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+{"text":"# HARVEST THE WIND\n\n_America's Journey to Jobs,  \nEnergy Independence,  \nand Climate Stability_\n\nPHILIP WARBURG\n\nBEACON PRESS, BOSTON\nCONTENTS\n\nIntroduction\n\nCHAPTER ONE _Cloud County Revival_\n\nCHAPTER TWO _Early Adopters_\n\nCHAPTER THREE _Rust Belt Renewables_\n\nCHAPTER FOUR _The Chinese Are Coming_\n\nCHAPTER FIVE _Working the Wind_\n\nCHAPTER SIX _The Path to Cleaner Energy_\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN _Birds and Bats_\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT _The Neighbors_\n\nCHAPTER NINE _Greening the Grid_\n\nEPILOGUE\n\nTables\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nNotes\n\nSelected Bibliography\n\nIndex\nIntroduction\n\nTHIS BOOK IS BORN OF HOPE and frustration. I was an idealistic teenager when millions of Americans gathered for the first Earth Day in April 1970. At public rallies, on college campuses, and in high schools like mine, people demanded an honest reckoning with how we were destroying our environment. It was a time of tumult, a time of questioning.\n\nThen came the Arab oil embargo in 1973, which created panic at the gas pumps and set Washington abuzz with debate about the need to wean America off foreign oil. After college, I joined the energy staff of Senator Charles \"Chuck\" Percy of Illinois, a former corporate CEO and a Republican who took a pragmatic, bipartisan approach to promoting energy conservation and fossil fuel alternatives. President Jimmy Carter was a willing ally, laying out an energy program aimed at providing 20 percent of America's energy needs from solar, wind, and other renewable resources by the year 2000. As far-fetched as that goal seemed at the time, Congress got behind a number of measures to support investments in renewable energy projects, including wind farms.\n\nMy own, as well as the nation's, hopes for a clean energy future were dashed in 1981, when Ronald Reagan took office and immediately set about dismantling the Carter blueprint. Federal funding for renewable energy was slashed as the new president gave preferential treatment to coal, gas, oil, and nuclear development. Wind energy had begun to take hold in California, but new projects came to a near-halt by the mid-1980s\u2014about the time that Reagan symbolized his disdain for renewable energy by having Carter-era solar panels ripped off the White House roof.\n\nThe global momentum behind wind power shifted to Europe during the 1990s, with Denmark, Germany, and Spain leading the way. That decade was also a period when climate change moved out of scholarly publications and into the public arena. It was fast becoming clear that curbing our dependence on fossil fuels was an environmental and humanitarian imperative, not just a matter of national security.\n\nAfter working on environmental and human rights issues in the Middle East for many years, I returned to my native New England in 2003 to serve as president of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group concerned with energy policy and climate change. From that new vantage point, I was struck by how little progress America had made toward Jimmy Carter's long-forgotten renewable energy target. Wind energy that year accounted for a tenth of a percent of America's power generation, and solar energy even less. Though George W. Bush had supported wind energy as the governor of his home state of Texas, as president he sent an unambiguous signal to the nation and the world: America was unwilling to lead, or even be part of, a serious global effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions.\n\nStymied by inaction in Washington, my colleagues and I pushed for saner energy policies and practices in New England. While we helped launch the nation's first multistate effort to curb carbon emissions via a \"cap-and-trade\" regime called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, we had a much tougher time moving renewable energy forward on a scale that would make a difference. In advocating for America's first offshore wind farm, Cape Wind, to be built near the Massachusetts coast, we found ourselves at loggerheads with an extremely well-funded opposition group that was determined to block any encroachment on their backers' ocean views. What made matters worse, Senator Ted Kennedy\u2014long a champion of renewable energy\u2014had come out against Cape Wind because it was to be sited about five miles from his family's Hyannis Port vacation compound. If the likes of Senator Kennedy were so unwilling to look beyond their own backyard interests, I wondered how and where America could make wind energy happen.\n\nIn 2009, I set out to explore this question. My journey began on the Kansas prairie, in half-forgotten Cloud County, where old-timers have long watched their children and grandchildren leave family farms and ranches in search of more lucrative and perhaps less arduous work elsewhere. A large commercial wind farm went into operation there in December 2008, its giant turbines generating enough electricity for 55,000 Kansas and Missouri households. To understand what wind power has brought to this struggling corner of rural America, I spent time getting to know the landowners who have rented out sections of their fields and pastures, the educators who have reshaped the local community college as a training center for wind energy technicians, and the developers who worked with community partners to move the Meridian Way Wind Farm from concept to completion.\n\nI also traveled to Rust Belt towns of the Midwest, where I learned about the thousands of new jobs that the wind industry has created for young and old alike, in retooled factories that once made car parts, printing presses, and construction cranes. And at wind farm sites across the heartland, truckers and construction crews expressed their excitement at being part of an emerging industry with a promising future, and newly trained technicians described the rigors of working atop 300-foot towers in hundred-degree heat and subzero cold.\n\nWind is not just a new presence on the American working landscape. It is also an expanding force in the global marketplace. To gain a better grasp of wind's broader market dynamics, I traveled to Denmark, which is proud to be producing one fifth of its power from wind. This small Scandinavian nation is also home to the world's top-ranked turbine supplier, Vestas Wind Systems, which made the machines that now spin out Cloud County's wind power. My next stop was China, vast and ambitious, outstripping all other nations in its wind energy use. Not surprisingly, the Asian giant is also emerging as a major rival to Europe and the United States in its wind energy manufacturing.\n\nToday, America gets about 3 percent of its electricity from wind\u2014hardly enough to get excited about. Yet, in raw terms, our wind energy resource\u2014like our solar potential\u2014vastly outstrips our current and future power needs. The U.S. Department of Energy conservatively predicts that, by 2030, wind energy could provide 20 percent of America's electricity. Other experts see wind generating more than half our nation's electricity by mid-century, so long as we invest in new transmission lines that will open up some of the remote areas where our wind resources are greatest, and so long as we develop a \"smart grid\" that can match the variable flow of wind-generated power to consumers' needs.\n\nLike any other energy technology, wind power has its downsides. Birds and bats may be killed by turbines, and the habitats of closely watched species like the sage grouse, the prairie chicken, and the Indiana bat may be at risk in some areas. Wind farms also can pose problems for people living nearby. Some object to the visual presence of towering turbines; others complain about the noise. At places as far-flung as Vermont's Taconic Mountains and the Flint Hills of Kansas, the tensions surrounding wind energy have caused bitter and lasting divisions among neighbors and former friends. Wind power's future success depends on our addressing these issues responsibly.\n\nAs I made my way across vast stretches of a country that I previously only knew through books and the media, I often thought of the advice that Franklin D. Roosevelt gave to a headstrong Wall Street banker who had just resigned from his Brain Trust, disillusioned with the New Deal's spending and monetary policies. \"Please get yourself an obviously secondhand Ford car,\" the president counseled. \"[P]ut on your oldest clothes and start west for the Pacific Coast, undertaking beforehand not to speak on the entire trip with any banker or business executive (except gas station owners), and to put up at no hotel where you have to pay more than $1.50 a night.\" The banker\u2014my father\u2014apparently felt no need to follow FDR's advice. I think he missed out on a lot.\n\nAlthough the motels where I stayed charged considerably more than $1.50 a night, the cross section of Americans whom I met\u2014farmers, ranchers, factory workers, shop owners, truckers, crane operators, and more\u2014deepened my appreciation and respect for the people who inhabit so much of this land. I also came to understand much more fully the ways that America's push toward renewable energy has changed people's lives for the better. Tens of thousands of Americans have found new jobs in the factory and field. Thousands of others have seen their flagging farm incomes boosted by generous, multi-year lease payments from wind developers.\n\nYet these people see more in our nation's wind energy investment than a pay stub or a rent check. The devastating consequences of climate change may still seem remote, but the people involved in our wind energy sector are fiercely proud of their role in advancing the nation's quest for energy independence. Too many of their family members, friends, and neighbors have been sent overseas to fight wars that they see, at least in part, as a struggle for control over waning energy resources. Too many loved ones have come back from those wars defeated in spirit, physically maimed, or in body bags. Too much taxpayer money has been spent fighting distant wars with no clear purpose\u2014funds that would have been far better spent creating jobs and new industries here at home.\n\nInvesting in wind energy will not bring an end to Middle East strife, but it _can_ begin to wean our nation off the fossil and nuclear fuels that we have come to associate far too closely with American prosperity. Now is the time to reshape our energy economy. With wind, we can tap an inexhaustible domestic energy resource while showing that America finally is willing to join\u2014and even lead\u2014the battle for climate stability.\n\nTurbine basics: The Vestas V90 3-megawatt turbines shown here are part of the Meridian Way Wind Farm in Cloud County, Kansas. At a well-sited wind farm, 1 megawatt of installed capacity produces enough electricity for roughly 270 average U.S. households. Graphic by Jason Fairchild of the Truesdale Group\/Recycled Paper Printing Inc.; photo by Philip Warburg.\n\n## CHAPTER ONE\n\n## Cloud County Revival\n\nWHEN THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE commemorated a century and a half of Kansas statehood, those familiar with the state found it easy to fathom the stamp's chosen graphic: an array of windmills against a backdrop of broad blue sky. Even the state's name is drawn from the wind, or more precisely from an Indian tribe that honored the winds sweeping up into the region from the Gulf of Mexico. They were called _Kansa_ , or \"people of the South Wind.\"\n\nThe wind is at times a frighteningly destructive force in Kansas life. Killer tornadoes have leveled entire towns and have made tornado chasing a precarious summer sport for daredevils seeking grim moments of media attention. Yet it also offers a vast and largely untapped source of clean, renewable energy. According to a recent government survey, Kansas could install sufficient wind power to supply almost 90 percent of America's total present-day power consumption. Wind energy investments in the Sunflower State today have barely scratched the surface of that vast potential. About 7 percent of the state's electricity came from wind in 2010, with coal providing most of the remainder.\n\nThe story of putting the wind to good use could be told with slight variations throughout the Midwest and Great Plains states. As far back as the 1850s, Kansans recognized its value as an economic resource. Water-pumping windmills sprouted alongside farmhouses and in cattle pastures, greatly easing the burdens of frontier homesteaders. Initially made of wood, these early machines were easily repaired by self-sufficient farmers and ranchers. By the turn of the twentieth century, steel began to edge out older wooden designs and the maintenance burden gradually shifted to full-time itinerant wind millers. Some wind machines bore whimsical names like Albion, Climax, Eclipse, and Eureka; others had mechanical monikers like the Axtell Ever-Oiled and the I. X. L. Steel. Manufacturers were scattered across the Midwest and Great Plains states, and dozens based their operations in Kansas.\n\nWater-pumping windmills were widely used in Kansas until the late 1940s, when the electric grid finally reached rural sections of the state. Even then, many farmers continued to rely on wind to draw water up out of the ground; their windmills were already in place and, with minor tinkering, offered a free source of power. The remains of these machines still dot the Kansas prairie today. I encountered many of them in my travels across the state: spindly steel-frame obelisks, some standing bladeless, others with a few ragged slices of metal groaning and rattling in the breeze.\n\nA second wave of windmills, or \"wind chargers,\" brought a thin stream of electric power to rural Kansas in the 1920s. Hooked up to a car battery, these crude machines with their two-blade wooden rotors generated just enough juice to let farmers run a radio\u2014a much-valued novelty at the time\u2014or a few light bulbs. Older Kansans recall how these devices brought the wider world into their lives by opening up the airwaves. Larger wind chargers were also marketed at the time, one of them luring housewives with the promise that with homegrown electricity running their appliances, ironing would become a pleasure and cleaning a joy, but their price\u2014in the hundreds of dollars\u2014was beyond the reach of most farm families. In any case, wired-in electricity to most parts of the state made household-scale wind power obsolete by the late 1940s.\n\nOver the next half-century, cheap electricity from large conventional power plants kept renewable energy at bay in Kansas, as through much of the nation. Kansas largely missed out on the turbulent years of commercial wind energy experimentation that swept through California in the 1970s and early 1980s. Only after the turn of the millennium did wind energy find new life in Kansas. Spurred on by a property tax exemption adopted in 1999 and further bolstered by federal tax credits for renewable energy-based power, smart developers grasped the wind's enormous untapped potential and began to exploit its commercial possibilities.\n\nThe state's first large commercial wind facility, the Gray County Wind Energy Center, went on-line in 2001. Its \"installed capacity\"\u2014the maximum amount of power it can generate at any moment\u2014is 112 megawatts, or 112 million watts. No power plant operates at full capacity on a continuous basis, however. This is especially true for wind farms, which depend on a power source that can vary from hour to hour, day to day, and season to season. The Gray County Wind Energy Center operates, on average, at about 41 percent of its installed capacity\u2014higher than most other wind farms. At that rate, it churns out enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 32,000 Kansas households.\n\nThe Gray County project may have been the first big wind farm in the Sunflower State, but others soon followed. One of them was the Meridian Way Wind Farm, sited on a gently rolling stretch of prairie in Cloud County, just about a hundred miles north of Wichita on Interstate 81. The sixty-seven giant turbines at Meridian Way were dramatic newcomers to a predominantly horizontal landscape. Today they are a transformative force in a community that has been in steady decline ever since mechanization overran the local farm economy decades ago.\n\nKurt Kocher is the fourth generation in his family to raise cattle and till the soil on the family homestead, about nine miles south of Cloud County's sleepy administrative seat, Concordia. He fears he may be the last. \"There are simpler ways of making a living than farming,\" he says, pointing to the trailer where his son Kenton\u2014a high school junior\u2014is sweeping out crop waste. \"He thinks it's forced servitude because it's spring break this week!\"\n\nWhether Kenton will carry on the family farming tradition is an open question. \"He doesn't know what he wants to do,\" his father grumbles as he adjusts the faded red baseball cap that never leaves his close-cropped, graying head. He knows his son will have plenty of company if he ends up leaving the farm. Over the past half-century, young people have streamed away from Cloud County and other rural communities like it. Some search for steadier work, others want less physically demanding jobs, while still others are fleeing the isolation and tedium of life on the farm. It's not that farming is on the wane. Overall acreage under the plough across Kansas has actually held steady for decades. Yet today, fewer hands are needed to prepare the fields and harvest the wheat, soybeans, sorghum, and sunflowers that have long been the area's staples.\n\nFarms may have gotten bigger, with fewer people tending them, but not much else has changed in Cloud County for a very long time. Not much, that is, until the U.S. subsidiary of a Portuguese electric utility targeted the county for wind development. Nine of Meridian Way's wind turbines now soar above the Kochers' cattle pastures and grain fields, bringing in rent for the placement of each turbine, additional rent for the land where a transformer station now stands, payments for access roads and power-line easements, and a royalty on every kilowatt generated by the project. Kurt didn't talk numbers, but I could surmise from what I knew about landowner compensation elsewhere that the Kochers' wind-generated income must be closing in on six digits.\n\nThe income stream from wind may or may not help keep Kenton Kocher and his younger brother, Tyler, on the family farm, but it certainly brightens Kurt's outlook on the future. Crops can fail, cattle prices can plummet, but the wind blows steadily across the Kansas prairie, and Meridian Way's developers have promised to tap it for at least a quarter-century to come.\n\nKurt is, above all else, a practical man. You can see it in the soil stains that are ground deeply into his jeans. And you can hear it in the unsentimental way he talks about his prized herd of 150 Red and Black Angus cattle. \"These won't be hamburger,\" he tells me as he chases four young calves out of a trailer, setting them out to pasture for the summer. By early fall, they will be sent to a commercial feedlot, and by early winter, the more \"efficient\" among them will be turned into prime cuts of beef little more than a year after their birth. \"They're not an endangered species,\" he assures me.\n\nKurt regards Meridian Way's wind turbines in the same unadorned, pragmatic way he thinks about his Angus cattle and his fleet of farm machinery. A slight smile emerges from beneath his graying goatee as we look out over a large pasture where a half-dozen turbines face due south into the wind. \"For our business, we like to know which way the wind is blowing if we're applying weed killer or something along those lines,\" he says. He thinks of the wind turbines as very large weathervanes. Each turbine takes up no more than half an acre of ground, so he is free to continue tending his fields and grazing his cattle below them.\n\nHelen Kocher, like her son, is little bothered by the turbines. Her eyesight may be dimmed by cataracts, but her hearing remains sharp enough to register the swishing sound of the turning blades, which she says is especially noticeable in the evening, when all else is quiet. It reminds her of waves brushing up against a ship\u2014an unfamiliar sound on the Kansas prairie, but one she has encountered on her travels over the years. \"I don't know if it's the speed of the wind or the direction, but you get some pretty big waves sometimes!\" Usually, though, she finds the sound just blends in with the sounds of working life on a bustling prairie farm. The steady flow of funds from the wind farm's developers makes it easier for the Kochers to put up with a few minor annoyances here and there.\n\nRay Mason is another landowner who has made an easy adjustment to wind energy's arrival in Cloud County. Now in his early sixties, Ray works part time managing the American Legion men's club in Concordia. It was about ten o'clock on a Thursday morning when I arrived at the Legion's club hall, a building clad with sky-blue aluminum siding just off West Sixth Street, the spine of Concordia's four-block downtown business district. Toward the back of a dimly lit barroom, acrid from years of accumulated tobacco smoke, a few older men in checkered shirts and blue jeans sat playing cards at a small table. They looked up briefly as I entered. Ray, who stood beside them, gave me a warm smile before offering me his firm farmer's handshake. He then led me around the bar to a game room, slightly better lit, where we pulled two chairs up to an empty poker table.\n\nBorn in Concordia, Ray grew up on a farm just east of town and worked as a farmer and rancher until a few years ago, when he decided he needed a rest. He first encountered Meridian Way's developers back in 2003, and it quickly became clear that about five hundred acres of the family's upland pasture were good prospects for wind turbines. When he was offered several dollars an acre for a five-year option to develop wind on the land, the whole project seemed so far-fetched that Ray doubted it would ever happen. He spoke with a few neighbors, though, and together, they agreed to get on board. Then they waited.\n\nA few years into the option period, Ray began to get itchy. Next time the \"wind boys\" came to town, he laid the bait. \"I've been waiting on you guys for so long,\" he told them. \"Hell, I'm just gonna sell that damn ground down there. I'm not gonna mess around any longer.\"\n\nHis ploy worked. \"One younger guy got out his map, and I showed him where I was. He folded the map and looked at me, and he said, 'Don't you sell that land to anybody unless you sell it to me!' So I knew right then that we was gonna get at least one turbine.\"\n\nIn fact, Ray ended up with five. \"I was probably as shocked as anybody,\" he told me. Of the five turbines slated for his property, two were on 120 acres of marginal grazing land that his father bought for only $25 an acre back in 1957. \"It was a rough old farm, you know, with rocks kinda close to the top of the ground and short grass, over-grazed.\" Ray shook his head, and his eyes welled with tears as he thought of how pleased his father would be if he knew that rugged patch of land would one day bring in $20,000 a year, most of it from wind. \"He wouldn't believe it,\" Ray sighed.\n\nCombining his per-turbine earnings with other payments for access roads, Ray's annual cash flow from the wind farm must be close to $50,000, a welcome subsidy that will eventually benefit his children and\u2014if the wind farm stays in service long enough\u2014his grandchildren. Ray's family is a strong advertisement for community continuity, defying the trends driving younger people out of Cloud County and into areas with richer job prospects. All of his children live in Concordia, where his son works in a local metal shop and one of his daughters is a registered nurse.\n\nWhile he can't force his children or grandchildren to work the land, Ray is doing what he can to keep them tied to the family homestead, as landlords if not as farmers. \"I seen my folks work for that sucker pretty hard. I worked pretty hard too, so I don't want someone to just piss it away.\" He recently created a trust to maintain his family's ties to the land, at least for another generation or two. \"I got it set up so they can never mortgage the land or sell it,\" he says. \"So it'll pass on to my kids, and then to my grandkids. Then I quit.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Ray is happy to have the extra income that the wind farm is sending his way. \"Two months from now, I'll be sixty-two, and it fits in good to my retirement, y'know.\"\n\nThe man responsible for lining up the land deals for Meridian Way was Jim Roberts. An Oklahoma native, Jim was first dispatched to Cloud County in the spring of 2003 by Selim Zilkha and his son Michael, co-owners of Zilkha Renewable Energy in Houston. The Zilkhas had already proven themselves as highly successful energy entrepreneurs. When they sold their oil and gas holdings in the Gulf of Mexico for a billion dollars in 1998, the acreage they held reportedly surpassed all other prospectors operating on the Gulf's continental shelf. Their smart use of 3-D seismic data had yielded a drilling strike rate that was double the industry average. And now the Zilkhas were looking to get into wind.\n\nBefore joining up with the Zilkhas in 2001, Jim had worked for many years in the oil and gas industry. There he honed the diverse and subtle deal-making skills that are essential to negotiating leases for energy projects. His wife and family live in Edmond, Oklahoma, but Jim spends much of his time on the road. As soon as the land needs for one project are nailed down, he's on to the next, living out of motel rooms and trailers and eating most of his meals far from the family dinner table. He loves his job, though, and is happy to be promoting an alternative to the fossil fuels that he helped suck out of the ground for so many years. \"I believe in the need for clean, renewable energy,\" he told me as he began to recount his role in moving the Meridian Way Wind Farm from dream to reality. \"I'm very proud about my work in this industry.\"\n\nThe first wind project that Jim lined up for Zilkha Renewable Energy was the Blue Canyon project, now the largest in his home state. The company then sent him to scope out prospects for a wind farm in the Flint Hills of Kansas. To Jim and other wind developers, the Flint Hills were alluring. Located in the eastern part of the state, they are relatively close to Kansas City and other population centers. Just as important, winds in the Flint Hills are the strongest in the state. But Jim and his Zilkha colleagues were in for a beating. An alliance of ranchers and conservationists soon made it very clear that wind turbines were a bad match for one of the state's rare remaining expanses of untrammeled tallgrass prairie. Audubon of Kansas stood firmly against any wind farms in the area, and it was joined by state leaders of another leading conservation organization, the Nature Conservancy.\n\nJim's normally soft Oklahoma drawl took on a sharper edge when speaking about Flint Hills anti-wind organizers, whom he pegged as NIMBY, or \"not-in-my-backyard\" activists. One of those opponents was a professor of English at nearby Emporia State University, Jim Hoy. Professor Hoy is an expert in Great Plains folklore, with a special passion for the history of Flint Hills cowboys. When one wind supporter likened the proposed wind turbines to ballerinas, Hoy derided the idea of \"scores of 350-foot-tall ballerinas desecrating the native prairie grass that has covered the Flint Hills since the last Ice Age.\" In January 2004, as public pressures mounted to keep wind farms out of the area, Governor Kathleen Sebelius created a Wind and Prairie Task Force to try to resolve the controversy. While other wind developers put their project plans in neutral and waited for the task force's recommendations, the Zilkha team decided to look elsewhere for a community more welcoming to the company's ambitions. It didn't take long to find friendlier terrain about a hundred miles northwest of the Flint Hills.\n\nCloud County seemed like a great fit from the start. First, there were the southerly winds that the Kansa tribe had immortalized. Jim Roberts knew those winds would get an extra boost from the updraft off a long, south-facing ridgeline. He also knew that the area's higher elevation, about 1,600 feet above sea level, would give the winds yet a further push. Even before he set up equipment to do more precise measurements, it was clear that the area's climate and topography were in near-perfect alignment.\n\nThe land was favorable, too. Well over a century of continuous farming had transformed virtually all of Cloud County into a working landscape. Where the hills were too rugged for row crops, multiple generations of cattle had been set to graze. Greater prairie chickens\u2014grassland birds whose habitat has been decimated throughout most of the Midwest\u2014were still sighted occasionally, but Jim felt confident that measures to protect the breeding and roosting grounds for these birds could be developed.\n\nEvery bit as encouraging as the land and the winds were the people. The locals struck Jim as \"salt of the earth\"\u2014plainspoken and straightforward, with a no-nonsense agrarian pragmatism and a hands-off attitude toward government regulation. Unlike many other Kansas counties, Cloud County has no rural zoning, giving landowners a relatively free hand in deciding what to allow on their property. \"From the time we got there, we knew we were going to be accepted,\" he recalls.\n\nDespite his initial enthusiasm, Jim proceeded with the canniness and caution that are the stock of the land man's trade. \"Stealth\" is the word he uses to characterize his first steps in scoping out a possible wind farm site in the county. Having just retreated from the Flint Hills melee, he wanted to be sure he had core supporters among local landowners before going public with the project. He was also wary of competitors, one of whom had already put up a meteorological tower to collect more precise wind-quality data. \"We're not going to go in there with flags flying and whistles and alarms going off because it's a very competitive industry,\" he acknowledges.\n\nDescribing his next steps, Jim reveals no sources and names no names. \"We first made contact with a landowner,\" he tells me. \"We had strategically selected this person because of the land mass that this gentleman had, and we did some research and found he was kind of a ringleader.\" From that initial contact, the circles of consultation grew\u2014quietly and selectively. The landowner whom Jim had targeted for his opening gambit soon brought in just the catalyst Jim needed for the next stage: Kirk Lowell, a farmer-turned-business-booster who heads up CloudCorp, the county's economic development corporation. Kirk had already identified wind as a major economic growth prospect for the county, so he was more than willing to help out. A wind energy steering committee checked out Zilkha's credentials at Kirk's behest. When word came back that the company was legit, Jim knew it was time to reach out to other landowners.\n\nJim called a meeting for invited landowners only. He laid out a preliminary proposal for developing a wind farm on agricultural land about eight miles south of Concordia. In the first stage, he explained, participating property holders would be paid to give Zilkha a multi-year exclusive option to explore wind energy prospects on their land. If all went well, smaller parcels would later be leased for wind turbines, access roads, underground cables, and other infrastructure associated with the farm.\n\nJim teamed up with another Zilkha land agent. Working with a rapidly growing circle of landowners, the two of them assembled a huge swath of land for possible development: 22,000 acres in all. In six weeks' time, they had seventy landowners on board.\n\nThe Zilkha crew then geared up for the next stage of development: working their way through a dizzying array of studies and permit applications. Meteorological towers were erected to get a more accurate read on local wind patterns and climate conditions. The Federal Aviation Administration needed to sign off on the project, ensuring that the turbines would not endanger planes taking off and landing at Concordia's airstrip. The Department of Defense had to be satisfied that its radar installations in the area would continue to function unimpeded. The Federal Communications Commission was involved in protecting local radio airwaves.\n\nOn top of those issues, there was a lot of work to be done to protect the local environment. A joint project was launched with state conservation groups to set aside land for the mating and roosting of greater prairie chickens; protocols were prepared to protect the area's dung beetle population; and measures were developed to preserve low-lying wetlands in compliance with state and federal law.\n\nJim knew it was time to name the baby. A four-lane divided highway may seem an improbable inspiration for the naming of a forward-looking renewable energy project, but Interstate Highway 81 was exactly that. The highway runs right through the project area; its precursor was a dirt road that tracked just west of the Sixth Principal Meridian, the north-south map line used by government surveyors to lay out U.S. territories under the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. That old thoroughfare was a lifeline connecting Cloud County farmers and ranchers to southern markets in Salina, Wichita, and beyond\u2014much the same role that Highway 81 serves today. People called it Meridian Road.\n\n\"Meridian Way\" was the name Jim and his team gave to the wind farm. In crafting the project's logo, artists were asked to link the excitement and promise of twenty-first-century technology to the aura of this historic road. They came up with a simple green graphic showing a highway with a dotted median converging on two tall wind turbines in the distance.\n\nWith the project named and the permitting process well under way, most of the pieces were falling into place. Before the wind farm could be built, though, two major challenges remained: finding a guaranteed buyer for the wind farm's electricity and raising the capital to build it.\n\nThe day was fast approaching when Zilkha would have to put real money on the table to buy and install the turbines and other equipment needed to turn nature's gift into a marketable commodity. In the old days, farmers might spend a few dozen to a few hundred dollars to buy a windmill. Today's giant wind turbines are in a different league entirely. Meridian Way ended up costing the developers $340 million\u2014an average of $1.7 million per installed megawatt for the 201-megawatt wind farm.\n\nFacing that anticipated financial burden while carrying the costs of several other wind farms, the Zilkhas decided they needed deeper pockets to carry the company's mission forward. In March 2005, they sold a controlling interest in Zilkha Renewable Energy to the then-robust global investment banking house, Goldman Sachs, which changed the company's name to Horizon Wind Energy. Only two years later, Goldman flipped its investment, selling the company\u2014valued at $2.2 billion\u2014to Energias de Portugal (EDP), the leading electric utility in Portugal and a huge player in the Iberian peninsula's natural gas sector. EDP, in turn, assigned Horizon to its renewable energy division, headquartered in Madrid.\n\nWith the substantial backing of Goldman Sachs and then of EDP Renewables, Horizon was able to take the next crucial step in advancing the Meridian Way project: finding a long-term buyer for the wind farm's electricity. Converting wind energy to electricity was one thing\u2014that was Horizon's job. Carrying the electricity to the households and businesses that needed it was a whole different story. For that, Horizon needed buy-in from a utility, ideally one with transmission lines already in the area. Lining up a power purchase agreement is the final threshold that shifts a wind farm's developers from paper-pushing to earth-moving.\n\nThe quest for a power purchaser led to a surprise development. In the fall of 2007, just as Empire District Electric, a Missouri-based utility, declared its willingness to buy 105 megawatts of Meridian Way's power, a second prospective energy buyer emerged: Westar, the largest electricity distributor in Kansas. Jim Roberts jumped at the challenge, shifting into super-high speed to assemble a second land package that could double Meridian Way's output.\n\nOnce again, Jim needed a ringleader who could help him work with landowners to put together another large, contiguous land parcel. Kurt Kocher was his man. Kurt commanded the respect among his peers that was vital to Jim's success. \"He kind of became the trumpeter of our praises,\" Jim recalls. \"He farms and ranches responsibly. He's a hard worker. He's got a good operation. He's well-known. . . . You like to get those people in your project up front.\" Jim pauses. \"I'm kinda giving away a little of our strategy here, but it's a no-brainer for any wind company. You're going to try to get your best landowners first.\"\n\nWithin just a few months, Jim's alliances with Kurt and others landed Horizon just what it needed to bring Westar into the deal. Wind development rights on another 12,000 acres were now in the company's hands.\n\nBy December 2007, Horizon had all the important preliminaries in place: the wind, the permits, more than a hundred local landowners on board, and commitments from not one but two power purchasers. The company now geared up for the final phase of project development: building the wind farm itself. Horizon wanted the wind farm up and running by the end of 2008, which was essential if it was to tap a 30 percent federal production tax credit that was due to expire on December 31 of that year.\n\nEnter Carole Engelder, a highly skilled, no-nonsense project manager who exemplifies many of the workers who have recently joined this frontier industry. A former employee of Amoco, BP, and a chemical startup, Carole came with a quarter-century of experience overseeing engineering, logistics, and procurement for major projects in the more traditional oil and chemical sectors. She had no wind industry background before joining Horizon in 2007, and she was unmoved by any high-minded idealism about freeing America from the stranglehold of foreign oil or the ravages of climate change. In brisk conversation, she sums up the attraction that wind held for her: \"It's fast-paced, it's cutting-edge, it's new in this country. . . . The fact that it's wind, I have to admit, doesn't have anything to do with it.\" What drew Carole to wind was the adrenaline rush of moving a new industry forward.\n\nMoving this particular project forward meant getting sixty-seven wind turbines in place and hooked up to the grid by Christmas 2008. Given the sheer size of these behemoths, this was no small feat. Horizon chose to use three-megawatt turbines manufactured by Vestas Wind Systems, a Danish company that is well established as a world leader in wind energy technology. The Vestas V90 has a three-bladed rotor whose diameter is the length of a football field. Each tower, transported in four segments, is nearly 260 feet tall and weighs 344,000 pounds. It is topped by a hefty mechanical chamber, or nacelle, weighing 154,000 pounds and containing the turbine's gearbox, generator, transformer, and control systems. With blades spinning, the V90 reaches 410 feet in the air\u2014just about the height of a forty-story building.\n\nFitting together the many pieces of the Meridian Way puzzle in just ten months required what Carole describes as \"choreography.\" Like a stage manager scrambling before the curtain goes up, she and on-site project manager Alvin Cargill had to make many big decisions and a myriad of smaller ones. They needed to recruit a full complement of contractors and subcontractors, some three hundred workers in all, each with their specialized trade, all of them demanding careful sitewide coordination. They needed precise locations for every tower, transformer, and power distribution line. They needed a long list of crucial components delivered to each turbine site. Access roads were a challenge in themselves. Some had to be planned and surfaced from scratch. Many of Cloud County's existing roads had to be widened and reinforced with concrete to withstand the weight of the massive, specially engineered semitrailers with their giant cargo of towers, gearbox assemblies, blades, and transformers.\n\nThe work required not only precision but flexibility. If a weather report showed an approaching thunderstorm, the dozen people poised to lift a multi-ton turbine tower segment into place would have to set down tools and stand clear of their 300-foot-high crane. With no grounding, this machine is its own lightning rod. \"Perfect planning isn't about planning the perfect project,\" Carole tells me. \"It's about perfect contingency planning.\"\n\nWith so much happening in a few short months, disruptions to the daily routines of local farmers and ranchers were inevitable. Skilled at orchestrating the logistics of a complicated and fast-paced construction job, Carole was less patient in dealing with disgruntled neighbors. \"Gnats,\" she calls them.\n\n\"N-A-T-S?\" I echo, thinking this is a wind industry acronym.\n\n\" _G\u2013n\u2013a\u2013t\u2013s_ ,\" Carole spells out. \"Annoyances. Alvin takes care of them so I don't have to hear about it.\"\n\nOne of the \"gnats\" Jim Roberts and Alvin Cargill had to contend with was Bonnie Sporer, a landowner who signed up to allow wind towers on her property. Bonnie, a seasoned rancher in her eighties, is a canny businesswoman. She's a Daughter of the American Revolution, proud of it, and equally proud to be the descendant of a Civil War doctor who brought his family to Cloud County in a covered wagon shortly after the Union victory. Farming and crop management have run in Bonnie's family for generations. Her family has farmed rich bottomland in the Republican River valley, just north of Concordia, for as long as anyone can remember. She grew up on that farm and continued to manage it as an adult, together with other family members. She also spent many years working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, running the government's crop insurance program in Cloud County and points west\u2014the largest crop insurance program in Kansas, she boasts. She served, too, as the first woman on the county's Soil Conservation Board, and she made sure I knew it.