Marsha > Recent Status Updates

She squinted up at the cuffs. Her head would not stop throbbing, the skin beneath her arms aching like she had rubbed it raw with a scrubber. The brass knuckles from Jin pulsed in her pocket, almost taunting her.
The cuffs were just wider than her wrists, leaving a gap where she could only fit two fingertips. She pressed her thumb tight and flush against her index finger, tugging downward with more force. Nothing.

"Right this way," the butler said, leading her into the house. Willard's foyer was lavish, but decorated in a sparse way, as if he'd suddenly been thrust into wealth and didn't quite know what to do with it. His wife stood in the back of the room and waved as Arthie passed, her cheeks rosy and her eyes kind. They stopped at a door with a sign that read WILLARD OTIS, INSPECTOR.

"There's a verdict?" I asked.
"It's not good." William pulled out an assortment of morning newspapers, all with the same bold word in the headlines.
EXECUTION.
"The jury reconvened last evening after the interruption," Catherine read. "They found him guilty. The execution is set for tomorrow morning in public at Tower Hill. How is this allowed?"
"Captain Goode's scared. That's why he's doing this," Miss Chen added.

"Emily, can you grab Captain Goode?" I asked.
"No, Miss Kane, please don't do that," Mr. Kent said. "Miss Wyndham, we aren't at all prepared to deal with that."
"But he's right there," I urged. "We have to do something--Miss Chen."
"Tell me you've a better plan than lifting Captain Goode up, bringing him close enough to shut down our power and then dying painfully when the rest of the Society catches up."

Standing here, across the road, was the closest she would ever get to returning to her mother and father. After that one unsatisfactory, fleeting glimpse of them from across the ballroom, in the haze of her injury, as they collapsed to the floor. She still didn't know whether she was hoping or dreading that she might see them one last time, being carried out on the next stretcher.

His face showed no surprise at the sight of me, but I better understood Mr. Kent's theory. Dr. Beck had only recently discovered that I had these powers and that I had survived. It left me with one last question: How recently?
"And you claim to know everything?" I snapped. He ignored me, but I persisted. "If you knew everything I was going to do--"
"I quite understand your point. There is no need to repeat it."

"Look at my face to see the price I paid. I'm hideous." I want to despise him, but a part of me also feels sorry for him. Unhappiness is indeed etched onto his face. "At least I know it. I'm aware I don't have a face aged with warmth. The face of a beloved grandparent. Wise and sweet and sexless. No, my cheeks are hollow. My life is hollow. Cold blue veins line my skin. Every bit of me is twisted out of shape."

I didn't plan on following him like this.
But I do have a plan. I'll observe him in his new habitat. Try to understand why he feels this is our time. I'll deduce how I feel about this city independent of him. I've been free of him for sixty years. Free and lonely. Free and yet chained to him by the fate only we share. What's a little more time to figure out how I feel when all we have is time?

"Who was he, Mother? Were you really in love with someone before Father?" The question I almost asked is if she was in love with Father at all. There are so many reasons she may have married him despite not loving him. Duty. Fear. The pressure of parents. Social expectations. And of course, the most obvious one...she was pregnant with Liam and was forced to marry the man who would become her son's father.

They speak in code, Brendan's friends, and I love that about them. It's like learning a new language. Or a new instrument. They're in the life, as they say, which means they know the hidden things, the things my mother doesn't see happening in her city, to her beloved son.
The birthday boy, Cyril, approaches me. "Brendan says you'll be coming to Harvard."
"Oh, I don't know," I say sheepishly. "I hope so."

"You could take lessons from me if you want," Angie offered generously.
"You? Angie, the girls never go out with you twice. It'd have to be a quick lesson."
"You mean I never go out with a girl twice," Angie corrected. "I've got high standards."
I risked a glance at Faith. But she was not upset. She was not upset. She was wreathed in smiles. She knew she met those high standards.

Susan's party was about as fun as Kate figured it would be.
Which wasn't fun at all.
She'd showered and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, but she must've still looked like she'd been thrown through a window and laid out in oncoming traffic, because none of Susan's posh Manhattanite friends wanted to come within five feet of her. Which was fine, since that meant she could camp out by the little sandwiches.

Tall, dark trees towered around her, so high she could barely see the moon through the boughs. The path in the park was barely lit, the shadows longer than she ever remembered. There was a soft summer breeze that shifted through the leaves above her, whispering quiet things. It was late summer, early fall, as everything began to turn orange and vibrant.
It didn't take long for Kate to realize exactly where she was.

"How did you come here?" I asked.
Clara rolled her shoulders, tugging my hand. "I lost my way. A many precious things get lost in this world. A many wild things, too. And the mean. Many a mean lost thing wound up here, walking in them habits. And crawling about in the up-there. A mean lost thing lingers in that place," Clara said. "Stay away from there. Never let that cold one, Agnes, take you away."

"What's the situation?" Rochelle asks.
She keeps her dark hair cropped short beneath her Bandmate helm. Her armor is black with gold trim around her lean frame and its vibrations radiate through the air, casting a golden sheen across her tan eyes and amber-brown skin.
She glances to Erin, her lips pursed firm, but Erin only shakes her head.
"Just felt the hum," Vivian says, tapping the side of her head.

