Panel Wall Quotes

I put a hand on my chest, leaning against the wood panels of the stair wall. Rhy's hand covered my own a heartbeat later. "That's what I felt," he said, "when I saw you smile that night we dined along the Sidra.

Simon's walls were covered in what looked like pages ripped from a comic book, but when I squinted, I realized they were hand drawn. Some were black-and-white, but most were in full color, everything from character sketches to splash panels to full pages, done in a style that wasn't quite manga, wasn't quite comic book.

The oth­ers went up­stairs, a slow unwilling pro­ces­sion. If this had been an old house, with creak­ing wood, and dark shad­ows, and heav­ily pan­elled walls, there might have been an eerie feel­ing. But this house was the essence of moder­ni­ty. There were no dark corners - ​no pos­si­ble slid­ing pan­els - it was flood­ed with elec­tric light - every­thing was new and bright and shining. There was noth­ing hid­den in this house, noth­ing con­cealed. It had no at­mo­sphere about it. Some­how, that was the most fright­en­ing thing of all. They ex­changed good-​nights on the up­per land­ing. Each of them went in­to his or her own room, and each of them automatical­ly, al­most with­out con­scious thought, locked the door....

The intruder hesitated, turned, and anchored itself in the corner, where the ceiling met the wall. It sat there, fastened to the paneling by enormous yellow talons, still and silent like a gargoyle in full sunlight. I took a swig from the bottle and set it so I could still see the creatures reflection. Nude and hairless, it didn't carry a single ounce of fat on its lean frame. Its skin stretched so tight over the cords of muscle, it threatened to snap. Like a thin layer of wax melted over an anatomy model. Your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman.

The King emerged from the library, paperwork in hand, eyebrows furrowed. "Well, what is it, what is it?" he said crossly. "Can you not let me work for five minutes at a time?" The girls burst into angry cries. Kale let out another piercing shriek. "Him-him-him-" said Delphinium, pointing a shaking finger at Mr. Hyette, who laughed still. "He-he-him!" "He-he-he was spying on us!" "And we weren't even wearing our boots!" "Or even our stockings!" Thunpfwhap. The King threw Mr. Hyette up against the paneling. My Hyette's head slammed against the wainscot. Kale stopped midscream, hiccupped, and giggled. "Mr. Hyeete!" said the King. Mr. Hyette struggled against the King's steel grip. "Ow," he said. "I say, ow!" The King yanked Mr. Hyette from the wall and grabbed him by the scruff of his fluffy cravat. He handled Mr. Hyette out the entrance hall doors, slamming them behind him. Outside, gravel scuffled. "I say," said Bramble, in an impeccable impersonation of Mr. Hyette. "I say, I say! I say-this Royal Business could actually be quite a lot of fun!

[Artemis] returned to the aft bay for Mulch's version of a briefing. The dwarf had drawn a crude diagram on a backlit wall panel. In fairness, there were more artistic chimpanzees. And less pungent ones. Mulch was using a carrot as a pointer, or more accurately, several carrots. Dwarfs liked carrots. 'This is Koboi Labs,' He mumbled around a mouthful of vegetable. 'That?' exclaimed Root. 'I realize, Julius, that it is not an accurate schematic.' The Commander exploded from his chair. 'An accurate schematic? It's a rectangle for heaven's sake!' Mulch was unperturbed. 'That's not important. This is the important bit.' 'That wobbly line?' 'It's a fissure,' pouted the dwarf. 'Anybody can see that.' 'Anybody in kindergarten maybe. So it's a fissure, so what?' 'This is the clever bit. Y'see that fissure is not usually there.' Root began strangling the air again. Something he was doing more and more lately.

Are you afraid in there?" she said softly, as the men called out for them. "No," he said. "I'm not afraid. You lock me in. They won't get me." She closed the door on the little white face, turned the key in the lock. Then she slipped the key into her pocket. The lock was hidden by a pivoting device shaped like a light switch. It was impossible to see the outline of the cupboard in the paneling of the wall. Yes, he'd be safe there. She was sure of it. The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel. "I'll come back for you later. I promise.

We know about the remarkable tale of how a foreign prince was invited to rule over a kingdom in southern India because Nandi Varman II himself tells us the story in inscriptions and bas-relief panels on the walls of the Vaikuntha Perumal temple in Kanchipuram.

They live like beasts, sweetie. They slang, they bark, they rape. They kill for a solar panel or the copper ring they find in the junk. They don’t think about art and culture or how the universe exists as the High Grades do. They are lowly, earthly monsters … Meera never speaks such words aloud, but Magic Mama told her once what the High Grades think of anyone unevolved, no matter if they’re outside the walls or inside them.

If this had been an old house, with creaking wood, and dark shadows, and heavily panelled walls, there might have been an eerie feeling. But this house was the essence of modernity. There were no dark corners—no possible sliding panels—it was flooded with electric light—everything was new and bright and shining. There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it. Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all….

The walls of the bookstore have wood panels up to just above her head, but beyond that is blue wallpaper. Maya can't reach the wallpaper unless she has a chair. The wallpaper has a bumpy, swirling pattern, and it is pleasing to rub her face against it. She will read the word damask in a book one day and thinks, Yes, of course, that's what it's called. In contrast, the word wainscoting will come as a huge disappointment.

It felt safe in Misty's house, something familiar that never changed. Wall-to-wall thick orange shag carpet, dark wood paneling, even popcorn on the ceiling—with sparkles. The sparkles were pretty cool.

Ten feet into the lobby was a velvet panel on the left that looked like it was part of the wall, but when the select crowd who knew of its existence pushed against it, the hidden panel would swing open smoothly,

The entrance hall was designed to impress. The floor was a buttery cream-colored marble and the walls were paneled in dark wood. I'm not a lumberjack, so I had no idea what kind of wood it was, but it looked expensive.

He remembered the night in Arlington when the news came: secession. He remembered a paneled wall and firelight. When we heard the news we went into mourning. But outside there was cheering in the streets, bonfires of joy. They had their war at last. But where was there ever any choice? The sight of fire against wood paneling, a bonfire seen far off at night through a window, soft and sparky glows always to remind him of that embedded night when he found that he had no choice. The war had come. He was a member of the army that would march against his home, his sons. He was not only to serve in it but actually to lead it, to make the plans and issue the orders to kill and burn and ruin. He could not do that. Each man would make his own decision, but Lee could not raise his hand against his own. And so what then? To stand by and watch, observer at the death? To do nothing? To wait until the war was over? And if so, from what vantage point and what distance? How far do you stand from the attack on your home, whatever the cause, so that you can bear it? It had nothing to do with causes; it was no longer a matter of vows. When Virginia left the Union she bore his home away as surely as if she were a ship setting out to sea, and what was left behind on the shore was not his any more. So it was no cause and no country he fought for, no ideal and no justice. He fought for his people, for the children and the kin, and not even the land, because not even the land was worth the war, but the people were, wrong as they were, insane even as many of them were, they were his own, he belonged with his own. And so he took up arms willfully, knowingly, in perhaps the wrong cause against his own sacred oath and stood now upon alien ground he had once sworn to defend, sworn in honor, and he had arrived there really in the hands of God, without any choice at all; there had never been an alternative except to run away, and he could not do that. But Longstreet was right, of course: he had broken the vow. And he would pay. He knew that and accepted it. He had already paid. He closed his eyes. Dear God, let it end soon.

10. Never allow your imagination to stop. It was the imagination of great people that brought us the internet, the pyramids, cars, airplanes, boats, great novels, beautiful painting, classical songs, great movies, water irrigation, solar panels, the statue of liberty, the wall of china and so forth. Never under estimate your imagination.

The kitchen was a ’60s wood-paneling affair, with a linoleum floor, yellow countertops, and every inch of wall space covered in oak cabinets.

It really should be a criminal offense for an electrician to mount a breaker box on a bedroom wall. Unfortunately, I see the solar industry mounting inverters on bedroom walls also!

The walls were hung with rich tapestries representing the Triumph of Beauty. A large press, inlaid with agate and lapis-lazuli, filled one corner, and facing the window stood a curiously wrought cabinet with lacquer panels of powdered and mosaiced gold, on which were placed some delicate goblets of Venetian glass, and a cup of dark-veined onyx. Pale poppies were broidered on the silk coverlet of the bed, as though they had fallen from the tired hands of sleep, and tall reeds of fluted ivory bare up the velvet canopy, from which great tufts of ostrich plumes sprang, like white foam, to the pallid silver of the fretted ceiling. A laughing Narcissus in green bronze held a polished mirror above its head. On the table stood a flat bowl of amethyst.

Jobs described Mike Markkula's maxim that a good company must "impute"- it must convey its values and importance in everything it does, from packaging to marketing. Johnson loved it. It definitely applied to a company's stores. " The store will become the most powerful physical expression of the brand," he predicted. He said that when he was young he had gone to the wood-paneled, art-filled mansion-like store that Ralph Lauren had created at Seventy-second and Madison in Manhattan. " Whenever I buy a polo shirt, I think of that mansion, which was a physical expression of Ralph's ideals," Johnson said. " Mickey Drexler did that with the Gap. You couldn't think of a Gap product without thinking of the Great Gap store with the clean space and wood floors and white walls and folded merchandise.

You measure a good song the same way you measure architecture, fashion, or any other artistic endeavor. Time. You know when you see a picture of yourself from the eighties with a horrible hairdo and some stone-washed jeans and you think, “How embarrassing—what the fuck was I thinking? Why didn’t somebody stop me?” It’s the same thing Mick Jagger and David Bowie should be thinking every time they hear their cover of “Dancing in the Streets.” The point is, at the time it seemed like a good idea, just like kitchens with burnt-orange Formica and avocado appliances, den walls covered with fake brick paneling, and segregation—all horrible decisions that we now universally recognize as wrong. But somehow when it comes to music, we can’t just admit we made a mistake with “Emotional Rescue.” There’s always some dick who defends the past. “Hey, man, I lost my virginity to ‘Careless Whisper.’ ” I’m sure there was somebody who got laid for the first time on 9/11 but they don’t get a boner when they see the footage of the planes going into the tower.

Perhaps one of the walls to such a room would have built into it a sliding panel that could be opened only from the other side. And next to that room would be another room that was unfurnished and seemed never to have been occupied. But leaning against one wall of this other room, directly below the sliding panel, would be some long wooden sticks; and mounted at the ends of these sticks would be horrible little puppets.

looked excitingly purposeful, with large video screens ranged over the control and guidance system panels on the concave wall, and long banks of computers set into the convex wall. In one corner a robot sat humped,

Nancy and Helen changed into pastel cotton dresses, put away the few belongings they had brought, then headed for the inn. As they walked across the lawn, they passed gardeners who were pruning trees and cultivating flower beds edged with pansies. “It’s perfectly beautiful here,” Helen remarked. The girls went to the front of the inn, a two-story clapboard building with a one-level wing on either side. All around it were lilac trees and other flowering bushes. Nancy and Helen mounted the wide steps and entered the center hall. Its paneled walls, old staircase, and beautiful cut-glass chandelier made them feel as though they had stepped back into an earlier century.

