Turns 3 Months Old Quotes

It was an old tradition: landlords barring children from their properties. In the competitive postwar housing market of the late 1940s, landlords regularly turned away families with children and evicted tenants who got pregnant.3 This was evident in letters mothers wrote when applying for public housing. “At present,” one wrote, “I am living in an unheated attic room with a one-year-old baby….Everywhere I go the landlords don’t want children. I also have a ten-year-old boy….I can’t keep him with me because the landlady objects to children. Is there any way that you can help me to get an unfurnished room, apartment, or even an old barn?…I can’t go on living like this because I am on the verge of doing something desperate.” Another mother wrote, “My children are now sick and losing weight….I have tried, begged, and pleaded for a place but [it’s] always ‘too late’ or ‘sorry, no children.’ ” Another wrote, “The lady where I am rooming put two of my children out about three weeks ago and don’t want me to let them come back….If I could get a garage I would take it.”4 When Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968, it did not consider families with children a protected class, allowing landlords to continue openly turning them away or evicting them. Some placed costly restrictions on large families, charging “children-damage deposits” in addition to standard rental fees. One Washington, DC, development required tenants with no children to put down a $150 security deposit but charged families with children a $450 deposit plus a monthly surcharge of $50 per child.5 In 1980, HUD commissioned a nationwide study to assess the magnitude of the problem and found that only 1 in 4 rental units was available to families without restrictions.6 Eight years later, Congress finally outlawed housing discrimination against children and families, but as Pam found out, the practice remained widespread.7 Families with children were turned away in as many as 7 in 10 housing searches.8

Normally, Bentner would have beamed approvingly at the pretty portrait the girls made, but this morning, as he put out butter and jam, he had grim news to impart and a confession to make. As he swept the cover off the scones he gave his news and made his confession. “We had a guest last night,” he told Elizabeth. “I slammed the door on him.” “Who was it?” “A Mr. Ian Thornton.” Elizabeth stifled a horrified chuckle at the image that called to mind, but before she could comment Bentner said fiercely, “I regretted my actions afterward! I should have invited him inside, offered him refreshment, and slipped some of that purgative powder into his drink. He’d have had a bellyache that lasted a month!” “Bentner,” Alex sputtered, “you are a treasure!” “Do not encourage him in these fantasies,” Elizabeth warned wryly. “Bentner is so addicted to mystery novels that he occasionally forgets that what one does in a novel cannot always be done in real life. He actually did a similar thing to my uncle last year.” “Yes, and he didn’t return for six months,” Bentner told Alex proudly. “And when he does come,” Elizabeth reminded him with a frown to sound severe, “he refuses to eat or drink anything.” “Which is why he never stays long,” Bentner countered, undaunted. As was his habit whenever his mistress’s future was being discussed, as it was now, Bentner hung about to make suggestions as they occurred to him. Since Elizabeth had always seemed to appreciate his advice and assistance, he found nothing odd about a butler sitting down at the table and contributing to the conversation when the only guest was someone he’d known since she was a girl. “It’s that odious Belhaven we have to rid you of first,” Alexandra said, returning to their earlier conversation. “He hung about last night, glowering at anyone who might have approached you.” She shuddered. “And the way he ogles you. It’s revolting. It’s worse than that; he’s almost frightening.” Bentner heard that, and his elderly eyes grew thoughtful as he recalled something he’d read about in one of his novels. “As a solution it is a trifle extreme,” he said, “but as a last resort it could work.” Two pairs of eyes turned to him with interest, and he continued, “I read it in The Nefarious Gentleman. We would have Aaron abduct this Belhaven in our carriage and bring him straightaway to the docks, where we’ll sell him to the press gangs.” Shaking her head in amused affection, Elizabeth said, “I daresay he wouldn’t just meekly go along with Aaron.” “And I don’t think,” Alex added, her smiling gaze meeting Elizabeth’s, “a press gang would take him. They’re not that desperate.” “There’s always black magic,” Bentner continued. “In Deathly Endeavors there was a perpetrator of ancient rites who cast an evil spell. We would require some rats’ tails, as I recall, and tongues of-“ “No,” Elizabeth said with finality. “-lizards,” Bentner finished determinedly. “Absolutely not,” his mistress returned. “And fresh toad old, but procuring that might be tricky. The novel didn’t say how to tell fresh from-“ “Bentner!” Elizabeth exclaimed, laughing. “You’ll cast us all into a swoon if you don’t desist at once.” When Bentner had padded away to seek privacy for further contemplation of solutions, Elizabeth looked at Alex. “Rats’ tails and lizards’ tongues,” she said, chuckling. “No wonder Bentner insists on having a lighted candle in his room all night.” “He must be afraid to close his eyes after reading such things,” Alex agreed.

