The book begins in 2003 with the death of Dante Scott''s mother, father, older sister and brother at the hands of the Brigands M.C. South Devon President, The Führer, after Dante''s father refuses to go through with the plans to redevelop the Brigands'' clubhouse, turning it into shops and flats. After saving his eighteen-month-old sister Holly from the burning house (the Führer attempted to burn all evidence), nine-year-old Dante escapes, is put under the wing of child psychologist Ross Johnson, and is questioned by police in an attempt to convict the Führer. On the night of the murders he was forced into a boxing fight with Martin, the Führer''s eldest son, and got blood on his shirt; he lies to the police telling them that it was a ''nosebleed''. The defence solicitors could use the unreliability of his statement to clear the Führer. Much to Dante''s fury, the courts decide that there is insufficient evidence to convict the Führer, and he is released. After moving in with a foster family, a member of another Brigands chapter attempts to murder him with a bomb inside a toy car on his birthday. Shaken, Dante moves in under the care of Ross again. Dante is drugged by Jennifer Mitchum (the same person that drugged James Adams in "The Recruit") and is sent to CHERUB where he befriends Lauren Onions (soon to be changed to Lauren Adams). 4½ years later Neil Gauche, an undercover policeman who is a part of a mission to infiltrate the Brigands M.C., tries to join them. Unfortunately, the Führer realises he is a policeman and knocks him out. Ross and Neil visit CHERUB Campus and James Adams, Dante and Lauren are assigned to a mission to infiltrate the Brigands M.C. with their last names changed to Raven. To avoid Dante’s old friends recognizing him, Dante also changes his first name to John. Dante and Lauren make friends with Joe Donnington (the Führer''s younger son). Meanwhile James purchases a new bike, and is invited on a run with the Brigands. He ends up being ‘hero worshipped’ by Dirty Dave after James saves his life when a member of the Vengefuls tries to stab him with a sharpened hammer. At the same time Jake McEwen and Neil attempt to uncover a weapons deal orchestrated by the Brigands, worth £600,000 by following two friends of James: Julian and Nigel. When James gets to The Rebel Tea Party, a biker war breaks out between the Brigands and three other gangs (The Vengeful Bastards, Satan''s Prodigy and the Bitch Slappers), but James manages to escape. Meanwhile Dante and Lauren end up at Joe’s house party which is invaded by sixth formers ending in police being called after windows get broken and a fight breaks out between Joe, Dante, Lauren and the party-crashers. Unfortunately, Julian later gets scared and confesses to his father, who is a judge. This leads to riot police arresting McEwen and Neil, blowing the operation and McEwen ‘nutting’ a riot officer who insulted his intelligence, resulting in McEwen being forced to six months file sorting in the basement of CHERUB’s mission building. Since the mission is ending, the agents are sent back to campus. Before Dante leaves, he sneaks into the Führer''s house, intent on killing him, but can''t bring himself to do it. Instead he carves a message into the Fürher''s table, implying he is a member of the Vengeful Bastards, to give the Führer something to think about. Dante takes an old photograph from the Führer''s study of his and the Führer''s family together. James also gets invited to become a stripper at "Dirty Dave''s" Devon Strip Joint but refuses and leaves. Lauren, Chloe Blake (the mission controller and posing as the mother of the family) and Dante get a good laugh out of this.

Brigands M.C.