Alone in the worn mahogany paneled library surrounded by hundreds of books that filled every shelf and lined every wall from floor to ceiling, Lady Butler contemplated, How odd it is that a room filled with millions of words can be so silent.

Feeling drunk with the anticipation of being alone in the elevator with the blonde seductress, Jack turned back and flashed a wicked grin at Todd before disappearing down the hall. "I’m Shala. I was also hoping we'd have a private moment together, before your adventure begins.” She spoke softly and slipped her hand into the crook of Jack's arm. "Shala, you read my mind," Jack replied as they reached the elevator. "After Dr. Strong and I talk, how about you show me the sights of Landon." "The most exciting thing in Landon is in my suite.” Shala whispered and leaned hard against him, forcing his back to the wall. Shala’s hands explored Jacks chest then moved to his sides and round to his back sinking lower. Her fiery smile sent an unexpected chill through him. Jack squirmed uncomfortably as he glanced up at the panel above the elevator doors. The second floor indicator lit and held. The doors silently slid aside to reveal a large banquet hall just as Shala's hands reached a sensitive spot.

Good morning everyone,” he announced, as he strode briskly into the wood-paneled room. Each of his direct reports were dutifully assembled around a huge, glass oblong table. Surrounding them on the walls of the boardroom hung giant original expressionist paintings by various 20th century masters.

The large drawing-room was an immense, long room, with a sort of gallery that ran from one pavilion to the other, taking up the whole of the façade on the garden side. A large French window opened on to the steps. This gallery glittered with gold. The ceiling, gently arched, had fanciful scrolls winding round great gilt medallions, that shone like bucklers. Bosses and dazzling garlands encircled the arch; fillets of gold, resembling threads of molten metal, ran round the walls, framing the panels, which were hung with red silk; festoons of roses, topped with tufts of full-blown blossoms, hung down along the sides of the mirrors. An Aubusson carpet spread its purple flowers over the polished flooring. The furniture of red silk damask, the door-hangings and window-curtains of the same material, the huge ormolu clock on the mantel-piece, the porcelain vases standing on the consoles, the legs of the two long tables

So Lucille pressed the button, and a panel slid open in the wall, and the transporter came through, and sure enough here was the bare butt of the client waiting to be whipped. For reasons best known to himself he had kept his shoes and socks on, so he was wearing well-polished black loafers and black silk socks.

I sat on a bench and did what, as a girl, I had done whenever I needed to calm myself: instead of pressing the button with the number 4 on it, I let myself go up to the sixth floor. That space had been empty and dark for many years, ever since the lawyer who had his office there had left, taking with him even the light bulb from the landing. When the elevator stopped, I let my breath glide into my stomach and then return slowly to my throat. As always, after a few seconds, the light in the elevator went out, too. I thought of reaching my hand out to one of the door handles: you had only to pull it and the light would return. But I didn't move and continued to send my breath deep into my body. The only sound was that of the woodworms eating into the panelled walls. Just a few months earlier (five, six?), on a sudden impulse, I had revealed to my mother, during one of my brief visits, that as an adolescent I used to retreat to that secret place, and I brought her up there, to the top. Maybe I wanted to try to establish an intimacy that there had never been, maybe I wanted to let her know in some confused way that I had always been unhappy. But she seemed to me only amused by the fact that I had sat suspended in the void, in a dilapidated elevator.

In every city the President visits, massive C-17 cargo planes arrive the day before—always at 1 p.m.—delivering ready-to-build octagonal saferooms to the hotel. In the President’s room, the Service shoves all the couches and chairs against one wall, builds the saferoom panel by panel, then rolls in wide pieces of ballistic glass to cover each window. If

Closing the door behind him, Macdonald stood still in the darkness, as he had stood so often in other buildings. Houses, barns, shops, flats, warehouses, all dark, as this passage was dark, but having in the darkness their own character because each had its own peculiar smell. Gramarye smelt of floor polish and carbolic and soap: something of the unwelcoming smell of an institution, but behind the overlay of modern cleanliness, the smell of the ancient house declared itself, of old mortar, of stone walls built without damp courses, of woodwork decaying under coats of paint, of panelling and floor boards which gave out their ancient breath as the coldness of the stone house triumphed over the warmth of the midsummer evening.

The beast plopped into the chair, the wood groaning, and, in a flash of white light, turned into a golden-haired man. I stifled a cry and pushed myself against the paneled wall beside the door, feeling for the molding of the threshold, trying to gauge the distance between me and escape. This beast was not a man, not a lesser faerie. He was one of the High Fae, one of their ruling nobility: beautiful, lethal, and merciless. He was young—or at least what I could see of his face seemed young. His nose, cheeks, and brows were covered by an exquisite golden mask embedded with emeralds shaped like whorls of leaves. Some absurd High Fae fashion, no doubt. It left only his eyes—looking the same as they had in his beast form, strong jaw, and mouth for me to see, and the latter tightened into a thin line.

The walls of the bookstore have wood panels up to just above her head, but beyond that is blue wallpaper. Maya can’t reach the paper unless she has a chair. The wallpaper has a bumpy, swirling pattern, and it is pleasing to rub her face against it. She will read the word damask in a book one day and think, Yes, of course that’s what it’s called. In contrast, the word wainscoting will come as a huge disappointment.

But there was another shrine at the back of the room, where the throne had once been. There, the dais had been lowered, and there was no throne, no deer, no rays of sun. There were still some who worshipped Arren the Sunbringer, Fireheart, but Lessa was determined he be remembered as only a king, stacker of Lesscia and Blenraden, burner of his people, not the winner of their war. For he had not won it. In the space where his throne had been, a small but grand shrine had been raised. Its walls were panelled in etched brass, showing green leaves, patterns and feathers, and its totem was white marble, beautifully carved: a hare with a stag’s horns and a bird’s wings. His eyes had been set with amber, his fur detailed so meticulously it looked as if he might spring up and move at any moment. Offerings had already been draped on his antlers, pooled in the bowls before him. Libations, incense, sweets and wine. Inara’s offerings were different. They were written notes on long thick pages. Inked stories of what he had been, what they had done together. She had one tucked in her pocket, ready to read aloud. His history, and hers. It was a greater shrine than he had ever dreamed, etched at its base with his name: Skediceth. God of hope and telling tales.

Every square inch of the wood-paneled walls is covered with photographs of cops, some black-and-white, some in color. Red-and-white Ws and America's Dairyland, old flaking signs for Lake Monona, Lake Mendota, and the U.P. Posters, with all kinds of beer, half-nude women holding giant mugs of it. All the color, words, images, the vibrant clutter of them, such a stark contrast to the spare tans, beiges, and wood of our home, our church, the school. My life.

...the daylight subdued by four red walls with narrow white stripes adopted a pink glow which lent faces and every last detail a mysterious grace and a fantastical quality…Sunbeams fell across the house obliquely, wrapping around it like a scarf, cutting across the parlor, expiring in a peculiar sheen on the paneling along the walls that backed onto the courtyard, and enveloping [the] woman in the scarlet zone projected by the damask curtain draped along the window.

She was hungry. She was... doing something. Learning something. ... I put a hand on my chest, leaning against the wood panels of the stair wall. Rhys's hand covered my own a heartbeat later. 'That's what I felt,' he said, 'when I saw you smile that night we dined along the Sidra.' I leaned forward, resting my brow against his chest, right over his heart. 'She still has a long way to go.' 'We all do.' He stroked a hand over my back. I leaned into the touch, savouring his warmth and strength.

And the effect on yourself?’ Guthrie said. For a short time, Lymond was silent. Then he said, ‘I had some strengths, which have grown. I had some weaknesses, which have gone.’ ‘That is true,’ Adam Blacklock said. Slumped between floor and wall, he had leaned his tired head on the panelling; his face, with its thin scar, was turned without expression to Lymond. ‘You have become a machine.’ ‘No,’ said Philippa. ‘That is not so.’ ‘But that is so,’ said Lymond. ‘How could I do my work otherwise?

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats — the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill — The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it — and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

I opened the curtain and entered the confessional, a dark wooden booth built into the side wall of the church. As I knelt on the small worn bench, I could hear a boy's halting confession through the wall, his prescribed penance inaudible as the panel slid open on my side and the priest directed his attention to me. "Yes, my child," he inquired softly. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my First Confession." "Yes, my child, and what sins have you committed?" .... "I talked in church twenty times, I disobeyed my mother five times, I wished harm to others several times, I told a fib three times, I talked back to my teacher twice." I held my breath. "And to whom did you wish harm?" My scheme had failed. He had picked out the one group of sins that most troubled me. Speaking as softly as I could, I made my admission. "I wished harm to Allie Reynolds." "The Yankee pitcher?" he asked, surprise and concern in his voice. "And how did you wish to harm him?" "I wanted him to break his arm." "And how often did you make this wish?" "Every night," I admitted, "before going to bed, in my prayers." "And were there others?" "Oh, yes," I admitted. "I wished that Robin Roberts of the Phillies would fall down the steps of his stoop, and that Richie Ashburn would break his hand." "Is there anything else?" "Yes, I wished that Enos Slaughter of the Cards would break his ankle, that Phil Rizzuto of the Yanks would fracture a rib, and that Alvin Dark of the Giants would hurt his knee." But, I hastened to add, "I wished that all these injuries would go away once the baseball season ended." ... "Are there any other sins, my child?" "No, Father." "For your penance, say two Hail Mary's, three Our Fathers, and," he added with a chuckle, "say a special prayer for the Dodgers. ...

Sunday morning dawned bright and cloudless. Ernest awoke early as always. He put on the red "Emporor's robe" and padded softly down the carpeted stairway. The early sunlight lay in pools on the living room floor. He had noticed that the guns were locked up in the basement. But the keys, as he well knew, were on the window ledge above the kitchen sink. He tiptoed down the basement stairs and unlocked the storage room. It smelled as dank as a grave. He chose a double-barreled Boss shotgun with a tight choke. He had used it for years of pigeon shooting. He took some shells from one of the boxes in the storage room, closed and locked the door, and climbed the basement stairs. If he saw the bright day outside, it did not deter him. He crossed the living room to the front foyer, a shrinelike entryway five by seven feet, with oak-paneled walls and a floor of linoleum tile. He had held for years to the maxim: "il faut (d'abord) durer". Now it had been succeeded by another: "il faut (apres tout) mourir". The idea, if not the phrase, filled all his mind. He slipped in two shells, lowered the gun butt carefully to the floor, leaned forward, pressed the twin barrels against his forehead just above the eyebrows, and tripped both triggers.