After loud overtures from his daughters, Anthony finally left the house and went up the winding path to the “museum,” to the mobile home where he and his parents had lived from 1949 to 1958. It has been left untouched. The furniture, tables, the paint on the walls, the ’50s cabinets, the dressers, the closets, are all unchanged, remaining as they once were. And in her closet in the bedroom, past the nurse’s uniform, far away in the right-hand corner on the top shelf, lies the black backpack that contains Tatiana’s soul. Every once in a while when she can stand it—or when she can’t stand it—she looks through it. Alexander never looks through it. Tatiana knows what Anthony is about to see. Two cans of Spam in the pack. A bottle of vodka. The nurse’s uniform she escaped from the Soviet Union in that hangs in plastic in the museum closet, next to the PMH nurse’s uniform she nearly lost her marriage in. The Hero of the Soviet Union medal in the pack, in a hidden pocket. The letters she received from Alexander—including the last one from Kontum, which, when she heard about his injuries, she thought would be the last one. That plane ride to Saigon in December 1970 was the longest twelve hours of Tatiana’s life. Francesca and her daughter Emily took care of Tatiana’s kids. Vikki, her good and forgiven friend, came with her, to bring back the body of Tom Richter, to bring back Anthony. In the backpack lies an old yellowed book, The Bronze Horseman and Other Poems. The pages are so old, they splinter if you turn them. You cannot leaf, you can only lift. And between the fracturing pages, photographs are slotted like fragile parchment leaves. Anthony is supposed to find two of these photographs and bring them back. It should take him only a few minutes. Cracked leaves of Tania before she was Alexander’s. Here she is at a few months old, held by her mother, Tania in one arm, Pasha in the other. Here she is, a toddler in the River Luga, bobbing with Pasha. And here a few years older, lying in the hammock with Dasha. A beaming, pretty, dark-haired Dasha is about fourteen. Here is Tania, around ten, with two dangling little braids, doing a fantastic one-armed handstand on top of a tree stump. Here are Tania and Pasha in the boat together, Pasha threateningly raising the oar over her head. Here is the whole family. The parents, side by side, unsmiling, Deda holding Tania’s hand. Babushka holding Pasha’s, Dasha smiling merrily in front.

That black horse we used for packin’ up here is the most cantankerous beast alive,” Jake grumbled, rubbing his arm. Ian lifted his gaze from the initials on the tabletop and turned to Jake, making no attempt to hide his amusement. “Bit you, did he?” “Damn right he bit me!” the older man said bitterly. “He’s been after a chuck of me since we left the coach at Hayborn and loaded those sacks on his back to bring up here.” “I warned you he bites anything he can reach. Keep your arm out of his way when you’re saddling him.” “It weren’t my arm he was after, it was my arse! Opened his mouth and went for it, only I saw him outter the corner of my eye and swung around, so he missed.” Jakes’s frown darkened when he saw the amusement in Ian’s expression. “Can’t see why you’ve bothered to feed him all these years. He doesn’t deserve to share a stable with your other horses-beauties they are, every one but him.” “Try slinging packs over the backs of one of those and you’ll see why I took him. He was suitable for using as a pack mule; none of my other cattle would have been,” ian said, frowning as he lifted his head and looked about at the months of accumulated dirt covering everything. “He’s slower’n a pack mule,” Jake replied. “Mean and stubborn and slow,” he concluded, but he, too, was frowning a little as he looked around at the thick layers of dust coating every surface. “Thought you said you’d arranged for some village wenches to come up here and clean and cook fer us. This place is a mess.” “I did. I dictated a message to Peters for the caretaker, asking him to stock the place with food and to have two women come up here to clean and cook. The food is here, and there are chickens out in the barn. He must be having difficulty finding two women to stay up here.” “Comely women, I hope,” Jake said. “Did you tell him to make the wenches comely?” Ian paused in his study of the spiderwebs strewn across the ceiling and cast him an amused look. “You wanted me to tell a seventy-year-old caretaker who’s half-blind to make certain the wenches were comely?” “Couldn’ta hurt ‘t mention it,” Jake grumbled, but he looked chastened. “The village is only twelve miles away. You can always stroll down there if you’ve urgent need of a woman while we’re here. Of course, the trip back up here may kill you,” he joked referring to the winding path up the cliff that seemed to be almost vertical. “Never mind women,” Jake said in an abrupt change of heart, his tanned, weathered face breaking into a broad grin. “I’m here for a fortnight of fishin’ and relaxin’, and that’s enough for any man. It’ll be like the old days, Ian-peace and quiet and naught else. No hoity-toity servants hearin’ every word what’s spoke, no carriages and barouches and matchmaking mamas arrivin’ at your house. I tell you, my boy, though I’ve not wanted to complain about the way you’ve been livin’ the past year, I don’t like these servents o’ yours above half. That’s why I didn’t come t’visit you very often. Yer butler at Montmayne holds his nose so far in t’air, it’s amazin’ he gets any oxhegen, and that French chef o’ yers practically threw me out of his kitchens. That what he called ‘em-his kitchens, and-“ The old seaman abruptly broke off, his expression going from irate to crestfallen, “Ian,” he said anxiously, “did you ever learn t’ cook while we was apart?” “No, did you?” “Hell and damnation, no!” Jake said, appalled at the prospect of having to eat anything he fixed himself.