The siren's cry came distant and warped, a baying wolf across the lit cityscape. Miracle Robinson would've ignored it, one more howling among nocturnal hunters, if not for the answering chirp close by, drawing her gaze to the curb at her left.
Sandwiched between an SUV and a small sedan, a city cop cruiser parked streetside at a crooked angle. Rainy residue from an earlier storm twinkled over the other vehicles.

"Mr. Zaccari killed somebody?" asks Isaiah. Mr. Zaccari is super quiet. He's barely said a word to me or Isaiah in all the times we've been over there. Mrs. Zaccari does all the talking for both of them. We used to sit in their living room and watch cartoons if we finished mowing their lawn early. He was usually asleep across the room from us, but he'd always wake up to hug us goodbye before we left.

Mrs. Zaccari looks up and down the street, before stepping forward and continuing in a lowered voice. "If you do decide to do a paper route, you could get some exercise and take Eli's old bike. We were about to sell it in a garage sale next Saturday, but if either of you can use it, it's yours."
Isaiah and I look at each other. He's realizing how much money the Zaccaris must have to just be handing out bikes.

MOM AND DAD USED to tell us, when we were still young enough to believe people can understand anything about the universe, that people are always chasing after impossible things. We want what we can't have. We ask questions we don't fully understand, looking for answers we wouldn't be able to handle. People pay accountants and psychologists to give them power over the here and now.

Just as Seon presented me with a basket of light blue berries, Bo ran up and shoved it away. "don't use those. Songwon found traces of them in the explosion.
"That explains that." Kama puckered his face. "I suspect that Chan-yeol, like you, was trying to counteract that potent effect."
I had almost walked into exactly the same trap. Clearly us chefs thought alike.
"Let me go see what else I can find out," said Seon.

Poison is typically avoided in the kitchen--for obvious reasons. However, some scholars have fought to keep certain poisonous ingredients viable, so long as the amount is regulated. A famous example of this is stinging royal jelly. A fully portion can and will paralyze the eater. But under the advice of herbalists and culinary advisors, the once forbidden honey is now allowed, in moderation, in certain beverages.

Viv woke in the redawn indigo to the growing murmur of the city outside. The pigeons cooed in the loft where they'd returned to their nests. She rose and checked on the flagstone above the Scalvert's Stone. Undisturbed, of course. Gathering a few things, she slipped into the street, chewing the last of her hardtack and inhaling the moist morning scent of shadows giving way to sun.

Gnarl grunted and licked his teeth, easing himself out of the captain's chair. It'd taken every bit of stealth tech and gear he'd had to stay out of reach of Niko's sensors, but now it was finally time to reveal himself.
He was here and finally he would have not just one, but two pieces of revenge and that was a very good gift for the universe to have given him.
Farren had underestimated him. Now they'd pay for it.

"It occurs to me that it's a question I have never asked you. What do you want?"
"To travel with you," the Thing said without hesitation.
"Why?"
"You're so much more interesting than Arpat Takraven. And you teach me things. Like cooking. And new emotions."
"So if we boiled your first thought down to its essence, we would find that your main desire is not to be bored," Niko said.
"Yes," the ship said.

The Thing actually considered itself as human--or rather, as capable of being human--as its current owner. Takraven was its sixth owner. A ship like the Thing appealed to the idle rich, but the idle rich of this universe often turned into the idle poor, and a bioship represented a large amount of ready cash, particularly when sold to someone still in the rich category.

She looked at Dabry, who stood ignoring them, caressing the eggplant with all four hands and his eyes half closed. "Sweet Momma Sky, should we leave so you can have your way with that eggplant or should I just let you take it to your bunk?"
His eyes closed entirely, his expression blissful. "Baba ghanoush," he said. "Flat wheat bread dusted with cumin. Seared protein tinctured with lemon and garlic..."

Al Qaeda's leaders concern themselves with issues of history, identity and faith. To be heard, the rest of us must address matters equally profound. The three monotheistic religions provide a rich tradition of overlapping principles, ethics and beliefs. Each places a high value on justice and compassion, points the way toward common ground, offers the opportunity for repentance and is a religion of peace.

Meanwhile, the culture of tolerance, long a source of pride to many Europeans, is being questioned by those ho say that too much live-and-let-live leads to a loss of control. Indeed, experts worry that Europe could become the next major breeding ground for terrorists: a place where conspirators can conceal themselves behind the protective wall of legal due process, relatively easy access to social benefits, etc.

"There is no clear vision to where my country is heading. We want to progress, but we also want to live like good Muslims did 1,400 years ago. We want to change, but we believe that change is the road to hell. We want the people to have a role in leading the country, but we don't want democracy. We want to have dialogue with the West, but our preachers are preaching that all Westerners or non-Muslims go to hell."

The rise of Hamas has seemingly dragged the Middle East peace process back to the point where it began roughly 15 years ago. Hamas does not accept the existence of Israel, nor is it willing to disarm or renounce violence. Until it does, a peace agreement will not be possible. The best that can be hoped for in the interim is a suspension of hostilities. This would enable each side to catch its breath.