They turned a corner and there ahead of them was the end of the passage. Another short flight of steps led to a door just like the one hidden behind Ariana’s portrait. Neville pushed it open and climbed through. As Harry followed, he heard Neville call out to unseen people: “Look who it is! Didn’t I tell you?” As Harry emerged into the room beyond the passage, there were several screams and yells: “HARRY!” “It’s Potter, it’s POTTER!” “Ron!” “Hermione!” He had a confused impression of colored hangings, of lamps and many faces. The next moment, he, Ron, and Hermione were engulfed, hugged, pounded on the back, their hair ruffled, their hands shaken, by what seemed to be more than twenty people: They might just have won a Quidditch final. “Okay, okay, calm down!” Neville called, and as the crowd backed away, Harry was able to take in their surroundings. He did not recognize the room at all. It was enormous, and looked rather like the interior of a particularly sumptuous tree house, or perhaps a gigantic ship’s cabin. Multicolored hammocks were strung from the ceiling and from a balcony that ran around the dark wood-paneled and windowless walls, which were covered in bright tapestry hangings: Harry saw the gold Gryffindor lion, emblazoned on scarlet;

He looked behind him at the unadorned outer walls of the Septizodium. He stood in an alley, one of the many unmarked and unmemorable gaps between buildings in Rome. The door through which he had stumbled wasn’t a real door, but a clever panel of stone. Any other time, he would never have noticed it against the mottled background of the surrounding stone, but it hung open now, and a column of black smoke spiraled up from it. There were other spires of smoke rising over the rooftop; clearly, there were other exits from the Septizodium. They might not have been plain to those who were sequestered inside, but smoke had a talent for finding a way out.

As she passed the door to Gray’s study, a familiar, muscled arm shot out into the corridor, catching her by the waist. Laughing, she stumbled into the room, quickly finding herself caught between cool walnut paneling at her back and the hot, solid wall of man before her. Ever since their wedding-or since the Kestrel storeroom, more likely-Gray seemed to find it an irresistible challenge, to catch her unawares in an unlikely location and pull her into a feverish embrace. Sophia had no wish to discourage the habit, but this wasn’t the ideal time for a tryst. “Gray,” she chided between kisses, “what are you about? The housekeeper said there was an urgent matter requiring my attention.” “And so there is. I require your attention. Most urgently.” His hand slid to her bottom, and he lifted her easily, pinning her to the wall with his hips. The beaded ridges of the wainscoting dug into her spine. “Don’t think we’ve used this room yet,” he murmured, nibbling at the curve of her neck. “I’m entertaining,” she protested. “Yes, you are,” he said, grinding against her. “Highly entertaining.” Sophia sighed with pleasurable frustration. “I mean, I have a guest. Lady Kendall’s in the salon, with Bel.” She levered her arm against his chest, carving out some space between them. “And I thought you were at your shipping office.” “Yes, well…” Mischief gleamed sharp in his eyes. “I decided to go riding instead.

It’s dark as a tomb in here,” she said, unable to see more than shadows. “Will you light the candles, please,” she asked, “assuming there are candles in here?” “Aye, milady, right there, next to the bed.” His shadow crossed before her, and Elizabeth focused on a large, oddly shaped object that she supposed could be a bed, given its size. “Will you light them, please?” she urged. “I-I can’t see a thing in here.” “His lordship don’t like more’n one candle lit in the bedchambers,” the footman said. “He says it’s a waste of beeswax.” Elizabeth blinked in the darkness, torn somewhere between laughter and tears at her plight. “Oh,” she said, nonplussed. The footman lit a small candle at the far end of the room and left, closing the door behind him. “Milady?” Berta whispered, peering through the dark, impenetrable gloom. “Where are you?” “I’m over here,” Elizabeth replied, walking cautiously forward, her arms outstretched, her hands groping about for possible obstructions in her path as she headed for what she hoped was the outside wall of the bedchamber, where there was bound to be a window with draperies hiding its light. “Where?” Berta asked in a frightened whisper, and Elizabeth could hear the maid’s teeth chattering halfway across the room. “Here-on your left.” Berta followed the sound of her mistress’s voice and let out a terrified gasp at the sight of the ghostlike figure moving eerily through the darkness, arms outstretched. “Raise your arm,” she said urgently, “so I’ll know ‘tis you.” Elizabeth, knowing Berta’s timid nature, complied immediately. She raised her arm, which, while calming poor Berta, unfortunately caused Elizabeth to walk straight into a slender, fluted pillar with a marble bust upon it, and they both began to topple. “Good God!” Elizabeth burst out, wrapping her arms protectively around the pillar and the marble object upon it. “Berta!” she said urgently. “This is no time to be afraid of the dark. Help me, please. I’ve bumped into something-a bust and its stand, I think-and I daren’t let go of them until I can see how to set them upright. There are draperies over here, right in front of me. All you have to do is follow my voice and open them. Once we do, ‘twill be bright as day in here.” “I’m coming, milady,” Berta said bravely, and Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve found them!” Berta cried softly a few minutes later. “They’re heavy-velvet they are, with another panel behind them.” Berta pulled one heavy panel back across the wall, and then, with renewed urgency and vigor, she yanked back the other and turned around to survey the room. “Light as last!” Elizabeth said with relief. Dazzling late-afternoon sunlight poured into the windows directly in front of her, blinding her momentarily. “That’s much better,” she said, blinking. Satisfied that the pillar was quite sturdy enough to stand without her aid, Elizabeth was about to place the bust back upon it, but Berta’s cry stopped her. “Saints preserve us!” With the fragile bust clutched protectively to her chest Elizabeth swung sharply around. There, spread out before her, furnished entirely in red and gold, was the most shocking room Elizabeth had ever beheld: Six enormous gold cupids seemed to hover in thin air above a gigantic bed clutching crimson velvet bed draperies in one pudgy fist and holding bows and arrows in the other; more cupids adorned the headboard. Elizabeth’s eyes widened, first in disbelief, and a moment later in mirth. “Berta,” she breathed on a smothered giggle, “will you look at this place!

Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, a little too heartily, “So this is the library.” There certainly couldn’t be any doubt on that score; never had a room so resembled popular preconception. The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood, although the finish had worn off the edges in spots, where books had scraped against the wood in passing one too many times. A whimsical iron staircase curved to the balcony, the steps narrowing into pie-shaped wedges that promised a broken neck to the unwary. I tilted my head back, dizzied by the sheer number of books, row upon row, more than the most devoted bibliophile could hope to consume in a lifetime of reading. In one corner, a pile of crumbling paperbacks—James Bond, I noticed, squinting sideways, in splashy seventies covers—struck a slightly incongruous note. I spotted a moldering pile of Country Life cheek by jowl with a complete set of Trevelyan’s History of England in the original Victorian bindings. The air was rich with the smell of decaying paper and old leather bindings. Downstairs, where I stood with Colin, the shelves made way for four tall windows, two to the east and two to the north, all hung with rich red draperies checked with blue, in the obverse of the red-flecked blue carpet. On the west wall, the bookshelves surrendered pride of place to a massive fireplace, topped with a carved hood to make Ivanhoe proud, and large enough to roast a serf. In short, the library was a Gothic fantasy.

It helped that Celia Ray could walk into a joint like nobody I’ve ever seen. She would throw her resplendence into a room ahead of her, the way a soldier might toss a grenade into a machine gunner’s nest, and then she’d follow her beauty right on in and assess the carnage. All she had to do was show up, and every bit of sexual energy in the place would magnetize around her. Then she’d stroll around looking bored as can be—sopping up everyone’s boyfriends and husbands in the process—without exerting the slightest bit of effort in her conquests. Men looked at Celia Ray like she was a box of Cracker Jack and they couldn’t wait to start digging for the toy. In return, she looked at them like they were the wooden paneling on the wall.

Morton the tortoiseshell was standing in the middle of the smaller staircase, staring at a point halfway up the wood panels of the wall, as they walked to Edwin’s mother’s suite. He let out an interrogative yowl, paused, flicked his ears, then yowled again. “I think your cat’s smelled a mouse,” said Robin. “No, he’s only talking to the ghost.” “Ghost?” “Ghost,” Edwin affirmed. “Don’t worry, they’re not dangerous.” “Back in town you said they didn’t exist. That they were nonsense.” “Visible ghosts are nonsense,” Edwin said. “You can’t see them. And they can’t talk to you unless there’s a medium around, and there’s maybe three true mediums in the whole of England.” “Then how do you know they’re there at all?” “The cats, mostly. There are detection spells you can do, but cats are simpler.

I wore an emerald long-sleeved dress by Vivienne Tam and a pair of tangerine Christian Louboutins. I had seen the same look in one of Emerald's Vogues and asked Giada to overnight it. I learned quickly, though I wasn't very original. I'd changed in a coffee shop next to my apartment, then hopped into a cab. "Next time we must coordinate outfits beforehand," Michael whispered as we sat down. "I was going for 'salt of the earth' today." "Oh, I wanted to match the décor," I said. Tellicherry felt like a sexy, sinister jewel box. A rich sapphire blue stained the walls in large, meandering splotches, like dye dropped into water. Bronze silk leaped and dipped in the cushions. The waitresses wore black dresses with seductive lace panels revealing flesh-colored bits, and the waiters slinked in semi-sheer pajama-like outfits, conjuring bedtime escapades, none of which involved sleeping.

The Eliots found it a queer sort of evening - a transition evening. Hitherto the Herb of Grace had been to them a summer home; they had known it only permeated with sun and light, flower-scented, windows and doors open wide. But now doors were shut, curtains drawn to hide the sad, grey dusk. Instead of the lap of the water against the river wall they heard the whisper of the flames, and instead of the flowers in the garden they smelt the roasting chestnuts, burning apple logs, the oil lamps, polish - all the home smells. This intimacy with the house was deepening; when winter came it would be deeper still. Nadine glanced over her shoulder at the firelight gleaming upon the dark wood of the panelling, at the shadows gathering in the corners, and marvelled to see how the old place seemed to have shrunk in size with the shutting out of the daylight. It seemed gathering them in, holding them close.

The Thwaites lived on Central Park West in the upper Eighties, in a building that, while manifestly grand, particularly to someone from Ohio, was by no means the most elegant among its neighbors. Its lobby, for one thing, was little more than a wide corridor, with two drably upholstered wing chairs propped against a wall and, between them, a glass table upon which rested an elaborate but unaesthetic arrangement of silk flowers. The light in the corridor was greenish, dim and lavatorial, barely illuminating the shallowly carved figures that marched, in pseudo-Egyptian fashion, along the pink stone tiles as far as the elevator. The floor, incongruously, was of a black and white parquet, upon which all but the softest slippers echoed ominously. And the elevator itself—paneled, with brass fixtures and a single tiny red velvet stool, presumably for its operator’s comfort—seemed again of a different, though no less ancient, era.

You have got to be—” Her sentence is cut short when the elevator makes an abrupt stop, jostling both of us into the walls of the small carrier. “Huh, would you look at that?” I glance around the small room, wondering what’s wrong. “No, no, no,” Dottie says over and over again, as she rushes to the panel and presses the emergency button. When nothing happens, she presses all the other buttons. “That’s intelligent,” I say, arms crossed and observing her from behind. “Confuse the damn thing so it has no idea what to do.” She doesn’t answer, but instead pulls her phone out from her purse and starts holding it up in the air, searching for a signal. “It’s cute that you think raising the phone higher will grant you service. We’re in a metal box surrounded by concrete, sweetheart. I never get reception in here.” “Damn it,” she mutters, stuffing her phone back in her purse. “Looks like you’re stuck here with me until someone figures out the elevator broke, so it’s best you get comfortable.” I sit on the floor and then pat my lap. “You can sit right here.” “I’d rather lick the elevator floor.” “There’s a disgusting visual. Suit yourself.” I get comfortable and start rifling through my bag of food. Thank God I grabbed dinner before this, because I’m starving, and if I was stuck in this elevator with no food, I’d be a raging bastard, bashing his head against the metal door from pure hunger. Low blood sugar does crazy things to me. I bring the term hangry to a new level. There’s only— “Why are you smiling like that?” I look up at her. “Smiling like what? I’m just being normal.” “No, you’re smiling like you’re having a conversation inside your head and you think you’re funny.” How would she know that? “Well, I am funny.” I pop open my to-go box filled to the brim with a Philly cheesesteak sandwich and tons of fries. Staring at it, I say, “Oh yes, come to papa.