\n\nBonnie began her relationship with the wind farm developers by driving a hard bargain with Jim Roberts and his land team back in 2003. \"They asked if I was interested in leasing some land,\" she says. \"I made them take all of it.\" That amounted to 1,800 acres of ranchland, for which the company paid her several dollars per acre for the option to tap the available wind. Once the wind farm's layout was finalized, she says she received close to $80,000 for an easement to accommodate underground electric cables, plus payments of over $16,000 a year for two wind turbines sited on her property. On top of that, she is paid rent for access roads to the turbines that have been erected on her land.\n\nJim won't discuss the specifics of Horizon's payments to Meridian Way landowners, though he allows that Bonnie can sometimes be a little loose with the details. \"One minute you'll be having a conversation with her, telling her that it looks like she'll have five wind turbines on her property. (He stresses that this is a hypothetical number.) A half-hour later, someone calls and says, 'We didn't know Bonnie was getting ten turbines!' \"\n\nI first encountered Bonnie when she strode into Meridian Way's field office on a warm afternoon in May 2009, on my second visit to Cloud County. She wore rubber boots up to the knee and left a boisterous border collie barking outside the door. Bursting with energy, she reeled off a long list of complaints with the way the construction process had unfolded. In one instance, a construction worker left one of her cattle gates open, she said, and her entire herd had wandered out before anyone noticed. Then those out-of-town greenhorns went racing around in their pickup trucks, trying to round up the creatures as they wandered off in all directions. \"That never works!\" she exclaimed, shaking her arms in the air for effect. \"It only panics the animals.\" One of the cows\u2014Number 41, she specifically recalls\u2014was never found.\n\nBonnie recalls sharing dreams with other family members that their unyielding ancestral terrain might surprise them in the future. \"We always laughed that someday we'd get lucky and hit oil or something.\" When Meridian Way's turbines started turning in December 2008, just ten short months after the first foundations were poured, Bonnie knew that, for all the aggravations, this was as close to a gusher as she was likely to see.\n\nLandowners, without a doubt, are the primary beneficiaries of Meridian Way, but there are other gains that reach the broader Cloud County community. During those intensive months of building the farm, about half of the 300 onsite workers were locals. If the farm doubles in size as planned, there will be similar opportunities for local workers, including truck drivers, metal welders, electricians, crane operators, and road construction crews. With all those workers hungry by noontime, local eateries and grocery stores can count on a substantial boost. In 2008, retail sales in Concordia\u2014and therefore local sales tax revenues\u2014jumped a full 24 percent.\n\nMeridian Way has also spawned a cutting-edge training program for wind energy technicians at Cloud County Community College. Bruce Graham, the program's creator and main driving force, has suddenly brought this little-known, two-year college into the limelight as one of the nation's leading pathways to a burgeoning, twenty-first-century industry. Raised on a Cloud County dairy farm, Bruce\u2014a former high school science teacher\u2014finds himself scrambling to keep pace with a program that, in just a few years, has grown from only four registered students to more than a hundred job-hungry enrollees. Until the recession hit, he had a hard time keeping students enrolled long enough to finish their two-year training before they got snapped up by wind developers. Even after the economic downturn cut the rate of new wind development by nearly half in 2010, Bruce still was able to place most of his students in entry-level jobs in the industry.\n\nAlong with teaching classes and hustling to raise funds for his program, Bruce finds himself in constant demand as a public lecturer. On an evening when I visited the program's makeshift classrooms in rented space at a Concordia shopping mall, he entertained a room full of aging, tattooed visitors from the Kansas-Nebraska Radio Club. A busload of Nebraska farmers had visited the school the previous week, wanting to know how they could bring wind energy technology and jobs to their own communities.\n\nBruce's wife, Michelle, is Meridian Way's administrative coordinator. Along with managing contracts and dealing with daily operational issues, she\u2014like her husband\u2014hosts a steady stream of curious wind farm visitors: church groups, schoolchildren, and more than the occasional journalist. Up on all the details, she fields questions deftly and conveys a contagious enthusiasm for the project.\n\nLooking at what Meridian Way means to the Cloud County economy, Kirk Lowell is every bit as bullish about wind as the Grahams. I met the Cloud County economic development director at Cloud-Corp's modest storefront headquarters, just a few doors away from Ray Mason's American Legion Post. As he ushered me into his office, it became obvious immediately that I was in the presence of a true believer. His polo shirt sported the Meridian Way logo. On his desk was a scale model of the Vestas V90, just like the turbines now operating at Meridian Way. And on his wall was a caricature of Grant Wood's _American Gothic_ farm couple, minus the pitchfork, with two tall wind turbines towering in the background.\n\nKirk knew that I was visiting from the East, and he wanted to make sure I understood the roll-up-your-sleeves spirit that pervades Cloud County. \"We have a very common-sense kind of people here. We know that we have to do something as a nation about our energy situation.\" He looked me straight in the eye. \"You can't just talk about it. It bothers people in the Midwest when you say, 'We need to do this, this, and this. _I'm_ not gonna do it, but we expect _you_ to do it.' \"\n\nThough he was too polite to mention it, I suspected that Kirk was alluding to the raging controversy back East over the long-stymied offshore Cape Wind project on Nantucket Sound. What happens to all those enlightened East Coast idealists, he must have been wondering, when tough choices have to be made about where to build new wind farms? His message was clear: \"Somebody has to step up to the plate and host these things.\"\n\nKirk's commitment to wind is rooted less in concern about climate change than in a weariness with wars fought over oil, thousands of miles away from the orderly calm of his home territory. His logic is elementary: \"Either we are going to have to put wind turbines _on_ our Kansas prairie or we're going to continue to put our fine young men and women _under_ it.\"\n\nCloud County is populated by more than the usual complement of hardened realists, but the county has its share of optimists as well. Wind energy alone may not be enough to reinvigorate Cloud County and places like it across rural America. That will take the concerted efforts of many people pulling together, reshaping and rebuilding their communities. There is no doubt, though, that Meridian Way has helped give this small slice of the American heartland a new pride of place and a belief in better things to come.\n\n## CHAPTER TWO\n\n## Early Adopters\n\nIT WAS HARDLY A SURPRISE that the giant wind machines at Meridian Way came from Denmark. Vestas Wind Systems has long been a wind energy technology leader, with a supply chain reaching back to America's first big wave of wind power development in the 1980s. Denmark has also distinguished itself as a global pioneer in generating its own electricity from wind. A fifth of the country's power today comes from wind, and plans are afoot to raise that contribution to as much as 80 percent of the country's power supply\u2014all part of a broader government plan to free Denmark from fossil fuels and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050.\n\nI traveled to Denmark to get a close look at wind turbine production. From Copenhagen I drove to the village of Lem, set on a flat stretch of farmland near the western rim of the Jutland peninsula. This is where Vestas got its start and where some of the company's manufacturing still takes place.\n\nLone Mortensen, director of people and culture in the Vestas blades division, met me at the entrance to a neat campus of white factory buildings. Appearing wholesome and informal in her slacks and Argyll sweater, Lone (pronounced \"LO-neh\") had recently returned from a two-year stint in Portland, Oregon, where she helped ramp up the company's North American communications. Despite both countries' refusal to sign on to any greenhouse gas reductions, the United States today ranks second only to China in both its annual installation of wind turbines and its cumulative wind power capacity (see tables 1 and 2). Responding to this market demand, Vestas has invested heavily in building new factories and assembly plants in those two countries. The massive scale of turbine equipment makes it important to keep transportation distances to a minimum. In addition to reducing costs, closer proximity cuts down on the greenhouse gas emissions associated with freight haulage\u2014something this environmentally attuned company monitors closely.\n\nLone's English is excellent, but she chooses her words slowly and carefully. She is wary of outsiders wanting to know details about the company's closely guarded manufacturing processes.\n\nAs we set out on our tour, Lone tells me about the company's founder, a blacksmith named H. S. Hansen who began making farm equipment in the village in 1898. Those early days are commemorated by a quaint outdoor cluster of iron figures depicting workers in the old Lem Forge, just a few blocks from the village center, with its handful of small shops sprinkled among modest red-brick homes.\n\nBy the end of World War II, H. S. Hansen's son Peder had taken over the business, naming it VEstjyskST\u00e5lteknik A\/S (fortuitously shortened to Vestas) and shifting the company's focus to the manufacture of farm trailers, ship engine intercoolers, and hydraulic cranes. In 1978, just when I migrated from college to Capitol Hill to promote renewable energy, Vestas built its first experimental wind turbines. After trying a few designs, the company's engineers decided on a three-blade turbine that went into production the following year. Eight years later, the company made wind energy systems its single focus, and it soon grew to be the world's top-ranked turbine manufacturer.\n\nIn 2004, Vestas acquired its prime Danish competitor, NEG Micon, and the consolidated company supplied 34 percent of the 8 gigawatts (8 billion watts) of new wind power capacity installed globally that year. Over the next six years, worldwide demand for wind turbines skyrocketed, reaching 40 gigawatts by 2010. Vestas remained number one in the trade, but its market share dropped to about 12 percent of all new installations. Still, the company brought in $9.2 billion in revenues that year and added nearly 3,000 people to its workforce\u2014healthy signs of strength coming out of the global recession.\n\nLone informs me that Vestas operates factories for blades, towers, and other wind turbine components at more than two dozen locations across Europe, Asia, and North America. Her job is to handle staff communications for the company's eight blade plants worldwide, fostering a sense of staff camaraderie across cultures and time zones from Colorado to China. Now and then, the company hosts planetary parties using satellite-beamed video-conference technology to connect workers celebrating at different plant locations around the world.\n\nRock music blares in the background as we step out onto the factory floor, our feet in company-issued red plastic clogs, our heads crowned by clean white hard hats, and our eyes shielded by safety glasses. This vast room, as brightly lit as the music is loud, is shaped like an enormous shoebox, nearly as long as a football field and about a third as wide. Lone first points to a machine that looks like an industrial-scale rotisserie. Workers clad in white protective clothing carefully feed long sheets of epoxy-saturated fiberglass around this squared-off steel mandrel, gradually expanding its girth. Layer upon layer of fiberglass is added, reinforced by wavy black veins of carbon fiber. Once heated, dried, and hardened, the resulting obelisk\u2014more than a hundred feet long\u2014will become the structural mainstay of a blade that is expected to withstand the forces of nature for two decades or more. In the trade, this structural spine is called the _spar_.\n\nLone directs me to the opposite end of the production room, where another team of workers is painting a protective sealant onto the inside surfaces of a giant double-mold that looks like an opened, elongated clamshell. Once the sealant has dried, epoxy-soaked fiberglass will be layered on each side of the mold, forming the shape of the blade's two halves. The bivalve will then be closed around the spar, an epoxy compound will be injected, and the parts will be fused into a completed blade.\n\nThe making of wind blades is a curious mix of high-tech engineering and traditional craftsmanship, demanding the sophistication and subtlety of aeronautic design along with the patient attention to detail found among builders of high-end yachts. When I ask how long it takes to produce a single blade, Lone is visibly uncomfortable. \"That's the type of information our competitors want to know,\" she explains. It's clear, though, that progress is measured in hours, even days. Producing 6,000 to 10,000 blades annually at plants around the world, the company's simultaneous demand for prodigious output and painstaking precision is daunting.\n\nA high-pitched, scratchy whine greets us on entering the factory's finishing department, where a team of masked workers uses handheld sanders to massage the creamy outer surfaces of each giant blade. Meticulously they shape the razorlike edges that will slice through the wind as efficiently and quietly as advanced aerodynamics allow. After all the surfaces are smoothed and painted, a tractor pulls each completed blade, mounted on a rubber-wheeled dolly, out into the factory yard. There a forklift gingerly stacks the blades, three and four high, in neatly ordered frames like bottled wine shelved in a vintner's cellar, waiting their turn to be shipped to customers.\n\nThough Danish innovators built a few dozen power-generating wind turbines in the early twentieth century, the seeds of Denmark's modern wind industry were planted by the 1973 oil crisis. Denmark at the time was more than 90 percent dependent on oil for its energy needs, and virtually all that oil was imported. To punish Western Europe and the United States for their support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War, Arab oil producers radically reduced the flow of oil to those countries, causing long gas station lines and tripling the price of oil. Denmark's political leaders recognized the need for decisive action, but initially the government focused more on fuel-switching than on energy efficiency or renewable energy development. The nation's first comprehensive energy plan, released in 1976, emphasized coal, natural gas, and nuclear power as the primary pathways to reduced dependence on foreign oil. In the years that followed, North Sea explorations yielded substantial supplies of oil and natural gas\u2014enough to make Denmark a substantial net exporter of both resources. No nuclear plants were built, however, and in 1985, responding to broad popular opposition, the Danish parliament officially banned their construction.\n\nThe same was not true for coal, which quickly gained a foothold as the primary fuel for the country's power plants. Like pre-embargo oil, nearly all of Denmark's coal was imported, but it came from a more reliable and diverse array of nations, including South Africa, Russia, Colombia, Australia, and the United States. Denmark's heavy reliance on coal continues to this day, despite an official ban on its use in new power plants as of 1997 and a commitment to phase out all coal-generated electricity by 2030. The pervasive reuse of waste heat from power production has substantially improved the overall efficiency of coal use in Denmark, with 60 percent of homes now kept warm during the long Scandinavian winters by a vast network of steam pipes running from the country's power plants. Nevertheless, the energy sector remains the main contributor to Denmark's greenhouse gas emissions, and within that sector, coal is the overwhelming culprit.\n\nWind grew more gradually to its current 20 percent share of Denmark's power supply. The same year that the government released its 1976 energy plan, Danish academicians produced their own, emphasizing the need for a major shift toward renewable energy. Two years later, a test lab and certification facility for wind turbines was established at Ris\u00f8 National Laboratory, and the year after that, the Danish parliament adopted a new law that gave a big boost to wind turbine ownership: wind power producers of any scale would be entitled to an up-front government grant amounting to 30 percent of the purchase price of the turbines, for all models approved by the Ris\u00f8 laboratory.\n\nMaking it easier to buy turbines was important, but two other steps were needed for wind energy to take hold. First, turbine owners had to be assured that the power generated by their wind machines would find its way onto Denmark's electric grid. With the government eager to encourage new wind projects, state-owned transmission companies agreed to cover 35 percent of the costs of connecting windmills to the grid. Second, turbine owners needed to be able to sell the power generated by their windmills at a reasonable profit. Here too, the major state-owned utilities settled on a formula that guaranteed wind power producers substantially more than utilities were paying for conventional coal-fired power.\n\nWith these incentives in place, tens of thousands of Danish land owners decided to enter the wind business. Some planted single, grid-connected turbines on their properties. Others joined local cooperatives, or _vindm\u00f8llelaugene_ , that pitched in together to build small arrays of turbines. Local ownership of wind power was seen as a virtue, by the landowners themselves as well as their political supporters in Copenhagen. When nonlocal speculators rushed in to take advantage of the public subsidies, the government restricted its grants to people living within 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of their windmills or in the same municipality.\n\nDenmark's utility leaders soon became nervous as they watched windmills sprout across the countryside. To protect their large, central-station power plants, they successfully lobbied for the removal of the investment grants to wind developers. In 1989, the grants were abolished, but wind investors continued to enjoy guaranteed rates for the electricity they generated. They also benefited from a refund of the tax on carbon emissions that the Danish government charged to conventional electricity providers. With post-tax rates of return ranging from 5 to 22 percent per year, wind energy remained an attractive investment, and the number of investors continued to grow. According to one account, 50,000 Danes held ownership stakes in windmills in 1991\u2014nearly 10 percent of the country's population. By 1999, 150,000 Danes were reported to be full or partial owners of wind turbines, and during that period, more than 80 percent of the country's wind turbine capacity was locally owned.\n\nAppealing though it was for Danish landowners to invest in wind power, government planners quickly recognized the importance of building an export market for the country's emerging wind turbine industry. In a country with a smaller population than Massachusetts and little more than twice its physical size, it was clear that wind turbine producers would need to reach buyers outside Denmark's borders if they were to thrive. In 1982, the Ministry of Industry commissioned a report that looked at America as the next Danish wind energy frontier. The report triggered an immediate response among the country's leading turbine companies. According to one historian, sales representatives from Vestas and three other Danish turbine manufacturers were on a plane to the United States within a few days of the report's release, eager to test out their prospects.\n\nCalifornia was the prime target for Danish wind companies. A volatile combination of idealistic fervor and entrepreneurial bravado had spawned a new generation of California wind developers who were eager to cash in on some remarkably enticing state and federal investment incentives. As in Denmark, the 1973 oil embargo had sent shockwaves across America. Drivers long accustomed to cheap and plentiful gas suddenly found themselves lining up for hours outside filling stations. \"Rationing,\" a term that hadn't crossed most Americans' lips since World War II, reentered the nation's vocabulary. And America's political leadership awakened to the folly of depending on imported oil to meet the nation's energy needs.\n\nRichard Nixon, beleaguered by ongoing investigations into the Watergate scandal, grabbed hold of the energy crisis as a defining moment in his waning political career. On January 23, 1974, he delivered a Special Message to the Congress on the Energy Crisis, in which he outlined a lengthy slate of measures to bolster U.S. energy self-reliance. Along with creating a provisional framework for gas rationing, he called for expanded surface mining of U.S. coal, new mineral leases on federal lands, expanded offshore oil and gas production, and the accelerated licensing and construction of nuclear power plants. Research and development into \"new\" technologies was another feature of his program, though \"solar electric power\" was the only renewable technology mentioned, as a prospect \"for the far term,\" at the end of a long list of more immediate priorities focusing on fossil and nuclear fuels.\n\nThe historic nature of Nixon's energy agenda was made perfectly clear in his State of the Union address a week later: \"In all of the 186 State of the Union messages delivered from this place,\" he said to the packed House chamber, \"this is the first in which the one priority, the first priority, is energy.\" Under the rubric \"Project Independence,\" he set a high bar for immediate progress in weaning America off of foreign oil: \"Let this be our national goal,\" he said, barely glancing up from his text, with signature sweat beading on his chin and upper lip. \"At the end of this decade, in the year 1980, the United States will not be dependent on any other country for the energy we need to provide our jobs, to heat our homes, and to keep our transportation moving.\"\n\nThat goal was far from met. In 1973, 28 percent of our oil came from abroad: 6.3 million barrels a day out of a total U.S. daily consumption of 17.3 million barrels. Today we use substantially more oil than we did at the time of the embargo (19.1 million barrels a day in 2010), and we import about _60_ percent of it.\n\nWhile the 1973 embargo and its aftershocks failed to lessen America's oil appetite over the long run, it did open the door to a new level of public and private commitment to renewable energy. In the early days of Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency, energy independence emerged as the dominant theme. Just two weeks after taking office in the winter of 1977, President Carter appeared before the U.S. public in a televised address that came to be known as the \"sweater speech.\" Bundled in a beige cardigan and sitting by a glowing White House fireplace, the president called for a major commitment to energy conservation. In terms more befitting a pastor than a U.S. president, he decried Americans' wasteful ways and exhorted the public to \"make modest sacrifices\" and \"live thriftily.\" He also signaled the need for new energy technologies like solar power, but that message was largely lost on American TV viewers, who came away feeling stunned by the president's call for a new age of austerity in which thermostats would be kept at a cool 65 degrees during the day and an even chillier 55 degrees at night.\n\nIn his second televised energy address in April 1977, Carter struck a more conventional pose behind his desk in the Oval Office, but again he adopted a sermonizing tone. \"Tonight,\" he opened, \"I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem unprecedented in our history.\" He went on to discuss the need to \"balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources,\" and he cautioned that his proposed policies would \"test the character of the American people\" and be \"the 'moral equivalent of war,' except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.\"\n\nJimmy Carter may not have won the hearts of the American public with his grim admonitions, but his administration's policies created a wholly new federal climate for advancing renewable energy. For Carter, as for Denmark's political leadership of the 1970s, coal was a big part of the solution to foreign oil dependence; he saw U.S. coal as \"our most abundant energy resource\" and advocated for its expanded use, along with the carefully supervised use of nuclear power. At the same time, he saw a real role for alternative energy resources including the sun, in which he invested major symbolic value. In 1977, he called for solar energy to be used in more than 2.5 million American homes, and two years later he led by example, installing solar water-heating panels on the White House roof.\n\nA further step that Carter took to advance solar energy was the creation of the Solar Energy Research Institute, a new national laboratory with Denis Hayes at its helm. Charismatic and articulate, Hayes had been the driving force behind the first Earth Day in 1970, and had more recently orchestrated the presidentially proclaimed Sun Day in May 1978. Hayes brought a broad definition of solar energy to the new national laboratory, including \"anything that uses sunlight within a few decades of the time it arrived at the surface of the planet.\" In his view, this included wind because of the sun's crucial role in creating the thermal gradients that draw air at different speeds and in different directions across the planet. As a practical matter, though, the research supported by his institute focused primarily on a narrower realm of solar thermal and solar electric technology.\n\nWhile solar energy received greater fanfare, Carter's policies brought enormous benefits to the wind industry as well. Most consequential was the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), which gave small-scale power producers a way to compete in a market that had, for decades, been monopolized by large public utilities. Wind farms and other renewable energy-based power plants were PURPA's primary targets, along with small \"cogeneration\" facilities that made use of the waste heat created from power production. Public utilities were obligated to buy the electricity generated by independent generators at a price that was \"just and reasonable\" to consumers and, at the same time, did not discriminate against this new breed of power providers.\n\nPURPA predictably triggered a backlash by a number of public utilities that were reluctant to open up their markets to competition. Some states also resented the federal government's encroachment onto turf traditionally dominated by their own public utility commissions. Two court challenges to PURPA's reach into state-held territory went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Court ruled in PURPA's favor in both cases. This cleared the way for a new generation of daring and often idealistic energy entrepreneurs.\n\nJust as PURPA guaranteed wind developers a market for their electricity, a powerful blend of tax incentives drew investors into the field. Under the Energy Tax Act of 1978, wind energy projects enjoyed a double benefit: they could claim a business investment tax credit of ten percent, and they were on a short list of special energy projects that qualified for a second ten-percent tax credit for capital outlays. Then, in 1980, the Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act increased the energy portion of the tax credit to 15 percent for solar, wind, and geothermal investments, bringing the total federal credit available to wind farmers to 25 percent. What's more, commercial wind farms\u2014like many other energy companies\u2014benefited from federal tax provisions that let them depreciate their equipment on an accelerated basis.\n\nIf Jimmy Carter was the stern preacher waging a righteous war for American energy independence, California governor Jerry Brown was the smart and savvy iconoclast, surrounding himself with creative people who were willing to challenge conventional thinking on everything from religion and social relationships to the environment. Thirty-six years old when he became governor for the first time in 1975, Brown later recalled his early days in office: \"This was the mid-1970s. It was the time of the Whole Earth Catalogue. I was dealing with people like Stewart Brand, Wendell Berry, Amory Lovins, Herman Kahn, and Dick Baker from the Zen Center. I mean, it was a hotbed of ideas. And there was a sense that we were on the threshold of a new politics. We were building something new. It was very exciting.\"\n\nAn eclectic and contradictory mix of community empowerment and space-age zeal inspired Jerry Brown's politics, leading a famously caustic newspaper columnist, Mike Royko, to brand him \"Governor Moonbeam.\" On one hand, Brown proposed that California launch its own communications satellite; on the other, he was an ardent proponent of backyard composters and rooftop solar panels. In the latter realm, he took particular inspiration from Amory Lovins, author of a widely read manifesto mapping out the social, economic, and political reasons to abandon our reliance on fossil fuels and centralized power generation.\n\nIn fact, Lovins's proposed paradigm for autonomous, community-based energy systems was much more radical than anything that Brown was able to advance as governor. Lovins was unequivocal in his condemnation of the status quo: \"Siting big energy systems pits central authority against local autonomy in an increasingly divisive and wasteful form of centrifugal politics,\" he wrote in his 1977 book _Soft Energy Paths_. \"In an electrical world, your lifeline comes not from an understandable neighborhood technology run by people you know who are at your own social level, but rather from an alien, remote, and perhaps humiliatingly uncontrollable technology run by a faraway, bureaucratized, technical elite who have probably never heard of you.\"\n\nSteps were certainly taken under Brown's leadership to help Californians recapture at least some of the power that they had drawn from distant, centralized generating plants for decades. A year after taking office, the governor turned to another energy mentor, Wilson Clark, and asked him to oversee the creation of California's Office of Appropriate Technology. Under Clark's guidance, this new agency sponsored demonstration projects and disseminated information on small-scale energy systems, along with other residential and community-based projects. The Brown administration also introduced hugely enticing tax incentives for residential renewable energy investments. Californians could claim 50 percent of the price of qualifying equipment as a personal income tax credit, up to a total of $3,000 per household.\n\nWhile thousands of homeowners used the residential tax credits to purchase rooftop solar water-heating panels, the state adopted a model for wind energy that strayed far from Lovins's idealized vision of grid-liberated local self-reliance. With new wind farms selling their power to big utilities like Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, the state's renewable energy marketplace would soon be drawn back into the \"centrifugal politics\" of big energy systems that Lovins railed so passionately against.\n\nVarious state agencies under Jerry Brown were instrumental in helping this process along. Surveys conducted by the California Energy Commission identified sites for 13,000 megawatts of wind capacity in the state; half of these were viewed as ripe for near-term commercial development. Particularly promising were a number of the mountain passes where cool air blowing in from the Pacific accelerated as it flowed into warmer inland regions. The Altamont Pass, east of the Bay Area, was one such area. Two others were the Tehachapi Pass, southeast of Bakersfield, and San Gorgonio Pass, near Palm Springs, both drawing swift and sustained air currents from the west into the Mojave Desert.\n\nAlong with charting the winds, California offered a 25 percent tax credit to commercial wind investors, and it gave tax-free bonding authority of up to $10 million to \"alternative energy\" projects. California Democratic congressman Pete Stark minced no words in decrying these subsidies. \"These aren't wind farms,\" he grumbled. \"They're tax farms.\" Added to the federal tax incentives, the state enticements were enough to create what many have likened to the Gold Rush that had swept the state more than a century earlier. Paul Gipe, an early publicist for the wind industry, estimated that California's wind developers raised $2 billion from as many as 50,000 individual investors during the boom years of the early 1980s.\n\nAs wind investment capital flooded the California market, a scrappy collection of small, undercapitalized companies hustled to get their largely untested wares into the field. In 1981, wind developers at Tehachapi Pass installed 150 windmills; the following year they installed another 1,200 turbines; and in 1984, they topped out at 4,732 new units. By 1985, a grand total of 12,553 windmills were in place at California's three biggest wind energy complexes, and by 1987, more than 17,000 windmills had been installed statewide. The turbines came from more than a dozen manufacturers and ranged in size from a few tens of kilowatts up to 330 kilowatts of installed capacity per machine.\n\nWhile federal and state subsidies supercharged the wind farm investment climate, the government did little to make sure that turbines entering the market could actually perform as intended. There was no official rating system for turbines, and federal research-and-development (R&D) funding for wind technology singled out megawatt-plus prototypes\u2014equivalent in scale to today's commercial turbines but several times larger than the machines that were entering the market in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Much of the federal research funding went through NASA, which regarded wind energy as a promising new focus for a flagging aerospace industry and awarded plum contracts to corporate giants such as Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Grumman Aerospace, Westinghouse, and General Electric (GE). According to one estimate, $350 million\u2014almost three-quarters of total U.S. R&D spending on wind between 1974 and 1992\u2014went to research on 1-, 2-, and 3-megawatt turbines, none of which made it to market.\n\nFledgling U.S. wind manufacturers learned their hard lessons in the field, experimenting wildly with a dizzying array of designs. Some had airplane-style propellers mounted on a horizontal shaft; others rotated around a vertical axis, their slender, convex metal blades resembling giant eggbeaters. One brand of turbine failed after only a few days of operation; it had been advertised as lasting a minimum of ten years. On other machines, gearboxes and generators failed, rotors spun out of control, blades cracked and collapsed, and towers buckled. In their rush to build windmills that could produce power on a commercial scale, some manufacturers simply relied on scaled-up versions of small residential wind generators; these often-flimsy machines were simply no match for the turbulent winds of California's mountain passes. As Dutch technology analyst Rinie van Est commented about this first generation of U.S. wind turbine manufacturers, \"they wanted to start dancing before they had learned to walk.\"\n\nIf U.S. turbines were inspired by the aerospace industry and its lofty ambitions, Danish manufacturers were tied to a tradition of rugged and enduring craftsmanship, firmly grounded in traditional agriculture and industry. American wind developers were ready to recognize the difference, with one of them pointedly observing that rockets and missiles, which played out their useful lives in no more than an hour, were a poor precedent for wind generators that needed to run reliably for years, if not decades. Just as Vestas could draw on decades of experience manufacturing farm trailers and cranes, another leading Danish company, Bonus, built irrigation systems, and a third, Nordtank, produced oil and water tanks.\n\nThe pragmatic spirit of these companies was reinforced by the Ris\u00f8 National Laboratory. Rather than focusing on speculative research into multi-megawatt prototypes, the lab devoted itself to testing and certifying much smaller market-ready designs. Its efforts converged with leading Danish manufacturers in favoring a single design that had demonstrated its reliability: a three-bladed rotor mounted on the upwind side of a supporting tower, with twin generators and a \"yawing\" system that mechanically adjusted the rotor to keep its blades facing into the wind. Experience gained operating turbines in Denmark strengthened the reputation of companies like Vestas as they pursued U.S. buyers. According to the Danish Wind Industry Association, some Vestas models had logged as many as 15,000 hours of operating time before being sold across the ocean. This compared very favorably to U.S. models, many of which found their way to California's wind farms after no more than 1,500 hours of operation.\n\nWith American turbines failing at an alarming rate in the early 1980s, the promise of greater reliability generated an American boom for Danish wind technology. In 1983, Danish turbines accounted for 11 percent of new installations in California; the following year they occupied 33 percent of the market, and by 1987, they had reached a staggering 90 percent of all new units. But even the relatively sturdy Danish machines had problems standing up to California's swift, blustery winds and dusty desert conditions, which placed much greater strain on turbines that had operated relatively well in Denmark's milder, steadier winds. Danish manufacturers were unfortunately slow to respond to these issues, in part due to a lack of timely information. Most California wind developers serviced their own equipment rather than relying on the original manufacturers, so company engineers back in Denmark had a hard time getting reliable feedback on issues as they arose.\n\nWhile the 1980s were turbulent times for Danish as well as U.S. wind turbine models, policy changes at the state and federal level played an even bigger role in breaking the frenetic pace of California's wind farm construction in the latter part of the decade. Since 1978, wind developers had benefited from a federal law that made it all but impossible to build new power plants primarily fueled by natural gas or petroleum. The Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978 barred the use of these fuels for most new electric generation, with the goal of stimulating an increased reliance on coal, nuclear, and, to a lesser extent, renewables\u2014energy sources that were seen as less vulnerable to the fuel shortages that plagued U.S. industry and American consumers in the 1970s. By 1986, expanded domestic gas exploration, together with reduced demand, caused a market surplus and a drop in gas prices that led Congress to lift restrictions on the fuel's use for power production. Opening up the power market to natural gas made it much harder for wind and other renewable energy technologies to compete.\n\nThe other big problem facing wind developers and turbine manufacturers alike was the demise of both the federal and California tax credits that had been crucial to attracting wind farm investors. In the fall of 1985, Congress, with the full backing of the White House, refused to extend the federal investment tax credits for wind and certain other renewable technologies beyond December 31 of that year. The following spring, President Ronald Reagan ordered the removal from the White House roof of the solar panels that Jimmy Carter had in stalled seven years earlier. One of these panels is now on exhibit at the Smithsonian, a bittersweet symbol of two presidents' very different visions of America's energy needs.\n\nRonald Reagan, even before taking office in January 1981, declared open war on Jimmy Carter's energy policies, which he linked to our \"disintegrating economy\" and decried as \"based on the sharing of scarcity.\" Digging out more coal, drilling for more oil and gas, and building new nuclear plants became the cornerstones of Reagan's energy vision; advancing renewable energy did not really fit with this plan. Once elected, he canceled the federal tax credits for renewable energy projects and slashed federal funding for renewable energy R&D. From a high of $718.5 million during Carter's last year in office, research dollars for renewable energy dropped to $110.8 million by the end of Reagan's two-term presidency. Wind's share of the R&D budget dropped from $77.5 million to $8.7 million during the same period. The political momentum behind wind in Washington was gone.\n\nIn Sacramento, Republican governor George Deukmejian took office in 1983 with as much esteem for Jerry Brown's energy policies as Reagan had for Carter's. Stories about wind investment deals providing \"welfare for the wealthy\" and news footage showing broken-down wind turbines littering the California hills couldn't have helped. But even without the damning media reports, a statewide budget crisis gave Deukmejian the political cover he needed. In 1986, he rolled back the investment tax credit for commercial wind projects from 25 to 15 percent. The following year, he eliminated it entirely.