had come far, but cunning couldn’t combat the weather. “Snow’s closin’ in,” the old hunter said, leaning on his tall bow. “You can’t go north in this weather. You’ll have to wait.” “How long?” Sentar said, his words spoken through crusted lips, mouth turned down in displeasure. “A month. Might be longer,

Pity" Amir sat on the same old wooden chair Roua still remembers vividly the furniture store where she bought that chair - less than a month after their wedding… The furniture store closed its doors a long time ago, Along with the doors of their stormy pre-marital love story perhaps in due to boredom or the shocks of the years… She would cut his hair, a habit that began when they were poor and Amir couldn’t afford a barber … Years went by and many things changed, But Roua kept cutting his hair on the same wooden chair almost once a month… He sat in his underwear She looked at his saggy skin that was getting looser and his belly getting slightly bigger with each haircut… She began wandering in her mind and wondering whether she ever loved him, or was it an overwhelming infatuation that turned into pity over the years without ever passing through the corridors of love? Her emotions kept swinging between love or pity with each snip … She was frightened to admit it was pity, for the price was almost her entire life… Yet she couldn’t sincerely determine it was love, for she hasn’t felt any love towards him for quite a time… Suddenly, she caught Amir looking at her as if he could read her mind… A tear involuntarily rolled down her eye as she continued cutting his hair… [Original poem published in Arabic on August 3, 2023 at ahewar.org]

I’m not old enough. I’m eighteen. So, you won’t be able to claim me.” “I already know your age, and I don’t care. You’re considered an adult among humankind, and you’re only a few months away from turning nineteen. I will have you, Jenny. I will steal you if I must, the alliance be damned. I will carry you away and rut you until you’re sore between your thighs and dripping with my seed.