When I finally calmed down, I saw how disappointed he was and how bad he felt. I decided to take a deep breath and try to think this thing through. “Maybe it’s not that bad,” I said. (I think I was trying to cheer myself up as much as I was trying to console Chip.) “If we fix up the interior and just get it to the point where we can get it onto the water, at least maybe then we can turn around, sell it, and get our money back.” Over the course of the next hour or so, I really started to come around. I took another walk through the boat and started to picture how we could make it livable--maybe even kind of cool. After all, we’d conquered worse. We tore a few things apart right then and there, and I grabbed some paper and sketched out a new layout for the tiny kitchen. I talked to him about potentially finishing an accent wall with shiplap--a kind of rough-textured pine paneling that fans of our show now know all too well. “Shiplap?” Chip laughed. “That seems a little ironic to use on a ship, doesn’t it?” “Ha-ha,” I replied. I was still not in the mood for his jokes, but this is how Chip backs me off the ledge--with his humor.

He opened his eyes then, white fire flaring hotly within them. “Send me home, Legna,” he commanded her, his voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. She moved her head in affirmation even as she leaned toward him to catch his mouth once more in a brief, territorial kiss, her teeth scoring his bottom lip as she broke away. It was an incidental wound, one he could heal in the blink of an eye. But he wouldn’t erase her mark on him, and they both knew it. Finally, she stepped back, closed her eyes, and concentrated on picturing his home in her thoughts. She had been in his parlor dozens of times as a guest, always accompanied by Noah. His library, his kitchen, even the grounds of the isolated estate were well known to her. She could have sent him to any of those locations. But as she began to focus, her mind’s eye was filled with the image of a dark, elegant room she had never seen before. Hand-carved ebony-paneled walls soared up into a vast ceiling, enormous windows of intricate stained glass spilled colored light over the entire room as if a multitude of rainbows had taken up residence. It all centered around an enormous bed, the coverlet’s color indistinguishable under the blanket of colorful dawn sunlight that streamed into the room. She could feel the sun’s warmth, ready and waiting to cocoon any weary occupant who thrived on sleeping in the heat of the muted daylight sun. It was a beautiful room, and she knew without a doubt that it was Gideon’s bedroom and that he had shared the image of it with her. If she sent him there, it would be the first time she had ever teleported someone to a place she had not first seen for herself. The ability to take images of places from others’ minds for teleporting purposes was an advanced Elder ability. “You can do it,” he encouraged her softly, all of his thoughts and his will completely full of his belief in that statement. Legna kept his gaze for one last long moment, and with a flick of a wrist sent him from the room with a soft pop of moving air. She exhaled in wonder, everything inside of her knowing without a doubt that he had appeared in his bedroom, safe and sound, that very next second. Legna turned to look at her own bed and wondered how she would ever be able to sleep. Nelissuna . . . go to bed. I will help you sleep. Gideon’s voice washed through her, warming her, comforting her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. This was the connection that Jacob and Isabella shared. For the rest of the time both of them lived, each would be privy to the other’s innermost thoughts. She realized that because he was the more powerful, it was quite possible he would be able to master parts of himself, probably even hide things from her awareness and keep them private—at least, until she learned how to work her new ability with better skill. After all, she was a Demon of the Mind. It was part of her innate state of being to figure the workings of their complex minds. She removed her slippers and pushed the sleeves of her dress from her shoulders so that it sheeted off her in one smooth whisper of fabric. She closed her eyes, avoiding looking in the mirror or at herself, very aware of Gideon’s eyes behind her own. His masculine laughter vibrated through her, setting her skin to tingle. So, you are both shy and bold . . . he said with amusement as she quickly slid beneath her covers. You are a source of contradictions and surprises, Legna. My world has begun anew. As if living for over a millennium is not long enough? she asked him. On the contrary. Without you, it was far, far too long. Go to sleep, Nelissuna. And a moment after she received the thought, her eyes slid closed with a weight she could not have contradicted even if she had wanted to. Her last thought, as she drifted off, was that she had to make a point of telling Isabella that she might have been wrong about what it meant to have another to share one’s mind with.

I jumped then. It seemed I heard a child laugh. My imagination, of course. And then, when I should have known better, I headed for the closet and the high and narrow door at the very back end and the steep and narrow dark stairs. A million times I’d ascended these stairs. A million times in the dark, without a candle, or a flashlight. Up into the dark, eerie, gigantic attic, and only when I was there did I feel around for the place where Chris and I had hidden our candles and matches. Still there. Time did stand still in this place. We’d had several candle holders, all of pewter with small handles to grasp. Holders we’d found in an old trunk along with boxes and boxes of short, stubby, clumsily made candles. We’d always presumed them to be homemade candles, for they had smelled so rank and old when they burned. My breath caught! Oh! It was the same! The paper flowers still dangled down, mobiles to sway in the drafts, and the giant flowers were still on the walls. Only all the colors had faded to indistinct gray—ghost flowers. The sparkling gem centers we’d glued on had loosened, and now only a few daisies had sequins, or gleaming stones, for centers. Carrie’s purple worm was there only now he too was a nothing color. Cory’s epileptic snail didn’t appear a bright, lopsided beach ball now, it was more a tepid, half-rotten squashy orange. The BEWARE signs Chris and I had painted in red were still on the walls, and the swings still dangled down from the attic rafters. Over near the record player was the barre Chris had fashioned, then nailed to the wall so I could practice my ballet positions. Even my outgrown costumes hung limply from nails, dozens of them with matching leotards and worn out pointe shoes, all faded and dusty, rotten smelling. As in an unhappy dream I was committed to, I drifted aimlessly toward the distant schoolroom, with the candelight flickering. Ghosts were unsettled, memories and specters followed me as things began to wake up, yawn and whisper. No, I told myself, it was only the floating panels of my long chiffon wings . . . that was all. The spotted rocking-horse loomed up, scary and threatening, and my hand rose to my throat as I held back a scream. The rusty red wagon seemed to move by unseen hands pushing it, so my eyes took flight to the blackboard where I’d printed my enigmatic farewell message to those who came in the future. How was I to know it would be me? We lived in the attic, Christopher, Cory, Carrie and me— Now there are only three. Behind the small desk that had been Cory’s I scrunched down, and tried to fit my legs under. I wanted to put myself into a deep reverie that would call up Cory’s spirit that would tell me where he lay.

You might think lunchtime at Willing would be different from other high schools. That everyone would be welcome at any table, united by the knowledge that we, at Willing, are the Elite, the Chosen, stellar across the board. Um.No.Of course not.High school is high school, regardless of how much it costs or how many kids springboard into the Ivies. And nowhere is social status more evident than in the dining room (freshman and sophomores at noon; upperclassmen at one). Because, of course, Willing doesn't have a cafeteria, or even a lunch hall. It has a dining room, complete with oak tables and paneled walls that are covered with plaques going all the way back to 1869, the year Edith Willing Castoe (Edward's aunt) founded the school to "prepare Philadelphia's finest young ladies for Marriage,for Leadership, and for Service to the World." Really. Until the sixties, the school's boastful slogan was "She's a Willing Girl." Almost 150 years, three first ladies, and one attorney general-not to mention the arrival of boys-later, female members of the student body are still called Willing Girls. You'd think someone in the seventies would have objected to that and changed it. But Willing has survived the seventies of two different centuries. They'll probably still be calling us Willing Girls in 2075. It's a school that believes in Tradition, sometimes regardless of how stupid that Tradition is.

Marcelina loved that miniscule, precise moment when the needle entered her face. It was silver; it was pure. It was the violence that healed, the violation that brought perfection. There was no pain, never any pain, only a sense of the most delicate of penetrations, like a mosquito exquisitely sipping blood, a precision piece of human technology slipping between the gross tissues and cells of her flesh. She could see the needle out of the corner of her eye; in the foreshortened reality of the ultra-close-up it was like the stem of a steel flower. The latex-gloved hand that held the syringe was as vast as the creating hand of God: Marcelina had watched it swim across her field of vision, seeking its spot, so close, so thrillingly, dangerously close to her naked eyeball. And then the gentle stab. Always she closed her eyes as the fingers applied pressure to the plunger. She wanted to feel the poison entering her flesh, imagine it whipping the bloated, slack, lazy cells into panic, the washes of immune response chemicals as they realized they were under toxic attack; the blessed inflammation, the swelling of the wrinkled, lined skin into smoothness, tightness, beauty, youth. Marcelina Hoffman was well on her way to becoming a Botox junkie. Such a simple treat; the beauty salon was on the same block as Canal Quatro. Marcelina had pioneered the lunch-hour face lift to such an extent that Lisandra had appropriated it as the premise for an entire series. Whore. But the joy began in the lobby with Luesa the receptionist in her high-collared white dress saying “Good afternoon, Senhora Hoffman,” and the smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and smell of the beautiful chemicals and the scented candles, the lightness and brightness of the frosted glass panels and the bare wood floor and the cream-on-white cotton wall hangings, the New Age music that she scorned anywhere else (Tropicalismo hippy-shit) but here told her, “you’re wonderful, you’re special, you’re robed in light, the universe loves you, all you have to do is reach out your hand and take anything you desire.” Eyes closed, lying flat on the reclining chair, she felt her work-weary crow’s-feet smoothed away, the young, energizing tautness of her skin. Two years before she had been to New York on the Real Sex in the City production and had been struck by how the ianqui women styled themselves out of personal empowerment and not, as a carioca would have done, because it was her duty before a scrutinizing, judgmental city. An alien creed: thousand-dollar shoes but no pedicure. But she had brought back one mantra among her shopping bags, an enlightenment she had stolen from a Jennifer Aniston cosmetics ad. She whispered it to herself now, in the warm, jasmine-and vetiver-scented sanctuary as the botulin toxins diffused through her skin. Because I’m worth it.