The novella opens with clerks in the Paris law office of Derville, an attorney, looking out the window and mocking a determined old man walking through the streets. Le Colonel Chabert is famous for its in medias res opening. Colonel Chabert marries Rose Chapotel, who was living as a prostitute. Colonel Chabert then becomes a French cavalry officer who is held in high esteem by Napoleon Bonaparte. After being severely wounded, in the Battle of Eylau (1807), Chabert is recorded as dead and is buried with other French casualties. Though he does survive&mdash;after extricating himself from his own grave&mdash;and is nursed back to health by local peasants, it takes several years for him to recover. After he recovers, he returns to Paris and discovers his "widow" has married the wealthy Count Ferraud. She has also liquidated all of Chabert''s belongings. Seeking to regain his name and monies that were wrongly given away as inheritance, he hires Derville, an attorney, to win back his money and his honor. Derville, who also represents the Countess Ferraud, warns Chabert against accepting a settlement bribe from the Countess. In the end, Chabert walks away empty handed from his widow and spends the rest of his days at a hospice. In Le Colonel Chabert Balzac juxtaposes two world-views: the Napoleonic value-system, founded on honour and military valour; and that of the Restoration. Chabert was not killed at the Battle of Eylau, though it was thought that he was. He struggles back to life but cannot reclaim his identity. His “widow”, who is actually his wife, and who fittingly was a prostitute in her early adult years, is now the Comtesse Ferraud, married (or so it would seem) to an important Restoration nobleman and politician. She repudiates her “former” husband (just as Ferraud, in changed political circumstances, would now be happy to repudiate her). All that matters in the modern era is social rank based upon the possession of money, especially inherited wealth. This theme of the trenchant purity of the military way of life is something to which Balzac returns in La Rabouilleuse, but there the subject is treated quite differently.

Le Colonel Chabert

The book starts with a pack of grey wolves walking through the snowy regions of Translyvania. One of the pups looks up at a hill and can see an outline of a black wolf. She tells her father, the Dragga, that it might be Fell, the ghost wolf that humans and Varg fear. Because, while Larka has become respected and loved among the Varg for the part she played in the death of Morgra, Fell became feared among them, and that he is a loner, which is unnatural to other Varg. Lost in his grief and guilt over the death of his sister, Larka, Fell rejects the gift of the Sight, and becomes a Kerl, which is the wolf name for a loner. The pack keeps the thoughts of curses out of their heads, and Fell watches them leave. He then goes to a pool and looks into it. His dead sister, Larka, appears to him, and she shows him a picture of a girl with a tattoo in the shape of an eagle on her arm. Larka then tells Fell to find and protect the girl. The girl who Fell saw is Alina Sculcavant, who is growing up in the care of Malduk, a shepherd whom rescued her from the snows. He forces her to dress as a boy and work hard for him. The other villagers believe Alina to be a changeling, and fear her for it. One day Alina finds a parchment that holds the true secret of her past, but Malduk and his wife, Ranna, who have tried to hide it from her for years, find out. They murder a villager and frame Alina, so that she is forced to flee into the mountains to discover who she truly is. Later Alina and Fell get trapped inside an ice cavern. While they are there, they discover that they can mentally communicate using the Sight, and Fell eventually decides to accompany Alina on her journey due to his vision of Larka. On their journey, Alina goes to find a man mentioned to her by Ivan, who was one of her few friends in Moldov. She eventually finds the man,a blacksmith named Lescu. Alina stays with Lescu and his son, Catalin, for a time, during which Lescu teaches Alina to use a sword and Fell spends some time out in the forest, where he meets his adopted brother, Kar, and a she-wolf named Tarlar. Later soldiers attack the house, killing Lescu. Catalin is forced to travel with Alina and Fell. Alina finds out that she has a real family and that the Lady Romana is her real mother and the supposedly dead Lord Dragomir is her real father. However, Alina doesn''t know tha her father was murdered secretly by his best friend, Vladeran. Vladeran then had Alina taken away to be killed because she was the true heir to the throne, but Alina and her soldier escort befell an accident. The soldier was killed but Alina survived, and that was when Malduk found her. Meanwhile Vladeran took over as Lord of Castelu and married Dragomir''s wife, the Lady Romana. Vladeran and Romana now have a seven-year-old son, Elu.