\n\nEven after the plug was pulled on the state and federal tax credits, wind farm developers continued to install new turbines, thanks largely to contracts that had already been signed for the long-term supply of wind power to California's two big utilities, Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. As these contractual obligations were met, however, new installations began a steep and steady decline. In 1985, nearly 400 megawatts of new wind power came on-line. In 1986, that number dropped to 275 megawatts; from there it plunged to 154 megawatts in 1987. New installations hit an all-time low in 1992, with new turbines adding up to just 19 megawatts of new capacity.\n\nAs new contracts for wind farms dried up, American and Danish turbine manufacturers alike fell into a deep slump. Their overreliance on a single market was taking its toll. Vestas had increased its workforce from 200 to 870 employees in 1982, largely to fulfill orders from a single large California wind developer. When the tax credits evaporated and petroleum prices plummeted in 1986, it was left with a huge inventory of turbines that it couldn't sell. That year Vestas and a Danish blade manufacturer declared bankruptcy. The next year Nordtank followed suit, and in 1988, four other Danish wind energy companies declared their insolvency. In the aftermath, a few firms, like Vestas, trimmed their staffs, reorganized, and survived; others disappeared.\n\nThe collapse of the California market could have driven Vestas out of the wind business. Instead, the company brought in new leadership and devoted itself to building new customer bases across Europe, Asia, the Pacific Rim, and other parts of the United States. In 1988, it won a bid to build six wind farms in India, financed by the Danish International Development Agency. A year later, it opened a subsidiary in Germany, and in the early 1990s, it expanded into new markets in Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. In 1994, a joint venture with a local turbine producer, Gamesa, brought Vestas to Spain.\n\nGermany and Spain proved to be great strategic bets for Vestas and other wind energy entrepreneurs in the 1990s. In Germany, a law enacted in 1991 obligated utilities to pay solar and wind generators a fixed \"feed-in\" tariff amounting to 90 percent of the average consumer price for power. Along with enjoying a guaranteed price for their electricity, wind developers benefited from low-interest loans as well as planning guidelines that made it easier to site new projects. These incentives led to a dramatic surge in German wind power, from only 31 megawatts in 1990 to more than 6,000 megawatts of installed capacity a decade later\u2014nearly a 19,000 percent increase! This made Germany number one in wind power generation worldwide.\n\nSpain experienced similarly dramatic growth during the 1990s. From only 4 megawatts installed as of 1990, the country boosted its wind power capacity to 2,836 megawatts by the year 2000, placing it second only to Germany. As in Germany, this dramatic growth was triggered by a tariff that guaranteed Spanish wind producers a highly favorable rate for their electricity. Producers were paid the market price for power plus a premium that, in 2000, amounted to three euro cents per kilowatt hour.\n\nDuring the 1990s, Denmark continued to ramp up its own use of wind, stimulated by a succession of pro-wind government plans as well as a feed-in tariff that guaranteed wind producers an above-market rate for their electricity. This was also the decade when Denmark opened up a vast new horizon for renewable energy development: offshore wind farms. In 1991 and 1995, two pilot projects tested out the technology, with results so encouraging that the government, in its 1996 energy plan, set a target of building 4,000 megawatts of offshore wind power by 2030. By the year 2000, Danish wind power\u2014still mainly on land\u2014totaled 2,291 megawatts, ranking it fourth in the world, just behind the United States, which reached 2,539 megawatts of installed capacity that year.\n\nThe last leg of my Vestas tour in Denmark took me to the company's global headquarters, an attractive modern building a short distance from the city of Aarhus. There I met Peter Wenzel Kruse, the company's communications chief. Short in stature with a wiry build, he spoke in staccato phrases about his company's global positioning. He sees Denmark as a showcase for wind power, and in that spirit he worked hard to land Vestas a high-profile spot at the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009. Visiting VIPs and reporters who attended the event could hardly miss the prominently labeled Vestas turbine that towered above the meeting's venue, a low-slung conference center on the outskirts of the capital city. Kruse said the exhibited turbine was \"a good gimmick,\" but he quickly added: \"We have no business in Denmark.\"\n\nDenmark may be ahead of all other nations in the _percentage_ of its power generated by wind. But in the _amount_ of electricity from wind, it barely earns a top-ten global ranking, lagging behind six other European nations plus India, the United States, and China (see tables 2 and 3). Even with the Danish government's plan to provide most of the country's power from wind, Kruse stresses that the local market for turbines will be minuscule relative to overall global demand. Denmark, after all, is a country with 5.5 million people in a world whose numbers already exceed 7 billion.\n\nAs one sure sign of the company's shift to global production and marketing, Vestas shut down four of its ten factories in Denmark in 2010, and laid off 2,000 Danish workers, bringing the company's total domestic labor force down to 5,600. The Lem blades plant survived, but layoffs hit that factory, too. In October of that year, Vestas CEO Ditlev Engel announced that the company would expand its U.S. workforce from 2,300 to 4,000 during 2011, filling slots in freshly built blade, tower, and nacelle factories in Colorado. By mid-2011, the company's American workforce had reached 3,100 and was expected to continue growing.\n\nIn all, wind turbine production has created about 20,000 new American factory jobs, and this number is expected to grow as turbine companies and their suppliers gear up to meet America's appetite for wind power. Wind power in America may have hit the doldrums following the California feeding frenzy of the 1980s, but its recent reemergence as a world wind energy leader has attracted vigorous competition among eager technology suppliers. Vestas is far from alone among foreign corporations that are seeking out U.S. buyers for their wind machines. Some of these businesses\u2014like Spain's Gamesa and India's Suzlon\u2014are hardly known outside the wind trade. Others are familiar global conglomerates like Siemens and Mitsubishi (see table 4). Whatever their corporate roots, most turbines sold in America are assembled on U.S. soil, with more than half of their components and subcomponents domestically made. Exploring this growing U.S. manufacturing base would be the next stop in my travels.\n\n## CHAPTER THREE\n\n## Rust Belt Renewables\n\nYOU DON'T HAVE TO BE an industrial giant to be a player in the American wind business. American Superconductor, a Massachusetts firm, markets and licenses state-of-the-art turbine designs to global manufacturers. In the Great Lakes region, about seventy firms are involved in manufacturing turbine components and subcomponents. One of them, just outside Cleveland, is a family-owned bolt-forging company called Cardinal Fastener. When Barack Obama made his pre-inaugural whistle-stop tour from Chicago to the nation's capital in January 2009, he made a point of visiting the Cardinal Fastener forge, where he talked up wind energy's importance in a spirited meeting with plant workers. In a video clip documenting the event, two muscle-bound workers firmly grip a yard-long piece of gunmetal-gray hardware. \"This is a 2\u00bc-inch heavy hex bolt,\" one of them says as he peers at the camera through his protective eyewear. \"Now it's called the 'Obama Bolt.' \"\n\nGeneral Electric supplies nearly half of America's wind turbines, but most of the equipment in its machines comes from smaller manufacturers scattered across the country and around the globe. Though GE has no real competition among U.S. turbine producers, one much smaller company, Clipper Wind, has worked valiantly to establish itself in the market. Clipper's road has been a rocky one, fraught with technology flaws and financial distress, but it has brought new jobs and new hope to hundreds of workers at its turbine assembly plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.\n\nSmall and sparsely populated, Iowa has captured a surprising number of new wind energy manufacturing jobs. Ranking thirtieth in the nation in population, the Hawkeye State has the fourth-largest workforce commitment to wind manufacturing, outflanked only by Texas, Illinois, and Colorado. When fully staffed, nine wind-dedicated factories scattered across cities and towns in southeastern Iowa will employ 2,300 workers. Some of these jobs are in foreign-owned workplaces like the blade factory that Siemens built in Fort Madison and the turbine assembly plant that Acciona, a Spanish company, now operates in West Branch. Others are in American-owned factories like the Trinity Structural Towers plant in Newton, Iowa, a major supplier of turbine towers to GE. Across a stretch of cornfields from the tower plant is a blade factory run by TPI Composites, a Rhode Island\u2013based firm. These two operations have filled at least part of the huge employment gap created when Maytag shut down its headquarters and appliance assembly plant in Newton in 2007. And then there are the many Iowa firms\u2014more than 200 of them\u2014that are part of a supply chain providing the 8,000 components and subcomponents that make up the modern-day wind turbine.\n\nClipper began assembling wind turbines in Cedar Rapids in 2006, and it has since brought approximately 350 jobs to a city that has seen one Rust Belt factory after another close down or move out of state. The company is a relatively small player, supplying 6 percent of the U.S. market in 2009 and only 1.4 percent in 2010, but it is emblematic of the hundreds of firms that are now contributing to the U.S. wind industry.\n\nWhen I traveled to Cedar Rapids in February 2010, Iowa's premier industrial city still looked badly beaten by the flood that had engulfed it two years earlier. The Cedar River's roiling waters had driven more than 8,000 people from their homes and had forced hundreds of city businesses to close, some forever. On my visit, I found entire streets of modest clapboard homes nailed shut, empty of life. If it weren't for the snow on the unshoveled sidewalks and pitched rooftops, this could have been post-Katrina New Orleans. A few doors down from the boarded-up Paramount Theatre, I read a spray-painted message on an abandoned store window: \"Bent, not broken.\"\n\nSited on the southern edge of the city, Clipper narrowly escaped the river's wrath. Veteran machinist Mark Meader told me the factory survived because it sits \"on the highlands,\" actually only a few feet above the waters that flooded out Clipper's nearest downhill neighbor, Casey's General Store. Just as Clipper managed to dodge the flood, Mark and his coworkers Mick Boots and Dave Wheatley have been spared the worst impacts of heavy industry's flight from Cedar Rapids. All three men, in their early sixties, were hired by Clipper within the past few years. They consider themselves lucky to have found jobs in their fields.\n\nWind energy may be a rapidly evolving twenty-first-century technology, but it has strong roots in heavy industry, in the kinds of trades that Mark, Mick, and Dave have plied for decades. All three worked many years at Goss Graphic Systems, manufacturing newspaper printing presses until that factory closed in 1999. Mark worked in the machine shop, Mick in assembly, and Dave in engineering. \"As a group, we were pretty much used to dealing with heavier, bigger, bulky items,\" Dave recalls. \"It's nice to see this kind of industry come back into the area.\"\n\nBob Loyd is the person responsible for bringing his former coworkers at Goss over to Clipper. He ran the assembly operations at Goss, and he's now the plant manager at Clipper. \"When we started off this plant, I literally picked up the phonebook and started calling people I knew,\" Bob recalls. \"I knew good mechanics and electricians, guys who know gears. If you think about a printing press, it's a big gearbox with hundreds of gears.\" He realized that wind turbine machinery isn't so different.\n\nAs he set about staffing the Clipper factory, Bob knew what he was looking for. He wanted a crew of seasoned industrial hands who could train a younger cohort coming from their first jobs or from courses in electronics, automobile mechanics, and engineering at Kirkwood Community College, just a mile or two up the road. Then, after five to ten years, the older guys could retire, having secured a next-generation workforce for this struggling Rust Belt city.\n\nBorn and raised in Wisconsin, Bob comes from a long line of mechanical and civil engineers. His great-grandfather had a bridge-building business; both grandfathers were engineers; and his father was the lead engineer at a company that built large diesel engines for U.S. Navy ships. College studies brought Bob to Iowa, where he started out at Iowa State and then transferred to the University of Iowa, earning an MBA and two engineering degrees. Despite his university credentials, he describes himself proudly as \"a wrench turner.\"\n\n\"We all have dirt under our fingernails,\" Bob tells me as he leans back from the piles of paper on his desk. His broad hands rest firmly on the molded plastic arms of his chair, and he smiles. \"I work on tractors, motorcycles, cars.\" His spartan office is just footsteps away from the vast factory floor, where workers assemble gearboxes, burnish cast-iron turbine hubs, and mount all manner of electronic equipment into the nacelles of Clipper's 2.5-megawatt Liberty turbine. The company is now developing larger machines for onshore and offshore wind farms, but the Liberty is Clipper's flagship.\n\nThe Liberty's Cedar Rapids birthplace, at 4601 Bowling Street SW, is a mammoth steel-frame shed whose history tracks the course of Iowa's rocky romance with heavy industry. It also holds important memories for Bob Loyd. The building opened in the mid-1960s, when Link-Belt Construction Equipment Company began manufacturing cranes and excavators at the site. Bob joined the company fresh out of college in 1973. By the mid-1980s, Link-Belt would be gone, bought out and moved south by a Japanese conglomerate, Sumitomo Heavy Industries. Bob later found himself back in the space as manager of the Goss printing press assembly plant. That company, too, did not last long in Cedar Rapids. Succumbing to fierce price wars with foreign competitors, Goss laid off hundreds of workers and eventually filed for bankruptcy.\n\nNext in was Maytag, which used the building as a warehouse for refrigerators. By 2006, Whirlpool had acquired the fading Maytag brand and soon announced that it would be shutting down the company's headquarters and most of its assembly operations in Iowa. About 1,800 local Maytag employees, from office workers to factory laborers, lost their jobs. Although some limited Whirlpool manufacturing remained in Iowa, there was no longer a need for warehousing at the Bowling Street facility.\n\nWhen Bob was hired by Clipper, he welcomed the chance to breathe some new life into the battle-scarred factory space that he knew so well, and he was even more excited to help a few hundred people find jobs once again in heavy industry in Iowa. With all the local factory closures, he knew plenty of people who had been forced out of the field. Dave Wheatley was one of them. A skilled mechanical engineer, Dave drove a FedEx truck, worked as a taxi driver, and built windows after the Goss debacle. Mark Meader found a job as a carpenter. Others migrated to food processing plants around town. Many of these dedicated industrial hands, Bob knew, would jump at the chance to return to building some real machines.\n\nFor Bob, Clipper's allure went further. He had worked for Rockwell and Raytheon, so he knew that \"heavy industry\" often involves a heavy dose of defense contracting. \"I wouldn't have been excited if we were making armaments for the military,\" he acknowledges. But when he talks about wind turbines and renewable energy, his voice becomes animated and his face brightens. \"This is a product the country needs . . . and it's a great thing for the state. It helps the farmers, and it helps kids get good jobs.\"\n\nNow nearing sixty, Bob has poured heart and soul into bringing youth and a hopeful future to the Clipper factory on Bowling Street. With obvious pride, he introduces me to four of the company's younger crew members. After seating us around a white laminate lunch table in the staff lounge, just off the factory supply room, he goes back out onto the factory floor, leaving us to talk. It's 3:30 in the afternoon and the room echoes with the pounding of the punch clock a few feet away. First-shift workers, mostly in their twenties and thirties, are streaming out of the building, and the second shift is coming in.\n\nMatt Lalley is one of Bob's next-generation hires. Boyish-looking and a little shy, he tells me about his work as second-in-command in the electrical department, where he troubleshoots issues that come up in the assembly of generators and turbine control systems. His work as a car mechanic helped prepare him for the job, and what he didn't learn in the car repair shop, he has picked up on the factory floor.\n\nJoel Peyton, twenty-seven, talks excitedly about his work as lead technician in the Remote Monitoring and Diagnostic Center, which tracks the performance of hundreds of Clipper turbines at wind farms stretching across the continent. He came to Clipper fresh out of college, where he studied management after training to be an electrician. Every day, he commutes forty miles each way from a farm where he and his father grow corn and beans. \"It's our hobby,\" he says of the farming, adding that his father's real job is in Clipper's gearbox assembly division. A concrete worker for many years, he followed his son to the company just a few months after Joel came on board in October 2006.\n\nMatt chimes in that _his_ dad works alongside Joel's dad in gearbox assembly. Then Mary Tiedeman tells me that she has an uncle and a cousin who work in the plant. Mary, also very young, is one of the few women I have seen. Trained in child care and family services, she works as a receptionist.\n\n\"For the record, my dad _doesn't_ work here!\" the fourth in our gathering pipes up. Everyone around the table breaks into laughter. Tyler Glass, a twenty-one-year-old fix-it guy and 3-D computer designer, has just finished his training in mechanical engineering at Kirkwood Community College. Cherubic and animated, Tyler verges on euphoria when he talks about his job. \"I love it\u2014I love coming to work every day. It might sound cheesy, but I wouldn't say I'm here just to get a paycheck,\" he says. \"I truly do believe in what we are doing.\"\n\nBob leads me through the gearbox assembly bay to a production zone where workers are busy installing electronic, mechanical, and hydraulic controls into Liberty nacelles. His people skills are obvious. Everyone gets a jovial, first-name greeting, followed by a question that shows Bob's awareness of exactly what that person is contributing to the Clipper effort.\n\nThe Clipper day begins at 7 a.m. with a shiftwide calisthenics class. In addition to staying fit, Bob wants people to feel part of the team. Some days he leads the exercises, but often he recruits others. \"We always pick on somebody,\" he explains in a gentle tone that makes it clear this is an act of inclusion, not punishment.\n\nReflecting more broadly on workplace morale, Bob describes a quick-turnaround electronic suggestion box that invites workers to air their concerns. He calls it \"VOICE,\" which is much easier to swallow than \"Valued Operational Improvement for Clipper Excellence.\" Each month, the worker with the best idea gets a gift certificate.\n\nOperational and design improvements are the name of the game for a small turbine company that is fighting its way into a market dominated by global giants like GE and Vestas. Technology glitches can be devastatingly costly, as the Clipper management team has learned in its bumpy start-up years. Joel Peyton is on the front lines in spotting problems as they pop up on the big-screen computer monitors that line the walls of the Remote Diagnostic and Monitoring Center, a crowded cluster of small rooms just around the corner from Clipper's staff lounge. We enter the center through a door prominently marked \"Tornado Safe.\" In the stormy Midwest, I imagine this is no joke.\n\nFor every Clipper turbine across the continent, dozens of parameters are transmitted on a real-time basis to the center's computer data bank. Joel leans down, types in a few codes, and opens a window that displays data about the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Benton County, Indiana. Ambient and equipment temperature, wind and rotor speed, generator revolutions per minute (RPM), power output, and much more are monitored in real time for each of the forty Clipper turbines operating at this site.\n\nA lot can go wrong when accelerating the rotational speed of a Liberty turbine from the top hub speed, 15.5 RPM, to the maximum generator speed of 1,133 RPM. Lubricating oil needs to be warm enough to flow to the spinning gears\u2014a challenge in the super-cold weather that strikes many of America's premier wind sites. Pre-heating the oil is essential. \"We don't want to push very thick oil through small holes,\" Joel explains. Without proper lubrication, bearings and gearboxes can overheat, causing a red icon to flash on the computer monitor and triggering an immediate shutdown.\n\nWorker safety is another factor carefully watched by Clipper's thirteen-member remote monitoring and diagnostic team. Joel switches to a screen showing a satellite map of the continental United States and beyond. Two circles surround every Clipper-equipped wind farm, a red one at a thirty-mile radius and a yellow one at fifty miles. Looking at the Bahamas, I point to brightly colored splotches on the screen, which Joel explains are lightning storms. \"In the summertime, we can get pretty busy with lightning alerts,\" he says. \"When technicians are busy up-tower, we want to give them a pre-warning so nobody gets hurt.\"\n\nThe Remote Monitoring and Diagnostic Center can make system-wide changes, where needed, to improve turbine operations. \"We can adjust parameters here on 400 turbines and make sure it's done correctly,\" Joel explains. \"Less human error, I guess you could say.\"\n\nEven with this fine-tuning in the field, quality control poses a particular challenge for Clipper, as it does for several other turbine companies that purchase most of the components and subcomponents in their machines from outside vendors rather than manufacturing them in-house. Unlike Vestas, which produces much of its own hardware, almost everything that goes into a Clipper turbine is brought in from outside. Its generators come from Mexico. Castings for gears and hubs are supplied by vendors in the United States, Germany, Brazil, and Spain. Main shafts connecting turbine rotors to generators are forged in the United States and Slovenia. Blades are made by the same Brazilian firm that produces blades for GE's turbines. And towers come from as close as Chattanooga, Tennessee, and as far away as China. In all, Clipper relies on 120 outside suppliers for its turbine components and subcomponents.\n\nWith parts coming from so many sources, maintaining uniformly high production standards demands constant vigilance. The steel used in gears, shafts, and bearings must be extremely durable to withstand the rigors of operating a machine that is in nearly perpetual motion, out in the elements, from one season to the next, year after year. Blades must be strong enough structurally and yet sufficiently flexible to accommodate widely varying wind conditions, and their surfaces have to withstand every kind of weather, from sub-zero cold to searing heat. And all moving parts must conform to very precise dimensional tolerances, ensuring their own internal integrity as well as their compatibility with components coming from other vendors.\n\nTo manage the global supply chain, Clipper has a full crew of quality-control technicians who inspect vendor factories across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Quality-control experts are also on-site in Cedar Rapids, monitoring equipment as it arrives at the Bowling Street plant and testing key components on carefully calibrated machines. On our walk through the plant, Bob Loyd shows me a sound-insulated chamber, at the end of one long assembly bay, where every gearbox is run at up to 130 percent of maximum load under a variety of simulated wind conditions over a four-hour period. He likens this regimen to Detroit's factory testing of automobile drivetrains: both verify good mechanical performance but do not really mimic the stresses placed on equipment over many years of real-world operations.\n\nFor all its vigilance, Clipper encountered some serious defects in its Liberty turbine, starting in 2007. That year, the company reported a \"supplier quality deficiency\" that compromised the Liberty's drivetrain and gearboxes. Later the company divulged that more than a third of the turbines produced in 2006 and 2007 required drivetrain repairs. Defective blades added to Clipper's woes, requiring the blades on about 260 rotors to be reinforced. Most of these rotors had already been delivered to widely scattered wind farms, making repairs much more difficult and expensive. The combined price tag for repairs topped $107 million by the end of 2007.\n\nCracked blades and other defects continued to plague the company in the years that followed. Repair costs escalated to $222 million in 2008, and it took until early 2010 to repair all the damaged blades.\n\nClipper did what it could to minimize the costs of repairing its turbines in the field. Initially, to take down or put up a blade, Clipper repair crews would use a huge crane that had to be hauled to each site on fifteen to eighteen semitrailers. This cost the company a profit-killing $200,000 per job, or twice the price of the blade itself. But then the company's engineers came up with a new way to swap blades, using a technique that required only a few specialized tools and a cherry picker like the ones that phone company line crews use for repairs. The cost: $15,000 plus a few hours' labor. Similar savings were achieved by using the Clipper's built-in hoist, rather than a rented crane, to switch out faulty gearbox components.\n\nDespite its attempts to streamline repairs, the burden of so much unscheduled maintenance took a severe toll on Clipper's balance sheet. Then the financial crisis hit, causing wind farm developers to slow their implementation of existing projects and freeze the development of many future ones. By September 2009, Clipper's cash reserves had dropped to a precarious $40 million. The company was in need of a bailout, and United Technologies Corporation came to the rescue.\n\nUnder the deal with UTC, Clipper initially surrendered 49.5 percent ownership to the Connecticut engineering giant in exchange for a pledge of a quarter-of-a-billion dollars. Ultimately, as Clipper's financial condition worsened, UTC ended up buying the company's remaining shares for $112 million in the fall of 2010.\n\nIn taking on this relatively small, ailing enterprise, UTC's leadership saw a bigger strategic opportunity. Ari Bousbib, executive vice president and president of commercial companies at UTC, looked enthusiastically at the global market trends for the $50 billion wind industry. He commented to the press: \"Other than maybe elevators in China, I don't know many industries that have grown at 25 percent a year.\"\n\nWhile acknowledging that his company urgently needed an outside infusion of capital, Clipper's chief commercial officer Bob Gates sees the UTC buy-in as much more than a financial bailout. He talks about the knowledge transfer the merger brings, given UTC's long history of manufacturing precision-engineered products ranging from Otis elevators and Sikorsky helicopters to Pratt & Whitney jet engines and industrial turbines. \"You know, the elevators and escalators that Otis makes are all electronically controlled, and the elevator always stops at the right floor,\" he comments wryly. Gates is confident that Clipper will benefit from a higher level of quality control on the equipment it installs in its wind turbines.\n\nJust as Clipper is a story of Rust Belt renewal and pioneering innovation, it is a cautionary tale with some important lessons to companies that are looking to come in on the ground floor of an exciting but demanding new industry. Perhaps most obvious is the need for extreme vigilance before dispatching turbine technology of today's mammoth scale to far-flung wind farms. When blades get to be 150 feet long and are bolted onto hubs that are more than 250 feet in the air, companies better make sure they're sending out equipment that their customers can count on. The same is true for high-stress components like gearboxes and generators. Neither Clipper's quality-control teams nor the company's in-house simulators were successful at intercepting serious problems that later rang up such huge replacement costs in the field.\n\nAnother lesson relates to scale\u2014not of the turbines themselves, but of the companies manufacturing them. Competing in the global marketplace for wind technology demands a level of financial commitment and an ability to absorb setbacks that are far beyond the means of relatively small, modestly capitalized companies like Clipper. Remember the Zilkhas' decision to bring in Goldman Sachs when Meridian Way and other wind farm developments needed a big-time infusion of capital; as savvy energy entrepreneurs, they knew when it was time to reach beyond their own resources. Clipper seemed to wait until disaster was at the door before it turned to UTC for a bailout.\n\nWhile a company of Clipper's size simply may not have been equal to the challenges of fielding today's turbine technology prior to the UTC buyout, there _is_ a place for smaller companies in the wind energy supply chain. With thousands of components and subcomponents going into the typical commercial turbine, the opportunities abound for specialized manufacturers to enter the industry. From manufacturers of bolts and flanges to the makers of hydraulic pumps and electric motors, companies of many shapes and sizes have already joined the American wind industry. These businesses stand to flourish as turbine companies at home and abroad\u2014hopefully including a revitalized Clipper\u2014expand their production to meet the growing demand for wind power in the coming years.\n\nOne of the conditions that will help the U.S. wind industry build and maintain momentum is a stable federal policy climate that puts renewable energy on an equal footing with traditional fossil fuel and nuclear technologies. Unfortunately, federal policies have been erratic and unreliable, inviting a degree of caution among energy investors, technology manufacturers, and wind developers that has impeded their full commitment to the enterprise.\n\nCongress first approved a production tax credit for wind energy as part of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, with Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, fittingly, as its prime sponsor. Providing an income tax credit of 1.5 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity produced by wind, this law ushered in a wholly new approach to federal intervention in support of renewable energy. Unlike the investment tax credits that gave commercial wind its start in the 1980s, the production tax credit\u2014or \"PTC\" as it's called in the trade\u2014rewards the actual generation of power rather than the mere building of new power-generating capacity. It gives wind farm owners and operators an incentive to operate their facilities as efficiently and productively as possible, minimizing downtime for repairs and maximizing the power produced by every operating turbine.\n\nThough a valuable stimulant in concept, the PTC's actual impact has been compromised by the ebb and flow of legislative support over the years. Congress first let the PTC expire in June 1999, when its initial authorization under the 1992 energy law ran out. It was reinstated six months later, but for only two years. Then, at the end of 2001, it lapsed again for a number of months, and once more at the end of 2003 when a comprehensive energy bill authorizing its extension failed to pass Congress. When the PTC resumed in late 2004, its approved duration was little more than a year. And so the pattern continued up until the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 extended the tax credit for a somewhat less truncated three-year period, through the end of 2012.\n\nBy the time this Obama-era legislation became law, inflation indexing had raised the PTC for wind-generated power to 2.1 cents per kilowatt hour. What's more, wind developers could choose between claiming the per-kilowatt-hour credit and taking a straight-up 30 percent investment tax credit on qualifying equipment and expenditures. As a third option, they could convert the investment tax credit to an outright grant amounting to 30 percent of the value of their installations. While some congressional lawmakers have attacked the degree to which these stimulus dollars have benefited foreign wind developers and manufacturers, American wind industry leaders have credited the stimulus package with preventing a U.S. jobs meltdown. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the wind industry lost about 10,000 jobs when new turbine orders lagged and new wind farm construction slowed in 2010 to about half the pace of the previous year. This brought the total wind industry workforce down from a pre-recession peak of 85,000. But with wind development regaining momentum in 2011, wind industry leaders are hopeful that jobs will regain and eventually outstrip their prior numbers.\n\nEven with the infusion of stimulus funds, wind farm developers and equipment manufacturers remain wary of the future. Clipper's Bob Gates points to his own experience negotiating with vendors. \"When you go to a foundry in Ohio and you say, 'Build a new plant to make more castings for wind turbine gearboxes,' the casting company says, 'What are you talking about? The PTC is going to expire in a year or two! I need ten or fifteen years to recover the cost of a plant.' \"\n\n\"The PTC was meant to level the playing field economically, which it does,\" Gates continues. \"What it doesn't do is level the playing field in the time dimension.\" He points to the uninterrupted subsidies enjoyed over decades by the oil, gas, and coal industries and wonders aloud why wind\u2014so much more benign\u2014has been supported so much more sporadically. As one sign of our nation's misaligned priorities, he laments our failure to internalize the huge environmental costs of coal: \"You burn it\u2014it's gone. You have the emissions, you have the CO2, the energy source is gone, and for that, you get an incentive.\" I find myself mentally adding to the list: the blackened lungs of miners, the ravaged mountainscapes and polluted streams of Appalachia, the endless procession of railroad cars carrying coal from the surfacemined moonscape of eastern Wyoming to power plants across the country.\n\nAs for nuclear, Gates points to the indemnity that Congress granted to power plant operators back at the dawn of the civilian nuclear industry in 1957. Under the continuously reauthorized Price Anderson Act, even the most catastrophic meltdown would expose the plant operator to less than half a billion dollars in liability. This level of federal protection for a civilian industry is without parallel in the United States, and its significance becomes very real when one contemplates the tens of billions of dollars of damage to property and people's lives caused by the recent catastrophe at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.\n\n\"If a private company had to buy private insurance on a nuclear power plant, you wouldn't have any nuclear power plants,\" Gates flatly asserts. To that vast subsidy, we must add the billions of dollars the federal government has invested in trying to come up with a safe, long-term method for disposing of nuclear waste. Although no solution is in sight, civilian nuclear plants in America\u2014104 in all\u2014add to the nuclear waste burden every day. \"How much does nuclear really cost?\" He poses the question in exasperation, clearly not expecting an answer.\n\nBuilding a U.S. wind manufacturing base extends far beyond the dozen or so companies that actually assemble turbines. The Timken Company, for example, is a successful industrial innovator that has long served the automotive and aeronautics industries. Today it is making a strategic bet on wind. The company's politically conservative leadership defies any stereotypes about the wind industry being led by progressively minded twenty-first-century entrepreneurs who are eager to help America move away from carbon-based energy technology and are gung-ho about the battle against global warming.\n\nHeadquartered in Canton, Ohio, Timken is a world leader in the manufacture of precision bearings, ensuring the smooth operation of everything from helicopter rotors and jet engines to car transmissions and off-road construction equipment. With factories operating in twenty-seven countries, its 2010 sales totaled $4.1 billion.\n\nLorrie Crum, manager of Timken's global media relations and strategic communications, is passionate about the company's role in improving wind turbine performance. \"Wind energy has been identified as the company's most promising market,\" she says, pointing to the $200 million that Timken has already sunk into pursuing its potential in this field. The fit is perfect, she says, for a company that prides itself on building for endurance\u2014something of a mismatch with the automotive sector, where Timken's products substantially outlast the machinery that hosts them. \"We were able to make the million-mile axle, but you never capture their full value,\" she says. All of those million-mile axles end up in the landfill, junked along with the rusting carcasses of cars that seldom travel more than a few hundred thousand miles.\n\nWind turbines, by contrast, need to operate day-in, day-out, season-to-season, year after year, over an expected lifespan of two decades or more. \"This is extreme engineering,\" Crum explains. Timken specializes in making bearings for the wind industry\u2014meticulously crafted clusters of hardened steel rollers that hold key turbine components in place while allowing them to rotate with minimum friction. Ever since the company's founder, Henry Timken, began exploring ways to make sturdier wheel assemblies for horse-drawn carriages in the late nineteenth century, the study of friction, or \"tribology,\" has been a driving force behind Timken's technology development.\n\nOne of the \"mission-critical\" bearings that Timken provides to wind manufacturers is a tapered bearing that cradles the main shaft of the turbine, a multi-ton steel rod that carries the slow-spinning motion of the rotor\u2014usually in the range of 12 to 20 RPM\u2014to a gearbox that speeds up to match the demands of the turbine's electrical generator. This bearing has to hold the main shaft firmly in place through all kinds of weather, allowing it to absorb the relentless jostling and wildly varying velocities of the winds in locations that are specially chosen because of their high prevailing wind speeds.\n\nThe damaged main shaft bearing from a large commercial wind turbine arrives just as we are touring the factory floor at the Timken Technology Center. Timken didn't make the original bearing. Rather, the Technology Center's engineers are being called upon to diagnose why it failed and to replace it with a more durable, custom-designed Timken bearing.\n\nI watch as a diesel-powered mobile crane gingerly carries the main shaft assembly in through an open bay. Suspended by two triangulated wires from the crane's extended arm is a shiny silver-colored shaft, about ten feet long. At one end is the steel casing, about three feet in diameter, which contains the ailing main shaft bearing. Jim Charmley, who heads up the Technology Center's staff of 400 technicians, is on hand with me to witness this arrival. \"We did _not_ stage this for you!\" he insists.\n\nThe main shaft bearing is designed to last the full twenty-year predicted lifetime of a wind turbine, but Charmley tells me that this one made it through only about two years. When I ask if many other main shaft bearings have failed on this particular turbine model, the MIT-trained mechanical engineer is circumspect. \"I can only say that if [the manufacturer] had worked with us from the beginning, you might not see this here today.\" With that, he introduces me to Gary, a colleague whom he describes as one of the world's experts on nanocrystalline deposits\u2014specialized metals like tungsten that can be applied to bearing surfaces to minimize friction and enhance durability. Gary, he says, will be incorporating nanotechnology into the bearing's redesign.\n\nCharmley points to his own staff's dramatically shifted focus as a clear sign of Timken's commitment to wind. In 2005, there might have been three technicians working on wind applications at the Timken Technology Center. Five years later, he estimates that eighty to a hundred specialists, including many of the fifty PhDs working at the site, have been redeployed to develop new Timken products and services for the wind industry. He shouts out these impressive numbers as we walk through a cavernous room filled with forty high-speed electric motors that are testing out newly designed bearings. Salt and dirt are sprayed onto some bearings to test the durability of the rubber seals surrounding them; other bearings are jostled and shaken to test their ability to withstand tough conditions in the field. All these simulations are run on an accelerated schedule so that Timken can keep a leg up on the competition. Established European competitors like SKF and FAG are busily developing similar products, and Asian companies are entering the game as well.