A beautiful child sat playing in the sand And finger-writing: Who? Where from? Where to? I answered, O beautiful child, tell me, is Interrupting me: I am two children, hand in hand, I wanted to know: O beautiful child who finds it so easy to talk, tell me, where does the grass-tree grow, where does the grass flower, the wind and the breath of the wind, the strawberry, the leaf of grass, the rose? Again, it broke in: I am not at one with myself, I am full of contraries, I talk about anything, I am a boy and a girl, one and two, and you, are you night and day? I said: I am a poor robber, a productive consumer looking for honest labour, I want to go back to where I was born, either/or or and/or the board-panelling of the outside walls either horizontal or vertical or/or not, I want to be silent, there. It shouted: But first you have to calm down the wind, the walking wind, the dense tree-growing wind! And l: O syntax, that has only a few exceptions. You, slyness of sincerity, you rule. It wanted to know: Why are you praising the language that rules? I would like to teach this poem a lesson, I said, I can' t get rid of it, this breath has grown trees. . . I came from there, I took the road through the forest, but oh, it was stormy weather, autumn weather... That child then said: But, if it gives way why shouldn't you try to be free, to walk through the night. and look for someone whom it would fit, . that uninhabited breath?

Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare ‘automeals,’ heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on. Breakfasts will be ‘ordered’ the night before to be ready by a specified hour the next morning. Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica. [M]en will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button. Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes. “[H]ighways … in the more advanced sections of the world will have passed their peak in 2014; there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface. There will be aircraft, of course, but even ground travel will increasingly take to the air a foot or two off the ground. [V]ehicles with ‘Robot-brains’ … can be set for particular destinations … that will then proceed there without interference by the slow reflexes of a human driver. [W]all screens will have replaced the ordinary set; but transparent cubes will be making their appearance in which three-dimensional viewing will be possible. [T]he world population will be 6,500,000,000 and the population of the United States will be 350,000,000. All earth will be a single choked Manhattan by A.D. 2450 and society will collapse long before that! There will, therefore, be a worldwide propaganda drive in favor of birth control by rational and humane methods and, by 2014, it will undoubtedly have taken serious effect. Ordinary agriculture will keep up with great difficulty and there will be ‘farms’ turning to the more efficient micro-organisms. Processed yeast and algae products will be available in a variety of flavors. The world of A.D. 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. Schools will have to be oriented in this direction…. All the high-school students will be taught the fundamentals of computer technology will become proficient in binary arithmetic and will be trained to perfection in the use of the computer languages that will have developed out of those like the contemporary “Fortran". [M]ankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. [T]he most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work! in our a society of enforced leisure.

Mrs. Barnstable took her to a beautiful room with windows overlooking the gardens. “This is yours,” the housekeeper said. “No one has occupied it before.” The bed was made of light blue upholstered panels, the bedclothes of white linen. There was a graceful lady’s writing desk in the corner, and a satin maple wardrobe with a looking glass set in the door. “Mr. Merripen personally selected the wallpaper,” Mrs. Barnstable said. “He nearly drove the interior architect mad with his insistence on seeing hundreds of samples until he found this pattern.” The wallpaper was white, with a delicate pattern of flowering branches. And at sparse intervals, there was the motif of a little robin perched on one of the twigs. Slowly Win went to one of the walls and touched one of the birds with her fingertips. Her vision blurred. During her long recuperation from the scarlet fever, when she had grown tired of holding a book in her hands and no one had been available to read to her, she had stared out the window at a robin’s nest in a nearby maple tree. She had watched the fledglings hatch from their blue eggs, their bodies pink and veined and fuzzy. She had watched their feathers grow in, and she had watched the mother robin working to fill their ravenous beaks. And Win had watched as, one by one, they had flown from the nest while she remained in bed. Merripen, despite his fear of heights, had often climbed a ladder to wash the second-floor window for her. He had wanted her view of the outside world to be clear. He had said the sky should always be blue for her. “You’re fond of birds, Miss Hathaway?” the housekeeper asked. Win nodded without looking around, afraid that her face was red with unexpressed emotion. “Robins especially,” she half-whispered.

When I finally calmed down, I saw how disappointed he was and how bad he felt. I decided to take a deep breath and try to think this thing through. “Maybe it’s not that bad,” I said. (I think I was trying to cheer myself up as much as I was trying to console Chip.) “If we fix up the interior and just get it to the point where we can get it onto the water, at least maybe then we can turn around, sell it, and get our money back.” Over the course of the next hour or so, I really started to come around. I took another walk through the boat and started to picture how we could make it livable--maybe even kind of cool. After all, we’d conquered worse. We tore a few things apart right then and there, and I grabbed some paper and sketched out a new layout for the tiny kitchen. I talked to him about potentially finishing an accent wall with shiplap--a kind of rough-textured pine paneling that fans of our show now know all too well. “Shiplap?” Chip laughed. “That seems a little ironic to use on a ship, doesn’t it?” “Ha-ha,” I replied. I was still not in the mood for his jokes, but this is how Chip backs me off the ledge--with his humor. Then I asked him to help me lift something on the deck, and he said, “Aye, aye, matey!” in his best pirate voice, and slowly but surely I came around. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but by the end of that afternoon I was actually a little bit excited about taking on such a big challenge. Chip was still deflated that he’d allowed himself to get duped, but he put his arm around me as we started walking back to the truck. I put my head on his shoulder. And the camera captured the whole thing--just an average, roller-coaster afternoon in the lives of Chip and Joanna Gaines. The head cameraman came jogging over to us before we drove away. Chip rolled down his window and said sarcastically, “How’s that for reality TV?” We were both feeling embarrassed that this is how we had spent our last day of trying to get this stinkin’ television show. “Well,” the guy said, breaking into a great big smile, “if I do my job, you two just landed yourself a reality TV show.” What? We were floored. We couldn’t believe it. How was that a show? But lo and behold, he was right. That rotten houseboat turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

I’ll go myself,” the sergeant said tersely. He was getting annoyed. The stairway went down underneath the ground floor to a depth of about eight feet. A short paved corridor ran in front of the boiler room at right angles to the stairs, where each end was closed off by unpainted panelled doors. Both the stairs and the corridor felt like loose gravel underfoot, but otherwise they were clean. Splotches of blood were more in evidence in the corridor and a bloody hand mark showed clearly on the unpainted door to the rear. “Let’s not touch anything,” the sergeant cautioned, taking out a clean white handkerchief to handle the doorknob. “I better call the fingerprint crew,” the photographer said. “No, Joe will call them; I’ll need you. And you local fellows better wait outside, we’re so crowded in here we’ll destroy the evidence.” “Ed and I won’t move,” Grave Digger said. Coffin Ed grunted. Taking no further notice of them, the sergeant pushed open the door. It was black and dark inside. First he shone his light over the wall alongside the door and all over the corridor looking for electric light switches. One was located to the right of each door. Taking care to avoid stepping in any of the blood splotches, the sergeant moved from one switch to another, but none worked. “Blown fuse,” he muttered, picking his way back to the open room. Without having to move, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed could see all they wanted through the open door. Originally made to accommodate a part-time janitor or any type of laborer who would fire the boiler for a place to sleep, the room had been converted into a pad. All that remained of the original was a partitioned-off toilet in one corner and a washbasin in the other. An opening enclosed by heavy wire mesh opened into the boiler room, serving for both ventilation and heat. Otherwise the room was furnished like a boudoir. There was a dressing-table with a triple mirror, three-quarter bed with chenille spread, numerous foam-rubber pillows in a variety of shapes, three round yellow scatter rugs. On the whitewashed walls an obscene mural had been painted in watercolors depicting black and white silhouettes in a variety of perverted sex acts, some of which could only be performed by male contortionists. And everything was splattered with blood, the walls, the bed, the rugs. The furnishings were not so much disarrayed, as though a violent struggle had taken place, but just bloodied. “Mother-raper stood still and let his throat be cut,” Grave Digger observed. “Wasn’t that,” Coffin Ed corrected. “He just didn’t believe it is all.

Hannah Winter was sixty all of a sudden, as women of sixty are. Just yesterday - or the day before, at most - she had been a bride of twenty in a wine-coloured silk wedding gown, very stiff and rich. And now here she was, all of a sudden, sixty. (...) This is the way it happened! She was rushing along Peacock Alley to meet her daughter Marcia. Anyone who knows Chicago knows that smoke-blackened pile, the Congress Hotel; and anyone who knows the Congress Hotel has walked down that glittering white marble crypt called Peacock Alley. It is neither so glittering nor so white nor, for that matter, so prone to preen itself as it was in the hotel's palmy '90s. But it still serves as a convenient short cut on a day when Chicago's lake wind makes Michigan Boulevard a hazard, and thus Hannah Winter was using it. She was to have met Marcia at the Michigan Boulevard entrance at two, sharp. And here it was 2.07. When Marcia said two, there she was at two, waiting, lips slightly compressed. (...) So then here it was 2.07, and Hannah Winter, rather panicky, was rushing along Peacock Alley, dodging loungers, and bell-boys, and traveling salesmen and visiting provincials and the inevitable red-faced delegates with satin badges. In her hurry and nervous apprehension she looked, as she scuttled down the narrow passage, very much like the Rabbit who was late for the Duchess's dinner. Her rubber-heeled oxfords were pounding down hard on the white marble pavement. Suddenly she saw coming swiftly toward her a woman who seemed strangely familiar - a well-dressed woman, harassed-looking, a tense frown between her eyes, and her eyes staring so that they protruded a little, as one who runs ahead of herself in her haste. Hannah had just time to note, in a flash, that the woman's smart hat was slightly askew and that, though she walked very fast, her trim ankles showed the inflexibility of age, when she saw that the woman was not going to get out of her way. Hannah Winter swerved quickly to avoid a collision. So did the other woman. Next instant Hannah Winter brought up with a crash against her own image in that long and tricky mirror which forms a broad full-length panel set in the marble wall at the north end of Peacock Alley. Passerby and the loungers on near-by red plush seats came running, but she was unhurt except for a forehead bump that remained black-and-blue for two weeks or more. The bump did not bother her, nor did the slightly amused concern of those who had come to her assistance. She stood there, her hat still askew, staring at this woman - this woman with her stiff ankles, her slightly protruding eyes, her nervous frown, her hat a little sideways - this stranger - this murderess who had just slain, ruthlessly and forever, a sallow, high-spirited girl of twenty in a wine-coloured silk wedding gown.

One breath, the study was intact. The next, it was shards of nothing, a shell of a room. None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my hands over my head. Tamlin was panting, the ragged breaths almost like sobs. I was shaking- shaking so hard I thought my bones would splinter as the furniture had- but I made myself lower my arms and look at him. That was devastation on that face. And pain. And fear. And grief. Around me, no debris had fallen- as if he had shielded me. Tamlin took a step toward me, over that invisible demarcation. He recoiled as if he'd hit something solid. 'Feyre,,' he rasped. He stepped again- and that line held. 'Feyre, please,' he breathed. And I realised that the line, that bubble of protection... It was from me. A shield. Not just a mental one- but a physical one, too. ... 'Feyre,' Tamlin groaned a third time, pushing a hand against what indeed looked like an invisible, curved wall of hardened air. 'Please. Please.' Those words cracked something in me. Cracked me open. Perhaps they cracked that shield of solid wind as well, for his hand shot through it. Then he stepped over that line between chaos and order, danger and safety. He dropped to his knees, taking my face in his hands. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' I couldn't stop trembling. 'I'll try,' he breathed. 'I'll try to be better. I don't... I can't control it sometimes. The rage. Today was just... today was bad. With the Tithe, with all of it. Today- let's forget it, let's just move past it. Please.' I didn't fight as he slid his arms around me, tucking me in tightly enough that his warmth soaked through me. He buried his face in my neck and said onto my nape, as if the words would be absorbed by my body, as if he could only say it the way we'd always been good at communicating- skin to skin, 'I couldn't save you before. I couldn't protect you from them. And when you said that, about... about me drowning you... Am I any better than they were?' I should have told him it wasn't true, but... I had spoken with my heart. Or what was left of it. 'I'll try to be better,' he said again. 'Please- give me more time. Let me... let me get through this. Please.' Get through what? I wanted to ask. But words had abandoned me. I realised I hadn't spoken yet. Realised he was waiting for an answer- and that I didn't have one. So I put my arms around him, because body to body was the only way I could speak, too. It was answer enough. 'I'm sorry,' he said again. He didn't stop murmuring it for minutes. You've given enough, Feyre. Perhaps he was right. And perhaps I didn't have anything left to give, anyway. I looked over his shoulder as I held him. The red paint had splattered on the wall behind us. And as I watched it slide down the cracked wood panelling, I thought it looked like blood.