Fell

The novel tells the story of Shori, who appears to be a 10 or 11 year old African-American girl, but is actually a 53 year old member of a race called "Ina", or vampires. They are nocturnal, long-lived and derive sustenance from the drinking of human blood. They are physically superior to humans, both in strength and the ability to heal from injury, but the Ina''s relationships with humans whose blood they drink are non-lethal and symbiotic. The story opens as Shori awakens with no knowledge of who or where she is, in the wilderness and suffering from critical injuries. Although she is burned and has major skull trauma, she kills and eats the first animal that approaches her. A construction worker named Wright picks her up on the side of the road, and they begin a vampire-human relationship. While staying at Wright''s home, Shori feeds on other inhabitants of the town, and develops a relationship with an older woman named Theodora. Shori and Wright return to a burned-out, abandoned village near where she woke up to learn more about her past. They eventually meet Iosif, Shori’s father, who tells her the burned out town was once her home, where she lived with her sisters and mothers. They also learn that Wright and Shori’s mutually beneficial relationship makes Wright Shori’s symbiont. Furthermore, Shori’s dark skin is the result of genetic modification with which the Ina were experimenting to make their kind resistant to daylight. Later Iosif’s settlement is burned down like Shori’s home was. Shori and Wright meet the only two human symbionts who survived, Celia and Brook. Shori adopts Celia and Brook as her own symbionts, and the four flee to another house that Iosif is known to keep. When they are at this new house, they are attacked by several men with gasoline and guns, but they escape. The group travels to the Gordon family settlement, where they are welcomed and guarded by human symbionts during the day. These guards capture three new attackers alive. The Gordon family interrogates the intruders and finds that they were sent by the Silks, another Ina family. The Gordons suspect the attacks on Shori are motivated by disdain for the genetic experimentation that created Shori. The Gordon family calls a Council of Judgment on Shori’s behalf. Thirteen Ina families and their symbionts come to the Gordon settlement to discuss the Silks attack on Shori. While the Council is happening, Katherine Dahlman sends one of her symbionts to kill Theodora, Shori’s symbiont. So in addition to issuing a punishment the Silks, the Council must also punish Katherine Dahlman. The Silks have their sons taken from them, to be adopted by other Ina families. Thus the Silk line will die out. Katherine Dahlman is sentenced to have her leg amputated. However, she refuses this punishment and is consequently executed. As the book ends, Shori is invited to live with a group of female Ina, the Braithwaite family, to whom she is distantly related.

Fledgling

"Rab and His Friends" is a simple story of how John Brown''s teacher and employer, Doctor James Syme, taught and operated. The other main characters are Rab, a ferocious dog, his owner the Howgate Carter Jamie, and the Carter''s ailing wife. The story begins with a fight between Rab and a bull-terrier and ends with the faithful sheep dog''s funeral. Ailie had a lump in her breast. “One fine October afternoon I ( the student ) was leaving the Hospital and saw the large gates open and in walked Rab with that great and easy saunter of his. After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart and in it a woman carefully wrapped up, the Carrier leading the horse anxiously and looking back. When he saw me, James, (for his name was James Noble), he made a curt and grotesque bow, and said, Maister John, this is the mistress; she has got a trouble in her breest some kind of income we are thinking. By this time I saw the woman''s face; she was sitting on a sack filled with straw with her husband''s plaid round her and had his big coat with its large white metal buttons over her feet. Had Solomon in all his glory been handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate, he would not have done it more daintily that did James the Howgate Carrier when he had lifted down Ailie, his wife. Rab led the way into the consulting room, grim and comic, willing to be happy and confidential, Ailie sat down, undid her open gown and her lawn handkerchief round her neck and without a word showed me her right breast. I looked at and examined it carefully. What could I say? There it was, hard as stone, a centre of horrid pain. Next day my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. It could be removed; it would give her speedy relief. She curtsied. "Tomorrow” said the kind surgeon - a man of few words. The following day, at noon, the students came in, hurrying up the stair, eager to secure good places. The theatre is crowded; much talk and fun, and all the cordiality and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of assistants is there. In comes Ailie: one look at her quiets and abates the eager students. That beautiful old woman is too much for them; they sit down, and are dumb. These rough boys feel the power of her presence. She walks in quickly, but without haste; dressed in her mutch, her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, black bombazeen petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet shoes. Ailie stepped up, and laid herself on the table, as her friend the surgeon told her; arranged herself, gave a rapid look at James, shut her eyes, rested herself on me, and took my hand. The operation was at once begun; it was necessarily slow; chloroform was then unknown. The pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Rab''s soul was working within him; he growled and gave now and then a sharp impatient yelp; but James had him firm. It is over; she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the table, looks for James; then turning to the surgeons and the students, she curtsies, - and in a low, clear voice, begs their pardon if she has behaved ill. All of us wept like children; the surgeon happed her up carefully, - and, resting on James and me, Ailie went to her room. We put her to bed. James said, ''Maister John, I''ll be her nurse”, and as swift and tender as any woman, was that horny-handed, peremptory little man. As before, they spoke little. For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed ''by the first intention''; for as James said, ''Oor Ailie''s skin''s ower clean to beil''. The students came in quiet and anxious. She said she liked to see their young, honest faces. Four days after the operation, my patient had a sudden and long shivering, a ''groosin'', as she called it. Her eyes were too bright, her cheek coloured; she was restless, and ashamed of being so; mischief had begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret; her pulse was rapid, her breathing anxious and quick, she wasn’t herself, as she said, and was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could, but she died in three to four days. No asepsis, a dog in theatre and no anaesthesia. Speed, trust and hope.