\n\nIn addition to securing a substantial share of the U.S. wind market, Timken has its eye on a growing customer base overseas. Just a few yards from the defective main shaft bearing, laid out on a platform, is a huge metal ring, larger in diameter than the men standing by it are tall. Tightly spaced cylindrical steel rollers are sandwiched between its inner and outer rims, like tapered teeth in the maw of a large beast. In the coming days, this supersized bearing is to be loaded into the belly of a 747 headed for Beijing. From there, it will make its way by truck to a wind installation in Hunan province, where it will be tested as a prototype on a turbine manufactured by XEMC Windpower. This Chinese company is competing for a share of the market for \"direct-drive\" turbines\u2014machines that generate electricity directly from the rotor, rather than relying on a main-shaft-and-gearbox configuration to feed a high-speed generator. Large, built-to-last bearings of this sort are at the upper end of Timken's price scale, easily exceeding $100,000 and sometimes reaching $200,000 for a bearing equipped with computerized sensors that provide automatic, temperature-controlled lubrication of all moving parts.\n\nThe prototype bearing that we are admiring was produced at a Timken plant in South Carolina, but Jim Charmley and his colleagues have no intention of flying or shipping multiple bearings of this size halfway around the world. If the prototype works to XEMC's satisfaction, production will shift to one of the half-dozen factories that Timken operates in the People's Republic. Already the company's Chinese manufacturing plants supply bearings, lubrication systems, and other related products and services to a number of Chinese heavy industries, and now it is looking to make wind a major part of its China business. Aside from the Chinese market's unparalleled growth potential, the starkly efficient way China goes about building its in dustrial and transportation infrastructure makes it an appealing home for Timken manufacturing.\n\nTimken's international marketing team is more than willing to do business in a nation run by central planners, where the state plays a dominant role in governing and, in some cases, owning the companies involved in turbine manufacturing and wind farm development. But here in America, Timken's leaders take a very different attitude toward government intervention in the industrial sector. Ward J. \"Tim\" Timken Jr., board chair since 2005, is a case in point.\n\nSpeaking at Ohio's Ashland University in October 2009, Tim Timken leveled a broadside attack on the Obama administration's economic recovery plan as a threat to American free enterprise. \"Not since the Great Depression has government interfered so dramatically and so decisively in the economic life of our nation,\" he declared, warning that the administration's emergency stimulus expenditures gravely undermined any remaining public confidence in the private sector. \"Nothing could be worse for our economy and our nation,\" he asserted. He has been equally vehement in his assault on legislative proposals that would cap U.S. carbon emissions and require power plants and other major industries to pay for any carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions above their allotted amounts. He told the Ashland University gathering that this sort of \"cap-and-trade\" regime would \"drive up the price of energy, deter American job creation, and send our jobs overseas.\"\n\nTimken's leaders have reason to be worried about the financial implications of any regime that attaches a price to carbon emissions. The company's bearings are manufactured from recycled steel, in electric arc furnaces that process the steel-content equivalent of 100,000 cars per month. Timken's Ohio facilities alone consume up to $50 million a year in electricity, mostly generated by coal. Communications manager Lorrie Crum contends that \"we couldn't possibly get enough sun or wind here to power our operations without relying heavily on conventional sources.\"\n\nCrum may be right that, today, her company is more or less stuck depending on coal to fuel its steel plants and other factories. Yet she discounts too readily the longer-term potential for electricity generated by wind and other renewable resources. While Timken's home state of Ohio has installed only a few megawatts of wind capacity to date, plans for building 1,000 megawatts of offshore wind on Lake Erie by 2020 have been announced. To the east, Pennsylvania has 748 megawatts of wind up and running, and New York developers have installed nearly 1,300 megawatts at their wind farms. To the west, wind power in Indiana has already topped 1,000 megawatts, Illinois has more than 1,500 megawatts of installed wind, and major offshore wind projects are now on the drawing boards for Lake Michigan. Reaching farther into the Great Plains, improved high-voltage transmission could open up truly vast resources in the heartland's wind belt, extending from North Dakota and Minnesota down through Iowa and Nebraska to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. With the right policy priorities and market incentives, Timken and other Rust Belt companies could end up substantially curbing, if not eliminating, their reliance on conventional fuels for most of their power needs.\n\nWherever they lie on the political spectrum, and whatever their attitudes about climate change and the role of government in shifting us away from carbon-based fuels, U.S. manufacturers are finally embracing the new opportunities that wind energy offers to their own business interests and the American economy. The growing pains of smaller companies like Clipper should warn us that we are still in the early stages of developing an entirely new technology base for our nation's energy future. As in any pioneering technology field, the design challenges and operational surprises may stymie us at times, just as the financial setbacks may be harrowing. For decades, the federal government has generously nurtured our fossil fuel and nuclear industries. It behooves us to do the same for wind and other renewable energy technologies that can help create a less precarious platform for future development. With a serious commitment to cleaner energy choices, we can promote a vibrant, sustainable U.S. economy without perpetuating our reliance on foreign energy sources, without exposing ourselves to nuclear energy's hazards, and without mortgaging the global climate.\n\nThe challenges facing U.S. wind technology companies are complicated by the fact that they are not alone in looking for ways to consolidate their positioning in the clean energy marketplace. High-caliber equipment coming out of Denmark, Germany, and Spain has long competed for U.S. sales, but with European manufacturers shifting much of their production to America, the net gains to U.S. workers and the U.S. economy are substantial. Much harder to gauge is the role that Chinese wind technology will play in the years ahead. As in so many other sectors, China is a hugely ambitious, rapidly growing force in the global wind trade, benefiting from cheap labor costs and brashly protectionist policies at home as it begins to market its turbines abroad. Although Chinese companies are only making their first forays onto U.S. soil, American wind manufacturers have reason to be nervous.\n\n## CHAPTER FOUR\n\n## The Chinese Are Coming\n\nLEGEND HAS IT THAT Napoleon once pointed to a map of China and cautioned: \"Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.\" I felt the prophetic impact of those words as I looked around me at the thousands who had gathered for China Wind Power, a conference and trade show in Beijing promoting China's rapidly expanding wind energy industry.\n\nAs American companies look for ways to expand their niche in a growing global wind market, China is both an enormously alluring export target and an increasingly formidable competitor. Though a latecomer to the field, the People's Republic is now the world's biggest user of wind energy, each year installing more new wind power than any other nation. Predictably, General Electric, Timken, and other American companies that already have a strong presence in China are revamping their local plants to capture a corner of the Chinese wind market, while other U.S. firms are seeking out Chinese buyers for a dizzying array of wind energy equipment made in the United States. Breaking into the Chinese market is no small feat, however. Protectionist policies give Chinese companies an enormous advantage over foreign competitors\u2014even those that are employing Chinese workers at local factories.\n\nIn addition to being the world's biggest consumer of wind energy technology, China is quickly rising to the top ranks of wind equipment manufacturers\u2014largely by virtue of the enormous scale of China's internal market for wind. Four of its companies are now on the \"top ten\" list of global wind turbine producers, and seven of the top fifteen manufacturers worldwide are Chinese. Perhaps most worrisome to American and European turbine companies, China is selling its machines at cut-rate prices that may soon make them daunting competitors outside its borders. Already a few leading Chinese companies have opened sales offices in the United States, and one turbine manufacturer is building its own commercial-scale wind farm in Illinois, primarily to prove the worthiness of its turbines to American wind developers.\n\nSteve Sawyer, secretary-general of the Global Wind Energy Council and former head of Greenpeace, invoked Paul Revere's memory when he spoke about China's expanding presence in this hotly competitive field. \"Ever since China entered the wind market, we've been hoping, anticipating, fearing that 'the Chinese are coming,' \" he said at China Wind Power's opening session. Other speakers made more pointed remarks about China's protectionist rules and the special subsidies favoring domestic over foreign manufacturers. Li Junfeng, secretary-general of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association, tried using humor to divert attention from the substance of these claims. \"Wind in China is in its puberty,\" he observed with a laugh. \"No one talks about what you do when you're in your fifties or sixties, but at sixteen, everyone's watching.\"\n\nChina's wind energy leaders may function within an industry that continues to be dominated by communist, state-run enterprise, but their entrepreneurial zeal poses a very real challenge to rivals who were raised in the cradles of European and American free enterprise. In wind energy, as in so many other arenas, China is fast becoming a nimble, dynamic and\u2014to many\u2014unnerving force in the global marketplace.\n\nA week before the China Wind Power gathering, I traveled to Tianjin, home to the world's biggest concentration of wind energy manufacturing facilities. Nearly 25,000 people work in the Tianjin wind trade, employed by several of the top global and Chinese wind technology companies. Vestas has the largest presence among turbine producers, initially opening a blade plant there in 2006 and, more recently, adding factories for nacelles, hubs, and generators. I was in Tianjin to attend the opening of the company's two latest facilities at a vast industrial campus that has become the most massive Vestas factory complex anywhere.\n\nAn eye-stinging haze enshrouded this city of 12 million as our sleek white bus moved through a dense fabric of elevated truck routes, high-rise apartment blocks, and vast, low-slung factory buildings. This was the China I had long heard about\u2014endless urban sprawl in a fog of filthy air that blocked out the sun and erased all hints of sky. The side panels of our bus, with their photo images of wind turbines against an azure sky, stood in sunny contrast to these bleak surroundings.\n\nAt the Vestas manufacturing complex, I joined hundreds of Chinese workers who were filing into a cavernous steel-frame shed to attend the factory-opening ceremony. Dressed in polo shirts with the Vestas logo, they were followed by European company officials in Western business attire who took their places alongside local dignitaries on a makeshift stage. Arrayed behind them was a blue-and-green electronic banner, in English and Chinese, proclaiming the company's mission in China: \"Building a World Class Production Base in the World's Fastest-Growing Wind Energy Market.\"\n\nLars Andersen, president of Vestas-China, came to the podium. Reading from an English-language text, he rolled out his company's local credentials. Vestas, he reported, was the first company to install grid-connected turbines in China in 1986. Its manufacturing complex in Tianjin has 1.4 million square feet of factory space and cost the equivalent of $363 million to build. Bounding to the mike, the next speaker was the Tianjin industrial zone's vice chairman, Ni Xiangyu, his exuberance palpable as he addressed members of the audience in their native tongue. \"This could be the best money-making machine in the world, using the best brains in the world!\" he exclaimed.\n\nNi's brazen boosterism and Tianjin's embrace of wind are local reflections of China's new dominance in the wind energy field. In 2003, the People's Republic brought 100 megawatts of new capacity on-line, little more than 1 percent of the 8 gigawatts installed globally that year. By 2009, it had outstripped all other countries in new installations, capturing 36 percent of the world market. In 2010, it took close to half of the market: its 18.9 gigawatts (18,900 megawatts) of new capacity gave it 49.5 percent of all newly installed wind power worldwide. Vestas had good reason to be locating its largest production facilities in the world in Tianjin.\n\nChina still lags far behind the United States and other Western nations in its per-capita wealth, but it is working hard to narrow that gap. At least in its larger cities, the quest for comfort, mobility, and personal expression through fashion has redefined the national ethos. Urban boulevards formerly filled with bicycle commuters are now gridlocked with Volkswagens, Audis, BMWs, Volvos, and Buicks, along with several Korean and domestic car brands. Glitzy shopping malls flaunt luxury designer clothing and accessories. Soaring office and residential towers line the streets, and beneath them run mile after mile of elegant and immaculate subways, with new lines opening every year.\n\nWhile much of rural China still may be quite poor, the Communist Party and its planners are expanding the economy at a feverish pace. Throughout the first decade of the millennium, China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average of more than 9 percent annually, a rate that is likely to be matched, or nearly so, in the years ahead. In fueling that growth, China has overtaken the United States in its hunger for electric power. By 2020, the country is expected to consume twice the electricity that it uses today.\n\nSo what will be wind energy's role in fueling this phenomenal growth? A joint team of researchers from Harvard and Beijing's Tsinghua University has concluded that China's onshore wind resources could supply more than seven times the country's current electricity needs. Yet China is not Denmark, and its central planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), is not prepared to envision a future where wind turbines provide the world's most populous nation with the lion's share of its power. China's planners are spreading their bets across a broad array of power plants reliant on coal, nuclear, hydroelectricity, and natural gas. Of these, coal has been and will remain the primary fuel. A total of 80 percent of China's electricity today is produced from coal, and with several dozen new plants coming on-line every year, the country's coal-based power production will increase dramatically in the years ahead. Already consuming more than 3 billion tons of coal annually, China accounts for nearly 40 percent of global coal use. By 2015, its demand for coal is expected to top 4 billion tons per year.\n\nThe impacts of relying so heavily on the world's dirtiest fuel are legion. Mining disasters in China kill thousands each year, and that toll will inevitably rise as more and more coal is dug from the earth. Much of the air pollution that hangs over whole regions of China comes from coal burning, and that too will increase despite lip service paid to new \"clean coal\" technology. And burning all that coal will only push China further into the lead as the world's biggest contributor to global warming.\n\nIn addition to the new coal plants, China now has 27 nuclear reactors under construction\u2014three times as many as its closest rival, Russia, and nearly half of all nuclear plants being built worldwide. China also dwarfs all other nations in the 50 additional reactors now being planned and the 110 that have been proposed. As if Three Mile Island and Chernobyl didn't give us sufficient warning about the perils of nuclear power in the 1970s and 1980s, we now have the recent disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex in Japan to refresh our recollections. It remains unclear whether China will heed this warning. Before peppering the countryside with nuclear reactors, China's central planners would be wise to take more careful stock of the hazards associated with this technology, particularly in light of the catastrophic earthquakes that have recently shaken parts of that nation.\n\nChinese energy planners are also moving ahead with a commitment to ramp up the country's use of hydropower, ostensibly greener than coal and nuclear in its reliance on a renewable energy resource. However, as the world's largest hydroelectric project moves toward completion at the Three Gorges Dam, along the Yangtze River, the human and ecological effects of giant dams are hard to ignore. More than 1 million people have already been forced from their homes by this project, and by the time it is complete, more than 5 million residents could be displaced.\n\nWith so many other energy projects under way or planned, wind energy remains a relatively small part of China's energy portfolio. Maximizing economic growth is clearly the order of the day\u2014far more important to China's political leadership than protecting the country's environment or reining in global warming. Yet China's dramatic progress in increasing its use of wind power reveals what its planners can do when they decide that a given investment is in the state's interest.\n\nChina's use of wind energy remained minimal throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Despite the government's issuance of a strategic plan calling for 1,000 megawatts of wind power by the year 2000, only 200 megawatts of new wind power had been installed nationwide by 1999\u2014roughly equal to the generating capacity of a single large wind farm in America like Cloud County's Meridian Way.\n\nBeginning in 2002, however, a number of reforms helped bring wind closer to the mainstream. The government that year invited competitive bids for the development of selected wind farm sites, and in just four years, China's installed wind power quintupled. Then, in 2005, the country's first Renewable Energy Law called for mid- to long-term national targets for renewable energy use and for plans at all levels of government to achieve those targets.\n\nThis development gave Ren Dongming and his colleagues the mandate they needed to expand wind energy's contribution to China's energy mix. Ren is deputy director of the Center for Renewable Energy Development, a branch of the NDRC that is charged with planning for China's wind energy future. On meeting him at the government-run Guohong Hotel, a few blocks from his Beijing office, I was surprised and relieved. Dressed in blue jeans, a denim shirt, and a tweed jacket, Ren peered at me through silver wire-rimmed glasses, looking to me more like a Berkeley professor than a Chinese government bureaucrat. As we talked over sodas in the hotel's noisy restaurant, his level-headed analysis cast light as well as hope on China's growing commitment to wind.\n\nRen spoke of China bringing 150 gigawatts of wind power online by the year 2020, or about 8 percent of the nation's projected power-generating capacity. To make this happen, he and his team have mapped out a series of wind farm megabases\u2014vast wind-rich zones where new projects are to be commissioned on a scale unprecedented in China or anywhere else in the world. In eastern Inner Mongolia, one zone has been slated for 30 gigawatts of wind power\u2014substantially more than China's overall wind power capacity at the time that the megabase program was officially unveiled in June 2009. Western Inner Mongolia has been targeted for 20 gigawatts. The Jiquan Wind Farm Base in Gansu province, first of the megaprojects to begin construction in 2009, includes thirty wind farms adding up to 12.7 gigawatts. This project alone, according to official projections, will displace nearly 10 million tons of coal combustion annually. In all, seven megabases have been designated in six Chinese provinces, adding up to 120 gigawatts of new wind-generation capacity at a cost of roughly $140 billion.\n\nWith other, smaller wind projects scattered across China and new offshore installations in various stages of planning, Ren Dongming's 150-gigawatt goal seems well within reach. Already the country has dipped its toes in the water with the 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge wind farm just off Shanghai's shores, and the NDRC maintains that offshore wind arrays could provide close to 500 gigawatts of new wind power capacity. That's in addition to the vastly greater wind resources available on land.\n\nBig state enterprises are the predicted winners in the bids for megabase wind projects, partially because they can readily tap the material and financial resources to deliver huge new increments of wind power. At the same time, private investors are finding their way into China's growing wind market. Typically, they are emerging as owners and operators of smaller wind farms that can be approved by local authorities without any national government review. Wind farms with fewer than 50 megawatts of installed capacity fall under local government jurisdiction, free from the NDRC's more cumbersome permit application process.\n\nUPC Renewables is the Chinese subsidiary of a private partnership founded in 1994 by a group of international investors, some of whom were pioneers in the California wind boom of the 1980s. After developing wind and solar projects in Europe, the United States, North Africa, and the Philippines, the firm's managers started looking for a way to break into China's wind energy market. They hired Guo Zheng, an electrical engineer trained at North China Electric Power University with two decades of experience in the oil and hydroelectric sectors.\n\nLike most Chinese nationals who are active in international business, Guo Zheng has adopted a Western name for his dealings with foreigners. He introduces himself as Wilson Guo when I visit UPC's China headquarters, on the seventeenth floor of a downtown Beijing office tower. I ask him to describe how he lines up new projects and am struck by the contrast with Jim Roberts's work as Horizon's land agent in Cloud County. He has no direct dealings with farmers and ranchers; Guo's only business is with local government officials. \"Farmers have the right to live on the land,\" he explains, \"but the land is owned by the government.\"\n\nWhen the Maoist collective farms were broken up in the 1980s, individual farmers received plots of land that they could either farm for themselves or lease to others. Actual ownership of the land remained with the collectives, however. Today, when a wind developer leases land from a collective, all members of the collective receive a share of the funds. \"The government has a standard formula for land compensation so you know what it will cost you from the beginning,\" Guo says. He compares this favorably to countries like the United States, where wind farms have to be assembled through individually negotiated contracts with multiple landowners.\n\nOthers express qualms about Chinese wind farm siting politics. Under-the-table payments to local officials are all too often part of the cost of doing business in rural China, as several close observers told me. Moreover, there is no real opportunity for members of the public to voice their concerns about badly sited projects. Charlie McElwee, a Shanghai-based American attorney and an adviser to wind energy developers, tells me that he hasn't heard of a single wind farm in China being stopped or altered because of concerns about migratory birds, human health, noise, or aesthetics. \"Tame\" is the word McElwee uses to describe China's environmental movement, where truly independent, citizen-based organizations simply don't exist. He can recall a few recent local demonstrations protesting major industrial projects\u2014a waste incinerator in one locality, proposed petrochemical plants in a few others\u2014but government security forces broke them up quickly. Beyond the local level, he says that the environmental movement generally consists of groups that are under the close supervision of Chinese governing authorities. He calls these groups \"GONGOs,\" or government-organized non-governmental organizations, to distinguish them from the NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, that operate with a high degree of independence in less-authoritarian societies.\n\nForeign investors like UPC are by no means alone in acquiring a stake in China's local and provincial wind farm development. Tianrun New Energy Investment Company, Ltd., is the Beijing-based development arm of Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology. Goldwind was an early pioneer in China's wind industry, producing its first turbines in 1998 under license from a German manufacturer. This practice of piggybacking on foreign turbine designs became the industry norm among Chinese manufacturers, allowing them to enter the market quickly, though not necessarily with the most updated technology. By 2007, Goldwind had become the country's market leader in turbine production, and it began investing in wind farms through Tianrun. Within two years, it had gained full ownership of eight wind farms and held a controlling stake in six others.\n\nUnlike UPC, which is a privately held foreign enterprise, Gold wind is a hybrid typical of companies operating on the seam between China's old-line communist state-owned enterprises and the new generation of private companies that are finding their place in the country's emerging market economy. The company, on the one hand, is majority-owned by private investors; its shares have been publicly traded on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange since 2007. On the other hand, several of Goldwind's biggest investors are state-owned enterprises; Tianrun officials estimate that 30 to 40 percent of the company's assets remain in state hands.\n\nWith multi-gigawatt megabases already under development and many companies like UPC and Tianrun moving forward with smaller projects, China's new wind capacity is growing at a breathtaking speed, accelerated by the ease of lining up land parcels on communal land, the very limited focus on environmental concerns, and the absence of any real public input into the siting and permitting processes. The contrast with America's methodical and highly participatory approach to project development couldn't be starker. Not surprisingly, transmission companies are having a hard time keeping pace with so much new, dispersed power production. In recent years, as much as a third of the country's installed wind power has not made its way onto the grid and either stands idle or remains landlocked in local areas that often can't make good use of the available power. The government has committed to build a vast new network of transmission lines, but with overall Chinese electricity use expected to nearly double by 2020, grid operators are in an ongoing race to keep up.\n\nEnsuring a steady supply of reasonably priced turbines to new Chinese wind farms is another challenge the government has addressed, often in ways that have aroused the ire of foreign turbine manufacturers. In the early years of China's wind power development, foreign companies supplied the lion's share of the technology. Today China's domestic brands dominate the market.\n\nHighly protectionist regulations have given Chinese manufacturers a decisive edge. Starting in 2003, local manufacture was made a key criterion in the review of bids for government-sponsored wind farm concessions. At first the minimum \"local content requirement\" was set at 50 percent of a turbine's value, but a year later it was raised to 70 percent. Soon this protectionist regime extended beyond government projects to include all turbines installed in the country.\n\nForeign manufacturers that relied heavily on imported components had a tough time meeting the local content hurdle. In 2004, international brands commanded three-quarters of turbine sales. Within five years the proportions had more than reversed, and by 2009, Chinese manufacturers had captured 86 percent of new installations. By 2010, the only non-Chinese manufacturers to make it into the top-ten ranking were Vestas, with less than 5 percent of the market, and Spain's Gamesa, which accounted for 3 percent of new wind capacity. General Electric, the sole U.S. player of any size in China, had a market share that barely exceeded 1 percent.\n\nFor years the United States had complained about Chinese anti\u2013free trade measures, but in 2009 the Obama administration singled out the local content requirements on wind turbines. While U.S. companies like Timken could sell bearings made at their Chinese factories to local turbine producers, dozens of other U.S. companies, producing their wares on U.S. soil using American workers, were effectively blocked from participating in the Chinese wind energy boom. China, under pressure, signaled its readiness to lift the local content requirements, but a year later the U.S. Trade Representative petitioned the World Trade Organization (WTO) for a special consultation on a broader range of policies that were seen as giving Chinese wind turbine producers an unfair edge over foreign competitors. Not only were the Chinese still making it hard for U.S. goods to enter the Chinese market, but leading Chinese turbine manufacturers were preparing to export their own technology to America. This, no doubt, raised the anxiety levels of U.S. officials, as well as the United Steelworkers, who instigated the WTO petition.\n\nChunhua Li, director of international business at Goldwind, made it clear to me that America is a prime target for Goldwind sales, when we met at the company's research and development center in an industrial park just south of Beijing. His words reflected cautious determination: \"We want to be sure that our turbines supplied to overseas developers make our international market successful. Now we feel we are ready.\" He proudly described the \"green-friendliness\" of Goldwind's direct-drive turbines\u2014simpler to build and easier to maintain than conventional gearbox-dependent machines. He also pointed to Goldwind's newly introduced 2.5- and 3-megawatt models as proof that the company can match the scale of equipment now being sold to the U.S. and European markets.\n\nAfter our meeting, I was taken past the company's soccer field and climbing wall to one of Goldwind's turbine assembly plants. Li Fan, a youthful-looking production manager, greeted me at the entrance. Eager to practice his English, he took me on a tour of the production room where 1.5- and 2.5-megawatt turbines were being assembled. Giant rotors and stators, the revolving and stationary parts of direct-drive turbine generators, were laid out on heavy wooden blocks in one quadrant of the factory. In another area, workers were carefully installing electronic controls inside turbine nacelles, and in a far corner of the factory, assembled generators were being tested on a full-scale turbine simulator.\n\nLi Fan had good reason to brush up on his English. In only a few days, he would fly to America to oversee the erection of three Goldwind turbines at a demonstration site near Pipestone, Minnesota. By selecting a site exposed to some of the harshest weather conditions in the lower forty-eight states, Chunhua Li and his international marketing team hope to persuade American wind developers that Goldwind's turbines can outperform better-known Western brands. As a further step toward making its technology known, Goldwind is now building a full-scale commercial wind farm in Lee County, Illinois. The company's U.S. affiliate, Goldwind USA, has already secured a twenty-year commitment from Commonwealth Edison to buy all the power generated by this 109-megawatt farm.\n\nGoldwind's strategists are competing fiercely with other Chinese companies that now have set their sights on the global market. The most formidable among them is Sinovel. Barely noticed in 2004, when it was launched as a subsidiary of the state-owned steel giant Dalian Heavy Industry Group, Sinovel entered the market two years later with a 1.5-megawatt turbine produced under license from a small German company, Fuhrl\u00e4nder. By 2008, it had eclipsed Goldwind to become the leading turbine supplier to the Chinese market, and by 2010, it held 23 percent of total domestic installations, compared to Goldwind's 20 percent share. Next in line were three other Chinese manufacturers; then came Vestas in sixth position, holding less than 5 percent of the Chinese market.\n\nSinovel's publicists are brash and uncompromising in their reach for global supremacy. Through a \"Three-Three-Five-One\" strategy announced in 2009, the company unveiled its ambition: within three years, to become one of the world's top three turbine manufacturers; and within five years, to be number one in the world. The company exceeded its first milestone in only a year, edging out General Electric to become the number-two global manufacturer in 2010. With 11 percent of all new installations worldwide, Sinovel ran just a single percentage point behind Vestas. General Electric and Goldwind came in third and fourth, each with about 10 percent of the market.\n\nExports remain a minor part of China's turbine manufacturing success story, yet the country's domestic market is big enough to create a hugely robust wind industry. In 2010, with nearly half of the world's new wind power installations taking place on the home front, China's turbine producers have been able to project a dominant presence on the global stage, even though their physical reach has largely remained within a single country's borders.\n\nChinese entrepreneurs are bullish about exploring new frontiers abroad, but it remains unclear whether their turbines will cut significantly into the European and U.S. markets where familiar, well-proven brands now have the edge. Industry analyst Matthew Kaplan describes Chinese turbines as based on borrowed \"tier three\" designs that are typically several years out of date, causing them to be less productive than the models that \"tier one\" Western manufacturers are placing on the market. In determining just how much of a bargain they are getting from a price discount on Chinese turbines, wind developers will need to weigh very carefully the full life-cycle performance of the equipment they are purchasing. Developers building wind farms in America will also have to reckon with the higher transportation costs of importing equipment from halfway around the world, and with the difficulties they may face raising capital for new wind farms using lower-quality turbines. Finally, the price advantage of Chinese hardware is being weakened by a drop in the price of American-manufactured turbines, caused by surplus capacity among existing suppliers to the U.S. market.\n\nRegardless of how effective Chinese companies turn out to be in breaking into new wind energy markets, China's planners and policymakers have cleared a startlingly expeditious path to developing their own country's wind energy potential. With more wind power installed in China than in any other nation today, the National Development and Reform Commission projects that the country's wind installations could reach 1,000 gigawatts by 2050. That's five times current global wind-generating capacity (see table 5) and would be enough, the NDRC estimates, to provide about 17 percent of China's total power needs that year. If the recent past is a reliable predictor, the Asian giant could end up far exceeding this goal well before 2050. It certainly has the wind resources to do so.\n\nChina's ability to match concrete programs to bold ambitions is practically unparalleled, but these transformative powers come at a high price. Private property rights scarcely exist. Government policies and plans are announced, not debated. And very few dare to protest government decisions on the streets or in the courtroom. _New York Times_ columnist Thomas Friedman has acknowledged his own ambivalence about China's staggering ability to get things done in _Hot, Flat, and Crowded_ , his manifesto for a newly defined green revolution. Decrying the political gridlock that prevents America from making essential, fundamental shifts in its infrastructure and economy, he writes: \"If only America could be China for a day\u2014just one day. _Just one day_!\" During that day, he dreams of our government being able to cut through the \"legacy industries, . . . the pleading special interests, . . . the bureaucratic obstacles, [and] . . . the worries of a voter backlash\" that prevent us from reshaping the way we use our resources and treat our environment. But then, once that day is done, he wants a vibrant and vigilant public interest sector to step back in to make sure government agencies and private businesses fulfill their responsibilities under the new order.\n\nFriedman's hybrid of strategically focused authoritarianism and participatory democracy may be a pipe dream, but his invocation of China is intended as both a lament and a challenge to Americans. He wants us to reckon honestly with just how hard it will be for our nation to make transformative decisions that will truly serve the longterm welfare of our nation and planet. At the same time, he is daring us to summon the political and civic courage to bring about those very changes.\n\nOn the long flight back from Beijing, I prepared myself for the next stage of my research. I would be going into the field to meet some of the thousands of people now working to build America's wind farms and keep them running for decades to come.\n\n## CHAPTER FIVE\n\n## Working the Wind\n\nBILL STOVALL LOOKS LIKE the kind of guy you'd expect to see blazing through town on a Harley chopper. His head wrap bears a grisly skull-and-crossbones design, and a tangled thicket of white hair bursts from its fringes. Opaque sunshades, lambchop sideburns, and a walrus mustache frame a full, reddened face. His forearms are a splotchy brown mosaic, pummeled by years of exposure to the sun.\n\nIn fact, Bill's motorcycle sits in the garage at his home in Gatesville, just west of Waco, Texas. \"I ain't rode it in a year and a half!\" he tells me with a low, rumbling laugh. Bill is a long-haul trucker, one of hundreds now delivering turbine components to wind farms across America. He works for Lone Star Transportation, a company based out of Fort Worth whose trucks feature telescoping trailers for transporting blades, low-riders that allow giant tower segments to slip under highway overpasses, and multi-axle decks that can carry nacelles, each weighing a hundred thousand pounds or more.\n\nBill and I meet at a railroad yard in Reynolds, a small town in northwest Indiana. This is the depot where blades, tower segments, and other turbine components are being held until they're needed at the construction site for the Meadow Lake Wind Farm, a 200-mega-watt power plant that may eventually be expanded to five times that size. Bill's trailer is loaded with a Vestas V82 blade, 130 feet long, that stretches his truck-trailer combo to 168 feet\u2014well over twice as long as a conventional semi-trailer. He pulls to the edge of the access road, steps down from the cab of his bright-red Peterbilt truck, and walks to the spot where a heavy steel rod, the \"kingpin,\" holds the trailer in place. Turning a crank, he lowers two steel legs so that he can yank the kingpin and \"dolly down\" the trailer, leaving it standing overnight while he drives off to get a decent night's sleep at a nearby motel. Tomorrow morning before seven o'clock, he will come back to pick up the blade and deliver it to the Meadow Lake Wind Farm, twenty miles away in a flat stretch of farm country just north of Lafayette.\n\nNow in his late fifties, Bill has been a long-haul trucker for years. He used to deliver fresh meats and produce, but for the past few years he has worked in the wind industry. The hours are long, and the time away from home is endless. It's late July, and he tells me it's been sixteen weeks since he's had a single day at home with his wife. Before that, he was on the road for nine weeks. \"So I've actually been gone twenty-five weeks with one day at home,\" he says. And last year was worse. \"I drove from May to December and never got home.\" His wife visited him twice on the road. \"That didn't hurt,\" he says with a smile that vanishes as quickly as it appears. His kids are grown, but he has five grandkids and one great-grandchild; rarely does he see them.\n\nWhat keeps Bill going, along with the wages, is pride. When he was delivering meats and produce, he saw himself as performing an important, if little-recognized, service. \"You go into the stores now and everyone wants fresh lettuce and eggs and fresh meat, and there's a whole lotta old boys out on the road that go to a lot of trouble on a regular basis to make sure that stuff is there every day.\" There's dignity, not bitterness, in his tone.\n\nWind energy brings Bill equal pride. \"When I go by these wind farms, I think, 'I did my part of that. I can _see_ that.' \" He's boned up on the basics of how turbines work, the power they produce, the fossil fuels they displace. \"I found out [one turbine] puts out electricity for a thousand homes, pays for itself in five years, and lasts fifty\u2014not a bad deal!\" His reasoning is plain: \"We don't buy the air. Somebody might start chargin' for it, but for now, it sounds better 'n coal.\"\n\nThe next morning, I set out from my motel at 6:30. My goal is to catch the nine-vehicle convoy that Bill will be joining: three trucks carrying one blade each, plus six escort vehicles\u2014one in front of each blade truck, one behind. Blades travel in matched sets from factory to wind farm, their weights carefully measured to make sure that every turbine has a well-balanced rotor.