What can he tell them? He, who knows nothing. Ibn al Mohammed has not planned atrocities nor committed them. He has never been in the presence of terrorists. Yet Satan’s agents suspect him. He is dark-complected. His hair and beard are black. His name is Muslim. Body tall and slender, hands large, their fingers long and tapered. Dark eyes sunken in a narrow face. Irises like obsidian. He prays on hands and knees, forehead touching the floor. Thoughtlessly aligned, his cage obliges him to face a white plastic wall to bow toward Mecca. No matter; Ibn al Mohammed requires no sight of ocean or sky to know his place in the universe. He knows himself as one chosen, beloved of God. A man whose devotion will allow him to be saved. Standing at the bars, he stares at the plastic wall. Modesty panel, they call it. The detainee wills nothing, attempts nothing, merely stares at blankness as his mind opens toward such signs as might appear. Something, nothing. However little, however great, whatever God vouchsafes is sufficient. The least sign is enough. A crease in the plastic. A shadow cast against its insensate skin, then fleeing, gone. A raindrop: trickling through the roof, one small drop might touch the wall, leave a transparent streak, a tear without sorrow to confirm his understanding of what is and must be. Recognition. Acceptance. By such a sign he will know he is not forsaken. That God notices and prepares a place. He will not serve in the harvest. He will eat the food, drink the water, ride the bus. He will not pick the berries so prized by his captors. Droids will cajole and threaten; perhaps they will beat him. If so, they incriminate themselves. He relishes their degradation together with God’s tasking, this new test of will and faith. To suffer in silence, as meek as a lamb. Ibn al Mohammed will remove himself from himself. Self fading into background, his presence will diminish. His body will persist; corporeally, he must endure. But his self will become absent. Mind and its thought, heart and all emotion will disperse smoke-like into nothingness and in its vanishing forestall injury, indignity, all pain. Does God approve? Does God see? A mere token will assure Ibn al Mohammed for a lifetime. Standing at the bars, he watches. Minutes pass. How long must he wait? God speaks at His leisure to those with patience to attend. What does it mean, to have enough patience to attend to God? It is a discipline to expect nothing because you deserve nothing and merit only death. Ibn al Mohammed has waited all his life. What has he seen? His father taken away. His mother and sisters scrounging in a desert. He himself is confined in-cage. Squats on a stool, shits in a pail. Rain rattles across sheet tin, pock-pock-pock-pock. Food is delivered on a tray. A damp bed beneath his body, a white wall before his eyes. What does Ibn al Mohammed see? He sees nothing. [pp. 203-204]

I grinned and slid my palm along the smooth curve of a fender. The finish was cherry red on my father’s version, but I liked the glint of the cold steel a little better. It gave the classic Mustang an angry glint that matched my mindset well, but I spent some time changing the surface quality in order to give the metal a sandblasted texture. Then I took another swig and gently placed the steel panels against the far wall of the workshop, and with a few shelves shifted to the side, most of the pieces were concealed from view. Once I’d finished the roof panel and both bumpers with the same slow and steady approach, I moved on to the hood and the trunk components next, as well as the compartment that would serve as the trunk itself. The first hood warped under the force of me shimmying it, but by the third try, I had it sturdy at half an inch thick with a gentle bevel along the edges. The entire top frame took only a few hours to create, and I grinned at Ruela as I tucked the last disassembled portion behind the vat of water in the corner. “Don’t tell Aeris,” I muttered to the wolfish beast. “He may know nothing about rifles, but he’s bound to notice there’s a slight difference in size going on here.

When I was young, and my mother began filling my hope chest with bed sheets and serving spoons and cuttings of colorful fabrics, and saving pictures from the JC Penney catalog of china hutches and dinnerware and lush comforters for someday, I created shadow boxes for places I dreamed of visiting. I’d spend birthday money on bags of seashells and craft sand from the hobby shop for a Hawaiian beach scene, create a Swiss ski village with cotton balls and thrift store sweaters cut into tiny versions for Popsicle stick skiers, prop toothpick tents on top of papier-mâché Kilimanjaros and Everests. These adorned my room, anointing my dresser and the fake wood paneling of our trailer walls with my fantasies. My mother once came in while I was dusting them and said, “It’s all well and good to dream. Dreaming keeps a body moving.

way of a nasty joke. She did not take it very well.” “Indeed.” The inspector echoed Evelyn. “I should hate to think you have been attempting to question your guests, Lady Northmoor.” “I assure you, that is most definitely not the case.” Evelyn shook her head in what she hoped looked like genuine dismay. “I would never attempt to do such a thing against your strict orders.” “Lady Northmoor!” Doris exclaimed in a loud voice. “There you are! My goodness, I have been searching everywhere for you. Do excuse us, Detective Inspector, but I must get Lady Northmoor dressed for dinner otherwise she will be embarrassingly late.” He nodded and Evelyn following Doris to the stairs. As soon as they reached the sanctuary of her room, she held her head in her hands. “I have told so many half truths and complete stretches of the truth in the last few days, Doris, I don’t know whether I am coming or going.” “Oh Lady Northmoor!” Doris laughed. “You’ve been spending too much time with young Nora coming out with such things.” “I suppose I should say I’m quite befuddled or such like?” Evelyn shook her head. “I didn’t realise remembering to talk like a countess would be such hard work.” “Well, My Lady,” Doris said. “I think you’re doing a grand job. Now let us get you ready for dinner so you can carry that on.” After dinner, Tommy excused himself and met Evelyn and Aunt Em in the small room at the front of the house that he had appropriated for his own use earlier that summer. It had been the former smoking room of the grand old house and suited Tommy’s purposes perfectly. “Why must we hide in this poky old room?” Aunt Em asked as Tommy ushered them inside. Tommy waited until his aunt had a chance to look around her. “You were saying, Aunt Em?” “My apologies.” She inclined her head. “You have performed quite the transformation.” The heavy velvet curtains that had kept out the natural light, but kept in the stale smell of years of tobacco were gone. Tommy had kept the large desk in the corner and hadn’t taken down the dark panelling on the lower half of the walls. However, a fresh coat of white paint on the upper portion of the walls, proper light fittings, and a colourful rug in the middle of the room made it look entirely different. “Evelyn and I wanted to talk to you, Aunt Em,” Tommy said. “We must be quick as our guests will think we are exceedingly rude.” “I presume you have both been busy sleuthing your way around our guests?” “Of course,” Tommy said. “We couldn’t just leave things as they are.” “Absolutely not,” his aunt agreed. “As I said before that detective arrived, you are far more capable than he in apprehending the killer.

hundred pounds a night. She had looked up the prices. She walked into a hyperbolic oriental extravaganza. Her bag had arrived before her. She walked in, uneasily, the wood panelling on the walls set off the scarlet fabrics. The king-size bed was lower than normal and a Ming stone carving stood in the room. She kept away, well away. She stepped out into the private walled garden with an oriental style water feature. The day was dry with a crisp chill in the air. The place was idyllic. It had a charm all its own. The sort of place she would love to bring Oliver.

Thick black mud, hissing faintly as its contained marine life expired in a slow deflation of air-bladders and buoyancy sacs, lay everywhere, over the ticket booths and the stairway to the mezzanine, across the walls and door-panels. No longer the velvet mantle he remembered from his descent, it was now a fragmenting cloak of rotting organic forms, like the vestments of the grave. The once translucent threshold of the womb had vanished, its place taken by the gateway to a sewer. Kerans

Cindy Haden wanted to be able to touch Richard, hold him, and be close to him, and she constantly thought of ways she could make that happen. When her employer had a mass layoff and she was fired, she decided she would become a private detective. If she had a detective’s license, she’d be able to work with Richard’s new San Francisco attorneys and have a visit with Richard in a private room. She applied for a job with a San Francisco security firm, was hired, and moved to San Francisco. She took a quiet apartment in Richmond. The security firm sponsored her for a license, and she passed the required examination. She went to one of the San Francisco public defenders representing Richard and talked him into taking her inside the county jail with him when he went to visit Richard. She and the attorney were shown into one of seven rooms allocated for lawyers who come to see inmates. It was ten by ten and had a wooden table and a few chairs. There were panels of glass in a wall so guards could look in. As Cindy waited for Richard to be brought down, her heart raced. She paced back and forth, her hands trembling. When Richard got there, the guard uncuffed him and he sat at the table. They were like two school kids, laughing and giggling. Under the desk she raised her foot and put it on Richard’s thigh; his eyes bulged. He couldn’t believe he was actually sitting with one of the jurors who had handed him a ticket to the death room. After a few minutes, Cindy later related, the attorney went to look for a bathroom. When he left and Cindy was sure there were no guards about, she stood and quickly gave Richard a deep kiss as he groped her with his huge hands. She nearly passed out, she was so excited. When later asked if she was afraid to be alone with Richard, she said, “No, absolutely not. He’d never hurt me.” When the lawyer returned, Cindy sat down, breathless, her heart pounding. On subsequent visits to the jail, as she helped with Richard’s legal problems, she says, she was able to have more contact visits and was actually alone with Richard.

