![]() ![]() ![]() One would approach at first warily through the shrub-oaks, running over the snow crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy, making inconceivable haste with his “trotters,” as if it were for a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on more than half a rod at a time and then suddenly pausing with a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the eyes in the universe were fixed on him,-for all the motions of a squirrel, even in the most solitary recesses of the forest, imply spectators as much as those of a dancing girl,-wasting more time in delay and circumspection than would have sufficed to walk the whole distance,-I never saw one walk,- and then suddenly, before you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in the top of a young pitch-pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary spectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the same time,-for no reason that I could ever detect, or he himself was aware of, I suspect. “All day long the red squirrels came and went, and afforded me much entertainment by their manoeuvres. The spikes hovered not inches from my head. I opened my eyes to find my tattooed fingers white-knuckled beneath the ink as they gripped the lever. I shut my eyes, unable to look at Tamlin, bracing myself up for the impact and the agony, and pulled the third lever. All I had to do was lift my arm above my head and I'd burn the flesh off my hands. I could only trust him I could only give myself up again, forced to concede by my helplessness. Sweat slipped down m brow, stinging my eyes. Rhysand's face remained a mask of boredom. Through it, I found a star-flecked violet gaze. My fingers met with stone, and I looked up to find the grate not four feet from my head. I extended my hand toward the first lever. I again reached for the middle lever, but the pain paralysed my fingers. The heat was too much, and metal sizzled so close to my ears. The grate was about to cover the inscription, barely six feet above my head. I hissed, withdrawing I opened my palm to reveal the slitted eye tattooed there. I reached for the second lever, but a blinding pain racked my hand before I could touch the stone. I could gladly, willingly, fanatically believe in a Cauldron and Fate if they would take care of me. One was a nasty number, and three was too much- it was three sisters crammed into a tiny cottage, hating each other until they choked on it, until it poisoned them. One had to be bad, because one was like Amarantha, or the Attor- solitary beings. Two was a lucky number, because that was like Tamlin and me- just two people. They meant nothing to me beyond life and death. I reached a hand toward the levers and stared at the three numbers, beyond my trembling, tattooed fingers. “Just pick one!' Lucien shouted, and some of those in the crowd laughed- his brothers no doubt the loudest. ![]() I'd never meant to get this far in such an unfastened condition. In place of youth's belief in change I had begun to feel a nervous embarrassment that ticked inside me like a clock. ![]() Now, in my late thirties, I knew less than ever about what I wanted. At both of those times and at other times, too, I believed I had focused my impulses and embarked on a long victory over my own confusion. When that went to pieces I loved a woman. The curse implied that if we didn't learn to train our desires in one direction or another we were likely to end up with nothing. We tended to nurse flocks of undisciplined wishes that collided and canceled each other out. I wanted to be loved by someone like my tough judicious mother and I wanted to run screaming through the headlights with a bottle in my hand. Think of Van Gogh, cypress trees and church spires under a sky of writhing snakes. “I wanted a settled life and a shocking one. ![]()
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