\n\nThe fog is so dense I can barely see fifty feet ahead of me as I make my way south on I-65. Eventually I spot blinking orange roof lights on a green Ford pickup truck in the right-hand lane. Ahead of it, I make out the contours of a giant white blade. Moving into the left-hand lane, I edge by one trio of trucks\u2014escort, blade, escort. Then I pass a second trio, then a third. The caravan is cruising at a surprisingly swift clip given the poor visibility: about fifty miles per hour, just slightly slower than the general traffic.\n\nBill calls the forward escort for his blade truck his \"front door\" and the rear one his \"back door.\" The back door has the tougher job: its driver has to steer the rig's rear axle remotely from a few dozen feet behind the truck, using a handheld electronic device that looks like a simplified TV control, all the while keeping his own vehicle on the road. It makes texting while driving seem easy.\n\nThe advantage of having a double-escort becomes obvious when we pull off I-65 and negotiate a tight left turn onto an overpass heading east on State Road 18. Before the blade truck enters the turn, the front-door driver hops out of his minivan and uproots the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp. Otherwise the blade's tip would level it on its wide swing around the ninety-degree turn. The back-door driver then navigates the turn, keeping the blade truck's rear axle heading straight while the cab veers off to the left. Once the last blade has made its way around the turn, the trailing escort replants the stop sign.\n\nA few miles down the road, the three blade trucks followed by their rear escorts peel off the pavement to the right, edging slowly onto a semicircular dirt path that allows them to make another ninety-degree left-hand turn. Completing the arc, the trucks head off into a fogbound sea of shoulder-high green corn. The front escorts, unneeded at this stage, stand idle in a grassy holding area while the trucks unload their wares at the foot of a nearby turbine tower.\n\nA friend who has dug into National Archives photos from the Cold War tells me these wide-swinging turnoffs remind him of the aerial surveillance shots that tipped off U.S. intelligence to Cuba's installation of missiles in the early 1960s. There were no giant wind turbines then, so what else would Fidel Castro have been moving around the countryside?\n\nFor the blades and other turbine components that have made their way to the Meadow Lake Wind Farm, the 25-mile ride from the Reynolds railroad depot is the final short leg of a very long journey. Some of the blades have come by truck from a Vestas factory in Windsor, Colorado, 1,000 miles due west. Others were shipped out of Aarhus, Denmark, destined for the Port of Burns Harbor, Indiana, on Lake Michigan's southern shore. The journey across the Atlantic, down the St. Lawrence Seaway, and through four Great Lakes covers 4,500 nautical miles and takes about fourteen days. Although each load is different, the ship that brought in Bill Stovall's cargo carried 94 blades, 30 power generators, and 30 hubs.\n\nArduous though shipping from Europe may be, the hands-down long-distance medalists at Meadow Lake are the towers. Purchased from a supplier in Vietnam, they were shipped in sections across the Pacific to the Port of Vancouver, Washington, on the Columbia River just north of Portland, Oregon. That leg of the trip racked up well over 6,000 nautical miles. The next leg took them on flatbed railcars cross country to Indiana\u2014about 2,200 miles. At the Reynolds rail yard, I watched as twinned pairs of tall cranes gingerly lifted these multi-ton tubes off their flatbeds and aligned them in neat rows down the full length of the yard. Hundreds of tower sections rested on heavy-gauge steel cradles, each stamped in bold black lettering: \"Made in Vietnam.\"\n\nWith increasing numbers of companies\u2014foreign and domestic\u2014opening up manufacturing and assembly plants on American soil, trips carrying turbines from factory to farm may soon be shorter. That comes as good news to equipment manufacturers and wind farm developers alike, as transportation accounts for about 10 percent of the cost of building a U.S. wind farm. But for now, wind energy is big business for shipping companies and the ports they use. Ports up and down the West Coast, from Longview, Washington, to San Diego, handle massive shipments coming from Asia. Along the Gulf Coast, five Texas ports\u2014Beaumont, Corpus Christi, Freeport, Galveston, and Houston\u2014serve as wind technology gateways. And in the Upper Midwest, the Great Lakes ports of Burns Harbor and Duluth enjoy an increasingly brisk wind trade. Ports along the eastern seaboard are not yet major players in the wind industry, but that may change if offshore wind farms are built in the Atlantic, as is expected in the coming years.\n\nRailways are also busy moving turbine components from ports and factories to their ultimate points of use. The Union Pacific is already moving thousands of carloads of wind turbine components from ports and assembly plants to wind farms annually, and it is prepared to handle up to 6,000 railcars loaded with wind equipment at its logistics center in Manly, Iowa.\n\nThough rail haulage is gaining momentum, trucks will remain at the center of U.S. wind technology transport. Needed, in any case, for carrying turbine components their final miles to construction sites amidst cornfields and cattle pastures, they are less cumbersome than rail for most trips shorter than several hundred miles. Shifting heavy loads from one transportation mode to another simply isn't worth the cost, time, and effort if the distances aren't truly great. Even when land travel is long, wind developers often opt for trucks, especially if they are carrying big-diameter tower segments that can't make it through railroad tunnels or super-long blades that require the use of two specially fitted railroad cars per unit. Looking at land traffic coming out of the Port of Longview, the proportions are telling: 90 percent of the turbine components leave by truck.\n\nAll of this gives plenty of work to people like Bill Stovall, who are now busy, year in, year out, moving wind energy equipment from ports, railroad depots, and factories to wind farms across the country. Beyond the haulers, thousands more have found work at wind farm construction sites, readying access roads, pouring turbine foundations, erecting towers, and installing electrical systems. And then there are the thousands of people who will operate and maintain the wind farms for decades to come.\n\nI arrive at Meadow Lake, Bill Stovall's destination, to find half the wind farm's 121 turbines already standing tall. Meadow Lake's developer, Horizon Wind Energy (the same company that built Meridian Way) has dispatched two familiar veterans to supervise construction: Carole Engelder and Alvin Cargill.\n\nCarole flew in last night, held meetings all morning, and slipped away at lunchtime without my catching so much as a glimpse of her. We had planned to meet here, but I think she has come to regard me as one of the \"gnats\" she complained about back in Kansas, getting in the way of expeditious project development.\n\nAlvin, Horizon's on-site manager, is more courteous. He takes a few minutes to speak with me in the company's field office, a minimally furnished trailer that sits in a row of identical white mobile offices housing the administrative staffs of the half-dozen firms most directly involved in building the wind farm. The trailers are lined up like dominoes at one end of the laydown yard, a graded dirt expanse where concrete is mixed, gravel and other construction materials are stockpiled, and dozens of construction crew pickups are parked alongside fuel trucks and road graders. Hanging from a sturdy chain-link fence surrounding the yard is a banner displaying the general contractor's slogan: \"WORK SAFE! Your family needs you.\" These words remind me of a visit I paid to another construction site, at the Grand Ridge Wind Farm just outside Marseilles (pronounced mar-SALES), in Illinois. There I stood in spring rain alongside Adam Hartman, the fresh-scrubbed site manager for Invenergy, a Chicago-based wind developer. Almost directly above our heads, a 42-ton tower segment was dangling from a 300-foot crane. Adam assured me that serious accidents are rare at wind farm construction sites, but he indulged in a bit of gallows humor as he touched the plastic rim of his hard hat. \"We call these brain buckets,\" he said, explaining with a smile that they're particularly useful in scooping up cranial matter in the event of a major mishap.\n\nAbout 350 workers are involved in building the Meadow Lake Wind Farm. Alvin breaks that number down for me. Bowen, the general contractor, has just over a hundred people on site doing \"civil\" work. Along with grading, widening, and reinforcing the access roads that are spread across tens of thousands of acres, they have poured all the foundations for the turbines. An electrical subcontractor, Hinkels and McCoy, employs about the same number, digging tens of miles of trenches and laying electric cables that will eventually carry power from turbines to the grid. Once the civil and electrical infrastructure is in place, Barnhart Crane & Rigging comes in with about ninety workers to do the heavy lifting\u2014stacking and securing the tubular segments of each steel tower, topping off each tower with a nacelle, and hoisting three-bladed rotors into position. Vestas is also on site with a few dozen technicians who make sure the turbines' mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic systems are working properly.\n\nPouring foundations not only demands a sizeable workforce; it also consumes formidable quantities of concrete and steel. At Meridian Way, I recall being told that each foundation contains 525 cubic yards of concrete and 40 tons of steel rebars, woven and then poured in the shape of a giant inverted mushroom. Emerging from each concrete base are the threaded tips of 144 eleven-foot-long bolts, arrayed in a dense double-ring that will be used to secure the lower tower section. Between these enormous bolts and the hundreds of shorter ones that hold upper sections of the turbine together, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) estimates that in 2008 alone, wind developers used 2.4 million oversized bolts to erect about 5,000 turbines. No wonder Cardinal Fastener, Ohio's custom-bolt manufacturer and home of the \"Obama Bolt,\" sees wind energy as such a promising new market!\n\nAlvin arranges for me to spend the morning with Steve Maples, site manager for Barnhart Crane & Rigging. In the Barnhart trailer, Steve introduces me briefly to Clint Newbold, the company's on-site quality assurance manager. A former Marine, Clint grew up on a ranch in South Dakota and was working for a county road department when Barnhart hired him. He tells me the company recruited heavily from his corner of South Dakota. When I asked why, he belts out his answer: \"Because we're good! We're hard workers. We like to get the job done. We're no-bullshit individuals.\" With eight people assigned to his staff, Clint keeps close tabs on every Barnhart work crew operating at Meadow Lake, making sure they adhere to a rigorous set of performance guidelines.\n\nSteve and I then hop into his pickup and set out through croplands on a matrix of ramrod-straight, unpaved county roads. Filling our field of vision are dozens of turbines, all planted in unwavering lines running along an east-west axis. Some are fully erected; others are white steel stumps waiting for upper tower sections, nacelles, and rotors to be lifted into place. Beginning our drive at row D, we head south at a good clip, leaving a wall of light-brown dust in our wake. Fifteen minutes later we arrive at row K; this first phase of the wind farm continues through row Q. I can only imagine how vast the fully built wind farm will be.\n\nPhase I of Meadow Lake will deliver 200 megawatts of wind power to the grid\u2014enough to meet the power needs of about 55,000 Indiana households. Horizon's land man, Martin Culik, tells me that the project could ultimately reach 1,000 megawatts, supplying 275,000 homes with clean energy. At that scale, it would be the largest wind farm in the state by a wide margin, stretching across 130,000 acres, covering a quarter of White County and spilling over into Benton County, to the west.  Flat as far as the eye can see, virtually all of this land today is planted in corn and soy. In the near future, it will be corn, soy, and windmills.\n\nAs he turns off the county road onto a dirt path through the fields, Steve tells me that Barnhart lured him out of retirement back in 2005. He will only volunteer that he's \"well past fifty,\" but my guess is he passed that milestone many years ago. Barnhart first hired Steve to oversee construction at a wind farm in upstate New York; he had previously managed projects for a mechanical and industrial contractor in Tennessee. He's happy to be working again, and he's pretty sure his wife is happy to have him out of the house. \"It gives her a break from me,\" he jokes, but then his tone turns earnest: \"You spend all your life workin' and all of a sudden you're not, and all your friends are still workin'. You need somethin' to do.\"\n\nSupervising Barnhart construction crews more than answers that need. Cranes are costly to rent, and keeping workers fed and housed runs up a hefty tab as well. All of that makes six-day workweeks routine, sometimes including double shifts and occasionally even spilling over onto Sundays. \"Some days I wonder what I'm doin\",' Steve admits, but he quickly adds: \"Other days I know, after a few weeks, I'd be extremely bored [sitting at home]. . . . All those years dealin' with plant managers and workers. I need that camaraderie in my life.\"\n\nThe close company Steve enjoys is palpable as we sit in his truck and watch one of his Barnhart crews \"fly a rotor,\" or lift it into place, connecting it to the turbine's main shaft atop 255 feet of steel tubing. It has just started raining. Sheets of water are pouring off the corrugated metal roof of a nearby barn, but the wind is calm and there's no lightning in the area, so the work goes on.\n\nA dozen men team up to fly the rotor, which has been preassembled on the ground by bolting three blades to a hub. (Barnhart has no women on its field crew at Meadow Lake, though Steve explains that's only because the Ironworkers Local hasn't sent any along.) Four men are on the ground, and four more are atop the tower. It takes a crew of two\u2014a Barnhart operator and a union apprentice called an \"oiler\"\u2014to manage the Manitowoc \"triple 9\" crane, mounted on tank tracks with a 300-foot, elbow-jointed boom. A single operator runs a smaller wheel-mounted crane, used to stabilize the rotor as it's lifted. And then there's the quality assurance supervisor from Clint Newbold's shop. \"It's A-A-A-L-L-L about teamwork,\" Steve yells to me above the crackling of his two-way radio and the revving of crane engines. \"Nobody's gonna like everybody, but you work as a team. You're only as good as the people you're surrounded by.\"\n\nThis seems particularly true when you're raising a 46-ton rotor that's broader in diameter than a Boeing 747 is long. A lot can go wrong if any member of the team isn't properly trained or is less than 100 percent alert. Most vulnerable, perhaps, are the crewmembers high in the tower who must guide the rotor, foot by foot and then inch by inch, as it approaches its docking position at the outer tip of the main shaft, protruding just slightly from the front of the nacelle.\n\nThe Manitowoc's engine howls as its cable becomes taut, tugging on the upper rim of the rotor's hub. Two blades rise, forming a perfect V high in the air. The third blade points straight downward, the smaller crane holding its tip just a few feet off the ground. A few dozen yards away, two men stand in a cleared stretch of cornfield, each grasping a rope looped around the tip of an elevated blade. With these slender tools, they hold the rotor steady as it rises into the air slowly, majestically. This is the largest kite I've ever seen flown.\n\nTwelve long minutes into this operation, the rotor hovers with its hub slightly higher than the nacelle. The rain has let up, and Rusty Fitz gets ready to guide the rotor through its final stages of flight. He is visible high above us, ant-sized, peering over the front edge of the nacelle like a sailor looking out from a ship's prow. He begins issuing radio instructions in a Louisiana drawl: \"Luffin' up, brother. Luffin' up.\" Rusty wants the crane to lift its upper boom slightly, creating a little more space between rotor and mount. Thirty slow seconds pass as the crane operator gently shifts the rotor's position.\n\nRusty then calls out to one of the ropers in the cornfield clearing. \"Comin' in on my left tag,\" he says, looking for a bit less slack in the line. Another twenty seconds pass. \"Alright on my left tag, comin' in on my right.\" The other roper complies. Then to the crane operator: \"Gimme a little cable down. I want 'bout eight, nine feet of cable down.\" The crane lets out some cable and the rotor descends. After a \"skootch\" to the right and another to the left to finalize the alignment, the first bolts are fastened between the main shaft and the rotor.\n\nStepping out onto the hub, Rusty disconnects the crane's cable. Even with a safety harness, this is no job for the acrophobe. As the freed cable rises, he sounds euphoric: \"Alright there, Big Daddy, all clear. FINE JOB! FINE JOB!\"\n\nWith the rotor flown, Steve takes me back to the laydown yard in his pickup. Next in line at the turbine site, Hinkels and McCoy will come in and hook up all the electrical systems. Then the Barnhart quality assurance team will make sure everything's ready for a walk-through by the owners. In a few months, he expects all 121 turbines to begin sending wind-generated power to the grid.\n\nSteve doesn't sound overly sentimental when he talks about his \"five aggravatin' grandchildren.\" He admits, though, that he's proud to be playing a role in opening America's horizons to wind, and he hopes that someday his grandkids will say, \"Grandpa had somethin' to do with it.\"\n\nErecting turbines has its challenges and risks; so does maintaining them. Those looking for a cushy desk job need not apply for any of the thousands of operations and maintenance\u2014\"O&M\"\u2014jobs that are opening up at America's wind farms. I learned this the hard way during an earlier visit to Cloud County.\n\nTo experience what wind technicians undertake a few times daily, I felt it was important that I try climbing a turbine\u2014straight up a series of narrow aluminum ladders inside the tower to the hatch on the underside of a Vestas V90 nacelle, 262 feet in the air. My folly should have been obvious from the start: I am mildly claustrophobic, vaguely uncomfortable with heights, not particularly robust, and, to echo Steve Maples, \"well past fifty.\"\n\nBefore setting out on the climb, I was given basic instruction by Meridian Way's operations manager, a two-tour Iraqi war veteran named Justin Van Beusekom, burly, sun-baked, his lower lip bulging with chewing tobacco. First, Justin had me review a multipage release form outlining the hazards of working up-tower, from hypothermia in the winter to dehydration and heat exhaustion in the summer. Then he fitted me with a hard hat, protective glasses, gloves for a better grip, and a harness heavily laden with clips and straps. I was already wearing the mandatory hard-toed work boots, purchased the previous day at Walmart.\n\nAs we drove to the turbine, Justin distracted me by talking about two of the local wildlife dangers listed on the release form: rattlesnakes and the small but surprisingly venomous brown recluse spider. With a slight flair for exaggeration, he warned that the spider's bite can cause a finger to \"swell up and explode.\" As for rattlers, I needed no convincing: the previous day, I had seen one slither across a packed-dirt farm road just a few feet in front of my car. In truth, though, my mind was on neither spiders nor snakes; I was girding my nerves for the climb.\n\nAt the site, Justin keyed in a command to pause the turbine's operation; no one goes up-tower when the rotor is turning. We entered the tower through a rounded, shiplike steel door, a few steps off the ground. Inside the air was dank with the smell of grease and plastics. Following Justin's instruction, I latched my harness, with its fallarresting clamp, to a cable running up the center of a short stretch of ladder to a grated steel platform just overhead. Getting to that first platform was easy. Then came the next span\u2014about fifty feet straight up into near-total darkness. And beyond that, I knew, were two more spans covering the remaining distance to the top\u2014nearly 200 feet into a cavity that would be shrinking from 12 feet across to only 7.5 feet in diameter at the top. I also knew that magnets were all that held these slender vertical spans to the tower's interior wall\u2014a means of preserving the maximal strength of this giant steel tube.\n\nWith every step I took, the temperature seemed to rise and the air became heavier, more stagnant. For several hours the sun had beaten down on the tower's exposed steel, warming it through and through. I tried not to look up; I tried not to look down. My arms strained, my thighs ached, my heart was pounding. Panic overcame pride; I knew I couldn't make it.\n\nI half-expected a soldier's scolding when I called down to Justin to say I'd had enough. Instead, he calmly coached me through the mechanics of the descent. As I exited the tower through its narrow hatch, I felt a huge rush of relief that left little room for humiliation.\n\nBack in Horizon's field office, I untangled myself from the web of harness gear and shared with Justin what my two teenaged daughters had said when I told them about my planned climb. \"Are you _crazy_?\" one exclaimed. The other insisted: \"You've _got_ to do it if you're writing a book about wind.\" Justin smiled and responded: \"They were both right!\"\n\nMy awe for the rigors of O&M work only deepened on my visit to the Grand Ridge Wind Farm outside Marseilles, Illinois. Leo Jessen is wind developer Invenergy's point man at this 99-megawatt project, supervising a crew of six O&M technicians. A clean-shaven head and fashionable earring somewhat mask his years, but at forty-seven, Leo is older than the other members of his team. Though still relatively quick at climbing turbines, he pithily observes, \"There's old climbers and bold climbers, but no old bold climbers.\" It's all about pacing, he claims. \"You might be in the greatest shape in the world; you might be able to run up the ladder; but you've got to understand that, when you get to the top, you've got to do the work.\" A young buck who races up the ladder in five minutes and then collapses in exhaustion for forty-five is less valuable, he says, than someone who takes twenty minutes to make the climb but then gets right to work.\n\nLadders on the GE turbines at Grand Ridge are equipped with counterweights that can reduce technicians' effective climbing weight by as much as 50 percent. Leo stresses, though, that technicians typically carry at least forty extra pounds in tools and safety gear, so getting to the top of a tower still demands real effort.\n\nWeather extremes, up-tower as well as en route, impose further physical stress on O&M technicians. Mechanical heat quickly dissipates when turbines are shut down, leaving workers aloft in winter temperatures that can easily drop below zero. In summertime, the temperature inside a nacelle\u2014ventilated but not air-conditioned\u2014often tops a hundred degrees. \"If you're a TV dinner, this is the ultimate job for you,\" Leo says. \"You'll freeze in the winter and cook in the summer.\"\n\nWhat do O&M technicians cope with, aside from the weather? First of all, turbines\u2014like any machine\u2014require scheduled maintenance. Gearboxes need periodic oil changes, using specially equipped pump trucks to siphon off the old oil and pump in the new. Grease must be applied to the gears that control the pitch of turbine blades and the mechanism that changes the \"yaw,\" or compass orientation, of the rotor, both of which are constantly adjusting to optimize rotor speed under different wind conditions. Also needing periodic checking and replacement are brake pads, used along with blade-feathering to hold the turbine still during maintenance and, in a pinch, to help keep the rotor from spinning out of control. Then there are the gearbox failures, generator misalignments, electrical defects, hydraulic control issues, and other non-routine problems that have to be handled as quickly as possible to minimize the time and cost of taking turbines out of production.\n\nLeo's goal is to keep the Grand Ridge turbines operating as close to 100 percent of the time as is physically possible. In its first half-year of operations, the turbines performed at 98 to 99 percent availability\u2014the term used to reflect the percentage of time that a turbine is fully operational, or _available_ to capture the wind.  Leo attributes this very high availability to the fact that the equipment is still new, but it also reflects the responsiveness and training of his O&M crewmembers.\n\nDemand for well-trained O&M technicians, on-site managers, and administrative support staff at American wind farms has been growing, but the rate of that growth has been directly affected by fluctuations in the U.S. economy. In 2009, new wind installations totaled nearly 10,000 megawatts. Although the economy had already slumped, turbine orders placed before the recession allowed the industry to maintain a brisk rate of development that year. To service the turbines that went on-line in that year alone, AWEA estimates that 1,000 new O&M jobs were created. The recession took its toll on wind development the following year, however, cutting newly installed wind capacity in half and substantially reducing demand for new O&M hires. Wind turbine technology has also become more reliable with every passing year, making it possible to spread O&M crews more sparingly across ever-larger turbine arrays.\n\nEven with these market fluctuations and technology developments, the need for trained technicians has been big enough to nurture a new generation of specialized training programs at more than two dozen centers of learning across the country. Cloud County Community College's story is emblematic.\n\nWhen Bruce Graham gave up his high school teaching career to launch Cloud County's wind program in 2007, he had to work hard at building faculty support. With only four students in his program, he had an uphill burden of persuasion. Before long, though, the school's top administrators came to embrace Bruce's effort as their poster child. Students were coming from several states across the lower Midwest, and money was flowing in\u2014about $1.8 million in federal grants and nearly $1 million in state funding. \"Wind has become our icon,\" the college's vice president for academic affairs proclaimed in March 2010. Today, Cloud County's Wind Energy Technology Department has more than a hundred students enrolled in its two-year program, taking courses that run the gamut from mechanics, hydraulics, and electronics to turbine siting, worker safety, and data acquisition. With an associate's degree in applied science, they emerge primed to enter a job market where they find themselves competing with a growing cohort of well-trained technicians, many of them coming out of similar programs at places like Iowa Lakes Community College.\n\nYou can tell that the wind industry has penetrated the national ethos when a community college's training program for wind technicians is featured on a prime-time TV ad. That is exactly what happened when a commercial for Duracell batteries showed young guys in hard hats climbing a turbine and inspecting circuits, with the voice-over saying: \"At Iowa Lakes Community College, the students learn to keep America's wind turbines going. And to keep them safe, the only battery they trust in their high-voltage meters are Duracell rechargeables.\"\n\nThe Wind Energy and Turbine Technology Program at Iowa Lakes is housed in an attractive modern building on the college's campus in Estherville, a small village in the northwest corner of the state. This is a far cry from Cloud County's temporary rented quarters, shoehorned between the Dollar General store and the Dragon House Chinese restaurant in a Concordia strip mall. Ahmad Hemami, an instructor in the fundamentals of electricity, guides me through a half-dozen well-appointed teaching labs and a nearly equal number of classrooms. In the labs, students gather around electronic control boards, computer monitors, and wind-measuring anemometers, looking up only briefly as we walk through.\n\nAhmad then takes me to see a Vestas V90 nacelle, neatly mounted as a floating classroom in a courtyard just off the main corridor. I climb a single short ladder leading up to the suspended capsule and finally get to eyeball what I would have seen if I'd completed my climb at Meridian Way. The nacelle's cramped metallic interior feels like a cross between a submarine engine room and a space shuttle cabin. To make room for students, there is no main shaft running the length of the chamber and other large components, such as the gearbox and generator, have also been removed. Even so, the nacelle is a crowded maze of circuit boxes, electric motors, hydraulic hoses, and cooling fans to keep workers and machinery within a bearable temperature range. It's not hard to imagine how tightly packed a nacelle must be when filled with all the machinery that's needed to turn motion into power.\n\nIowa Lakes may be in a remote corner of a rural state, but from a wind technology perspective, it's in an ideal spot. Aside from having its own fully functioning wind turbine just a half-mile from campus, the college sits in a region that is replete with commercial-scale wind farms. \"They're right smack-dab in northwest Iowa, where we need all the technicians,\" says Clipper's Bob Loyd, who sits on the Iowa Lakes board of advisers and is an enthusiastic booster of the program. The college also enjoys easy access to technology leaders at larger educational institutions like the University of Iowa and Iowa State. Barry Butler, dean of the University of Iowa's College of Engineering, is unstinting in his praise for the program and is in awe of the program's physical plant: \"The laboratories they have are just enviable, even by our standards,\" he says. \"I'd love to have some of the equipment they have.\"\n\nAmong the students at Iowa Lakes are seasoned tradespeople like Joe Brightwell and Richard Dunham. Joe was a unionized electrician in Montague, Michigan, until his work dried up with the collapse of the housing industry. Richard was a general contractor in Atlanta. When the recession devastated his business, Richard was already in his early fifties, yet he coolly set about searching for a new career. As a first step, he decided that he wanted to work in a field that would draw on his university training long ago in mechanical engineering. Next, he surveyed different energy technologies, ruling out several of them as less-than-promising employment prospects. \"I wasn't convinced that nuclear power was going to come back, and there's already a lot of people in coal,\" he reasons. \"So I looked at the alternative energies. Of course, wind seemed to be the most viable, and I knew it was something I would be interested in because there's a lot of mechanics as well as electrical work.\"\n\nThough sold on wind, Richard is far from a true believer when it comes to climate change. \"People are being persuaded falsely that there is a traumatic experience that's going to happen in the next fifty to a hundred years, like glacier melting and so forth,\" he says with obvious derision. On the other hand, he disdains coal company profiteering, loathes American reliance on Middle East oil, and believes that tapping the wind is an important way to secure American energy independence.\n\nWhile students like Joe and Richard have already logged in decades in the technical trades, most Iowa Lakes trainees are young, barely out of high school. Paul Johnson is one of them, coming to Iowa Lakes after a short stint at a small college in North Dakota. The valedictorian at his hometown high school in northern Minnesota, Paul has a little trouble squaring his current studies with the expectations built up over his high school years. \"In high school, these technical programs were kind of frowned upon,\" he acknowledges. \"It was expected you could do better.\" He tells me that he hasn't managed to get any of his high school classmates excited about wind power, yet he speaks with animation about the industry's value in creating well-paying rural jobs. Growing up on a small farm with two parents who needed outside jobs to make ends meet, he is painfully aware of the strains facing family farming and has a sober respect for the difficulties in finding new local jobs to fill the vacuum.\n\nWind developers make a point of hiring local labor wherever possible. They know that when county commissions and economic development agencies weigh the pros and cons of inviting a new wind farm into their communities, the promise of new jobs will be a major consideration. Construction crews like the one led by Steve Maples at Meadow Lake have large contingents of workers hired through local unions. O&M teams like Leo Jessen's at Grand Ridge also draw from neighboring areas; Leo himself grew up and now lives in the town of Ottawa, Illinois, a dozen miles from the wind farm field office.\n\nWhile many of the workers on wind farm construction crews and O&M teams are local, few of them are women. Project development teams often include women in supervisory and administrative roles; Carole Engelder is one example. But in the field, they are a rarity. At Meadow Lake, there were none in Steve Maples's ninety-man-strong construction crew. At Grand Ridge, I observed another construction team that included just one woman slogging through puddles on a rainy spring day, brushing and hosing mud off tower sections that had been lying in the fields. Meanwhile, the men busied themselves with their big machines, hoisting the freshly cleaned steel tubes into place.\n\nOn the operations side, Michelle Graham is an interesting and unusual hybrid. On one hand, she juggles a range of roles in the Meridian Way field office. She prepares daily reports on turbine availability, wind conditions, and needed repairs; she leads informational tours of the wind farm; and she maintains constant ties with the wind farm's participants and abutters, making sure they aren't caught off guard when an O&M crew goes out to repair a blade or replace a gearbox.\n\nAt the same time, Michelle has worked hard at defining a useful role for herself up-tower. To do this, she first had to get over her aversion to heights, so she began practice-climbing up a twenty-foot ladder that her husband Bruce\u2014a wind instructor at home as well as at Cloud County Community College\u2014had lashed to the side of their barn. \"I strapped on his climbing harness and climbed up and down that ladder fourteen times,\" she told me. Afterward, she collapsed on the couch, her body exhausted and her hands blistered. That was in July 2009. By December, she had reached the top of a Vestas V90, where she spent several hours learning how to audit the services performed by O&M technicians\u2014making sure bolts were tight, oil and grease levels were sufficient, and conditions were clean. Today, with her fears behind her, Michelle views up-tower quality assurance auditing as part of her on-the-job repertoire.\n\nRare among workers in the field, women are nearly absent from the student rolls at technical training programs. At Cloud County Community College, only four out of a hundred students in the 2010\u201311 academic year were women. The previous year, Iowa Lakes had just five women enrolled in its program.\n\nOne of them was Loma Roggenkamp, a native Pennsylvanian who came to the wind energy field after trying her hand at marine biology in Maine. \"I thought the ocean was our final frontier, and we were going to find things to save the world out there.\" Unable to land a job that drew on her studies, she worked in a graphics firm for several years. Then one day her mother spotted a wind technology ad on the Internet, and Loma immediately went online to explore possible points of entry. Training would be needed, she knew, and Iowa Lakes kept coming up as a great place to gear up for a career change. Soon she enrolled in the college with her family's blessing.\n\nImmediately on graduating from Iowa Lakes in June 2010, Loma was snapped up by Siemens Energy to work as an O&M technician. First she was dispatched to Houston for three weeks of training; then she was sent to her \"home farm,\" a 200-megawatt facility in Glenrock, Wyoming, 5,000 feet above sea level. At Top of the World, as the wind farm is fittingly called, Siemens operates forty-four 2.3-megawatt machines\u2014just over half the farm's installed capacity.\n\nIn a phone call at the end of her first day up-tower, Loma's exhilaration is palpable. An athlete, she relishes the climb\u2014nearly 300 feet straight up. \"I can climb every day, and I don't have to pay for a gym membership!\" she quips. And then there's the view. The Siemens nacelle opens like a clamshell, giving workers a stunning vista onto the surrounding countryside. \"I can troubleshoot a turbine and look at nature at the same time,\" she says.\n\n\"I'm making a difference and I'm needed in this industry,\" Loma tells me with confidence and pride. That difference isn't just advancing a technology she believes in; it's helping women find safe and welcoming pathways into the wind energy workforce. Not surprisingly, much of the safety training for O&M technicians is focused on men; she wants to help develop training guidance for women. \"Men aren't the only ones with appendages that are vulnerable,\" she says. Along with opting for the greater comfort of a safety harness configuration shaped like an \"X\" rather than an \"H\" in the chest area, women need to be cautioned not to wear flammable synthetic undergarments that can melt and adhere to the skin in case of fire.\n\nLoma is now working with a nonprofit group, Women of Wind Energy, to develop these training materials. She has found an enthusiastic ally and supporter in Kristen Graf, the organization's executive director. Kristen attributes the dearth of women in technical jobs partially to the stereotype that these sorts of positions are traditionally the domain of men. Women don't necessarily hear about wind energy training and hiring opportunities, so opening up the flow of information about schools and jobs is one needed step. Even for those women who stand up to the stereotypes, surmount the often-subtle biases, and get hired, Kristen says that working conditions built on a male culture can sometimes be unwelcoming and isolating. \"Some women are good at playing the role of being 'one of the guys,' \" she observes, \"but that shouldn't be a requirement if you have all the skills needed for a particular job.\" Her goal, and that of her organization, is \"to be more proactive in creating a working environment that fits everyone.\"\n\nAt least as troubling to Kristen is the underrepresentation of women in higher-level corporate positions. Women of Wind Energy, which has thirty state chapters and a few additional branches in Canada, provides fellowships for women to attend the AWEA annual meeting, a multiday conference and trade fair that draws tens of thousands of participants each year. Newcomers to the job market get easy access to wind energy employers at these gatherings. Kristen describes Denise Bode, CEO of AWEA, as \"a real champion\" in raising the profile of women in the industry. Even with those efforts, there remains a very large gender gap in wind energy management\u2014a gap that is reflected by the composition of the AWEA board: out of twenty-eight members serving as of April 2011, only five were women.\n\nJeanna Walters, a Cloud County graduate who has gone on to pursue a bachelor's degree in environmental science at Kansas State, sees the challenge facing women in wind as beginning with the school system. \"We really need to push the science and math on girls in high school,\" she insists. Even if women don't want to end up working in construction or climbing turbines, she is sure that opportunities abound for women in engineering, land acquisition, development oversight, financing, operations management, and marketing. \"This is definitely an industry that girls can be involved in\u2014and should be.\"\n\nIt's hard to predict how many U.S. jobs a thriving wind energy sector might provide in future years, but that hasn't kept the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) from trying. In a report called _Wind Power in America's Future: 20% Wind Energy by 2030_ , it looked at the prospects for generating electricity from wind. If wind were to supply 20 percent of America's power by 2030, the DOE research team estimated that annual installations of new wind-generating capacity would have to reach 16 gigawatts by 2018\u2014an increase, but certainly not an impossible leap from an installation level that came very close to 10 gigawatts in 2009. Under this scenario, total installed wind power nationwide would reach 300 gigawatts by 2030\u2014sufficient to generate a fifth of the 5.8 billion megawatt-hours projected to be the overall U.S. demand for electricity by that date. This is _not_ a formula that optimistically flatlines U.S. electricity use between now and the target date; to the contrary, a 39 percent increase above total consumption in 2005 is built into the calculation. If we actually became a nation that valued energy conservation more than we do today, 300 gigawatts of installed wind power could end up providing well over 20 percent of the nation's power needs by 2030.\n\nUnder the _20% Wind Energy by 2030_ scenario, manufacturing jobs directly related to producing wind turbine components and subcomponents would top 30,000 by 2021, peaking at 32,835 in 2028. While factory work would somewhat slacken thereafter, ongoing expansion in generating capacity\u2014both onshore and offshore\u2014and the need to re-power aging wind plants would guarantee a continued high level of employment in the manufacturing sector. In construction, jobs would average over 70,000 a year from 2019 through 2030. And in wind farm operations, total jobs would reach 76,667 by 2030\u2014about 28,000 in on-site O&M and another 48,000 in utility services and subcontractors. Adding them all up, DOE foresees about 180,000 jobs directly linked to wind energy as the 2030 target date approaches.