over the last twenty years we’ve lived through a communism we never believed in, democracy and defaults and mafia state and oligarchy, and we’ve realized they are illusions, that everything is PR.” “Everything is PR” has become the favorite phrase of the new Russia; my Moscow peers are filled with a sense that they are both cynical and enlightened. When I ask them about Soviet-era dissidents, like my parents, who fought against communism, they dismiss them as naïve dreamers and my own Western attachment to such vague notions as “human rights” and “freedom” as a blunder. “Can’t you see your own governments are just as bad as ours?” they ask me. I try to protest—but they just smile and pity me. To believe in something and stand by it in this world is derided, the ability to be a shape-shifter celebrated. Vladimir Nabokov once described a species of butterfly that at an early stage in its development had to learn how to change colors to hide from predators. The butterfly’s predators had long died off, but still it changed its colors from the sheer pleasure of transformation. Something similar has happened to the Russian elites: during the Soviet period they learned to dissimulate in order to survive; now there is no need to constantly change their colors, but they continue to do so out of a sort of dark joy, conformism raised to the level of aesthetic act. Surkov himself is the ultimate expression of this psychology. As I watch him give his speech to the students and journalists, he seems to change and transform like mercury, from cherubic smile to demonic stare, from a woolly liberal preaching “modernization” to a finger-wagging nationalist, spitting out willfully contradictory ideas: “managed democracy,” “conservative modernization.” Then he steps back, smiling, and says: “We need a new political party, and we should help it happen, no need to wait and make it form by itself.” And when you look closely at the party men in the political reality show Surkov directs, the spitting nationalists and beetroot-faced communists, you notice how they all seem to perform their roles with a little ironic twinkle.

I was settin’ at this restaurant When the waiter came up and said, “What do you want?” I looked at the menu—it looked so nice Till he said, “Let me give you a little advice.” He said, “Spaghetti and potatoes got too much starch, Pork chops and sausage are bad for your heart. There's hormones in chicken and beef and veal, Bowl of ravioli is a dead man’s meal. Bread's got preservatives, there's nitrites in ham, Artificial coloring in jellies and jam. Stay away from doughnuts, run away from pie, Pepperoni pizza is a sure way to die. Sugar’s gonna rot your teeth and make you put on weight, Artificial sweetener’s got cyclamates. Eggs are high cholesterol, too much fat in cheese, Coffee ruins your kidneys and so do teas. Fish got too much mercury, red meat is poison, Salt's gonna send your blood pressure risin’. Hot dogs and bologna got deadly red dyes, Vegetables and fruits are sprayed with pesticides.” So I said, “What can I eat that's gonna make me last?” He said, “A small drink of water in a sterilized glass.” And then he stopped and he thought for a minute, And said, “Never mind the water—there’s carcinogens in it.” So I got up from the table and walked out in the street, Realizin’ there was absolutely nothing I could eat. So I haven't eaten for a month and I don't feel too fine, But I know that I'll be healthy for a long, long time.

We did the dishes and talked--about the cattle business, about my job back in L.A., about his local small town, about family. Then we adjourned to the sofa to watch an action movie, pausing occasionally to remind each other once again of the reason God invented lips. Curiously, though, while sexy and smoldering, Marlboro Man kept his heavy breathing to a minimum. This surprised me. He was not only masculine and manly, he lived in the middle of nowhere--one might expect that because of the dearth of women within a twenty-mile range, he’d be more susceptible than most to getting lost in a heated moment. But he wasn’t. He was a gentleman through and through--a sizzling specimen of a gentleman who was singlehandedly introducing me to a whole new universe of animal attraction, but a gentleman, nonetheless. And though my mercury was rising rapidly, his didn’t seem to be in any hurry. He walked me to my car as the final credits rolled, offering to follow me all the way home if I wanted. “Oh, no,” I said. “I can get home, no problem.” I’d lived in L.A. for years; it’s not like driving alone at night bothered me. I started my car and watched him walk back toward his front door, admiring every last thing about him. He turned around and waved, and as he walked inside I felt, more than ever, that I was in big trouble. What was I doing? Why was I here? I was getting ready to move to Chicago--home of the Cubs and Michigan Avenue and the Elevated Train. Why had I allowed myself to stick my toe in this water? And why did the water have to feel so, so good?