I’ve heard the most interesting rumors regarding you and the oh-so-dishy Mr. Haverstein,” Millie said. “I don’t believe dishy is a real word” was all Lucetta could think to respond. Millie waved that away with a flick of her dainty wrist. “I can’t be expected to know all the right words, Lucetta, and you’re stalling.” Lucetta blew out a breath, stirring the bubbles. “What have you heard?” “That you and Mr. Haverstein were caught in a most interesting situation in a storage room of all places, that he tried to save you from drowning twice in his, uh, moat from what I’ve been told, and . . . that he did save you once from a mad goat by the name of Geoffrey. I’ve also heard that you seem to enjoy his company, so much so that there’s been talk of marriage—but you rejected the marriage idea because of mysterious happenings occurring at Ravenwood.” “Bram didn’t save me from drowning twice. He almost caused me to drown both of those times.” “Again . . . stalling.” Tracing a finger through the bubbles, Lucetta took a second to gather her thoughts. “He’s explained away practically all the mysteries surrounding him, which has allowed me to come to the conclusion he’s not insane.” Millie’s eyes turned the size of saucers. “You had reason to doubt his sanity?” “He maintains a dungeon and has a castle where suits of armor go strolling about in the middle of the night—what else was I to conclude?” “A . . . dungeon?” “Yes, but I can’t explain that in any further detail, since the dungeon is part of a rather large secret that Bram has yet to divulge to anyone except his staff—and now me, of course.” Millie settled back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fair enough, but . . . tell me this, how do you feel about the man, especially since his sanity is no longer in question?” “That’s a little tricky to answer.” Millie sent her a look that had exasperation stamped all over it. “It is not. And since you’re the one who insisted Harriet and I dwell on exactly what our feelings were for Oliver and Everett just a few months back, I’m going to extend you the same courtesy. So . . . feelings—yours for Mr. Haverstein—what are they?” “He, uh . . . did mention that he’d like to court me.” “Court you?” “Yes, you know, call on me, take me for drives, bring me flowers, and . . . well . . . court me.” “That’s incredibly romantic.” “Well, yes, it is, but . . .” “You don’t want to be courted because you see that as a weakness of being female.” “What?” Millie rolled her eyes. “Lucetta, you and I have been friends for a very long time, and while you never talk about yourself much—as in ever—it’s always been clear to me and Harriet that you’ve got this attitude, if you will, about being a female. It’s one of the reasons I believe you’ve held yourself so distant from any gentleman who has ever shown an interest in you. And, it’s why you’re incredibly wary of men like Bram Haverstein, who clearly—and this is without me even knowing that much about him—is an old-fashioned man, one who enjoys swooping in and saving the damsel in distress.” “There’s that romance novel lover I’ve been missing.” Millie sat forward. “You know I’m right.” “So

Che” Guevara with about two thousand guerrilla fighters entered Havana on January 2, 1959. Their entry was relatively quiet as they headed for the Malecon and the old Spanish fortress, overlooking the entrance of Havana harbor. At 3:00 a.m. early the following morning, they took over the imposing La Cabaña fortress. In anticipation of Guevara’s arrival the three thousand regular army soldiers, assigned to the fort, stood in formation as their officers greeted Guevara. Addressing the troops, “Che” light-heartedly told them that they could teach his men how to march, but that his rebels could teach them how to fight. When they were dismissed, he had them turn in their rifles but allowed the officers to retain their pistols. He granted them all a month’s furlough; however, upon their return they discovered that they had all been relieved of duty and permanently discharged.

Supplementary Articles for Immigration Study Alonso, Oswald, and Katherine Corcoran. 2010. “14-Year-Old: Mexican Drug Gang Made Me Behead 4.” Denverpost.com, December 3. Alonzo, Monica. 2010. “Seized! Inside the Brutal World of American’s Kidnapping Capital: Phoenix, Arizona.” Westword, August 12–18. Flores, Aileen B. 2010. “Separated from Family.” El Paso Times, September 12. Gergen, David. 2010. “A Smart Exception.” Parade, June 13. Glick, Daniel. 2010. “Illegal, but American.” Denver Post, August 20. Latimer, Clay. 2010. “Do Immigrants Reduce Crime?” Coloradoan, September. McCombs, Brady. 2010. “July Proved Deadly Month for Migrants.” Arizona Daily Star, August 3. Navarrette, Ruben, Jr. 2010. “Politics Interrupts Youthful Dreams.” Denverpost.com, August 29. Vaughan, Kevin. 2010. “Mexican Cop Slain; Probed Lake Case.” Denver Post, October 13. Vedantam, Shankar. 2010. “ICE Set to Let More Go Free.” Washington Post, August 28. Whaley, Monte. 2007. “Swift Raid Effects Still Felt.” Denverpost.com, November 1. Wilkinson, Tracy. 2010. “Mexican Drug Trafficker Blamed in Killing of Second Mayor.” Los Angeles Times, August 30. Zakin, Susan. 2000. “The Hunters and the Hunted: The Arizona-Mexico Border Turns Into the 21st Century Frontier.” High Country News, October 9.

Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. —Matthew 6:32 (KJV) How am I going to keep doing this, God?” I shot the prayer up under my breath. The stock market had been frenetic, and the global economy was stoking the fire. As an investment adviser, my job was to manage my clients’ savings as well as their expectations. While I love what I do, sometimes the stress of it all becomes overwhelming. As the closing bell rang, I decided to call it a day. At home, I was eager to spend a little time with our six-month-old baby girl. “Daddy’s got you, Mary Katherine!” I swooped my daughter up in the air and smiled as I looked into her bright hazel eyes. She cooed back at me with a big, toothless grin. I could feel my stress melt away as she giggled and squealed. Before long, her happy cheer turned into a fussy whine. I knew this meant “Daddy, I’m sleepy.” It was nap time. I fed her a bottle and gently patted her back until she burped. Then I rocked her for a bit, and soon she was sound asleep. “There are few things as peaceful as a sleeping baby,” I said to my wife, Corinne, as I walked into the kitchen. “So how was work?” she asked, sensing my weariness. “Stressful.” She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Brock, you just spent an hour taking great care of Mary Katherine. God has been taking care of you for forty years! Do you think He is going to stop now?” Suddenly, my burden felt a bit lighter. Daddy’s got you, Mary Katherine, I thought to myself, and my Father in heaven has me too. Father, sometimes even a grown-up needs a daddy. Thanks for being mine. —Brock Kidd Digging Deeper: Phil 4:19; 1 Jn 3:1

3 ALICIA Seven hours. That’s how much time had passed since Alicia collected two-and-a-half-year-old Theo from the police station and brought him to his new foster home. Seven hours since he scampered out of her grasp and disappeared under the dining room table. Seven hours since Alicia sat on the linoleum floor and promised him she would wait until he was ready to come out. Alicia always kept her promises to the kids. Which meant now she might have to die on this linoleum floor. “Hey, buddy, I think Bluey might be on the TV,” Alicia tried, without much hope. “Should we go and see?” Theo didn’t turn his little blond head from the wall. She had to admire his resolve. Since they’d arrived, he hadn’t spoken, he’d refused all food and drink, and, if smell was anything to go by, he’d soiled himself. Still, he wouldn’t budge. Last night, he’d been taken to the police station by a neighbor who’d discovered him playing on the road at midnight, wearing nothing but a dirty nappy. Apparently his father had been too inebriated to realize he was gone. His mother had yet to be located and it wasn’t looking hopeful. Alicia had hoped that returning Theo to Trish’s, where he’d spent a few months earlier in the year, might provide Theo with some reassurance; but, if anything, his understanding of what was happening made things worse. His head remained down, his tiny, twiggy arms remained ramrod straight by his sides. “Do you like chocolate?” she asked, as another foster kid, Aaron, sloped into the kitchen, and started rummaging in the cupboards, presumably for food. “I’ve got a Kit Kat here. Want some?” Alicia broke off a chocolate finger and held it out to Theo under the table. To her delight, he scooted across the floor to inspect it. “Ow!

This wasn’t a lie. Cheng Xin really had been found. Her mother had never married, but one night, while on a date with her boyfriend at the time, she saw a three-month-old baby abandoned on a park bench, along with a bottle of milk, a thousand yuan, and a slip of paper with the baby girl’s birthday. Her mother and the boyfriend had intended to bring the baby to the police, who would have turned the baby over to the city’s civil affairs department, who would have sent her to an orphanage. Instead, her mother decided that she wanted to bring the baby home and go to the police in the morning. Perhaps it was the experience of being a mother for a night, or some other reason, but the next morning, she found that she couldn’t send the child away. Every time she thought of parting from the young life, her heart ached, and so she decided to become the child’s mother. The boyfriend left her because of this. During the following decade, she dated four or five other men, but all of them ended up leaving her because of Cheng Xin. Later, Cheng Xin found out that none of the men had explicitly objected to her mother’s decision to keep her, but if any of them ever showed a trace of impatience or lack of understanding, her mother broke up with him. She refused to let any harm come to Cheng Xin.

I started telling him about how when we first got to America, we had to live in Old Man Jimmy’s garage. Old Man Jimmy was an out-of-work truck driver who rented half his garage to us for $200 a month. I would go to sleep curled up next to his Dodge Charger, Shelby, and wake up every morning to the jingle of his keys. Even when we moved out, my parents’ jobs were barely enough to pay for a small one-bedroom apartment. That’s when we applied for a job working and living at the Calivista Motel. But of course the owner, Jason’s dad, turned out to be a real miser.