Rab and his Friends

British Secret Service agent James Bond is sent by his superior, M, to New York City to investigate "Mr. Big", real name Buonapart Ignace Gallia, an agent of SMERSH and an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected of selling 17th century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in Harlem and Florida and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica by the pirate Sir Henry Morgan. In New York, Bond meets up with his counterpart in the CIA, Felix Leiter. The two decide to visit some of Mr. Big''s nightclubs in Harlem, but are subsequently captured. Bond is personally interrogated by Mr. Big, who uses his fortune telling-girlfriend, Solitaire (so named because she excludes men from her life), to determine if Bond is telling the truth. Solitaire lies to Mr. Big, supporting Bond''s cover story. Mr. Big decides to release Bond and Leiter and has one of his men break one of Bond''s fingers. Bond escapes, killing several of Mr. Big''s men in the process, whilst Leiter is released by a gang member, sympathetic because of a shared appreciation of jazz. Solitaire later contacts Bond and they travel to St. Petersburg, Florida. While Bond and Leiter are scouting one of Mr. Big''s warehouses used for storing exotic fish, Solitaire is kidnapped by Mr. Big''s minions. Felix later returns to the warehouse by himself, but is either captured and fed to a shark or tricked into standing on a trap door over the shark tank: he survives, but loses an arm and a leg. Bond finds him in their safe house with a note pinned to his chest "He disagreed with something that ate him". After getting Felix to the hospital, Bond investigates the warehouse himself and discovers that Mr. Big is smuggling gold by placing it in the bottom of fish tanks holding poisonous tropical fish. Bond is attacked in the warehouse by Mr. Big''s gunman, the "Robber", and the resultant gunfight destroys many of the tanks in the warehouse: Bond tricks the Robber and causes him to fall into the shark tank. Bond then continues his mission in Jamaica where he meets Quarrel and John Strangways, the head of the MI6 station in Jamaica. Quarrel gives Bond training in scuba diving in the local waters. Bond swims through shark and barracuda infested waters to Mr. Big''s island and manages to plant a limpet mine on the hull of his yacht before being captured once again by Mr. Big. The following morning, Mr. Big ties Solitaire and Bond to a line behind his yacht and plans to drag them over the shallow coral reef and into deeper water so that the sharks and barracuda that he attracts in to the area with regular feedings will eat them. Bond and Solitaire are saved when the limpet mine explodes seconds before they are dragged over the reef: though temporarily stunned by the explosion and injured on the coral Bond and Solitaire are protected from the explosion by the reef, and Bond watches as Mr. Big, who survived the explosion, is killed by the sharks and barracuda. Quarrel then rescues Bond and Solitaire.