\n\nBeyond all the \"direct\" jobs in the wind energy economy, DOE also explores the \"indirect\" employment benefits of growing this sector. These jobs include the producers and suppliers of steel, fiberglass, and other materials that are used to build wind turbines; the companies that produce the parts that go into turbine components and subcomponents; and the providers of banking, accounting, legal, and other services to wind turbine manufacturers and wind farm contractors. These indirect jobs are expected to number about 100,000 annually in the years leading up to the 2030 target date.\n\nFinally, DOE draws an even wider circle around the \"induced\" jobs resulting from consumer spending by people directly and indirectly employed in the wind energy sector. A Clipper factory worker buys a new pair of jeans in a local store; an O&M technician takes his family out to dinner; a crane operator stays at a local motel. The DOE team attributes another 200,000 jobs per year to these induced economic activities.\n\nFolding induced jobs into the assessment of wind energy benefits may go farther down the speculative road than some are ready to travel. But even setting that outer circle of employment impacts aside, we are looking at a roster that rises to more than a quarter-million direct and indirect jobs if we pursue DOE's _20% by 2030_ goal. A technology commitment that advances America's energy independence and reduces our nation's carbon footprint while creating hundreds of thousands of new, skill-based jobs\u2014isn't this a path worth taking?\n\n## CHAPTER SIX\n\n## The Path to Cleaner Energy\n\nBEYOND BRINGING JOBS TO tens and eventually hundreds of thousands of Americans, can we expect wind energy to make a real difference in the way we fuel our economy? How much can we count on wind energy to rein in the pollution that is compromising our health and warming the Earth's atmosphere? And what will it cost us to make wind a major part of our energy diet?\n\nLooking at wind energy's contribution today, it may seem premature\u2014even presumptuous\u2014to think of the technology as a gamechanger. During 2010, wind supplied 2.9 percent of America's power needs. Coal, during the same period, delivered 45 percent of our electricity, and natural gas generated another 24 percent, followed closely by nuclear power, with a 20 percent share of overall output. Another 6 percent of our electricity came from conventional hydroelectric dams, while solar energy\u2014photovoltaics and thermal systems combined\u2014barely registered a blip on the screen at 0.03 percent.\n\nFrom the broader vantage point of energy use across all sectors, wind's current status looks humbler still. Electricity generation amounts to a little less than 40 percent of total U.S. energy consumption, with most of the rest relying on the direct burning of fossil fuels to run our vehicles, stoke our industries, and heat our buildings. So that means wind meets slightly more than 1 percent of our overall energy needs.\n\nWind energy's role in weaning America off fossil fuels may be modest today, but its untapped potential is vast. In February 2010, the government-run National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released the results of a mapping effort that gauges the full magnitude of land-based wind energy as a resource that can serve America's power needs (see table 1). First NREL identified \"windy land areas,\" which it defined as areas where the average winds are strong enough, at 80 meters (262 feet) above ground, to allow turbines to produce electricity at a minimum of 30 percent of their full installed or \"nameplate\" capacity, averaged annually. (A 30 percent \"capacity factor\" is considered moderately robust.) Areas with annual wind speeds averaging at least 14.6 miles per hour were regarded as meeting this threshold.\n\nFrom this gross measure, NREL then subtracted territory that it deemed unlikely to be developed for wind because of conflicting uses or characteristics\u2014urban areas, parks, designated wilderness, and areas with water features that could hinder wind development. In my home state of Massachusetts, NREL rated less than 1 percent of the state as sufficiently windy, and it disqualified 88 percent of that small area because of conflicts. At the other end of the spectrum is Kansas, where almost 90 percent of the land meets the threshold for windiness, and only 10 percent of that windy area has been sidelined by NREL because of conflicts.\n\nI remember loving those spin art kits that were toy store staples in the 1960s. After dribbling paints from ketchup-like dispensers onto a rectangular sheet of cardboard, I'd flip the switch of a battery-operated spinning wheel. Within seconds, a swirling, sometimes lurid maelstrom of colors emerged. On first glance, NREL's digitized wind map of the United States reminds me of those creations. In the Southeast, spring green splashes across the Atlantic coastal states, reaching as far inland as Tennessee, Alabama, and eastern Mississippi. This color connotes average wind speeds of less than 11.2 miles per hour\u2014well below what's needed to make wind a strong competitor with other power-generating fuels. Moving up into the Northeast, green yields to splotches of yellow and shades of brown, suggesting wind speeds edging up to 15 miles per hour. The same dappling of forest colors spreads from the Pacific Coast through Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and New Mexico. Then the real excitement begins. From the Rockies, across the Great Plains, stretching from eastern Montana and the Dakotas down to Texas, deep veins run from rust to violet to purple, plunging occasionally to midnight blue, revealing vast areas where average wind speeds range from 15 to 20 miles per hour. These expanses are the stuff of wind developers' dreams.\n\nAdding up all the qualifying windy areas, NREL projects that America could install up to 11,000 gigawatts of land-based wind power, yielding roughly 38.5 million gigawatt hours of electricity per year. _That's nine times our total electricity production today_!\n\nOffshore wind is another huge energy resource, virtually untapped in America, though a growing contributor to European power generation. NREL has concluded that U.S. ocean waters within fifty nautical miles of land, plus U.S. portions of the Great Lakes, could yield 4,000 gigawatts of wind-generating capacity, bringing our combined onshore and offshore wind energy potential to 15,000 gigawatts. _That's nearly fifty times the amount of wind energy that the Department of Energy says we will need to harness to supply 20 percent of our nation's power needs by 2030_.\n\nA whole host of environmental, aesthetic, and logistical concerns can make many a wind-rich site a poor prospect for building a wind farm. From my own advocacy for onshore and offshore wind energy in New England, I know how huge a leap it can be from identifying a resource to seeing wind blades spinning on the horizon. Whether the concerns are about harm to wildlife, noise, inadequate access to transmission, or simply the interrupted view, the realm of sites acceptable to policymakers and the public is considerably smaller than the universe of wind-worthy areas. We may not want to develop every promising wind site in the nation, but it's clear that wind energy could become a mainstay of our energy economy using just a small fraction of the available resource.\n\nWe may have more wind on hand than we can possibly use, but what will we gain by tapping this resource? One clear \"win\" is the opportunity to reduce America's contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions.\n\nThe carbon emissions gap between wind power and conventional fossil fuels is nothing short of stupendous. The Swedish utility Vattenfall, Europe's fifth-largest electricity producer, has prepared a life-cycle environmental assessment of a range of generating sources. Typical of cradle-to-grave environmental assessments, this evaluation looks at the materials used and the pollutants generated at all stages of a technology's implementation. For coal, this includes building the power plant; mining, purifying, transporting, and storing the coal; burning it to produce electricity; disposing of coal ash; and decommissioning the plant at the end of its productive lifespan. For natural gas, the study's scope is similar, beginning with drilling and running all the way through power plant decommissioning. For wind, the coverage extends from manufacturing and operating the turbines to end-of-life dismantling. Taking all these factors into account, Vattenfall reports that wind, averaged over its full life cycle, produces about 10 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilowatt hour of electricity generated, while coal releases 600 to 700 grams per kilowatt hour\u2014that's sixty to seventy times as much CO2 per unit of power. Gas, depending on the technology used, ranges from 400 to 1,300 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour\u201440 to 130 times as much CO2 as wind.\n\nHere in the United States, NREL conducted its own life-cycle assessment of coal-based power production in 1999. It found that the average U.S. coal plant emitted 1,022 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour, and newer coal-burning facilities released 941 grams per kilowatt hour. In more recent years, the performance of our coal plants hasn't improved very much. In 2008, the average coal-burning facility put out about 995 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour. Newer, more efficient plants performed only slightly better, with the hundred best-performing units averaging about 865 grams per kilowatt hour.\n\nVestas has been an industry leader in preparing and publishing life-cycle analyses of its wind turbines, following guidelines established by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Looking at the V90 3-megawatt machine that stumped my climbing efforts at Meridian Way, the company estimates that each turbine will generate about 158,000 megawatt hours of electricity over the course of its twenty-year lifetime. By using wind rather than coal to generate this power, Vestas expects that a single turbine will spare the environment about 130,000 tons of CO2 pollution over the course of its useful life.\n\nAnother tool for evaluating different power-generating technologies is called an \"energy balance.\" In an energy balance, the energy consumed by a given technology is compared to the energy it produces over its full operational lifetime. Vestas analyzed the V90 in this manner. First it looked at the extraction and production of raw material inputs like steel. Next it evaluated the energy used in manufacturing, installing, operating, and ultimately decommissioning the turbine. (The steel used in the tower and other major components can be recycled once a turbine is taken down, by the way.) Balancing all those inputs against the turbine's estimated lifetime energy output, it found that each V90 produces enough electricity to cover its full life-cycle energy inputs within the first 6.6 months of operation. From that point onward, all of the turbine's generated power is essentially carbon-free.\n\nFor coal, the story is very different. For every moment a coal plant operates, from its first day in service to its last, huge quantities of energy are consumed and correspondingly huge amounts of carbon are released into the air. Giant excavators keep grinding away at coal seams, diesel-powered trains continue to pull endless chains of coal cars across hundreds of miles of open country, and power plant boilers burn the fuel in nearly unfathomable quantities right up until the day the plant shuts down. The energy balance for coal and every other fossil fuel begins in a deficit that only deepens with every new ton of fuel consumed.\n\nThe Department of Energy has looked at the CO2 emissions that we could avoid by generating 20 percent of our power from wind. It estimates that this switch to wind power would cut our yearly CO2 emissions by 825 million metric tons, or about 26 percent of all projected CO2 emissions from the power sector in 2030.\n\nIn addition to burning finite energy resources throughout their years of operation, coal and other fossil fuel\u2013based power plants spew massive amounts of dangerous pollutants into the atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide emissions are about 48 times higher and nitrogen oxide emissions are 42 times higher for coal plants than for wind farms, averaged over the full life cycle of each facility. (For wind farms, air emissions\u2014like the energy inputs already discussed\u2014are primarily associated with the fuels burned in producing, erecting, and dismantling the turbines, not with day-to-day operations.) Methane, an ozone precursor and a greenhouse gas that\u2014gram for gram\u2014is much more potent than CO2, is produced at levels 320 times higher for coal than for wind. Modern, combined-cycle gas facilities fare better, although the gap is still huge: sulfur dioxide levels are 4.6 times larger, nitrogen oxides are 11.4 times greater, and methane emissions are 124 times as high as wind. Adding this heavy dose of pollutants to the CO2 loadings caused by coal and gas facilities, it's clear that our ongoing reliance on fossil fuels comes at a very high environmental price.\n\nThe environmental drawbacks to fossil fuels, grave though they are, pale by comparison to the \"perils of the peaceful atom.\" In one of the most unsettling paradoxes of modern times, mounting concern about global warming has brought nuclear power to the fore as a \"carbonneutral\" technology that is ostensibly friendlier to the global climate than coal or other fossil fuels. A few veteran voices in the environmental community, like Stewart Brand, founder of _Whole Earth Catalog_ and an early mentor of California governor Jerry Brown, have even joined this chorus.\n\nWhen I was in graduate school in the early 1980s, I had a professor who was fond of explaining statistical probability with the reminder: \"Rare events _do_ happen.\" Those words haunted me at the time. Only a few years had passed since a combination of faulty design and human error had led to the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Although no public health disaster ensued, the accident caused the American public to doubt the blithe assurances of nuclear industry leaders about the safety of their technology. Then Chernobyl melted down in 1986, and the nuclear nightmare that had been averted at Three Mile Island became a terrifying reality. Tens of thousands were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, thyroid cancer began appearing at an alarming rate, and about 9 percent of the Ukraine and 23 percent of Belarus remain contaminated today.\n\nThe disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex came as the next tragic reminder of nuclear power's menace. As I learned about the many tens of thousands of people who had to flee their homes and the hundreds of emergency workers who subjected themselves to extremely hazardous radiation levels while struggling to contain the damage, my thoughts kept circling back to my professor's warning about rare events. Should nuclear safety experts really have to plan for a double blow as improbable as an earthquake of practically unprecedented magnitude and a tidal wave of epic proportions hitting the same reactor complex in rapid succession? And yet this is exactly what happened within a few decades of the plant's construction. It's too soon to know the full impacts of this catastrophe, but the folly of relying on nuclear power to meet the twenty-first century's energy needs couldn't be clearer.\n\nAs horrific as accidental reactor meltdowns can be, nuclear power's hazards to humanity and the environment extend beyond the realm of the unintended. In the post-9\/11 era, we already know the havoc that can be created by commercial jetliners commandeered as guided missiles. In fact, targeting a nuclear reactor was an option considered by Al Qaeda in the period leading up to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. While nuclear industry spokespeople have claimed that a plane's likelihood of breaking through a reactor's concrete containment and exposing the reactor core is low, the National Academy of Sciences has warned that an aerial attack on a power plant's spent fuel storage pool could drain the pool and trigger a high-temperature fire, releasing potentially deadly quantities of radioactivity into the environment.\n\nShort of a direct attack placing nearby populations at risk, it would be foolhardy to ignore the hazards of further proliferating nuclear fissile materials in an unstable world where rogue regimes and terrorist groups are hustling to develop their own nuclear stockpiles. Those who admire France's commitment to nuclear power often gloss over the huge risks involved in that country's reliance on fuel reprocessing to keep its reactors going. Separated plutonium\u2014a key product of reprocessing\u2014is a prime feedstock for nuclear weapons, much more valuable to potential bomb makers than decaying fuel rods. This danger has led Peter Bradford, former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to warn: \"In a world in which reprocessing becomes an integral part of the fuel cycle, the International Atomic Energy Agency's proliferation safeguard system would face challenges that it is not capable of dealing with because separated plutonium is so much easier and quicker to transfer into a weapon than . . . fuel rods that are in a reactor pool.\"\n\nThen there is the nuclear waste. Once the fuel rods reach the end of their useful lives, they are removed from the reactor core and are placed in temporary storage, usually at the reactor site but sometimes off-site, waiting for a safe method of long-term disposal to be discovered. In nuclear power parlance, \"long-term\" means tens and even hundreds of thousands of years for certain radioactive isotopes that are waste products of the fuel cycle. Eventually, when a reactor is decommissioned, much of the plant's hardware must also be sequestered until its radioactivity subsides. Because of the costs and dangers involved in dismantling them, only three of the twenty-four permanently closed U.S. power reactors have been fully decontaminated; nearly half are in a holding pattern that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission calls SAFSTOR, deferring decontamination to a later date.\n\nEver since the early 1980s, debate among experts and politicians has raged about the viability of a deep underground high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. By the time President Obama delivered on a campaign promise to halt further work on the Yucca project in 2009, the government had already spent $7.7 billion at the site. Over its full operating lifetime, the facility would have cost taxpayers and electricity ratepayers close to $100 billion.\n\nWith Yucca on hold indefinitely, the search for a viable long-term storage solution for nuclear waste continues. Meanwhile, every operating reactor continues to produce about 20 metric tons of used nuclear fuel per year, filling up temporary storage facilities way beyond their planned capacities. Much of the waste is stored in pools just like the ones that erupted into steaming, highly radioactive cauldrons at Fukushima Daiichi. \"Hubris\" doesn't begin to plumb the depths of our imprudence in perpetuating and possibly expanding our reliance on an ultra-hazardous technology that we have no idea how to manage into the indefinite future.\n\nEven the carbon neutrality claim about nuclear power is notably weak. Like fossil-fuel power plants, nuclear reactors demand an ongoing supply of fresh fuel, in the form of highly enriched uranium. Each stage in the nuclear fuel cycle consumes energy\u2014from the equipment used to mine uranium, to the power demanded by the various stages of concentration, enrichment, and fuel-rod fabrication, to the transportation of nuclear materials from one stage to the next. And what about the massive amounts of carbon emitted by the huge mobilizations involved in containing and cleaning up Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima?\n\nBeyond wind energy's clear merits as a safe, low-carbon power producer, it offers some dramatic new ways to lessen our dependence on foreign energy resources. The opportunities begin with oil.\n\nWind energy opponents often argue that harvesting the wind will do little to reduce America's reliance on Middle East oil. They rightly point out that a very small fraction of America's electricity comes from oil-fired power plants, most of which were phased down, if not out, in the 1970s, when skyrocketing oil prices in the post\u2013oil embargo years triggered a massive switch to domestic coal. Evidence of our success in cutting back on the use of oil for electricity production is unequivocal: oil supplies less than 1 percent of our present-day power needs, way down from 16 percent in 1973. If only we had been remotely as effective in trimming our overall appetite for oil during this period! Total U.S. oil consumption is nearly 2 million barrels a day higher today than it was in 1973.\n\nWind power's advantage may not be in displacing oil-based power generation, but it could make a different kind of dent in our oil dependence by changing the way we move people and goods around the country. Transportation ranks second only to power generation as a U.S. energy user, accounting for 27 percent of all energy we consume. And of the energy we use for transportation, almost all of it\u201497 percent\u2014comes from oil. Anything we can do to trim our oil use in this sector will go a long way toward curbing America's greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, the security gains could be enormous. The turmoil now sweeping North Africa and the Middle East only magnifies the madness of our reliance on foreign nations for so much of our oil supplies. Wouldn't it be a relief if our transportation lifeline led to wind farms in Kansas and Wyoming rather than oil fields in Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates? By matching up large networks of electric cars with a robust, wind-supplied grid, this transformation is within our reach.\n\nLate at night, with dinner already prepared, the dishes washed, and televisions and computers shut off, the wind still blows. At such times, turbines can be taken off-line to avoid overloading the grid with excess electrons, but this wastes a fuel source that is essentially free. The capital costs of building a wind farm are considerable, as they are for conventional coal, gas, or nuclear power plants, but what distinguishes wind from those other power sources is the absence of any ongoing fuel cost. Increasingly, energy planners and innovators have been coming up with new ways to make fuller use of wind-generated power at night and other times when routine demand for electricity is low. Creating centrally managed networks of plug-in electric vehicles is one such solution that Denmark is now pioneering.\n\nKnud Pedersen is vice president for research and development at Denmark's utility conglomerate Danish Oil and Natural Gas (DONG). As its full name implies, DONG was once a company that focused largely on fossil fuel production and distribution. Today it is a leader in tapping wind and other forms of renewable energy. When we met in his glass-walled office overlooking one of Copenhagen's busier traffic arteries, Pedersen spoke excitedly about the steps DONG is taking to reduce its carbon footprint. The largely state-held company owns over half of Denmark's conventional power-generating capacity, including several of the country's biggest coal-fired power plants. It also operates distribution lines serving nearly a third of the nation's electricity customers. \"[E]ighty-five percent of our production capacity is fossil-based or CO2-emitting,\" Pedersen told me. \"Our goal is to turn that upside down by 2040.\" DONG is committed to cutting its CO2 emissions per kilowatt hour in half by 2020, as a first step toward having 85 percent of its electricity come from wind, biomass-derived fuels, and other renewable resources twenty years later. This would place DONG substantially ahead of the European Union's new mandate calling for an 80 percent reduction in regionwide greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.\n\nAlready DONG has invested heavily in wind power at home and abroad. With well over 1,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity, the company distributes some of its wind-generated power in Denmark and markets the rest to other countries in northern Europe. Its plan is to own at least 3,000 megawatts of wind-based generation by 2020. The more wind DONG acquires, the bigger will be the challenge of matching its customers' consumption patterns to the available supply of wind power, which varies with the strength of the winds.\n\nThis is where electric cars enter the picture. Together with Israeli innovator Shai Agassi and his Silicon Valley firm, Better Place, DONG is preparing a network of tens of thousands of electric vehicles whose owners will plug them in when they arrive home, leaving it to DONG to decide when it would be cheapest to charge them up for the next day's driving. Pedersen assured me that participants in this program will not be subjected to hardship conditions. \"You should see the car as your normal car, with the same convenience apart from no noise\u2014very speedy acceleration and very comfortable,\" he said, opening a brochure that features two of the models that will be used. One is a small SUV, the other is an attractive, mid-sized sedan; both will be manufactured under agreement with Renault-Nissan.\n\nIn its early implementation, Better Place is looking to develop electric car networks in relatively confined geographical areas. This is important because, in addition to off-peak charging, the Better Place system requires battery swap stations to be built along highways so that cars traveling longer distances won't be caught without a charge. Small countries like Denmark and Israel are ideal, as travel distances tend to be relatively short. For the same reason, Better Place is focusing much of its initial attention in the United States on Hawaii, although the company is also working with state and local officials in California to create an electric car network in the Bay Area.\n\nTo avoid the cost and inconvenience of battery replacement stations, a number of U.S. researchers are thinking about building plug-in networks based on hybrid-electric cars and trucks instead of the all-electric vehicles proposed by Better Place. Under this approach, utilities would have the same leeway to select low-demand times for recharging batteries, but the use of hybrid engines would lift the limitation on driving distances.\n\nIt's no flight of fancy to imagine half of America's cars and small trucks running on electricity in a few decades' time. Just as we geared up to produce ever-greater quantities of internal combustion vehicles through most of the twentieth century, we could shift that vast and now faltering productive capacity toward a challenge truly worthy of our engineering creativity and competitive zeal. What better opportunity is there for the U.S. auto industry to recover from decades of short-sighted and financially calamitous decision making than by retooling to become a world leader in the manufacture of electric vehicles? If we don't seize this opportunity, it's clear that our European and Asian competitors will.\n\nLooking to the future, America's vulnerability to foreign energy supplies may not be limited to oil. More than half of American households today are heated with natural gas, and more than a fifth of our electricity is gas-generated. While most of that gas still comes from within our borders, known and proven U.S supplies are limited, amounting to about 273 trillion cubic feet\u2014little more than eleven times the amount of gas that we now consume in a single year. American gas industry proponents are quick to point out that additional \"unproved\" but \"technically recoverable\" reserves may be as much as nine times that amount. They are less ready to own up to what is involved in accessing those reserves.\n\nUnconventional recovery methods have substantially expanded U.S. gas supplies in recent years. Shale formations in Appalachia, Texas, and the Rockies are prime sites for drilling operations that provide about a fifth of our natural gas supply\u2014up from only 1 percent at the turn of the millennium. These operations use high-pressure water, converted chemically to a viscous gel, to fracture rock formations that are often a mile or more beneath the surface. Effective in releasing trapped gas, hydraulic fracturing ('fracking\") is a huge drain on local water supplies, often using up to 3 million gallons of water per job. It also poses a pollution hazard whose dimensions are largely obscured by the companies' refusal to divulge the chemicals in their fracking compounds. Along with the fracking chemicals, leachates from shale rock enter the water stream, often polluting it with salt brines as well as radionuclides and heavy metals like arsenic and barium. Companies at times re-inject these fluids into shallow wells, but public concerns about drinking water contamination have brought this practice into serious question. The alternatives\u2014discharging into surface waters or evaporation ponds\u2014have their own environmental downsides.\n\nCoal-bed methane is another unconventional source of natural gas, produced most intensively in New Mexico, the Rocky Mountain states, and Appalachia. Coal seams tend to be closer to the surface than shale, but they have to be dewatered before methane can be extracted, yielding large volumes of water that is often highly saline. Discharging this water into surface streams, a common practice, alters natural habitats and also can endanger drinking water supplies.\n\nThrough deeper drilling, \"re-fracking\" shale gas wells that have already been tapped, and other technology advances, we may be able to access greater amounts of gas than are within our reach today. Yet gas industry insiders are already beginning to panic that their recent projections about future shale gas yields have relied on unduly optimistic assumptions about cost, well productivity, and technical feasibility. This may shorten today's romance with cheap domestic gas, shifting American utilities and other consumers toward foreign gas suppliers long before our own reserves run out. And where are the world's biggest gas resources? In Russia, whose known reserves outstrip America's by a factor of six; in Iran and Qatar, each of which has more than three times the known reserves we have here in America; in Saudi Arabia, whose known reserves roughly match our own; and in places like Algeria, Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela, where sentiments toward our country range from volatile to overtly hostile.\n\nFor those who doubt that we could sink into dependence on yet another imported fossil fuel, we need only look back at the decades that have passed since Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter called upon lawmakers and the American public to rally behind an effort to free ourselves from the stranglehold of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in the 1970s. As we sat in those long fuel lines and watched gasoline prices skyrocket in the months following the 1973 oil embargo, who would have believed that we would allow our reliance on foreign oil to rise from 28 percent then to 60 percent today?\n\nWind energy won't eliminate our appetite for natural gas, just as it won't free us from our hunger for imported oil. It can, however, help keep our natural gas consumption within bounds. The Department of Energy predicts that we can reduce our reliance on natural gas\u2013fired power plants by half if we boost our wind energy production to 20 percent by 2030. This, DOE says, would reduce overall U.S. demand for natural gas by 11 percent.\n\nWe could curb our natural gas use further if Americans who now heat their homes with natural gas converted to electric heat pumps or other electric systems reliant on renewable energy\u2013based power. The American Gas Association reports that more than 64 million U.S. homes are heated with gas, an increase of 27 million customers since 1970. Many of these gas users had previously relied on oil to heat their homes; their switch to gas was largely in response to the rising price of home heating oil during the years following the OPEC oil embargo. Imagine what would happen to our natural gas demand if, over the _next_ forty years, we saw an equivalent shift in customers from natural gas to electric heat substantially generated by wind? And what if the 8 million households that still heat with oil switched over to renewable energy\u2013based electricity? The reduced fuel demand and lowered greenhouse gas emissions could be enormous.\n\nThere is no question that shifting tens of millions of cars and home-heating systems to electricity will demand a much more robust U.S. electric sector than we have today. For this to help rather than further harm the environment, we will need to ensure that our expanded generation is based on renewable energy. Meeting this demand with new coal-fired or nuclear power plants would only replace the petroleum used in cars and the gas used for home heating with other fuel choices that pose their own very grave environmental and security hazards. We will also have to build a much more robust and sophisticated transmission network that is capable of carrying large quantities of wind-generated power from remote locations, both onshore and offshore, to major population centers. Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), sees both of these challenges as well within our reach. He envisions a \"smart grid\" with the capacity to manage a U.S. electric system that is 50 percent or more reliant on wind.\n\nEven short of fulfilling the FERC chairman's long-term vision, we will need to increase our investment in wind substantially if we are to meet the Department of Energy's goal of drawing 20 percent of our power from wind by 2030. On average, we must install 16 gigawatts of new wind power capacity every year between now and 2030 to meet the 20 percent target. While this is an ambitious goal, it would certainly be within reach if we adopted federal pricing policies that accounted for the full costs of our fuel choices: the global warming effects and air pollution damage to people, property, and natural resources caused by carbon-based fuels; the practically incalculable hazards of nuclear power; and even the costs of waging military campaigns to protect our energy interests abroad. No such pricing is on the immediate political horizon, but lesser steps are certainly within reach. The extension of federal production and investment tax credits for renewable energy projects is one such measure. Adoption of a federal renewable electricity standard is another, requiring all states to ensure that the utilities under their jurisdiction draw a substantial portion of their power from wind and other forms of renewable energy.\n\nHappily, we needn't simply wait for the federal government to take action; more than thirty states have already adopted their own renewable electricity standards. Illinois, for example, has mandated that wind must provide three-quarters of its 25 percent renewable electricity quota for the year 2025, with three-quarters of that power mandated to come from wind. In Kansas, utilities must acquire 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020. The nation's most ambitious renewable electricity standard, in California, requires utilities to draw 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020. That's in addition to the abundant power that already comes from hydroelectricity\u2014about 15 percent of the state's overall power supply. Qualifying renewable resources\u2014mainly wind, geothermal, solar, and biomass\u2014supplied 18 percent of the power used by California's three big utilities in 2010, falling just short of the state's previous renewable electricity mandate, which set a 20 percent renewables target for that year.\n\nIn addition, eight states have passed laws requiring utilities to offer customers a green power option\u2014the choice of purchasing some or all of their power from renewable sources. And in forty-two states, net-metering laws obligate utilities to buy excess power generated by customers who have installed wind turbines, solar panels, or other renewable energy\u2013based power-generating systems. These measures, together with a range of state renewable energy grant and loan programs, have tilled fertile ground for wind energy development across much of the nation.\n\nWind energy's price relative to other power-generating technologies is critical to determining how big a role it will play in meeting America's electricity needs. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has gathered wholesale price data on 180 wind projects installed between 1998 and 2009, representing 38 percent of all installed wind power during that period. Through most of those years, wind power was at the low end of wholesale electricity prices, making it highly competitive with electricity coming from other energy plants. However, this relatively favorable relationship eroded in 2009, when a precipitous drop in natural gas prices\u2014largely the result of expanded shale gas development\u2014and a reduction in power demand as a result of the economic recession caused wholesale power prices to decline. By 2010, new wind projects commanded an average wholesale price of roughly $70 per megawatt hour, at a time when the wholesale power market averaged between $30 and $50 per megawatt hour.\n\nDespite this drop in gas prices, utilities have an ongoing stake in buying into the wind market, partially as a long-term hedge against the price instability of fossil fuels. Natural gas may be cheap today, but its price history has been a rollercoaster ride, and those swings very likely will continue in the future. Coal prices, too, may be hard to predict with any certainty if mine safety and environmental protection measures are made more stringent in the years ahead. Utilities also value wind as a way to diversify their portfolios in anticipation of eventual federal rules that make fossil fuels more costly or require a reduction in power plant carbon emissions.\n\nUtilities have a further\u2014and very important\u2014reason to invest in wind: they need it to meet their obligations under renewable electricity standards in the states that have adopted them. Take California as an example. Between 2002 and 2010, wind delivered about 83 percent of the power that utilities bought to meet the state's 20-percent-by-2010 renewable energy mandate. Looking ahead, California utilities will need substantial new increments of wind, generated in-state or purchased from its neighbors, to achieve the state's new commitment to deliver 33 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.\n\nWhile these and other considerations, such as customer preference and broader public opinion, may cause utilities to favor wind over other energy sources, pricing wind power competitively remains crucial. One major way to keep prices within bounds is to contain the costs of building and operating wind farms. The financial advisory firm Lazard Ltd. has examined the twenty-year life-cycle costs of different types of power plants, \"levelizing\" them by looking at the same parameters for each energy type, including up-front capital costs, the fixed and variable costs associated with operations and maintenance, and fuel costs. In 2010, it found the cost of new wind farms to range from $65 to $110 per megawatt hour, making them competitive with new coal plants ($69 to $152 per megawatt hour) as well as new combined cycle gas plants ($69 to $96 per megawatt hour). Solar was much more expensive, with photovoltaics costing $134 to $192 per megawatt hour and solar thermal plants (generating steam from concentrated solar heat) costing $119 to $194 per megawatt hour. Nuclear came in at $77 to $114 per megawatt hour, though experts assume that, post-Fukushima, its cost will rise substantially given the increased safety measures that will be applied to any new plant proposal.\n\nThese numbers highlight the importance of the federal production tax credit for wind. Without it, wind energy's cost as calculated by Lazard would rise by $20 per megawatt hour, making it much less competitive with coal and gas.\n\nFar and away the biggest factor affecting wind energy's cost is the price paid for turbines. Up-front capital outlays for equipment, construction, and financing account for 76 percent of all life-cycle costs associated with wind energy, and the turbine amounts to 75 percent of that initial investment. There's good news in this regard, stemming largely from the growing competition among turbine manufacturers discussed in earlier chapters. From a peak in 2007\u20132008, just when Horizon was building the Meridian Way Wind Farm, turbine prices have been steadily declining. By late 2010, the average contract price for turbines had dropped nearly 20 percent, and prices have continued their decline more recently.\n\nAlong with spending less on turbines, enhancing their performance is another way to get more from a given wind energy investment. Taller turbines and longer blades are among the changes that have had the greatest impact. Taller turbines generally produce more power because wind speeds at higher altitudes tend to be stronger, more constant, and less disrupted by near-ground turbulence, or wind shear, caused by landscape features like trees, buildings, and variations in the natural topography. This height advantage is magnified by the \"cube rule\" of wind power, establishing that the power available from the wind is the cube of its velocity. Given this relationship, it's clear that small increments of wind speed\u2014easily achieved by raising tower heights\u2014can yield big productivity gains. Increasing the average wind speed from 10 to 12 miles per hour boosts the wind power reaching a turbine by 73 percent; raising it to 14 miles per hour augments the available power by 175 percent.