Katy Cannon, a UK-based novelist, reports that she has developed this more persistent and abundant perspective on time over the years. At the start of 2013, she had a four-year-old daughter and had just sold her first book. Her contract called for her to turn in another book six months later, which seemed like the sort of work/life disaster one might need to write a very British novel about. But she did it, and in 2016 she wrote and edited five books, a novella, and three short stories (also using the pen name Sophie Pembroke). This is how she makes such prolificacy work. She takes about two weeks to plan her books, outlining scenes and working with her editors on characters and plots. Then, execution happens in small bursts. She sets a timer, and in a twenty- to thirty-minute block of total focus, she can write an 800- to 1,000-word scene. She does two or three of these blocks a day, generally putting down 2,000 to 3,000 words. This is not a huge number; I suspect the average office worker cranks out close to 2,000 words in emails daily. But 2,000 is enough, because Cannon just keeps going. Over a four-day workweek of these two or three bursts per day, she produces about 10,000 words. That means she can write a 70,000- to 80,000-word novel draft in seven to eight weeks. Add in the planning time and two weeks for editing, and that’s a full book in eleven to twelve weeks. Are the books perfect? No, but no book is ever perfect, even ones that take eleven to twelve years to write. As for some idealized book that never made it out of the author’s head, where it would be sullied by reality? We don’t even need to have this conversation. Cannon’s books have the virtue of being completed and out in the world, giving readers pleasure. Done is better than perfect, because there is no perfect without being done.

Like Miles Davis, Graham often used to turn his back on his audiences. This was primarily between songs, while he was retuning his guitars. For Graham, in the early 1960s, was privy to a secret alternative tuning system known as DADGAD, which he was reluctant to share with any rival guitarists in the crowd. He began using it around 1962–3, on a trip to the bohemian Beat capital Tangier, where he spent six months and earned his keep by working in a snack booth selling hash cakes to locals. The raw Gnaoua trance music preserved in Morocco’s town squares and remote Rif mountain villages stretched back thousands of years, and Graham was hypnotised by the oud, a large Arabic lute which resembles a bisected pear (the word ‘lute’ itself derives from the Arabic ‘al-ud’) and has been identified in Mesopotamian wall paintings 5,000 years old. The paradigm of Eastern music, defining its difference from the West, is the maqam, which uses a microtonal system that blasts open the Western eight-note octave into fifty-three separate intervals. DADGAD is not one of the tunings commonly used on the eleven-string oud, but Graham found that tuning a Western guitar that way made it easier to slip into jam sessions with Moroccan players. The configuration allows scales and chords to be created without too much complicated fingering; its doubled Ds and As and open strings often lead to more of a harp-like, droning sonority than the conventional EADGBE.

Before we left, I asked Sven to catch me up on the sixteen months of history that I’d overshot since November 2016. Big mistake. After twenty minutes, I made him stop playing me Internet clips. “David, you look kind of green,” worried Sven. I took a deep breath. “He pulled out of the Paris climate deal because climate change is a hoax. He threatened to start a nuclear war with North Korea. He gave away intel methods to the Russians. In the Oval Office. “He says the FBI and the CIA are conspiring against him. He admits he fired the head of the FBI because of the Russia probe. He tried to fire the Special Counsel investigating him. He called the press ‘enemies of the people.’ He calls everything that isn’t from Fox News or The National Enquirer ‘fake news.’ “He starts every day posting boasts and threats on Twitter like a disturbed ten-year-old. He insulted the widow of a dead war hero. He dictated a false statement for his son about why he met with Russians. He says there are good people marching with the KKK and the Nazis. Everyone in his inner circle is either being investigated or indicted for obstruction, perjury, wife beating, failure to register as a foreign agent, money laundering and/or breaking campaign finance laws. “He called Africa a shithole. He paid off a porn star he screwed right after his son was born. And told her she reminded him of his daughter. He’s being sued for rape. And the only person he hasn’t got a single bad thing to say about is the journalist-murdering Russian dictator he colluded with.” “’Fraid so,” said Sven. “All that happened in just sixteen months?” I exclaimed. “How is he still president?” Sven shrugged, sympathetic. “It’s not like we weren’t warned. Bottom line, some very rich, powerful people are going to get far richer, and that’s how America is run at the moment.” “I swear to God, Sven, I’m tempted to go back and save Lincoln all over again. That can’t turn out any worse than this.