Live and Let Die

Having docked in Yokohama and looking for a boxing match to raise money, Costigan and the crew of the Sea Girl find that the only fight club in town is booked up with Swedes vs. Danes matches because the whaling fleet is in port as well. Luck seems to come, however, when the Swedish sailor Dirck "The Gotland Giant" Jacobsen breaks his wrist and a replacement is needed quickly for the match against the Danish sailor Hakon Torkilsen that night. The crew try to pass of Costigan as a Swede called Lars Ivarson. The club owner does not believe the ruse but has no other option. The fight goes ahead, although the crowd is unconvinced as well. Further complications soon arise. The first complication is that the match referee turns out to be a man Costigan knocked out earlier in the day for attempting to kick his dog Mike. He knows who Costigan is and tells him he''ll reveal everything at the end of the match, at which point the crowd will turn on Costigan for intruding on a Scandinavian matter. The second complication emerges soon after the match starts. A rival captain got the Sea Girl''s captain drunk and tricked him into betting the Sea Girl on Hakon Torkilsen to win and signing a contract as proof. Despite the captain''s pleas, Costigan refuses to throw the fight, both for himself, for his ship mates who have bet everything on him, and for the Swedes that he is now representing. The fight continues regardless and Hakon turns out to be an equal for Costigan. The complications distract Costigan and render his performance uneven. He is knocked down several times. The problem of the bet is resolved when the rival captain, Gid Jessup, gets too near the ring while Costigan has almost been knocked out of it. Costigan grabs the contract, the only proof of the bet, and begins to eat it. Jessup tries to retrieve it, but Swedes in the audience, thinking he is trying to interfere with their boxer, attack him. Free of that problem, Costigan decides to fight to the finish regardless of the referee''s threat. This too is solved quite soon after when, in the confusion of the fight, the referee accidentally starts to count Costigan out in Spanish (having only used Swedish, Danish and Norwegian so far). Costigan realises that he isn''t Scandinavian, either, and the referee admits that he is an American vaudeville linguist called John Jones who took the job because he needed the money. Costigan and Hakon fight savagely but Hakon eventually collapses in a corner and cannot get up again. The Swedish captain celebrates with Costigan and, after the match they have seen, does not mind that he clearly is not one of his countrymen.

Vikings of the Gloves

The novel is a series of recollections by the members of Troop D, a state police barracks in Western Pennsylvania. After Curtis Wilcox, a well-liked member of Troop D, is killed by a drunk driver, his son Ned begins to visit Troop D. The cops, the dispatcher and the custodian quickly take a liking to him, and soon begin telling him about the "Buick 8" of the title. It is in some sense a ghost story in the way that the novel is about a group of people telling an old but unsettling tale. And while the Buick 8 is not a traditional ghost, it is indeed not of their world. The Buick 8 resembles a vintage 1953 Buick Roadmaster, and was left at a gas station by a mysterious man dressed in black, who disappeared soon after leaving the car to be refueled. The car is later held by the Troop D police of rural Pennsylvania in storage shed B. The car, they discover, is not a car at all. It appears to be a Buick Roadmaster, but the steering wheel is immobile, the dashboard instruments are useless props, the engine has no moving parts and ignition wires that go nowhere, the car heals itself when scratched or dented, and all dirt and debris are repelled by it. Sandy Dearborn, now Sergeant Commanding of Troop D, is the main narrator of the book, and tells the story to Ned, discussing various things that have happened with the car, and his father''s fascination with it. The car will frequently give off what they dub "lightquakes," or large flashes of purple light over an extended period of time, and will occasionally "give birth" to strange plants and creatures that aren''t anything like what they''ve seen in their world. Two people have disappeared in the vicinity of the car—Curtis Wilcox''s former partner Ennis Rafferty, and an escaped lowlife named Brian Lippy they picked up for drunk driving and being under the influence of angel dust. It is later suggested in the book that perhaps the Buick was a portal, between our world and another. After hearing the story of the Buick and how it has been kept secret by Troop D for so long, Ned becomes convinced that the car was somehow related to the death of his father in a seemingly random road accident. After all, the gas station attendant who first reported the Buick sitting in front of the station was the same man who, years later, would kill his father. Ned is determined to destroy the Buick, but before he can Sandy Dearborn realizes that the Buick, in fact, wants to take Ned into the world it connects to ours. Sandy returns to the shed to find Ned sitting in it, Ned having poured gasoline under the car and holding a pistol and a match. Just as Sandy pulls Ned out, the Buick transforms into a portal, trying to draw both Ned and Sandy inside of it. The rest of the staff arrive on the feeling something bad may happen, all of them helping recall the story of the Buick''s origin at their station, and manage to pull Ned and Sandy free, but not before Sandy glimpses into the world on the other side of the Buick. He sees Lippy''s Swastika necklace and cowboy boot, along with Ennis''s Stetson and Ruger. The book closes with Ned joining the police force after dropping out of college, and he pulls Sandy over to shed B. The Buick''s window is cracked, and remains cracked without healing itself. Ned believes that the Buick will one day fall apart, having expended the last of its energy in that final attempt to draw him over to the other universe.