I work as fast as I can. Binah will come soon looking for me. It’s Mother, however, who descends the back steps into the yard. Binah and the other house slaves are clumped behind her, moving with cautious, synchronized steps as if they’re a single creature, a centipede crossing an unprotected space. I sense the shadow that hovers over them in the air, some devouring dread, and I crawl back into the green-black gloom of the tree. The slaves stare at Mother’s back, which is straight and without give. She turns and admonishes them. “You are lagging. Quickly now, let us be done with this.” As she speaks, an older slave, Rosetta, is dragged from the cow house, dragged by a man, a yard slave. She fights, clawing at his face. Mother watches, impassive. He ties Rosetta’s hands to the corner column of the kitchen house porch. She looks over her shoulder and begs. Missus, please. Missus. Missus. Please. She begs even as the man lashes her with his whip. Her dress is cotton, a pale yellow color. I stare transfixed as the back of it sprouts blood, blooms of red that open like petals. I cannot reconcile the savagery of the blows with the mellifluous way she keens or the beauty of the roses coiling along the trellis of her spine. Someone counts the lashes—is it Mother? Six, seven. The scourging continues, but Rosetta stops wailing and sinks against the porch rail. Nine, ten. My eyes look away. They follow a black ant traveling the far reaches beneath the tree—the mountainous roots and forested mosses, the endless perils—and in my head I say the words I fashioned earlier. Boy Run. Girl Jump. Sarah Go. Thirteen. Fourteen . . . I bolt from the shadows, past the man who now coils his whip, job well done, past Rosetta hanging by her hands in a heap. As I bound up the back steps into the house, Mother calls to me, and Binah reaches to scoop me up, but I escape them, thrashing along the main passage, out the front door, where I break blindly for the wharves. I don’t remember the rest with clarity, only that I find myself wandering across the gangplank of a sailing vessel, sobbing, stumbling over a turban of rope. A kind man with a beard and a dark cap asks what I want. I plead with him, Sarah Go. Binah chases me, though I’m unaware of her until she pulls me into her arms and coos, “Poor Miss Sarah, poor Miss Sarah.” Like a decree, a proclamation, a prophecy. When I arrive home, I am a muss of snot, tears, yard dirt, and harbor filth. Mother holds me against her, rears back and gives me an incensed shake, then clasps me again. “You must promise never to run away again. Promise me.” I want to. I try to. The words are on my tongue—the rounded lumps of them, shining like the marbles beneath the tree. “Sarah!” she demands. Nothing comes. Not a sound. I remained mute for a week. My words seemed sucked into the cleft between my collar bones. I rescued them by degrees, by praying, bullying and wooing. I came to speak again, but with an odd and mercurial form of stammer. I’d never been a fluid speaker, even my first spoken words had possessed a certain belligerent quality, but now there were ugly, halting gaps between my sentences, endless seconds when the words cowered against my lips and people averted their eyes. Eventually, these horrid pauses began to come and go according to their own mysterious whims. They might plague me for weeks and then remain away months, only to return again as abruptly as they left.

Sitting with some of the other members of the Scholastic Decathlon team, quiet, studious Martha Cox heard snatches of the lunchtime poetry. Her ears instantly pricked up. "What's going on?" she asked, her eyes bright. Betty Hong closed her book and leaned close. "Taylor McKessie told me all about it," she whispered. Betty told Martha about next week's poetry-reading assembly and how Taylor was trying to help half the starting basketball team locate their muse. "That's totally fresh!" Martha cried. "Too bad I'm not in Ms Barrington's English class." Betty made a face. "You like poetry stuff? I thought you were into maths and science." "I like it all," Martha replied. "I love astronomy and hip-hop-" Betty rolled her eyes. "Not hip-hop again." "Word, girl," Martha replied. "You know I've been bustin' out kickin' rhymes for years. It helps me remember lessons, like last night's astronomy lecture." "No," Betty said. "You didn't make up a rap to that." "Just watch," Martha cried. Leaping out of her chair, she began to chant, freestyle: "At the centre of our system is the molten sun, A star that burns hot, Fahrenheit two billion and one. But the sun, he ain't alone in the heavenly sphere, He's got nine homeys in orbit, some far, some near. Old Mercury's crowding in 'bout as close as he can, Yo, Merc's a tiny planet who loves a tan.... Some kids around Martha heard her rap. They really got into it, jumping up from their tables to clap and dance. The beat was contagious. Martha started bustin' some moves herself. She kept the rap flowing, and more kids joined the party.... "Venus is next. She's a real hot planet, Shrouded by clouds, hot enough to melt granite. Earth is the third planet from the sun, Just enough light and heat to make living fun. Then comes Mars, a planet funky and red. Covered with sand, the place is pretty dead. Jupiter's huge! The largest planet of all! Saturn's big, too, but Uranus is small. So far away, the place is almost forgotten, Neptune's view of Earth is pretty rotten. And last but not least, Pluto's in a fog, Far away and named after Mickey's home dog. Yo, that's all the planets orbiting our sun, But the Milky Way galaxy is far from done!" When Martha finished her freestyle, hip-hop flow, the entire cafeteria burst into wild applause. Troy, Chad, Zeke, and Jason had been clapping and dancing, too. Now they joined in the whooping and hollering. "Whoa," said Chad. "Martha's awesome.