How do we celebrate Easter?’ the old poet demanded, yanking Peter’s Scotch from Clara and downing it. ‘We hunt eggs and eat hot cross buns.’ ‘Mais, we go to St Thomas’s too,’ said Monsieur Béliveau. ‘More people go to Sarah’s Boulangerie than ever show up at church,’ snapped Ruth. ‘They buy pastry with an instrument of torture on it. I know you think I’m crazy, but maybe I’m the only sane one here.’ And on that disconcerting note she limped to the door, then turned back.

a) A letter was received from a former employee of the organization seeking arrears of salary for the part of the month in which he was relieved on acceptance of his resignation. While trying to take some reference number from the old pay bill, it turned out that somebody was collecting pay in the name of the resigned employee continuously for several months after the said employee resigned from service.(b) A representation was received from an employee stating that his name was missing in the seniority list of group ‘D’ employees of the organization. While attempting to check the reasons for this omission, it emerged that the employee in question and several others were appointed through forged appointment orders issued by a racket.2. What is the first action on receipt of a complaint? On receipt of a complaint, it is checked whether it has a vigilance angle. If it has vigilance angle, it is entered in the appropriate part of the register prescribed by the Vigilance Manual.3. What is Vigilance Angle?

We reached the bottom and I sat down on the lowest step. The Fool sat down beside me, and Bee came to my other side. Here we were. All of us alive. For now. I put my arm around her and drew her close. For an instant she stiffened at my touch. Then she leaned into me. For a time, I just sat there. My strength was at a low ebb, but Bee was here. My child was beside me. Above us, fire and falling walks and a furious enemy. Down here, chill and dank and dimness. We were caged in by stone and sea. Prilkop crouched beside the prisoners he had freed. They sat together in one cell, ragged and round-shouldered, huddle close on a single pallet. I could not hear what he was saying to them. Across the room, a shaky Spark inspected a section of the wall. I watched her and Lant run their hands over the stonework, rub at the scratched mortar, and shake their heads. They looked discouraged. “We may have to use a fire-pot,” Lant suggested Spark rubbed her eyes and gingerly shook her head. “Last resort,” she said loudly. “Unless we could put it inside the wall, more of the force would come at us than into the stone. Chade and I did many tests. If we buried the pot, it blasted a hole. On top of the ground it made a wide, shallow indentation. It could as easily bring the ceiling down on us.” “I’m so tired,” Bee said. I could barely hear her. “So am I.” The carris seed had already faded, leaving its darkness and weariness. “Wolf-Father is with you now?” Yes. “Yes.” Her name for Nighteyes made me smile at her. “What is he?” I didn’t know. “He’s good,” I said. I sensed approval from him. “He is,” she agreed. She waited for me to say more. I shrugged at her, and a smile flickered across her face. Then she asked, “Are we safe here?” “Safe enough. For now,” I told her. I studied her face. Her eyes widened. Almost defiantly, she said, “I know what I look like. I’m not pretty anymore.” “You never were,” I told her. I shook my head. The Fool gasped at my cruelty, and Bee’s eyes went wide in shock. “You were and are beautiful,” I said. I freed a hand to touch her lumpy ear. “Every scar a victory. I see you had many of them.” She straightened her back. “Every time they beat me, I tried to hurt them back. Wolf-Father told me that. Make them fear me, he said. So I did. I bit a hole in Dwalia’s face.” That shocked me to silence. But the Fool leaned in and said, “Oh, well done! Would that I could have done that myself.” He smiled at her. “Do you like your father’s nose?” She looked up at me, and I fingered the break in it. She had never seen it any other way. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked in puzzlement. “Nothing at all,” the Fool told her merrily. “I’ve always told people, ‘There’s nothing wrong with his nose.’” He laughed out loud, and both Lant and Spark turned to regard us in surprise. I didn’t understand his joke, but their expressions made me laugh and even Bee smiled, in the way one does at a madman. She leaned closer and closed her eyes. The pain from my leg came in surges with my heartbeat. Rest, rest, rest said the pain. I knew I could not. My body wanted to sleep, to heal, but now was not the time. I needed to get up, to help the others, but Bee was slumped against me and I didn’t want to move her. I leaned back and the last fire-pot in the belt poked me. “Help me,” I said, and the Fool tugged it off me. Bee didn’t stir. I looked down at her little face. Her eyes were closed. Her disfigurement told a dreadful tale. Scars, some months old, some fresh, distorted her face. I wanted to touch the cut at the corner of her mouth and heal it. No. Don’t wake her. I realized I was leaning heavily on the Fool. I lifted my head to look at him. “Did we win?” he asked me. His smile was lopsided in his swollen face. “The fight isn’t over until you win,” I said. Burrich’s words. Spoken to me so long ago. I touched my leg. Warm and wet. I was hungry and thirsty and so tired. But I had them both beside me. Alive.