From a Buick 8

Of all of Ainsworth''s novels, the plot of St. James''s is almost non-existent. The story takes place during the end of Queen Anne''s reign. She was friends with the Duchess of Marlborough, and two Tories, Robert Harley and Henry St John, want to separate the Duchess and the queen. After plotting, they are finally able to separate the two, which allows them to remove the Duke of Marlborough from the queen''s favour. Without the Duke around, Harley is made Earl of Oxford and St. John made Viscount of Bolingbroke. When Queen Anne dies, Harley and St. John turn against each other and soon lose their status at court. * Queen Anne * John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough * Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough * Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer * Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke The Ainsworth''s Magazine edition of St. James''s included 14 illustrations by Cruikshank. However, only 7 appeared in the three volume book edition of the work. Two of the illustrations not carried over in the book edition were of Cruikshank''s best depictions: one titled "The Double Duel" and another titled "Sergeant Scales''s Drum". A rift developed between Cruikshank and Ainsworth, and St. James''s was the last work of Ainsworth that Cruikshank illustrated. It is possible that the rift came as Ainsworth was giving up his ownership of the Ainsworth''s Magazine, but the cause is unknown. It is also possible that the dropping of illustrations from the three volume edition was either a cause or an effect of the rift.

St. James''s

Set in the Dominican Republic in the 1930s, The Farming of Bones tells the story of a young Haitian girl named Amabelle Desir. Orphaned by the age of 8, Amabelle works for Don Ignacio and his daughter. Although Don Ignacio and his daughter are important figures in Amabelle’s life, it is evident that Amabelle’s life revolves around her lover, Sebastien Onius. After the accidental death of one of Sebastien’s fellow cane workers, the Haitian’s distrust of the Dominican government grows, but this distrust is warranted. With news of the Generalissimo’s intentions to “cleanse the country,” Haitian workers attempt to return to their home country. When complications separate Amabelle and Sebastien during their attempt to flee, Amabelle is desperate to find what has become of Sebastien. Accompanied by Sebastien’s friend, Yves, Amabelle makes her journey with the help of fellow survivors she encounters along the way. While escaping, the group must divide for their own safety. Upon reaching the town of Dajabon, Amabelle is disappointed to find that Sebastien is not there. While in Dajabon, Dominicans beat and torture Amabelle, Yves, and a fellow Haitian, Tibon, after recognizing their inability to pronounce “perejil” correctly, one of the most prevalent ways that the Dominicans determine the segregation of Haitians. On the verge of death, two remaining members of their group rescue Amabelle and Yves and bring them to the river that they must cross. Unfortunately only Amabelle and Yves survive the dangerous crossing, where they are met at the other side by nuns who nurse them back to health. During the recovery process, Amabelle learns of the other survivors’ story of “kout kouto,” what the Haitians call the massacre. Once Amabelle and Yves have healed, Yves offers to take Amabelle to his home. Upon arrival of the city, Amabelle and Yves settle in his home and try to rebuild their lives. While Yves finds solace in working in his father’s fields and becomes a successful landowner, Amabelle continues her search for Sebastien. After finding Sebastien’s mother and learning of the truth about Sebastien’s fate, Amabelle returns to her life with Yves. Although Yves and Amabelle try to find comfort in one another, they are unable to fulfill each other’s needs. Twenty years after her escape from Alegria, Amabelle decides to search for a connection to Sebastien by reliving old memories in places of the past. Despite reuniting with Senora Valencia, Amabelle is dissatisfied with the results of her search. Unable to find further reason to live, Amabelle succumbs to the Massacre River, looking for a new beginning.