Conceptual Games. Dr Nathan pondered the list on his desk-pad. (1) The catalogue of an exhibition of tropical diseases at the Wellcome Museum; (2) chemical and topographical analyses of a young woman’s excrement; (3) diagrams of female orifices: buccal, orbital, anal, urethral, some showing wound areas; (4) the results of a questionnaire in which a volunteer panel of parents were asked to devise ways of killing their own children; (5) an item entitled ‘self-disgust’ - someone’s morbid and hate-filled list of his faults. Dr Nathan inhaled carefully on his gold-tipped cigarette. Were these items in some conceptual game? To Catherine Austin, waiting as ever by the window, he said, ‘Should we warn Miss Novotny?’ Biomorphic Horror. With an effort, Dr Nathan looked away from Catherine Austin as she picked at her finger quicks. Unsure whether she was listening to him, he continued: ‘Travers’s problem is how to come to terms with the violence that has pursued his life - not merely the violence of accident and bereavement, or the horrors of war, but the biomorphic horror of our own bodies. Travers has at last realized that the real significance of these acts of violence lies elsewhere, in what we might term “the death of affect”. Consider our most real and tender pleasures - in the excitements of pain and mutilation; in sex as the perfect arena, like a culture-bed of sterile pus, for all the veronicas of our own perversions, in voyeurism and self-disgust, in our moral freedom to pursue our own psychopathologies as a game, and in our ever greater powers of abstraction. What our children have to fear are not the cars on the freeways of tomorrow, but our own pleasure in calculating the most elegant parameters of their deaths. The only way we can make contact with each other is in terms of conceptualizations. Violence is the conceptualization of pain. By the same token psychopathology is the conceptual system of sex.’ Sink Speeds. During this period, after his return to Karen Novotny’s apartment, Travers was busy with the following projects: a cogent defence of the documentary films of Jacopetti; a contribution to a magazine symposium on the optimum auto-disaster; the preparation, at a former colleague’s invitation, of the forensic notes to the catalogue of an exhibition of imaginary genital organs. Immersed in these topics, Travers moved from art gallery to conference hall. Beside him, Karen Novotny seemed more and more isolated by these excursions. Advertisements of the film of her death had appeared in the movie magazines and on the walls of the underground stations. ‘Games, Karen,’ Travers reassured her. ‘Next they’ll have you filmed masturbating by a cripple in a wheel chair.

All these thoughts crowded the creature’s brain, as it explored the memory cells of Jim Brender. With an effort that was a special pain, the thing wrenched its mind from the metal, and fastened its eyes on Jim Brender. It caught the full flood of the wonder in his mind, as he stood up. “Good lord,” said Jim Brender, “who are you?” “My name’s Jim Brender,” said the thing, conscious of grim amusement, conscious, too, that it was progress for it to be able to feel such an emotion. The real Jim Brender had recovered himself. “Sit down, sit down,” he said heartily. “This is the most amazing coincidence I’ve ever seen.” He went over to the mirror that made one panel of the left wall. He stared, first at himself, then at the creature. “Amazing,” he said. “Absolutely amazing.” “Mr. Brender,” said the creature, “I saw your picture in the paper, and I thought our astounding resemblance would make you listen, where otherwise you might pay no attention. I have recently returned from Mars, and I am here to persuade you to come back to Mars with me.” “That,” said Jim Brender, “is impossible.

Che as Pre-Pubertal Figure. Travers stood awkwardly in front of the student volunteers. With an effort, he began: ‘The imaginary sex-death of Che Guevara - very little is known about Guevara’s sexual behaviour. Psychotic patients, and panels of housewives and filling station personnel were asked to construct six alternate sex-deaths. Each of these takes place within some kind of perversion - for example, bondage and concentration camp fantasies, auto-deaths, the obsessive geometry of walls and ceilings. Some suggestions have been made for considering Che as a pre-pubertal figure. Patients have been asked to consider the notional “child-rape” of Che Guevara . . . ’ Travers stopped, aware for the first time of the young man sitting in the back row. Soon he would have to break with Vaughan. In his dreams each night Karen Novotny would appear, showing her wounds to him.

Clothes Washer Hoses and Filters A couple of years ago, I came home from running an errand and heard the sound of rushing water (like a waterfall!) coming from my basement. I tore down the stairs and saw what looked like the Old Faithful geyser spewing water from behind my washing machine. I immediately cut off the water at the supply stop behind the washer, but there was quite a pool on the floor. I cut the power to the washing machine (at the electrical panel), then unplugged it and moved the appliance back from the wall. The washer was about 15 years old, and so were the hoses that ran from the supply valve to the machine. Made of rubber, they had grown brittle and corroded with minerals from our well water over the years. One of them finally split; that’s what caused the gusher. I’d never given them a thought before the split. If you’ve had your washing machine for eight years or more, it might be wise to replace the supply hoses now, before they do to you what mine did to me! Insurance companies—who often wind up paying out for the damage done by burst hoses—advise homeowners to replace supply hoses every 3 to 5 years.

We showed Dennis the gully and told him this was a typical old Queensland house with the high tongue-and-groove walls and the ventilation panels over the doors filled with graceful carved vines. He did not look at anything with much interest, but talked about China, where he had just been. X said afterwards that Dennis always talked about the last place he’d been and the last people he’d seen, and never seemed to notice anything, but that he would probably be talking about us, and describing this place, to the next people he had dinner with, in the next city. He said that Dennis spent most of his life travelling, and talking about it, and that he knew a lot of people just well enough that when he showed up somewhere he had to be asked to dinner.

decontamination chamber, empty except for a glowing yellow panel affixed to a waist-high stand. The AI spoke through a vox on the wall. “Hello! I’m pretty sure I know who you are, but can you swipe your wristpatch over the panel, so I can be sure?” Rosemary pulled her sleeve back, exposing her wristwrap—a woven bracelet that protected the small dermal patch embedded within the skin of her inner right wrist. There was a lot of data stored in that thumbnail-size piece of tech—her ID file, her bank account details and a medical interface used to communicate with the half million or so imubots that patrolled her bloodstream.

stamp or where they sealed the envelope?” I asked. “Sure, we’ll check those too. That’s common procedure, but we have nothing to compare it to.” Jack added his two cents. “The message itself sounds kind of like the hell-and-damnation type of speech. Somebody in the clergy or even a religious zealot could have written it.” Clayton slowly read the message out loud again. “Yeah, I see where you’re coming from, Jack. It does sound kind of preachy.” “Yes it does,” I said, “but we still don’t know if it’s a serious threat or just someone blowing smoke.” Clark stood. “Okay, guys, check out whatever you can as far as forensic evidence. Make ten copies of that letter before you get started. The rest of you, keep your eyes and ears peeled for somebody with an ax to grind. That’s all we can do for now.” Chapter 2 The long driveway beyond the dead-end road led to the small, faded clapboard house. The walls inside the home held family secrets that were as dead and buried as the family dog. Nobody spoke of Alice’s incident anymore—it was neatly tucked away, hopefully forgotten, and life carried on. Forced smiles and the cautious daily routine filled the family’s waking hours. Alice’s eyes darted toward Mandy and then at the clock. She watched as her twenty-year-old daughter crossed the living room, barefoot and still wearing her green flannel bathrobe. Mandy took a seat on the old floral couch, as she did every day at eleven o’clock. The dark-paneled living room in that house held the sofa, a rocker, two end tables, and two velvet wall hangings of horses. The sofa had seen better days—sun fading had taken a toll on it after being in front of windows year after year. What used to be vibrant colors on that threadbare couch now appeared as pastel hues at best. Two flattened cushions looked as though somebody had let the air out of them; they held permanent indentions from years of use.

sound. The control panel vibrated slightly and started to glow. At the same time, the wall of light that was keeping the guards at bay instantly disappeared. As soon as the aliens realized this, they started running at the students again. From behind Levi and his two friends came the cries of fear from the other students. They shouted and screamed as they watched the alien creatures scamper across the floor. “Come on, come on!” Ryan said. Levi pushed the green button again on the panel. It blinked once more, but he wasn’t sure if it made a difference. Looking up, he saw the guards were only 20 yards away. The red countdown still displayed in front of his face, but it was flickering faster than it had been earlier. The moment of auto destruct must be near, he thought. “Gentlemen,” Levi sighed. “It’s been an honor to serve with you…” “Why would you say that? Why are you such a weirdo?” Kate cried as she smeared her hand over the green button. Again, it blinked, but this time the entire console illuminated with a blinding light. In another flash, Levi felt his stomach drop. And then instantly the light faded as it did before. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes readjust at the sudden shifting in light. “We’re back,” he heard Kate say. Levi rubbed his eyes and looked beyond the control panel. The detention walls were back where they should be, and the room felt ice cold. “I guess that button had to be pushed three times?” “I guess,” said Kate. “But I don’t want to guess how many times to push the button to cancel the auto destruct!” In front of Levi’s face was the red timer, blinking too fast to make sense of it. The warning of the red skull was fading in and out as a small alarm sounded off. “Everybody out of the room!” The other students didn’t hesitate and poured through the doors of detention into the hallway. Kate and Ryan helped pull the students out as Levi remained inside the room to make sure no one was left behind. Once the last person had exited, Levi stepped into the hallway. “If that thing goes off, what’s going to happen?

The meeting was tense but photogenic, held in a room of wood-paneled walls and chairs upholstered in supple leather.

A series of light bulbs dangling from raw wires illuminated its progression to a far-off end… and she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. The walls had cutouts in them, little curve-topped holes stacked three to a group and spaced far enough apart to accommodate ladders that led up to the middle and top levels. It was almost as though they were sleeping compartments of some kind— “Come on,” Apex hissed. “We don’t want to be caught here.” “Then why did you stop.” She glanced back at him. “What are all those spaces?” “None of your business.” As he pulled her away, she did some math in her head. Assuming they were a kind of bunk system, there had to be—Jesus, several hundred workers in the facility. “How many people are here?” she said, even though she’d already done the estimate, and even if she hadn’t, he would certainly not help her. It was more like she couldn’t believe the total. “We’re going all the way up to the main floor. It’s more dangerous in some ways and less so in others.” “Well, I’ll put that in my Yelp! review of this place. Thanks.” When they got to the next floor, he didn’t give her a chance to stop at the fire door. She caught only a glance through its window down another long corridor. Unlike the one under it, the level seemed to be far more brightly lit, and there were no sleeping pods. The walls were also finished, although only with raw Sheetrock from what she glimpsed. At the next landing, Apex stopped at a steel door that had no window in it. Pressing his ear against the steel panel, he seemed to not even breathe as he listened. Then he turned to her. “The lowest two floors are totally underground. The next one up is mostly so. This one is not at all, however, so I’m going to have to move fast. As soon as I open the way, we’re heading to the first door on the left that’s unlocked. It’s a break room. It will be empty and the windows are boarded up, so it’s safer. On three. One… two… three—” Apex ripped open the metal panel, and then recoiled as if he had been hit with toxic gas. Lifting his arm to his face, he ducked down low—and jumped forward

Madame Egloff, who stood, hands held out in front of her, expressing her admiration. ‘Please make the alterations, Madame, and have the gowns sent round to Brown’s Hotel by the weekend.’ Half an hour later, when they left Madame Egloff’s salon, Sophie had been dressed and pinned into each of the garments Matty had chosen, and promises had been made to deliver the clothes to the hotel by Saturday morning at the latest. * Monday morning saw them at Paddington Station being conducted to a private compartment on the train. Sophie had never travelled in such style before, being more used to the uncomfortable rowdiness of a third-class carriage, but Matty had insisted. ‘I always travel this way,’ she said. ‘The journey is quite tiring enough without being crammed in next to crying children and shrill women.’ Having directed the porter to place their luggage in the guard’s van, Matty had settled herself into their compartment with a copy of the new Murray’s Magazine, which she had bought from a news-stand at the station. Beside her on the seat was a hamper, provided by Brown’s, with the food and drink they would need for the journey. As the train drew out of the station and started its long journey west, Sophie felt keyed up with anxious anticipation and was grateful for the comforting presence of Hannah, ensconced on the other side of the compartment. Dressed in her new plaid travelling dress, with a matching hat perched on her head, Sophie knew she was a different person from the one who had sat at her dying mother’s bedside, holding her hand. No longer a young girl on the brink of adulthood... but who? There had been too much change in her life in the past weeks that she still had to come to terms with. Who am I? she wondered. I don’t feel like me! She looked across at Hannah, so familiar, so safe, huddled in a corner, her eyes shut as she dozed, and Sophie felt a wave of affection flood through her. Dear Hannah, she thought, I’m so glad you came too. When they had left Madame Egloff, Matty had taken Sophie for afternoon tea at Brown’s. Looking round the famous tea room, with its panelled walls, its alcoved fireplace and its windows giving onto Albemarle Street, Sophie

But then, the theft of Zoe’s personal items, especially the soiled feminine hygiene products, spoke to someone who was sexually obsessed with her specifically. We couldn’t work out which order it went in. Did the intruder lie in wait behind those walls for just anyone? Or did he notice Zoe first and happen upon the panel afterwards? Wasn’t that too much of a coincidence?