Her enormous eyes were staring straight into his silver ones. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t let go of her hand. He couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it. He was lost in those blue-violet eyes, somewhere in their mysterious, haunting, sexy depths. What was it he had decided? Decreed? He was not going to allow her anywhere near Peter’s funeral. Why was his resolve fading away to nothing? He had reasons, good reasons. He was certain of it. Yet now, drowning in her huge eyes, his thoughts on the length of her lashes, the curve of her cheek, the feel of her skin, he couldn’t think of denying her. After all, she hadn’t tried to defy him; she didn’t know he had made the decision to keep her away from Peter’s funeral. She was including him in the plans, as if they were a unit, a team. She was asking his advice. Would it be so terrible to please her over this? It was important to her. He blinked to keep from falling into her gaze and found himself staring at the perfection of her mouth. The way her lips parted so expectantly. The way the tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her full lower lip. Almost a caress. He groaned. An invitation. He braced himself to keep from leaning over and tracing the exact path with his own tongue. He was being tortured. Tormented. Her perfect lips formed a slight frown. He wanted to kiss it right off her mouth. “What is it, Gregori?” She reached up to touch his lips with her fingertip. His heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He caught her wrist and clamped it against his pumping heart. “Savannah,” he whispered. An ache. It came out that way. An ache. He knew it. She knew it. God, he wanted her with every cell in his body. Untamed. Wild. Crazy. He wanted to bury himself so deep inside her that she would never get him out. Her hand trembled in answer, a slight movement rather like the flutter of butterfly wings. He felt it all the way through his body. “It is all right, mon amour,” he said softly. “I am not asking for anything.” “I know you’re not. I’m not denying you anything. I know we need to have time to become friends, but I’m not going to deny what I feel already. When you’re close to me, my body temperature jumps about a thousand degrees.” Her blue eyes were dark and beckoning, steady on his. He touched her mind very gently, almost tenderly, slipped past her guard and knew what courage it took for her to make the admission. She was nervous, even afraid, but willing to meet him halfway. The realization nearly brought him to his knees. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and the silver eyes heated to molten mercury, but his face was as impassive as ever. “I think you are a witch, Savannah, casting a spell over me.” His hand cupped her face, his thumb sliding over her delicate cheekbone. She moved closer, and he felt her need for comfort, for reassurance. Her arms slid tentatively around his waist. Her head rested on his sternum. Gregori held her tightly, simply held her, waiting for her trembling to cease. Waiting for the warmth of his body to seep into hers. Gregori’s hand came up to stroke the thick length of silken, ebony hair, taking pleasure in the simple act. It brought a measure of peace to both of them. He would never have believed what a small thing like holding a woman could do to a man. She was turning his heart inside out; unfamiliar emotions surged wildly through him and wreaked havoc with his well-ordered life. In his arms, next to his hard strength, she felt fragile, delicate, like an exotic flower that could be easily broken. “Do not worry about Peter, ma petite,” he whispered into the silken strands of her hair. “We will see to his resting place tomorrow.” “Thank you, Gregori,” Savannah said. “It matters a lot to me.” He lifted her easily into his arms. “I know. It would be simpler if I did not. Come to my bed, chérie, where you belong.