\n\nLonger blades further enhance the power-generating potential of turbines. The power available to a turbine is directly related to the \"swept area\" of the rotor, determined by the familiar formula for calculating the area of a circle: A = \u03c0r2. Applying this formula, we can see that small increases in blade length (that is, the radius) will translate into relatively large increases in a rotor's swept area, allowing much greater amounts of energy to be converted into electric power. A 50-meter blade has a swept area more than half again as large as a 40-meter blade. The biggest rotor that Vestas makes today\u2014120 meters in diameter\u2014has a swept area 36 times as large as the 10-meter rotors that it was importing to California in the mid-1980s. The resulting power gains are impressive.\n\nThe first few decades of the wind energy era have seen dramatic jumps in tower height, from latticework structures a few dozen feet high in the 1980s to today's sleek tubular towers, with hub heights approaching and sometimes exceeding 300 feet. We have also seen turbine blades grow from slender slivers that you could load into the back of a pickup truck to multi-ton behemoths stretching half the length of a football field. From 1998\u201399 to 2009, the average hub height rose from 185 to 258 feet\u2014an increase of 39 percent. The average rotor diameter expanded during the same period by 69 percent, from 159 feet to 268 feet. These growth trends appear to be slowing for land-based turbines, but the current race to build higher-output offshore turbines is spurring the development of bigger-diameter rotors at sea.\n\nOn many levels, wind power is superior to the fossil and nuclear technologies that we rely upon so heavily today. It taps a resource that is abundant beyond our wildest dreams. It can be harvested without stripping the Earth of its mineral resources. Its daily operations neither pollute the local environment nor burden the atmosphere with global-warming gases. And it will never force massive numbers of people to flee their homes or live in fear of nuclear devastation.\n\nCalling wind power cleaner than other energy technologies is not to say that it is in perfect harmony with the environment. Any energy technology will have some adverse impacts when applied on a scale large enough to provide a significant percentage of America's power needs. Opponents of wind energy tend to highlight those negative impacts without placing them in the broader context of the much more grievous damage caused by our current energy uses.\n\nA vibrant, if at times contentious, dialogue is helping to focus expertise, as well as public attention, on wind energy's environmental costs and benefits. Acknowledging the ways that wind farms can harm the environment is one cornerstone of a successful wind energy enterprise; managing those impacts responsibly is another. Wind developers are now working with a battery of technical experts and civic leaders to get both of those cornerstones in place as they gear up to expand wind's share of America's electricity supply.\n\n## CHAPTER SEVEN\n\n## Birds and Bats\n\nMANY ASSOCIATE ALTAMONT PASS with the mayhem that ran through a rock music festival at the local speedway in 1969, with 300,000 in attendance and Hells Angels hired as security guards. Unfortunately for wind developers, Altamont has also earned infamy as the place where closely packed clusters of wind turbines have slaughtered tens of thousands of birds, including the federally protected golden eagle.\n\nOver the years, multiple studies have documented the alarming rate of bird mortality at Altamont. In 2004, the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity filed suit against Altamont's multiple owners, alleging that 17,000 to 26,000 raptors, or birds of prey, had been killed since the wind energy complex began operating in the 1980s. The primary culprits identified in the suit were the \"small, inefficient, obsolete, first-generation wind turbine generators\"\u2014with more than 5,000 of them producing only 584 megawatts of rated power. That same year, the California Energy Commission reported the results of a multiyear survey of bird deaths at Altamont. Out of 1,766 to 4,721 birds killed each year, 75 to 116 were golden eagles. The report's authors suggested a number of mitigation actions, but their primary recommendation was to replace the wind farm's low-output turbines with a much smaller fleet of megawatt-plus machines.\n\nIn more recent years, the Center for Biological Diversity, five Bay Area Audubon chapters, and other citizen groups have continued to press for tougher bird protection measures, at times working in concert, at times bitterly disagreeing over the adequacy of proposed steps. Finally, in December 2010, the California Attorney General's Office presided over a settlement that committed the wind farm's largest stakeholder, NextEra Energy Resources, to replacing 2,400 aging Altamont turbines with 80 to 120 new ones of equivalent overall capacity by 2015. This effort is likely to be a boon rather than a burden to NextEra, as most of the targeted turbines are already in very poor shape and may be barely functional by the replacement deadline. An official of a smaller Altamont wind company commented at the time of the settlement: \"The wind smiths out there hold the turbines together with duct tape and wire.\"\n\nThe killing of birds remains a real concern at wind farms built in recent years, but local citizens and conservation groups have learned to be much more proactive in monitoring wind farm plans as they are being developed, raising objections to ill-chosen sites and intervening early enough in the game to bring about necessary changes. For some years now, Angelo Capparella, an ornithologist by training, has been closely tracking wind development plans in the heavily farmed counties surrounding Bloomington, Illinois, where he teaches systemic and evolutionary biology at Illinois State University. In 2006, he reviewed the draft environmental impact statement for the 100-turbine White Oak Wind Energy Center, a dozen miles northwest of the city\u2014all part of the due diligence on emerging wind projects that he performs for the local Audubon Society chapter. Studying the document, he noticed some glaring gaps. First, he claimed, it failed to give proper attention to adjacent nature reserves. Second, he maintained that it underestimated the number of raptors, including bald eagles, that migrate through the Mackinaw River valley, where the project was to be built. He was further disturbed that no one from the Chicago-based wind development company, Invenergy, had contacted him or, to his knowledge, anyone else at Audubon, Illinois State University, or the Mackinaw Ecosystem Partnership to gather data on local wildlife issues.\n\nAppearing before a county zoning board, Capparella flagged the study's shortcomings, urging the county officials to demand that the wind developer prepare a more thorough analysis. He also invited Invenergy's project manager to his office at Illinois State and showed him the site-specific databases that should have been included in the study. \"Your consultant is just looking at easy ways to find data,\" Capparella chided. He went on to warn the developer that Audubon would not be able to support the wind farm unless significant changes were made. Invenergy immediately responded, adjusting the project's footprint to include a one-mile setback from the Mackinaw River and a half-mile setback from a reservoir surrounded by protected land that provides valuable bird habitat.\n\nThough the outcome of his intervention was positive, Capparella remains wary. Wind projects are moving forward so quickly that there often isn't time to gather reliable data that can help developers really understand how their projects may affect surrounding wildlife. \"It is clear, to me at least, the farms are going up faster than the science,\" he told me as we sat in a motel lounge on the outskirts of Bloomington. I couldn't help feeling that the motel's bland d\u00e9cor matched the monotony of the surrounding countryside, utterly transformed by decades of industrialized farming.\n\nCapparella corroborated my impression that little native biodiversity is left in this vast stretch of central Illinois farm country. Born and raised in North Carolina, he has an outsider's candor when he talks about what's left of the open prairie. He chuckles as he recalls the outrage expressed by some local citizens at zoning hearings on proposed wind farms. \"You're ruining my view of the pristine prairie!\" they exclaim. His view is decidedly less romantic. \"This is all corn and soybean fields; this is _not_ pristine prairie! Perhaps people growing up here think this is natural, but it's really quite unnatural. . . . I just want to protect the remnants that are left.\"\n\nChanges in turbine technology and wind farm design have substantially reduced raptor kills at modern wind farms like White Oak. At Altamont, the turbines that have posed such a hazard to raptors stand low, with blades circling down to within a few dozen feet of the ground. California's early wind developers packed lots of these machines into limited space, thinking they would be able to harvest more energy from the lands they leased. The combined result was too little room for raptors to maneuver as they pursued rodents and other prey on the ground below. At more modern wind farms, developers have learned to space their machines much more generously to minimize interference with the air currents reaching each turbine. As a rule of thumb, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has recommended that the distance between turbines should be five to ten times the rotor's diameter. That can translate into gaps between turbines of a third of a mile or more for many of today's larger machines.\n\nWhile this broader spacing is driven by the quest for higher power output, a lucky by-product is the greater freedom of flight that the new design gives raptors and other birds within a wind farm area. The higher ground clearance of larger turbines yields a further margin of safety to raptors swooping down to hunt rodents; the lower reach of blades on today's turbines is well over 100 feet off the ground. And finally, the larger size and slower rotation of modern turbines make them easier for birds to spot and avoid colliding with. Instead of spinning at 30 to 40 revolutions per minute like the older machines at Altamont, large commercial turbines today rotate at about half that speed.\n\nTaller turbines with their longer blades are not an unqualified boon to birdlife, however. Biologist Paul Kerlinger has used radar to track bird migration patterns for more than a quarter-century. He reports that most migrating birds travel between 300 and 2,000 feet above the ground. With the blade tips of today's turbines extending 400 feet into the air and higher, migrating birds in certain areas may be increasingly at risk, especially when flying at night or in low-visibility daytime conditions. Some experts also believe that the pulsing safety lights required by the Federal Aviation Administration may attract migrating birds, particularly on nights with fog or low cloud cover. \"These birds orient by the stars, and we hypothesize that they must think the lights are some remnant stars on overcast nights,\" says Angelo Capparella. Birds tend to fly in circles around these lights in an apparent attempt to orient themselves, he adds. This hugely increases their risk of crashing into swishing blades.\n\nOne bird whose fate is being watched particularly closely is the nearly extinct whooping crane. Only a few hundred of these birds remain in the wild, and their migratory path cuts right through the heart of U.S. wind farm country\u2014the Dakotas, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. While whooping cranes generally migrate at 1,000 to 6,000 feet, they fly much closer to the ground when looking for roosting or foraging areas. To avert possible harm, ecologist Karl Kosciuch has recommended that 10-mile buffers be created around wetlands that are known to be critical stopover points. No whooping crane deaths have been linked to wind farms, and scientists like Kosciuch are committed to maintaining this perfect record. On the other hand, forty-four whooping cranes have died after colliding with power lines since 1956. As new transmission lines are built to serve an expanded wind power network in the coming years, this hazard may increase.\n\nTo ward off bird collisions with turbines, early warning and emergency shutdown systems have been installed at a few wind farms in the United States and abroad. Spanish wind developer Iberdrola uses radar to detect incoming flocks of migratory birds at its giant 404-megawatt Pe\u00f1ascal wind farm in southern Texas. A similar system is being used by AES Geo Energy, a subsidiary of the Virginia-based power conglomerate AES Corporation, at its St. Nikola Kavarna wind farm on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. Because St. Nikola is sited along a major migratory flyway, the wind farm's environmental management plan requires an ornithologist to be on-site during migration periods, monitoring radar, overseeing fixed-point observers, and coordinating with a mobile tracker to determine when the wind farm's turbines might be placing birds at risk. To make sure wildlife protection is given priority, the decision to shut down turbines rests with the ornithologist, not the wind farm operator. In the fall of 2010, this system proved its worth when strong westerly winds blew more than 30,000 white storks off the sea and toward the wind farm. To protect the flock, ornithologist Pavel Zehtindjiev ordered the turbines to be halted thirty-seven times over a two-day period. Within just five seconds of the \"stop\" command, the turbines came to a standstill, and the birds passed safely through the wind farm area. Not a single stork was harmed.\n\nEven with improved technology and siting, bird deaths remain a reality at wind farms in the United States and around the globe. Estimates vary, but overall mortality at U.S. wind farms outside California seems to be around two birds per megawatt per year. At that rate, we might end up killing well over half a million birds per year as we approach the Department of Energy's target of installing 300,000 megawatts of wind capacity by 2030\u2014the amount needed to generate about a fifth of our nation's power. While most of the victims are likely to be common songbirds like horned larks, vesper sparrows, and bobolinks, that's still a disturbing number.\n\nBald and golden eagles, long the focus of controversy at Altamont, have recently become flash points in the dynamics between government regulators and wind developers at the national level. Acting under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act's obligation to prevent the unauthorized \"taking\" of these iconic birds, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a guidance document in February 2011 that outlined a series of steps that wind developers should follow to avoid harming eagle populations. Wind developers vehemently objected to these provisions, claiming that they present enormously cumbersome hurdles that will grind wind farm planning to a slow crawl across the West and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere in the nation. As of this writing, the debate continues.\n\nWind industry leaders insist that we look at birds killed by turbines within the context of the much more massive toll on bird life that we seem to accept quite readily, all in the name of comfort, convenience, and affinity for felines. I think back to my meeting in Denmark with Vestas communications chief Peter Kruse. \"Your neighbor's cat is a far more efficient killing machine than my turbines,\" he bantered as we surveyed the issues that wind energy opponents are prone to raise.\n\nBehind this flip remark lies a body of research that, over decades, has tried to gauge the risks to bird life from a wide range of causes. Every year in America alone, collisions with buildings may kill anywhere from 97.6 to 976 million birds, and road strikes may cause an additional 80 million deaths. Up to 50 million birds die when they crash into communication towers, and 130 to 174 million birds are killed when they collide with high-tension, or \"bulk,\" transmission lines. Beyond those hazards, there are many other ways we end up killing birds and destroying their habitats through energy industries like oil and gas drilling and refining, mountaintop removal and strip mining for coal, and power plant operations. Farming wreaks further havoc on bird populations by radically altering natural landscapes and saturating field crops with pesticides. And then, of course, there are Kruse's cats. The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that hundreds of millions of songbirds and other bird species are hunted down and killed by domestic and feral cats in the United States every year. Researchers at the University of Georgia have arrived at an even higher number: they say that \"free-ranging domestic cats,\" themselves numbering between 117 and 157 million, kill more than 1 billion birds annually in the United States.\n\nKilling birds is one concern; disrupting their habitats is another. In Wyoming, wind energy proponents have found themselves at the center of a superheated controversy over the greater sage grouse, a large, richly feathered fowl that has long hovered on the brink of being listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Interior Department. A century ago, the sage grouse numbered about 16 million, its habitat spreading across sagebrush country throughout most of the American West, extending north into Alberta and Saskatchewan. Today, its population has dwindled to a few hundred thousand, with much of its remaining habitat in large sections of Wyoming where oil, gas, and coal development have already encroached heavily.\n\nBy the time wind developers began looking seriously at major new wind farm sites in Wyoming, conservation groups in the West had already launched efforts to get the sage grouse listed under the Endangered Species Act. The Interior Department ruled against listing the species in 2005, arguing that the bird's population had increased or stabilized in several states since 1985. This led to a federal lawsuit that yielded a stern court ruling in 2007, criticizing the lack of scientific rigor underlying the department's decision and requiring it to reconsider the matter.\n\nWyoming politicians and energy industry leaders then grew alarmed. Recalling the federal listing of the northern spotted owl as a threatened species in 1990, they knew how profoundly that decision had affected logging in the Pacific Northwest. A federal listing of the sage grouse, they feared, would shut down much of Wyoming's extremely lucrative coal, gas, and oil industries. To avert a crisis, Governor Dave Freudenthal convened a multi-stakeholder Sage Grouse Summit in June 2007, where he stressed the urgent need for a state conservation plan strong enough to fend off the bird's federal listing.\n\nThe following year, Freudenthal signed an executive order creating a Greater Sage-Grouse Core Area Protection plan. This measure gave protected status to about a fifth of Wyoming's territory, thought to contain more than 82 percent of the state's sage grouse population. Within the designated \"core areas,\" existing energy facilities\u2014oil and gas wells, pipelines, and even coal mines\u2014were allowed to continue operating. New projects, however, bore the burden of proving that they would not diminish the sage grouse population.\n\nWind farms were particular targets of this requirement. Unfortunately, they also became a focus for the governor's open disdain. He accused wind developers of being driven by a \"gold rush\" mentality that placed \"[s]eemingly every acre . . . up for grabs in the interest of 'green, carbon-neutral technologies' no matter how truly 'brown' the effects are on the land.\" He also likened wind developers' zeal in siting new projects to \"taking a shortcut to work through a playground of school children and claiming 'green' as a defense because you were driving a Toyota Prius.\"\n\nIn a state whose landscape has been punctured by oil and gas wells, scarred by pipelines, and torn apart by the nation's largest open-pit coal mines, Freudenthal's anti-wind rhetoric was surreal. But with more than half of the state's revenues coming from energy-related taxes and royalties, it's hardly surprising that Wyoming's chief executive would go to great lengths to protect that flow of income. In a second order issued in 2010 and now in effect, the bias toward the state's traditional energy industries is even more unmistakable. Not only are existing energy operations with their drill sites, pumping stations, access roads, and vehicle traffic allowed to continue, but new oil and gas wells are permitted in core sage grouse areas at a density of one drill pad per square mile. Although it's hard to fathom why, mines are also allowed at the same average density. Wind development, by contrast, is \"not recommended.\"\n\nThe actual impact of wind farms on the sage grouse remains unclear. Experts suspect that the birds may stay away from wind turbines, fearing that raptors\u2014their natural predators\u2014are using them as perches. They also worry that power lines, guy wires on meteorological towers, and turning turbine blades may pose collision risks. Few studies have been conducted to probe these and other issues, lending credence to Angelo Capparella's observation that wind farm development is several steps ahead of the available science.\n\nWyoming's brinkmanship, going tough on wind but easy on mineral extraction, is destined to become harder to sustain as the sage grouse moves ever closer to earning federal endangered species status. In March 2010, Barack Obama's Interior secretary, Ken Salazar, distanced his agency from the George W. Bush administration's decision not to consider the bird endangered. On one hand, he announced that listing the sage grouse was \"warranted but precluded\" in light of other species more urgently needing federal protection. On the other hand, he designated the bird a \"candidate species\" whose status is to be reviewed annually, clearly signaling close ongoing scrutiny and the very real possibility of a future listing.\n\nErik Molvar, a wildlife biologist who directs the nonprofit Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in Laramie, objects strongly to wind's uneven treatment under Governor Freudenthal's sage grouse protection program. \"There's nothing fair about it,\" he says, pointing to the oil and gas industry's enormous influence on state and federal politics. \"The oil and gas industry should be held to the same bar as the wind energy industry,\" he says, \"but it should be that higher bar of being compatible with protecting public lands and wildlife.\"\n\nFortunately for Wyoming wind developers, possible sites for new wind farms abound outside the state's designated core sage grouse areas. Molvar makes this point as he leads me through _Doing It Smart from the Start_ , his organization's guide to responsible wind energy development. The report overlays maps of the state that show critical ranges and migration corridors for birds, bats, and multiple big-game species including antelope, elk, bighorn sheep, and mule deer. It also looks at historic trails and other visually sensitive areas. Putting it all together, the report arrives at a composite map showing where wind power should and should not be developed. The results, as Molvar describes them, are encouraging. \"There are 5 million acres of 'go-zones' in Wyoming, and of those 5 million acres, 4 million acres have high wind potential.\" That's far more land than the state would need to achieve its maximum build-out of wind turbines, he assures me.\n\nThe greater prairie chicken is another member of the grouse family that has entered the debate about wind farm development. Once there were three subspecies of this bird. One is now extinct; another survives only in small areas of southeastern Texas; and the third continues to populate sections of mixed and tallgrass prairie in Kansas and several other Midwestern states. While greater prairie chickens have decreased dramatically in overall numbers as cultivated farmlands have encroached on the tallgrass prairie, they are not listed as endangered and continue to be legally hunted. Environmental biologist Robert Robel refuses to give an estimate of how many of this species remain in Kansas, but he calls the population \"healthy\" and insists that hunting prairie chickens\u2014a popular pastime\u2014does not pose a threat to their survival. He points to intrusions that interfere with mating and nesting as having a much greater impact on the bird's ability to maintain stable numbers. That's where wind farms come into play.\n\nMale prairie chickens compete with one another for sexual dominance through a mating dance called \"booming,\" which involves lots of shuffling, strutting, neck-puffing, and cooing. They carry out this ritual on open ground where there are no nearby trees or other high structures that could host birds of prey. Like the scientists who are studying the sage grouse, Robel wonders whether wind turbines cause prairie chickens to abandon nearby mating grounds. When I spoke with the retired Kansas State University professor in January 2010, he was midway through supervising a study of greater prairie chicken activity at the Meridian Way Wind Farm, whose footprint includes about 13,000 acres of mixed-grass ranchland along with several thousand acres of cultivated crops. While no results about the effects of Meridian Way's turbines were available at the time, Robel pointed to his own earlier collaboration on a study that looked at how other built structures affected a somewhat smaller relative, the lesser prairie chicken. Researchers in that study found that nesting birds stayed away from buildings, gas compressor stations, and a coal-fired power plant, and they further observed that nesting was unlikely to happen within 1,300 feet of transmission lines or paved roads.\n\nWhen Horizon Wind Energy settled on Cloud County as the site for Meridian Way, its environmental team recognized that the wind farm might harm local grassland habitats. The company, therefore, took the unusual step of committing to buy up conservation easements on an expanse of grassland equivalent in scale. It turned to the Ranchland Trust of Kansas, an offshoot of the Kansas Livestock Association, as its primary partner in negotiating easements with landowners in the Smoky Hills, a few dozen miles south of Meridian Way. With an undisclosed sum of money at her disposal, the trust's Smoky Hills coordinator, Stephanie Manes, began having conversations with area landowners. In signing a conservation easement, landowners would receive a one-time payment in exchange for maintaining their properties as grassland in perpetuity. They could continue to graze cattle and live on the land, so long as they adhered to stipulated practices for grazing, fencing, and weed control. They could not, however, convert pastures to cropland or sell off any of the property for development. And, of course, they could not put up any wind turbines.\n\nThe agreement between Horizon and the Ranchland Trust called for 13,100 acres to be placed under conservation easement, out of a total of 20,000 acres that were to be restored as grassland bird habitat. Through smart leveraging, Manes quickly pushed beyond that original goal. Within nine months, she had lined up 25,000 acres of easements and expected to bring another 5,000 acres under conservation protection with her remaining funds.\n\nManes is careful not to take a categorical stand on wind farms. She makes it clear that the Ranchland Trust's umbrella organization, the Kansas Livestock Association, has remained neutral on the subject. \"Our membership is pretty much split evenly down the middle,\" she says of Kansas ranchers. She lets me know that she has her concerns, though. From her training in wildlife management and grassland ecology at Oklahoma State, she knows what a powerful deterrent tall trees can be to grassland bird mating and roosting on the open prairie. \"One tree per ten acres to a human is like, 'Oh, what a beautiful tree!' \" she explains. \"Well, that tree will take out the entire ten acres of habitat for grassland nesting birds.\" Will grassland birds be similarly deterred by wind energy arrays, or will they learn to see turbines as non-threatening? Manes hopes that the study at Meridian Way, supervised by Robel, will begin to answer that question. \"They just haven't been around long enough for us to know,\" she says of the wind turbines.\n\nThough uncertain about wind turbines' impact on grassland birds, Manes has no doubt about the harm caused by another human activity: the annual burning of the Kansas tallgrass prairie by ranchers. She points in particular to the Flint Hills, where land agent Jim Roberts ran into such fierce opposition when he was scouting for possible wind farm sites on behalf of Horizon's predecessor, Zilkha Renewable Energy. Every spring, ranchers wielding kerosene torches race through the Flint Hills on their all-terrain vehicles, setting about 1.7 million acres of grasslands aflame. Thinking of this conflagration in New England terms, I am stunned to realize that it covers an area more than twice the size of Rhode Island.\n\nTo some degree, periodic burning is essential to the prairie's survival, especially in regions like central and eastern Kansas, which experience more rainfall than the semiarid sagebrush prairie to the west. Without fires to wipe out seedlings, larger plants, including trees, would invade quickly, converting prairie to forest in a matter of years. Long before white settlers arrived, Plains Indians relied on fires\u2014some natural, some set\u2014to maintain grasslands for their bison herds. Scientists today estimate that grassland fires are needed every three to four years to keep the prairie intact.\n\nToday's Flint Hills ranchers have pushed far beyond this threshold. Trucking in young cattle from out of state for a few months of intensive grazing every spring, they know that their heifers will gain weight much more quickly when they graze on the fresh grass that comes up after a burn. Quick weight gain translates into bigger profits, especially for those who double-stock their ranchlands, running two cohorts of cattle through shorter cycles in a single grazing season.\n\nIt's no small irony that Flint Hills ranchers, adamantly opposed to wind turbines in their midst, resort so readily to annual burning\u2014a practice that Stephanie Manes calls an ecological nightmare. They don't seem troubled that their blazes create enough air pollution to trigger ozone alerts in Wichita, Topeka, and other urban areas. They also seem unbothered that the fires rob prairie chickens and other grassland birds of the thatch they need to build their nests and the ground cover they rely on to hide their young from birds of prey. John Briggs, who directs the Konza Prairie Biological Station just outside Manhattan, Kansas, quantifies how much camouflage is needed to protect nesting birds: \"If you throw a football into a field and it lands and you can't see it, that's enough cover for prairie chickens,\" he tells me. After the spring burn, a billiard ball wouldn't pass this test.\n\nProfessor Robel and colleagues from Kansas State have looked at the effects of springtime burning on grassland bird nesting in eastern Kansas. Their results were stark, if predictable. On unburned fields, they found 372 nests. On burned fields, they spotted only 27 of them.\n\nThe verdict is still out on whether, and to what degree, Meridian Way's wind turbines have disrupted prairie chicken habitat in Cloud County. Whatever the impacts turn out to be, they will surely pale when compared to the devastation wrought by other human intrusions. Horizon's chief environmental officer, Rene Braud, makes no attempt to disguise her frustration with the degree to which wind developers are being called to account for environmental harms to ecosystems long ravaged by other human activities. She speaks of the Kansas prairie in much the same way Wyoming wind advocates describe their own state's eroded sagebrush terrain: \"There's no question it's been decimated by agriculture, cattle, oil and gas, housing, and other forms of development,\" she says, noting how unfair she feels it is to single out the wind energy industry for heightened scrutiny. \"We're taking the hit for the last two centuries.\"\n\nFrom the early days of wind energy development, it was obvious that birds were being killed by turbines. The toll on bats was initially less apparent. Even today, experts are careful to point out that most of the data on bat mortality at wind farms has come from surveys that were primarily focused on birds.\n\nAvailable studies may still be limited, but they reveal a level of bat mortality that is of real and mounting concern. Studies conducted at wind farms in the West and Midwest point to annual bat kill rates ranging from 0.8 to 8.6 per megawatt\u2014more or less in line with reported death rates for birds. Along some forested ridgelines in the East, however, the losses have been much higher, reaching as high as 41 bats per megawatt at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Buffalo Mountain wind farm near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.\n\nWhat draws bats to turbines is uncertain. Some experts assume that they come to feed on insects congregating in the clearings surrounding turbines; a related hypothesis is that the insects themselves are lured by the heat given off by turbine machinery. The mechanical or aerodynamic sounds that turbines produce may also appeal to bats. And then there's the possibility that bats confuse turbines with tall trees suitable for roosting.\n\nWhatever the attraction, bats are killed by wind turbines in two primary ways, as evidenced by carcass surveys. Some collide with rotors; apparently the radar that normally guides bats' flight has trouble detecting blades in motion. Most deaths don't result from collisions, however. Roughly 90 percent of bats are killed by internal hemor-rhaging, or barotrauma, caused by the rapid changes in atmospheric pressure that occur within the vortices of spinning blades.\n\nWhile no recorded deaths of threatened or endangered bat species have been linked to turbine operations, the development of one wind energy project\u2014the Beech Ridge Wind Farm in Greenbrier County, West Virginia\u2014has been curtailed to prevent possible harm to the Indiana bat, listed as endangered since 1967. The Indiana bat is tiny, weighing about a quarter of an ounce and with a body 1.5 to 2 inches long. Its habitat extends across much of the East and Midwest, though its numbers have dropped by more than 50 percent since it was first listed as endangered. During the warmer months, Indiana bats live in wooded and semiwooded areas, roosting under tree bark and in dead trees. In winter, they hibernate in caves.\n\nBeech Ridge Energy LLC, a subsidiary of Invenergy, announced plans to build its wind farm along a 23-mile stretch of Appalachian ridgeline in November 2005. As part of the project preparations, a consultant examined caves and conducted mist-net surveys to check for the possible presence of Indiana bats in the area. The consultant's reports showed three caves currently used by hibernating Indiana bats between 5 and 10 miles from the project site, but none within 5 miles of the site. No Indiana bats were captured by the nylon-mesh mist nets, strung up like badminton nets at multiple locations. Based on these findings, Beech Ridge sought and received permission from the West Virginia Public Service Commission to build its wind farm: 124 turbines totaling 186 megawatts of installed capacity.\n\nUnhappy with the state agency's decision, local citizens joined forces with a national nonprofit, the Animal Welfare Institute, in a suit claiming that already-dwindling colonies of the Indiana bat would be further diminished by the wind farm in violation of the Endangered Species Act. Federal judge Roger W. Titus agreed, invoking Ben Franklin when he ruled that \"like death and taxes, there is a virtual certainty that Indiana bats will be harmed, wounded, or killed imminently\" by the wind farm. Looking closely at the work performed by Beech Ridge's consultant and hearing testimony from other bat experts, he chastised the consultant for failing to consider acoustic monitoring data that indicated the likely presence of Indiana bats in the project area, and he took issue with the consultant's assumption that bats hibernating in caves 5 or more miles from the site would be unlikely to approach the wind farm. Other experts testifying in the case maintained that migrating bats flying to or from caves some distance from the wind farm could easily find themselves crossing through turbine zones.\n\nThe judge's order, issued in December 2009, barred Beech Ridge Energy from adding to the forty turbines already built and confined the wind farm's operations to the winter months, when the bats would be in hibernation. In January 2010, the parties reached a settlement agreement\u2014authorized by the court\u2014that expanded the permissible number of turbines to sixty-seven. The agreement also modified the winter-only restriction, allowing the wind farm to operate during daylight hours at other times of the year. Meanwhile, Beech Ridge Energy has applied to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for an \"incidental take\" permit under the Endangered Species Act. This permit, if granted, might allow Beech Ridge to operate during nighttime hours so long as it complies with the terms of a habitat conservation program designed to minimize \"incidental\" deaths and other injuries caused to the Indiana bat.\n\nApprehensions may be greatest regarding endangered species like the Indiana bat, but wind companies are generally concerned about the toll that turbines are taking on bats, and they are experimenting with ways to reduce that toll. Some are weighing whether to take turbines out of service during the two hours after sunset, when insects are most abundant and bats are most likely to be pursuing them. Others are testing whether bat deaths can be reduced by shutting down turbines during low-wind periods, when bats and insects are much more likely to be flying than in higher-wind conditions.\n\nDon Furman at Iberdrola Renewables introduced me to his company's collaboration with a nonprofit group, Bat Conservation International, at the Casselman Wind Power Project in western Pennsylvania. During periods of peak bat activity over a two-year period, Iberdrola operated its turbines at three different \"cut-in speeds\"\u2014the minimum wind velocities at which rotors are allowed to start turning. At the low end was the turbines' normal cut-in speed: 3.5 meters per second, or 7.8 miles per hour. In the mid-range, turbines were stalled until the wind speed reached 5 meters per second (11.2 miles per hour). At the upper end, the turbines were allowed to operate only if the wind was blowing at a minimum of 6.5 meters per second (14.6 miles per hour). The research team found that, by raising the cut-in speed, bat fatalities could be reduced by 44 to 93 percent. Iberdrola also found that these curtailments, implemented during the peak bat migration period from late summer to early fall, caused relatively minor losses in power production: 0.3 percent of total annual output when the cut-in speed was 5 meters per second, and 1 percent when it was 6.5 meters per second.\n\nIt is hard to arrive at a reliable forecast for overall bat deaths as we build more wind farms in the years ahead. Technology may change; wind farm operations may become more responsive to surrounding conditions; and wind farm siting may increasingly avoid bat population hot spots. Projecting from current mortality rates and assuming no technology or design improvements, one study estimates that the annual death toll in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands alone could range from 33,000 to 111,000 bats by 2020. Nationwide, the total would likely be much higher, although bats generally have been found to be less vulnerable to wind turbines sited in unforested areas of the West and Midwest.\n\nThere is no denying that wind energy takes a toll on birds and bats, but there is also no question that the continued burning of coal and other fossil fuels exacts a much greater environmental cost. Beyond the localized devastation that accompanies our extraction and use of fossil fuels, we need to look at the utter transformation of our global environment\u2014the destruction of entire ecosystems, the wholesale elimination of species, the reduced availability of freshwater resources, and the massive displacement of human populations\u2014that will result from our failure to tame the global warming juggernaut. Wind energy technologists certainly should commit themselves to coming up with better ways to detect and respond to the presence of birds and bats at wind farm sites, just as government regulators and concerned citizens should demand rigorous planning and vigilant operation of wind farms (as well as all other energy facilities) to minimize damage to wildlife. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's eagle conservation guidelines may require further streamlining to ensure necessary protections in a manner that doesn't stymie responsible wind development, but its leadership in this area bodes well for a more consistent approach to wildlife protection at wind farm sites.\n\nManaging wind energy's wildlife impacts is essential. If we fail to address them in earnest, we risk derailing a technology that, wisely implemented, can set us on a new energy course that will vastly reduce our local and global environment's exposure to much more fundamental dangers.\n\n## CHAPTER EIGHT\n\n## The Neighbors\n\nI ONCE TOLD A NEWSPAPER REPORTER that I find wind turbines beautiful. She responded sharply that, to her, they're ugly. Other than the noise turbines make, nothing about wind farms creates greater public discord than their visual appearance. Embroiled in the battle over building an offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, Cape Wind developer Jim Gordon often reassured skeptics that the proposed turbines would appear no higher than a thumbnail held at full arm's length when viewed from the nearest landfall. Anti\u2013Cape Wind activists countered by decrying the industrialization of their ocean horizon.