The Farming of Bones

Amanda and Mathilda are two sisters who live in rural Wisconsin; they are very close, but very different. While Mathilda is petite, well-liked, pretty, and adventurous, Amanda is tall, clumsy, awkward, and serious. When Mathilda marries Carl, Amanda feels betrayed and leaves to go to nursing school. She dives into her work and makes her entire life about helping the sick and injured. Meanwhile, Mathilda and Carl are married and living together on a small island just away from the family farm. They are happy there, and welcome their child, Ruth, into the world. A short time later, however, Carl begins to feel trapped, enlists in the army and is sent away to France. Mathilda is devastated and angry at his departure. She moves back to the mainland and into the old house of her late parents. Amanda begins to feel agitated and upset. She''s also sick all the time, and a nervous wreck. She is persuaded to take a rest, and travels back to the family farm to stay with her sister and niece. The three grow very close, and Amanda begins to see Ruth as their child, becoming very protective of her. After living in the farm house for a while, Amanda persuades Mathilda to move out to the island. At first, the idea does not go over well, but Mathilda soon agrees, and the three of them move out to the island. During the summer, it becomes apparent that Amanda is pregnant and desperate to hide it from everyone. Mathilda agrees to adopt the child as her own and make up a story about the baby being an orphan from a "hired girl." Amanda is pleased with this arrangement, but still must hide her pregnancy, so she does not leave the island until the baby is born. When the baby finally comes, Mathilda delivers it in the house with Ruth under the bed. Sometime in the night, Amanda changes her mind about Mathilda raising the baby and tries to leave the island by walking across the ice with the child. Ruth, who is approximately four at this time, follows Amanda out onto the ice because she doesn''t want her to leave. Mathilda runs out after them, trying to get Ruth back and find out why Amanda is leaving. Out on the ice, they walk over a thin patch and the ice starts to break. Ruth and Mathilda go under, while Amanda desperately tries to save them. Mathilda pushes Ruth to the surface to save her, but falls back in herself. Amanda tries desperately to pull her out, but can''t do it without falling in, so Mathilda bites her sister''s finger to force her to let go and leave her to drown in the freezing water. Ruth is half dead and frozen on the ice with the baby, but she is revived. Amanda takes the new baby to a woman in town who has recently had a stillborn child. She tells the woman that a hired girl had the baby and then died in childbirth. She also tells her that the baby''s name is Imogene. The woman is so taken with the child, and so amazed at the situation that she doesn''t notice that both Ruth and Amanda are frozen and wearing nightgowns. She also doesn''t notice the blood on Amanda. Soon after Mathilda''s death, Carl returns home from the war with serious injuries, and is nursed back to health by Amanda. Ruth, traumatized, is behaving oddly and very leery of her father, whom she barely knows. The three of them live together for a while without incident, but after a while, Carl starts to suspect that there might be more to the story of his wife''s death than he has been told. As far as he knows, his wife wandered out into the night all alone and disappeared, later to be found under the ice. Amanda starts having serious issues again with her nerves and anxiety. She is institutionalized in a mental hospital, and Carl is left to take care of Ruth on his own. Worried that he doesn''t know enough about children, he asks his cousin, Hilda, to come to the farm and care for Ruth. Ruth dislikes Hilda almost instantly. She is strict, serious, and humorless. She sees Ruth as a problem child, and seems almost to enjoy punishing her. ko:루스의 기억

