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"I never iined she wanted a child," Brian said "Of the women I knew back then, she was the least likely to pine for motherhood"

If Amy should not touch hi the pre-twilight viehich he unburdened hily scene But not how you ht expect She said she wanted my baby, needed it, she said, but she never wanted to see ?"

"I tried to discuss that with her, but all she wanted to talk about was how I took the crown as the world’s biggest loser"

"If that’s what she thought of you, why did she want your baby?"

"It eird She was vicious Such conte She ripped my taste in clothes, -soet away fro sun fired the intricacies of a fretwork of clouds Thecontrast to the base story that he had to tell

"I expected her to call She didn’t Told ood riddance, it wasn’t any of s she’d said aboutof truth I didn’t like what I saw in , my baby"

Whatever faults he had in those days, he’d grown into a good ht want to hear that from her, but not now

"I needed a month to realize, if I didn’t have that baby in ht It would be distorted, ed her phone nu address"

Amy remembered he had once seen the baby "But you found her"

"Threetheot some money for a private detective Even he had so across the clouds froht was a richer shade of brandy than before, and the blue sky itself began to take soe, expensive apart Newport Harbor A wealthy land developer na nanant when I visited her Gave me five minutes, so I could see the style he kept her in Then she had the , a friend of Hisscus came to see uy was unsavory but polite Wanted me to know Hisscus would marry the lady after the birth of their baby"

"If it was their baby, ait?"

"I wondered And then this guy offers n for another friend of Hisscus"

"If it were his baby, he wouldn’t try to buy it that way"

"I turned down the commission Went to an attorney Then another attorney Same story frorounds to push for a DNA test"

Threads of self-disgust and quiet anger had been sewn through Brian’s voice thus far, but now A to find a way, and then one night she came to my place with the baby not teeks old, born premature She said…"

For a moment, he could not repeat Vanessa’s words to him

Then: "She said, ‘Here’s what you pumped into me This stupid little freak Your stupid little freak has screwed up everything’"

"So it was over with her and Hisscus"

"I never understood as going on there anyway But it was over, it wasn’t his baby, and she was out She wanted money, whatever I could pay for the baby I showed her s-account balance So there I was, made a baby and put it in a situation where it’s up for sale, I’m no better than she was"

"Not true," Aet the , but she wouldn’t leave the baby with reen, so so dark had come into them I wanted to take the baby, but I was afraid if I tried, she’d kill it, s the baby back for it"

"But she never did"

"No She never did God help ht, takeyou ever since"

The low orange candle of the sun spread the warht farther across the western sky

"Unless it’s a federal case with the FBI," Brian said, "it’s not possible to track soirl’s father Vanessa’s careful what she says in the e-ators haven’t been able to find her?"

"No She lives way off the grid, maybe under a new na Anyhat she’s done to hter? What has she done to Hope?"

By intuition, Amy understood his last question "That’s what you’ve named her-Hope"

"Yes"

"Whatever Vanessa’s done," Aet a chance to " of which he’d spoken earlier, bigger than the drawings that he had done of Nickie’s eyes, bigger than the auditory hallucinations and the lier than his drea up on the inexplicably hter back

Aument and manipulation: I am at your mercy I have no power over you, and you have every power over me If one day you will let me have what I want, that will be because it serves you best to relent, not because I have earned it or deserve it

After waking from his dream of storm-racked Kansas, Brian had found a reply from her He held it in his hand now, as he stood at the

You still want your little piglet? You pissthe way you like it, never sacrificed a daht I’ froh to permit upon the pane a transparent reflection of Amy’s face

With his secrets all revealed, and with his own face forlass before him, Brian turned noard Amy

She joined hi to want every di, Amy repeated, in this new context, what she had said earlier "Not everything There’s still you and me"

Chapter 35

The severed lilass eyes of the doll are arranged beside the lunch tray on the desk, where Moongirl carefully placed they appear to notice the destruction her nores the ruins

Harrow suspects that, this ti the most elaborate dress of her creation to her favorite doll, perhaps she has given it to her least favorite

This is a small triumph, but in the child’s life, there is no other kind

If Moongirl realizes that she has been deceived, she will y pay dearly Even now, Harrow can see how the woles to contain her fury at the child’s indifference to the savaging of the doll

Like Harrow, Moongirl has the cold intellect of a machine and a body that is machinelike in the perfection of its form and function, but she only pretends to understand and control her ee of her ereed, desire, and self-love He is not sure if she realizes this or if she thinks she is complete

While she cannot exert iron control of herself, she understands that she eer that anger and hatred are unexpressed or only partly expressed, the purer and more poisonous they become, until they make a more potent elixir than any that a wizard could concoct

She sits beside the desk, glaring at her daughter, and though her long-distilled hatred is lethal, she will not strike a ht and the following day, until-very soon now-she can have all the deaths that she y"

The blades of light penetrating the cracks in the storer, but a liy’s head

Thin spears of orange sunlight touch only the wood surfaces of the furniture, here a decorative pillow, there an oil painting of a seascape