Six months later, though I still loathed the man, I changed my approach to the task list. I got up after the first wake-up call without delay. There would be no more early-morning baptisms for me. Instead, I focused on the details Sgt. Jack always noticed and finished each job right the first time. That was the only way I’d get any free time to play basketball. However, my new approach produced an unexpected side effect as well: a sense of pride in a job well done. In fact, that sense of pride came to mean more to me than basketball time. When I washed his car collection, a weekly assignment, I knew every drop of water had to be wiped away with a chamois before the first coat of wax. I used SOS pads to get the white walls gleaming and buffed the hell out of every panel. I also used Armor All on the dashboards and all the vinyl insides. I buffed the leather seats too. It bothered me if I saw streaks on the glass or chrome. I was annoyed if I missed a soiled spot or cut a corner here or there on any chore. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was a sign that I was actually healing. When a half-assed job doesn’t bother you, it speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. And until you start feeling a sense of pride and self-respect in the work you do, no matter how small or overlooked those jobs might be, you will continue to half-ass your life. I knew I had every reason in the world to rebel and remain a lazy motherfucker. I also sensed that would only make me more miserable, so I adapted. But no matter how well I did or how fast I completed a given task, there were no atta’ boys or weekly allowance. No ice cream cones or surprise gifts, hugs, or high fives. In Sgt. Jack’s mind, I was finally doing what I should have been doing all along.

bold front she portrayed, this Earth woman had concerns he might not have considered. For all she knew, the Challenge had begun the moment she’d traveled through time. At the moment, he had absolutely no idea what she was thinking. FINALLY, KAHN decreased the stimulation in Tessa’s suit. After several minutes of diminished intensity, she’d recovered enough to concentrate better on his words, but focusing wasn’t easy. Kahn folded his arms over his chest. “We have less than a month to train you for the Challenge. Our goal is for you to operate your suit and our machinery at the highest proficiency possible. Watch and do not be alarmed.” Tessa blinked as the man went from seductive to businesslike. She’d thought he would accept her invitation for him to touch her without hesitation—but he wanted to talk about machinery. Kahn had picked a hell of a time to change the subject, and her elevated hormones were going nuts. She fought those hormones by telling herself that her body had simply responded to the unwanted stimulation in a natural manner. She drew in deep breaths through her nose and forced air from her mouth in an attempt to clear her head. Kahn opened a wall panel and again showed her the communications screen. “Beside the screen is a musical library and a holovision system for entertainment.” “Okay.” She forced herself to listen even while her nerves endings demanded attention. At least her suit had stopped the nonsense, but she still tingled from the after effects. And she couldn’t help noticing Kahn’s muscular body in a way she hadn’t before Dora’s suggestion. No longer could she assess his musculature only as that of an opponent. Now she saw his muscles as pleasing to the eye, his flesh satisfying to her touch, his lips gratifying her desire to be kissed. A startling idea popped into her mind, unbidden

hatch our survival plan in the coolest place we could find. We made our way into the cluttered room at the windowed front of the deckhouse—what our boat builders back in Hong Kong called the “lavish grand salon” in their sales brochures. With us, it was more like the messy rumpus room. True, the room had, as advertised, “a curved couch, sleek teak paneling, and hardwood cabinetry with a built-in sink.” But the sink had dirty dishes and empty soda bottles in it, the paneled walls were cluttered with a collection of my parents’ favorite treasures (including a conquistador helmet, a rare African tribal mask, a grog jug shaped like a frog, a rusty cannonball from a Confederate gunboat, a bronze clock covered with cherubs that probably belonged to King Louis XIV, and, in a glass shadow box, a rusty steak knife from the Titanic). There were assorted trinkets, necklaces, and coconut heads suspended from the ceiling. Add a heap of scuba and snorkel gear and assorted socks, shoes, and T-shirts on the floor (the floor is our laundry basket), and our grand salon looked more like a live-in recycling bin. “Have we even seen a map for this treasure hunt?” asked Beck. “Nope. Dad just said we needed to be in the Caymans.” “Then we need to find his map.

windows and shone in hazy beams across the wooden panels of the walls, the floor and the carved panoply of the judge’s seat.

As Tommy had said, Richard behind his desk was impressive in a way she would never have expected possible. The head offices of this empire occupied four floors of an ancient and ugly building in the City. These offices were of course not where the actual business was done; but rather a showcase for the personalities of Richard and his associates. The decor was tactful and international. One would not have been surprised to see it anywhere in the world. From the moment one entered the great front door, the lift, corridors, waiting rooms, were a long but discreet preparation for the moment one finally entered Richard’s office. The floor was six inches deep in thick dark pile. The walls were of dark glass between white panels. It was lit unemphatically; and apparently from behind the various wall plants that trailed well-tended greenery from level to level. Richard, his sullen and obstinate body cancelled by anonymous suiting, sat behind a desk that looked like a tomb in greenish marble.

She tried it on either side, backward, angled—but nothing. Just the same blank stone wall, illuminated by a shaft of moonlight from some vent above. She pushed against the stone, feeling for any door, any moveable panel. “But it’s the Eye of Elena! ‘It is only with the eye that one can see rightly’! What other eye is there?” “You could rip out your own and see if it fits,” Mort sang from the doorway.

Raj chose the table in the back corner of The Daily Grind. The Grind wasn’t your typical dark-paneled, cozy coffee house. The outer walls were glass and the place had a high ceiling. It looked modern, light, and clean. There was the additional benefit of drawing an older crowd rather than McKinley students.

Alec moved, blindingly fast. A sharp crack resounded through her head. He had shoved her against the wall so hard that the back of her skull had struck the wood paneling. His face was inches from hers, eyes huge and black. “Don’t you ever,” he whispered, mouth a blanched line, “ever, say anything like that to him or I’ll kill you. I swear on the Angel, I’ll kill you.

As I walked down the extremely narrow hall of my not-so-mobile home, passing over the pale yellow linoleum curling up so that it no longer reached the thin blond paneling of either wall, I remembered the plush two-story brick home Susan and I had shared in North Atlanta. It was nice. Very nice. But this impoverished place and the fringe existence I was now living here felt more like home.

Once Captain Hetnys had gone, I thought for a bit about what to do next. Meet with Governor Giarod, probably, and find out what, besides medical supplies, might come up short in the near future, and what we might do about that. Find something to keep Sword of Atagaris and Mercy of Phey busy—and out of trouble—but also ready to respond if I needed them. I sent a query to Mercy of Kalr. Lieutenant Tisarwat was above, on level two of the Undergarden, in a wide, shadowed room irregularly illuminated by light panels leaning here and there against the dark walls. Tisarwat, Raughd Denche, and half a dozen others reclined on long, thick cushions, the daughters, Ship indicated, of tea growers and station officials.

I must go,” Poppy said uneasily. “My companion will be very distressed if she wakes to find me missing.” The dark-haired stranger contemplated her for what seemed a very long time. “I’m not finished with you yet,” he said with stunning casualness. As if no one ever refused him anything. As if he planned to keep her with him for as long as he wished. Poppy took a deep breath. “Nevertheless, I am leaving,” she said calmly, and went to the door. He reached it at the same time she did, one hand flattening against the door panel. Alarm jolted through her, and she turned to face him. A swift, frantic throbbing awakened in her throat and wrists and the backs of her knees. He was standing much too close, his long, hard body nearly touching hers. She shrank against the wall. “Before you leave,” he said softly, “I have some advice for you. It’s not safe for a young woman to wander alone through the hotel. Don’t take such a foolish risk again.” Poppy stiffened. “It’s a reputable hotel,” she said. “I have nothing to fear.” “Of course you do,” he murmured. “You’re looking right at it.” And before she could think, or move, or breathe, he bent his head and took her mouth with his.

sit well with Michelangelo. The project seemed like a series of insurmountable challenges: •​It would be the largest fresco on earth—there would be more than twelve thousand square feet to cover. •​He had never frescoed before. •​His competition would be staring him in the face every day—the Moses and Jesus wall panels, world-class masterpieces created by the top fresco artists in the world—including his own first maestro, Ghirlandaio. When and if he ever finished the ceiling, his beginner’s work would be compared with these. •​The chapel was in constant use, more than twenty times per month. The scaffolding could not be of the traditional kind, which would require too much wood and thus block up the chapel and render it unusable for years. •​The pope’s rigid and unimaginative concept for the ceiling stood against everything Michelangelo believed in, both as a spiritual seeker and as an artist. •​The pope’s advisers would be trying to catch him at any changes or “heresies” that he might insert in the work. •​The pope and Bramante had given him a large number of Roman assistants to help with the plaster and paint—but Michelangelo knew very well that their other job would be to spy on his work.

Then she heard a masculine chuckle behind her. Bridget froze, ice sliding down her spine. The sound could be nothing else, not the wind or a creaky house or even a mouse in the walls. She turned, pushing the panel shut with her shoulder, and palming the portrait as she did so. The Duke of Montgomery, all golden hair and sharp blue eyes, and wearing a purple velvet suit, smiled at her from the armchair in the far corner of the room. "A lovely woman in my bed, what a fetching surprise." He cocked his head, a corner of his beautiful mouth curving cruelly. "Tell me, Mrs. Crumb, what are you looking for?

For a moment all was silence, save for her breathing. Triumph raced through Bridget's chest. At last! Then she heard a masculine chuckle behind her. Bridget froze, ice sliding down her spine. The sound could be nothing else, not the wind or a creaky house or even a mouse in the walls. She turned, pushing the panel shut with her shoulder, and palming the portrait as she did so. The Duke of Montgomery, all golden hair and sharp blue eyes, and wearing a purple velvet suit, smiled at her from the armchair in the far corner of the room. "A lovely woman in my bed, what a fetching surprise." He cocked his head, a corner of his beautiful mouth curving cruelly. "Tell me, Mrs. Crumb, what are you looking for?

The music washed over Shane as he stepped into a dimly lit space.  Thick rugs covered the floor, and stacks of written music were piled around the room haphazardly.  The room, like the door, was tall and narrow.  It was also long and barren of windows.  On the wood-paneled walls, dozens of violins and their bows rested on individual shelves.

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