Drowning Ruth

The multiverse, shaped like a figure eight, contains Ayeward (generally good, pro-magic) and Nayward (the opposite) worlds. It is the task of the magids to urge the worlds in an Ayewards direction. In Ayeward worlds, magids can operate openly. Earth is an exception; it is generally Ayeward, but magic is still difficult and mostly hidden. The narrative in this book is told variously from the point of view of Rupert Venables in his magid report, Maree Mallory''s Thornlady computer files, and in an epilogue from Nick Mallory. Rupert Venables is Earth''s junior Magid, though his day job is writing software. He is also responsible for the Koryfonic Empire, a collection of Ayewards worlds. The Koryfonic Empire''s present emperor has made it a capital crime for his many banished children to discover their identities, and thus Rupert witnesses the execution of the emperor''s eldest son for daring to discover his origins. When the Emperor is assassinated a short time later, no heir can be found and this creates a huge unwanted problem for Venables. Meanwhile, Earth''s senior magid, Stan, has died. It is now Rupert''s job to find a new magid. Stan has compiled a short list of five candidates for Venables to research and is allowed by the "Upper Room" to remain in an advisory role by hanging around as a disembodied voice in Venables'' house and car. However, each magid candidate proves to be difficult to contact. Venables does encounter one of the British candidates, Maree Mallory, but their meeting is disastrous and he rejects her as a candidate. Using magid fateline methods, Venables draws the candidates together in an unlikely place: a science fiction convention in the fictitious town of Wantchester. Unfortunately, during the magid working to consolidate their fatelines, his peculiar inventor neighbor Andrew becomes tangled in the magical working and later accompanies Venables to Wantchester. Meanwhile, destitute Maree Mallory has been forced to move in with her uncle Ted Mallory, a horror writer, her hostile aunt Janine and their fourteen-year-old son, Nick. Ted is to be the guest of honor at the upcoming convention in Wantchester. Janine, Maree, and Nick are to accompany him, even though Venables has specifically prevented Maree from attending the con through a magic working. All arrive at the convention, where the reserved Venables is somewhat stunned at the bizarre nature of the convention and its attendees, particularly as it is housed in the strange, Escher-like Hotel Babylon, which appears to be centered on a powerful magical node. He seeks out each magid candidate, but is disappointed to find each of them entirely unsuitable. His opinion of Maree Mallory rises, however, as they encounter each other several times at the convention. Pleas for help from the unsettled Koryfonic Empire force Venables to cross over to the Ayewards world Thule to seek help from his magid brother Will. Maree and Nick unwittingly follow him through the gaps between worlds, nearly killing themselves in the process. Rupert is furious with them, but the placid Will decides to tell them all about magids and the multiverse. Afterward Will arrives at the Hotel Babylon in his car, but hits a centaur who arrives simultaneously from the Koryfonic Empire with a message for Rupert. Maree uses her veterinary skills to help heal the centaur Rob, something which reveals an unlikely bond between him, Maree and Nick. Rupert returns to the Koryfonic Empire to recover the heirs, but is thwarted in horrific ways by those who later prove to have been the emperor''s assassins. What transpires after this is a comedy of mistaken identity, horrible violence and dark magic (including the increased influence of a bitter thornbush goddess), a trip into the bizarre, nightmarish land of Babylon, and the ultimate restoration of the Koryfonic Empire to its rightful ruler after his memory of himself is abruptly restored..

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