\n\nIn the 1980s, most Americans would have associated wind farms with the chaotic turbine arrays that crowded California's Altamont, San Gorgonio, and Tehachapi passes. In their rush to build, developers purchased a haphazard variety of turbines, some with two-bladed rotors, others with three, some mounted on spindly steel-truss towers, others capping smooth metal tubes. The visual effect was jarring and, to some, alien. \"Spielberg and Lucas could not have done better,\" urban and regional planner Sylvia White wrote to the _Los Angeles Times_. \"Once-friendly pastoral scenes now bristle with iron forests,\" she fumed. Veteran wind advocate Paul Gipe hyperbolically likened the altered landscape at one California site, with its crude access roads gouged into mile after mile of barren hillsides, to parts of Appalachia where coal mining via mountaintop removal has devastated the natural topography.\n\nToday's wind farms are generally much kinder to the eye and more respectful of the landscape. Unlike the early California arrays, almost all modern wind farms stick to a uniform turbine profile, even where more than one manufacturer's equipment is used. Wind farm layout also tends to be much more orderly, with turbines generously spaced and careful consideration given to the turbines' appearance as part of a broader visual experience. Even with these changes, the much larger size of today's turbines undeniably makes them visually dominant at close range and noticeable from afar in many settings. One of those settings is Nantucket Sound, where my home state's long-proclaimed renewable energy ambitions ran headlong into the aesthetic passions of well-heeled vacationers, including our state's most revered political hero.\n\nI will never forget the sunny morning in April 2006 when a few dozen of us gathered outside Boston's historic Faneuil Hall. Senator Ted Kennedy had come to Boston to witness Governor Mitt Romney's signing of the Massachusetts health-care reform bill, and we were there to greet him. As the senator stepped briskly out of his black SUV, he faced a chorus of chants and a sea of red-white-and-blue posters showing wind turbines rising above three bold letters: YES. He rushed into the building, looking sheepish and stunned.\n\nThe Conservation Law Foundation, which I headed up at the time, usually didn't participate in public demonstrations. We preferred more orderly professional settings where our attorneys could best apply their skills. However, Kennedy's backroom politicking to block the Cape Wind project had pushed us over the edge. We weren't willing to let him undermine this pioneering project.\n\nDuring the preceding months, Kennedy had recruited Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young, both Alaska Republicans, to help him blow Cape Wind out of the water. Stevens served on a House-Senate conference committee charged with finalizing the Coast Guard's annual reauthorization bill; Young was the committee's chair. A veil of secrecy surrounded the committee's deliberations, but word filtered out about the machinations that were taking place behind closed doors. First, Representative Young introduced language barring offshore wind turbines within a mile-and-a-half of any navigational channel\u2014a much bigger safety buffer than the federal government had ever required for oil rigs and other ocean installations. The measure's unstated goal was to reduce the scale of the Cape Wind project to such an extent that it would no longer be financially viable. When the media exposed this ploy, public furor mounted and several legislators objected that the measure violated basic principles of good governance. Then Senator Stevens stepped in, substituting new language giving governors of adjacent states veto power over the wind farm. Even though all of Cape Wind's 130 turbines were to be sited in federal ocean waters outside any state's jurisdiction, this provision would have allowed Governor Romney\u2014an avowed opponent of the project\u2014to stop the development in its tracks.\n\nI personally was deeply upset with Senator Kennedy for orchestrating these maneuvers; they seemed woefully out of character for a politician who had, for so many years, been a steadfast champion of policies that would open up the U.S. marketplace to renewable energy. It felt like a self-serving betrayal, all to preserve an unobstructed ocean vista from the Kennedy vacation compound in Hyannis Port, more than five miles from the nearest proposed wind turbine.\n\nWanting to get a better idea of how a project like Cape Wind might look to Massachusetts vacationers, I made it a priority to visit one of the world's largest offshore wind facilities when I traveled to Denmark in October 2009. The R\u00f8dsand Offshore Wind Farm lies just off Denmark's southern coast, in the Baltic Sea. I set my sights on the village of Nysted, whose snug harbor is a major attraction to Baltic boaters. Parking near a row of well-maintained brick houses, I walked to the water's edge, where a few dozen sailboats and motor cruisers were tied up along spindly wooden piers, their prows packed together like cars in a busy parking lot. I strained to look beyond the harbor, but I found myself distracted by the motor cruisers' flying bridges and the sailboats' tall masts with their wire stays twitching in the breeze. In the distance, about six miles from the shore, I could vaguely pick out a hazy sequence of finely drawn vertical shapes in evenly spaced rows, barely rising above the horizon. So these were the industrial intruders that Ted Kennedy found so offensive?\n\nWhen I visited the R\u00f8dsand wind farm, its first phase had been in operation for six years, with 162 turbines capable of delivering 373 megawatts of power. The second phase was under construction. A little over half as large as the first phase, R\u00f8dsand II was expected to meet the power needs of up to 200,000 Danish homes. Bjarne Haxgart, project manager for E.ON Climate and Renewables, described some of the challenges involved in building the project. To protect porpoises from the harsh sounds made by pile-driving, his crew was using an acoustic alarm to drive them away from the construction zone. This evacuation was only temporary, though. Porpoises have been observed returning to offshore wind farm construction areas within hours after pile-driving operations cease, and Haxgart says they are commonly spotted in the waters surrounding R\u00f8dsand's turbines. Fish also flourish around the wind farm, Haxgart notes, with the turbines' large concrete foundations serving as artificial reefs.\n\nAs with land-based wind farms, offshore projects like R\u00f8dsand may create some level of disruption to bird life in the area. Long-tailed ducks\u2014a particular focus of concern among conservationists\u2014may move away from the immediate vicinity of the wind farm, but the environmental impact study commissioned by E.ON predicts few bird collisions with turbines and no significant impact on the international population of this species.\n\nTurning to the wind farm's visual impacts, Haxgart took me to a large plate-glass window at the R\u00f8dsand field office, just across a short stretch of salt marsh from the shore. He handed me a pair of binoculars and pointed to where crane-equipped barges were lowering premolded concrete turbine foundations into the sea. Even with this visual aid, the turbine emplacements were so distant that I found it hard to make out what was happening. Haxgart then explained that the wind farm's visual impacts are greatest at night, when the aviation safety lights are flashing. Initially the turbines were equipped with red lights, synchronized via satellite to trigger simultaneously. On occasions when they went out of synch, people would get upset. \"It looked like Las Vegas at nighttime,\" he acknowledged.\n\nWith permission from the Danish aviation authorities, E.ON has replaced the blinking red beacons with a white strobe and a fixed, low-intensity red light. Apparently this is less jarring to the wind farm's neighbors. Even so, the environmental impact study for R\u00f8dsand II describes the wind farm's expected nighttime appearance as \"comparable to the effects of a small town,\" particularly from the vantage point of its closest landfall, just over a mile from the nearest turbine.\n\nHearing about the lights at R\u00f8dsand brought me back to my first glimpse of the Grand Ridge Wind Farm in Illinois. It was a clear evening in early May as I approached Marseilles on Interstate 80, heading west from Chicago. A few miles before the exit, I looked to my left and there, hovering in the distant darkness, was an eerie constellation of red lights, all blinking in unison. I later checked the map: Grand Ridge's closest turbines were ten miles from the highway.\n\nThe next morning I drove through Marseilles, a small town with a few fading industries on the banks of the Illinois River, and climbed up a short wooded rise onto the ridge that gave the wind farm its name. Seeing the turbines in the bright morning light came as a relief. They were generously spaced across the gently undulating fields, punctuating rather than crowding the horizon. Their profiles blended gracefully with the farmhouses and barns, some of peeling clapboard, some with aluminum siding, almost all of them white like the turbines. The turbines' clean geometric lines handsomely offset the ever-present silos, perfectly cylindrical, their galvanized steel glinting in the sun. And they were far less unsightly than the rusted skeletons of water-pumping windmills that still stand in so many barnyards.\n\nThe Grand Ridge Wind Farm wasn't the first power producer to reach this stretch of central Illinois farm country. Just a few hundred yards from the nearest turbine was the LaSalle County Nuclear Station, its boxy, windowless brick shell and candy-striped smokestack jarring in their juxtaposition to the adjacent fields of corn stubble. The sluiceway that carried cooling water in a long steaming arc from the plant to a large artificial pond also struck me as an uneasy contrast with the surrounding farmlands. A sign welcoming visitors to the LaSalle Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area did little to conceal the true function of the pond, with its ruler-straight borders and power plant looming in the background.\n\nI met with several farm families living in the midst of Grand Ridge's sixty-six turbines and heard very different attitudes about the wind farm. Frank and Sarah Diss told me that the two turbines on their 169-acre farm are easy neighbors, neither noisy nor visually intrusive. Beyond that, they're thrilled to be part of the green power revolution. \"We got on the bandwagon a little bit,\" Frank told me. \"Wind power, green energy\u2014we have to have it.\" Pointing at a wind tower on the far side of his barn, about a quarter-mile away, he said: \"One of those will provide enough electricity for 400 homes, so we don't have to fight foreign oil.\"\n\nBob and Ruth Widman, who live a mile or two away from the Disses, are much less happy having turbines in their midst. They have lived in the same house since 1955, and their son continues to farm the property. \"It changes the whole rural area,\" Ruth delicately commented. The turbines distract and disorient her when she's driving, and she welcomes the visual relief when she makes the occasional trip away from her home turf. \"It seems so good to get out someplace where we can look and see farms,\" she sighed. Bob spoke about the turbines in cruder and angrier terms: \"They're like cow manure\u2014they're all over the place.\"\n\nIn my visits with the Disses, the Widmans, and others, I found it hard to separate their divergent perspectives from their very different financial stakes in the project. The Disses get $8,250 in annual lease payments for each of the two turbines on their property, plus a dollar per year for each linear foot of access roads crossing their land. I assume that their enthusiasm about wind energy is reinforced, at least to some degree, by those benefits. The Widmans initially considered joining the project, but Bob bargained for higher lease payments than the project's developer, Invenergy, was willing to offer. He told the company's land agent that he wasn't willing to take less than $10,000 per turbine per year, so they ended up outside the project, earning nothing while looking out at their neighbors' turbines. I'm not surprised that they now feel alienated.\n\nAt Grand Ridge, as at dozens of other locations across America, wind farms may not be universally embraced, but they are fast becoming part of the working landscape. They are practical implements, akin to tractors and harvesters, even if their physical presence is more dominant and dynamic. Where wind developers run into stiffer opposition is in areas where their projects are seen as diminishing highly valued natural or historic landscapes. The Flint Hills of Kansas are certainly one such place.\n\nRose Bacon grew up on a farm in Iowa. When she was about twelve, her father brought her along on a trip to the Flint Hills to buy cattle. It was love at first sight, she recalls. \"I told my dad on the way home, 'That's where I belong.' \" It took a few decades to realize her dream, but in 1991, she and her husband, Kent, bought a 520-acre ranch in the heart of the Flint Hills, just south of the village of Council Grove. Since then, they have grazed up to a thousand head of cattle on their rich grassland pastures each summer, trucking them back to their out-of-state owners or sending them on to a feedlot after they've had their fill of prairie grass. Kent, a Vietnam vet, has a specially contoured prosthetic leg that allows him to sit comfortably in the saddle as he works the herds on horseback.\n\nIt may be Rose's outsider perspective that has made her such a passionate protector of the Flint Hills. \"When you move to a new area, you perhaps don't take it for granted the way you might if you grew up in that particular place,\" she observes. Iowa once was prairie; now it is cultivated farmland. She knows how utterly a landscape can be changed by human industry, and in her view, wind energy would bring just that sort of unwelcome transformation to the Flint Hills. Once the tallgrass prairie extended across 170 million acres of the eastern Great Plains. About 4 percent remains today, with two-thirds of that in the Flint Hills, extending in a 50-mile-wide swath from just south of the Nebraska border all the way through Kansas and down into Oklahoma.\n\nI visited RK Cattle, Rose and Kent's ranch, in the midst of a late-July heat wave. After serving me a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, Rose asked if I would be more comfortable touring the ranch by horse or on an all-terrain vehicle. I opted for the horse but admitted to being a bit nervous; I had last been on horseback as a camper in the 1960s. After a brief riding lesson, we headed up into the hills. Rose pointed to the rich layer of grasses and wildflowers beneath our horses' hooves and rattled off names like bluestem, buffalo grass, and ironweed\u2014just a few of the plants that inhabit this landscape. The grasses were still green, but by autumn they would be tall and brown, kept alive by roots that grow several feet into the rocky soil. I gazed all around me. Nothing more prominent than the occasional barbed-wire fence broke the flow of the grassy uplands. The only trees in sight were far below us, running along the path of a narrow creek.\n\nDown by the creek, Rose showed me a small grotto of layered flintstone (\"chert\" is the more accurate term, she told me) where water trickled into a shallow pool no more than a dozen feet across. I called it a spring; she corrected me, telling me it's a waterfall. \"The scale here is not like the Rockies\u2014we don't have thousand-foot waterfalls,\" she said. Then she quoted a well-rehearsed adage about the Flint Hills: \"It doesn't take your breath away, but it gives you a chance to catch your breath.\"\n\nRose's voice stayed calm as she shifted to talking about wind farms, but her steely determination as an anti\u2013wind farm fighter came through in her choice of metaphor. \"I personally look on the wind complexes as a rape of the landscape, and I don't use that term lightly.\" She reminded me that, before coming to Kansas, she worked as an emergency-room nurse. \"You see those people come in. They are battered and shattered and torn up. There's no doubt in your mind what happened.\" Then, she continued, a year or more may pass before the trial. By that time, the obvious scars will have healed, though not the deeper physical and psychological wounds. \"And the defense will say, 'See? Basically there was no damage here. Probably it was invited.' \" She likened this to the scars in the landscape caused by wind farm access roads and concrete-slab turbine foundations. Wagon-wheel ruts from the Santa Fe Trail are 150 years old, but you can still find them. Likewise, she said, the subterranean remnants of turbine footings may prevent prairie tallgrasses from sending roots deep into the soil, stunting their growth. \"You're going to have these little rocky, bare, weedy spots where everything dies on days like this.\" These wounds, she warned, will last long after the turbines have come down and the viewscape has been restored.\n\nRose Bacon's romance with the Flint Hills landscape unnerved me. Her self-avowed quest to preserve its pure prairie essence left no room for accommodating certain human intrusions, yet she seemed to accept others readily. She likened wind farms to the most heinous of criminal insults, but she dignified the burning of more than a million-and-a-half acres of tallgrass prairie as an \"annual rite\" that ushers in the renewal of lush green grass and countless varieties of wildflowers. What about the prairie chickens and other grassland birds that the flames rob of their nesting grounds, and what about all that air pollution, sufficient to set off ozone alerts in cities dozens of miles away?\n\nI was also bothered by Rose's apparent need to invalidate just about every possible argument for wind energy. She dismissed Al Gore's \"Chicken Little theory\" about climate change as \"a load of bull\" and derided wind technology as inefficient and unreliable. She railed against the subsidies given to wind developers, ignoring our government's long history of providing much more massive support to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. And she extolled the beautiful pictures she'd seen of reclaimed surface coal mines. Could she really imagine that those gaping canyons, blasted, eviscerated, and bulldozed, were less devastating to the environment than a few dozen buried turbine footings spread across several miles of open landscape?\n\nRon Klataske, who directs Audubon's Kansas chapter, sees wind energy in less black-and-white terms than Rose Bacon. He acknowledges that some wind farms in Kansas are well sited, pointing in particular to two completed projects in the heavily farmed southwestern corner of the state. He also recognizes that the Flint Hills are a tempting target for wind developers, given the stiff, steady winds that blow through the area and the proximity of the Flint Hills to cities in eastern Kansas and over the border in Missouri. Yet he shares Rose's antipathy to wind in the Flint Hills and has been fighting what his organization has called \"a potential tsunami of industrial-scale wind turbine complexes\" and \"a killing field for migrating birds.\" He hopes that, over time, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will acquire a million acres of conservation easements in the Flint Hills. In the meantime, he has been encouraging the purchase of conservation easements by groups like the Ranchland Trust of Kansas and the Nature Conservancy.\n\nRon arranged for me to meet some of his allies in the Flint Hills campaign against wind. We shared beer and burgers at the Hitchin' Post in the village of Matfield Green, on the Flint Hills Scenic Byway. Then we drove east on a dusty gravel road, crossing a stretch of soybean fields before reaching the open prairie. Just as the sun was setting, we pulled off the road on the crest of a windswept hill. Broad stretches of undulating green surrounded us, softened by the fading light. Thinly scattered herds of cattle peppered the landscape\u2014Black Angus, mainly. A nighthawk hovered overhead, crickets raged, and a coyote howled in the distance.\n\nBill Browning, a physician who still lives on his family's multigenerational ranch, opened the conversation. \"The beauty of it, for me, is where the hills meet the sky, morning and evening, and the shadows come across the hills and make all the contours stand out. If you're going to put a string of 400-foot steel behemoths across the horizon, it's gone. The loneliness, the emptiness, the absence of people, the absence of intrusions of people\u2014all that would be lost.\"\n\nJacque Sundgren, a rancher along with her husband, Steve, once went door to door petitioning neighboring ranchers to say no to a proposed wind farm in their area. The project was never built. \"This right here is my life,\" she said. \"You put industry on it and it's gone.\" Steve explained the choice their family has made. \"We could make hundreds of thousands of dollars off of wind, but there are other things to pass on to your kids.\"\n\nIt's no small wonder that Pete Ferrell has incurred the wrath of many Flint Hills ranchers and conservationists. Their passions and his pragmatism are a poor match. Pete's great-grandfather began assembling property for the family's ranch in 1888, with profits he earned from a dry goods store in Wichita. The family holdings grew to 7,000 acres, but Pete inherited only a third of the land. To keep the ranch intact, he bought back some of the acreage from his aunts and uncles. This left him carrying a crushing debt. \"If you inherit land and it's debt-free, you can probably make a decent living, but paying interest and principal on land?\" The last time farmers and ranchers could break even on land that they had to purchase was in the 1920s, he tells me.\n\nAs he struggled to amass enough capital to purchase the remainder of the ranch, Pete eventually realized the toll this was taking on his health and well-being. \"I was looking at a situation where I was going to join the Old Dead Ranchers Club, which is a group of great people who work 24\/7, 365 days a year, until they fall over dead. 'Congratulations, you're a member,' \" he says with a sardonic grin. We are sitting in his adobe-style ranch office, just across a rutted driveway from the hollow where he lives in a simple, unpainted wood cabin with his two dogs. The divorce from his wife some years ago, I can guess, only added to his financial stresses.\n\nIt was in the late 1980s that he became interested in the holistic management principles that economist Stan Parsons and ecologist Allan Savory had begun advancing through their teachings. Attending one of their training sessions, Pete was asked to catalog the full array of values on his property. He started underground with the oil resources that had yielded a handsome income for his mother over many years. (Even today, a half-dozen of those wells remain visible on his land, although Pete says they're drying up.) Then, rising to the surface, he reflected on the soils, the grass, the sun, and the water that make it possible to graze his cattle. Finally he was asked to delete those activities that are unsustainable or are not ecologically sound. Wind was on the short list of what was left.\n\nHalf-obscuring the windows in Pete's office today are two NREL maps showing the distribution of wind resources in Kansas. Even without those maps, he knew that the winds in his section of the Flint Hills were exceptional. This was confirmed when, in 1994, a representative of Oxbow Power Corporation knocked on his door, asking if he'd be interested in leasing out his land for a wind farm.\n\nPete found it strange that Oxbow would be interested in wind. The Palm Beach-based company was owned by Bill Koch, part-owner of Wichita-based Koch Industries until he split acrimoniously from the family-run conglomerate in 1983 and formed his own array of businesses with a heavy focus on traditional energy sources: coal, natural gas, and coke, an oil-refining byproduct used to power cement kilns and other industrial facilities. Pete also wasn't convinced that wind would be right for his ranch. In an effort to persuade him, Oxbow flew him out to California to visit some wind farms. There and elsewhere, Pete spoke with a number of wind farm hosts to see how the turbines affected their agricultural operations. They told him: \"What wind turbines? We don't even think about them anymore. We still farm or ranch just like we always did.\"\n\nReassured, Pete signed a thirty-five-year lease with Oxbow, giving it the option to build a wind farm on his property. Meteorological towers then went up, but Oxbow came back to him in 1998 with discouraging news. \"You have one of the finest wind resources we've ever seen,\" he was told, \"but we're pulling out of here.\" Oxbow's agent referred to the project's unfavorable economics, but he also mentioned that a hostile political environment in Kansas contributed to the decision.\n\nIt wasn't clear to Pete whether these hostilities were at the state level, in the Flint Hills, or among the notoriously feuding Koch brothers. Whatever the immediate reasons for Oxbow's abandonment of Flint Hills wind development, it is a sad irony that Bill Koch went from wind energy prospecting in Kansas to bankrolling anti-wind advocacy in Massachusetts. An avid sailor with a vacation home on Cape Cod, Koch\u2014a conservative Republican\u2014found common cause with liberal icon Ted Kennedy in fighting Cape Wind. _Forbes_ magazine reported that, by the fall of 2006, Koch had donated $1.5 million to the nonprofit Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, orchestrator of the multiyear campaign against the offshore wind project. He was the organization's co-chair at the time. Through Oxbow, he contributed another $620,000 to lobbyists who worked the halls of Congress in 2006 and 2007 on the anti\u2013Cape Wind amendments to the Coast Guard authorization bill and other measures aimed at stopping the project. Bill Koch may have estranged himself from Koch Industries, but his railing against Cape Wind was right in step with the far-right political activism of his brothers Charles and David, who have contributed well over $50 million to studies disputing climate change science, to policy initiatives opposed to curbing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and to politicians willing to fight for oil and gas industry interests in Congress.\n\nWhile Koch was navigating a quick course away from Flint Hills wind, Pete Ferrell continued collecting wind data from the meteorological towers Oxbow left on his ranch, and he began shopping for another developer. He ended up with seven offers and chose a small company called Greenlight Energy Resources, out of Charlottesville, Virginia. He had met the company's CEO, Sandy Reisky, on a bus tour of the Gray County wind farm in southwest Kansas, and the two immediately hit it off, signing a deal in 2001.\n\nThen came the real shock for Pete. He knew that some of his neighbors had their misgivings about wind turbines in the Flint Hills, but he assumed they would come to see its benefits once they learned more about the technology, just as he had. Looking back on the lawsuits, the fiery public hearings, and the angry words from people he once considered friends, he now realizes how naive he had been. \"We had TV cameras in the courtrooms, we had people pounding podiums and shaking their fists,\" he recalls with obvious sadness. \"You think abortion is a hot issue, you just try to build a wind farm in the Flint Hills.\"\n\nThe Butler County Commission approved Greenlight Energy's permit application in 2003, but by then the outcry against wind energy had reached such a feverish pitch that Governor Kathleen Sebelius intervened. Mindful that permitting authority resided with counties rather than the state, she convened a citizen task force and instructed its members to recommend voluntary guidelines that counties might follow in balancing wind energy development with prairie preservation. Rose Bacon was appointed to this panel. \"I think I was chosen because they didn't know me,\" she told me. \"As a ranch wife, what possible harm could I do?\"\n\nThe governor had hoped that consensual guidelines would emerge, but that was not in the cards. Although the task force's scope was statewide, the real friction points were in the Flint Hills. One faction, which Rose considered pro-wind, called for a three-tier classification system that would divide native grasslands into no-development zones, areas with restricted development, and areas with few restrictions. These zones, advisory in nature, were to leave the ultimate decision making with municipal and county authorities. Rose Bacon's faction took a much harder line, calling for an outright ban to be imposed by the state on wind energy projects in all areas with largely intact prairie, including a seven-mile buffer zone around those areas. It also recommended that the state's property tax exemption on wind energy investments be abolished, and favored consideration of a new statewide wind-development impact fee.\n\nFaced with this stalemate and sensing the growing vehemence of anti-wind forces in the Flint Hills, Governor Sebelius came up with an artful compromise in November 2004. On one hand, she asked\u2014but did not order\u2014wind developers with project proposals in an area she called the \"Heart of the Flint Hills\" to freeze their projects so that counties could have the time to prepare their own guidelines for wind development. The designation covered about two thirds of the Flint Hills\u2014far less than Rose Bacon and her faction had sought\u2014but the governor's action validated the Flint Hills defenders' claim to a unique historic landscape.\n\nAt the same time, the governor\u2014a supporter of wind energy for Kansas\u2014encouraged wind developers to build in other parts of the state, just as the Zilkhas decided to do when opposition mounted against their proposed project in the Flint Hills. As Greenlight Energy's wind farm site lay just a few miles outside the Heart of the Flint Hills' southern boundary, Sandy Reisky and Pete Ferrell moved ahead with their project. To raise sufficient capital for the wind farm, Reisky sold the project to PPM Energy of Portland, Oregon, in December 2004, which later became a subsidiary of the wind development giant Iberdrola Renewables. Construction began early in 2005, and the 150-megawatt Elk River Wind Power Project went into operation in December of that year.\n\nSebelius never converted her Heart of the Flint Hills freeze to an outright ban on wind development in the area, but Rose Bacon and other ranchers formed a group, Protect the Flint Hills, to lobby for a stronger state policy. At the same time, they worked on fellow ranchers to dissuade them from signing any new deals with wind developers. Rose's advice was unequivocal. \"If you care about your land, you won't lease it to wind. It's that simple.\"\n\nIn May 2011, anti-wind activists in the Flint Hills achieved another victory when Governor Sam Brownback announced a Road Map for Wind Energy Policy that discouraged any new wind development in an area more than twice the size of Sebelius's Heart of the Flint Hills. Though still not a categorical prohibition, the policy made it clear that wind developers would have a hard time building new projects in the 11,000-square-mile area that he dubbed the \"Tallgrass Heartland.\" Rose was elated. \"Ten years of work have gone into this, and we finally have a definitive decision on the future of the Flint Hills,\" she wrote me. \"It's green and beautiful here, the cattle are out to grass, and today this is the BEST place in the world to be!\"\n\nThe Elk River wind farm, with half its turbines on Pete Ferrell's property, falls inside the newly expanded boundaries of the Tallgrass Heartland. While expanding that project is now out of the question, Brownback has offered assurances that existing wind energy production in the Flint Hills will not be shut down. The governor also made it clear that transmission lines will not be blocked from crossing the Flint Hills. This comes as relief to wind developers in central and western Kansas, as well as points farther west, who are concerned about getting their power to eastern markets.\n\nDespite all the turmoil, Pete's enthusiasm for wind energy has by no means abated. Along with stabilizing his ranch's finances, he firmly believes he is helping wean America off energy resources that, in the greater scheme of history, are moments away from running out. To make this point, he unfurls a few dozen feet of computer paper, starting on the floor of his office, continuing out into the foyer, and then reaching across the full length of a second room where his ranch manager keeps track of cattle shipments. This long paper trail, ragged from repeated use, likens the past 750 million years of history to a single calendar year. Pete takes me to the final few perforated sheets and points to December 11, the date when mammals show up. _Homo erectus_ appears the day after Christmas; _Homo sapiens_ on December 30. At three seconds to midnight on December 31, we begin to burn petroleum, and by three seconds into the New Year, Pete tells me it will all be gone. \"We have a whole civilization built on something that's gonna run out,\" he told a roomful of fellow Grinnell alumni when he lectured on this topic at a recent college reunion.\n\nRose takes a cynical view of Pete's efforts. \"People don't believe he's a wind conqueror; they believe it was for the money. . . . I feel bad that he had to make that choice because he's lost so much.\" I ask what he has lost, and she tells me: \"Friendships and respect.\"\n\nPete, for his part, is now working on a project that may bring as much as 800 megawatts of wind power to cultivated farmland in southwestern Kansas\u2014more than five times as much as Elk River Wind's installed capacity. Luckily for Pete and other Kansas wind developers, there are ample opportunities to tap the state's enormous wind potential outside the Flint Hills.\n\nGrandpa's Knob, a few miles west of Rutland, Vermont, has a prominent place in the history of wind-generated electricity. There, on a 2,000-foot summit, an MIT-trained geologist-turned-energy innovator named Palmer Cosslett Putnam built America's first large-scale power-generating wind turbine in 1941. Equipped with two 70-foot-long aluminum alloy blades mounted on a 110-foot tower, the turbine was designed to produce up to 1.25 megawatts of power\u2014much larger than the wind machines that were widely used in California forty years later and in the same league as today's commercial turbines. As protection against damage from rough weather, the blades could be pivoted so that their broad surfaces stood perpendicular to incoming winds. This safety measure, using a centrifugal or \"flyball\" governor, anticipated the more-sophisticated electronics of modern-day blade pitch controls.\n\nPutnam's giant wind machine had a short and sporadic set of runs. When the main bearing failed little more than a year after the turbine began operating, resource constraints imposed by the war effort kept it out of service for over two years. Then, only a month after it was finally repaired in March 1945, one of the giant blades broke off, shutting down the turbine once again. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, one local company laid out tentative plans to rehabilitate the machine for power generation, proposing to make it a tourist magnet with a scenic toll road, summit restaurant, tower-top observation deck, and possibly a ski development. None of that happened.\n\nI climbed Grandpa's Knob in May 2010. To get there, I trudged up the same two-mile dirt road, steep and meandering, that had been used to truck turbine parts up to the site sixty years earlier. At the summit, all that remained of Putnam's wind machine were a few crumbling concrete footings and a small commemorative plaque. The site, however, did offer a panorama of three nearby ridgelines where a Vermont-based developer, financially backed by the Italian energy conglomerate Enel, had been negotiating to build a new 85-megawatt wind farm.\n\nLeasing land for the wind farm turned out to be the easy part. The developer, Vermont Community Wind, had lined up more than 4,000 acres of woodlands managed by a large timber company, Wagner Forest Management. What proved much more difficult was getting residents of the affected communities to come to terms with a wind farm in their midst. The town of Ira was a case in point. With only 460 residents, the town stood to gain $10,000 to $11,000 per turbine per year in contributions from the wind developer. Given plans for multiple turbines within Ira's boundaries, total payments would have easily exceeded the town's $160,000 annual budget. Yet this promised financial boon wasn't enough to overcome local residents' concerns about planting turbines on the forested ridges above their homes. Vermont Community Wind had originally identified sixty potential sites for turbines in five area towns. By June 2009, public opposition had reduced that number to forty-five, and by January 2010, the company had brought the total down to thirty-four.\n\nEven at this smaller scale, the wind farm had many local residents up in arms, not only about viewshed impacts, but also because of the noise that they feared the turbines would bring into their lives. Mary Pernal lives in a modest house in the town of Poultney, 500 feet below one of the ridges that Vermont Community Wind had targeted for turbines. An assistant professor of English at Green Mountain College, she described her apprehensions: \"Most of us live in this neighborhood because it's a wild, serene, beautiful place, and the noises that we hear are pleasant noises: the sound of a creek gurgling by us, the sounds of birds, the sounds of various wildlife occasionally, the sounds of rain on the roof.\" She worried that the thirteen proposed turbines would create an amphitheater effect, filling her tranquil surroundings with unwelcome noise.\n\nPernal and her neighbors were not just idly imagining the noise that wind turbines might bring into their lives. They had read or heard accounts of other New England residents living near wind farms\u2014people like Phil Bloomstein, neighbor to the Beaver Ridge Wind Project in Freedom, Maine, who reported that noise produced by a GE 1.5-megawatt turbine 1,000 feet away from his home \"can turn from an almost tolerable drone to a pulsating nightmare so oppressive that any outdoor activity is challenging.\" Or Wendy Todd, who testified before the Maine Governor's Task Force on Wind Power that there's no escaping the noise and vibrations coming from the Mars Hill wind farm, 2,600 feet from her home in Aroostook County. Todd likened the noise from these turbines\u2014the same GE model used at Beaver Ridge\u2014to \"a fleet of planes that are approaching but never arrive,\" and described particularly bad periods when \"a repetitive, pulsating, thumping noise . . . can go on for hours or even days.\"\n\nClimbing Grandpa's Knob was an intriguing hike into wind energy history, but my primary purpose in visiting Rutland was to get a better sense of the mounting controversy about wind farm noise. In its Winter 2010 _Heart Health_ newsletter, the Rutland Regional Medical Center featured one of its senior cardiologists linking wind turbine noise to sleep deprivation, which he said can cause an elevated risk of hypertension, heart attacks, atrial fibrillation, and stroke. The article angered a number of readers, who objected to the physician's speculative leaps and protested the medical center's apparent taking of sides in the stormy local debate about wind energy. In a postcard sent to all its readers, the medical center apologized for the communication, declared itself to have no position on wind energy, and announced that it would be holding a public forum on the technology's health effects.\n\nIn late April 2010, just about a week before the forum was to be held, Vermont Community Wind announced that it was freezing its plans for the wind farm. Spokesman Jeff Wennberg was candid about the company's frustrations. \"Vermont seems to say all the right things in terms of incentives and general state policy,\" he told a Vermont Public Radio reporter, \"but when you actually get to proposing specific projects, it's very clear that the words and the reality of what is possible to do in Vermont [are] very, very different.\"\n\nEven with the wind farm on indefinite hold, close to a hundred people crowded into the basement lecture hall at Rutland Medical Center. The forum featured a debate between Dr. Robert McCunney, an internist specializing in occupational and environmental health at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Michael Nissenbaum, a radiologist at Northern Maine Medical Center who has become a self-taught expert on the noise impacts of wind energy. McCunney had recently co-authored an expert review of wind turbine sound and health effects for the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and its Canadian counterpart. Nissenbaum had coauthored a searing critique of that study for an anti-wind group called the Society for Wind Vigilance.\n\nMcCunney started out by describing the two major components of sound: frequency, measured in hertz, or cycles per second; and volume or loudness, measured in decibels. Wind turbines produce a variety of sounds: mid- to high-frequency aerodynamic sounds given off by rotating blades; lower-frequency sounds emitted by turbine machinery such as gears and generators; and ultra-low-frequency \"infrasound\" sometimes associated with turbine operations. High-frequency sounds, though audible at lower volumes than low-frequency sounds, attenuate more quickly over distance and are absorbed more readily by landscape features such as trees and leafy crops. Infrasound isn't even detectable to the human ear at low volumes, but it can be experienced as vibration and can create secondary vibrations or rattles in nearby structures.\n\nNissenbaum called the m\u00e9lange of sounds produced by wind turbines \"an acoustic pizza.\" Some mechanical sounds are constant; other sounds pulsate, like the swishing of blades as they cut through the air at tip speeds that can reach 200 miles per hour. Some are tonal; others are not. When multiple turbines are within range, as is often the case at commercial wind farms, they produce even more complex combinations of sound.\n\nThe two physicians agreed that, above certain thresholds, the sounds generated by wind farms become unwanted noise. Reactions to this noise vary, said McCunney. \"Some people may be annoyed being stuck in a traffic jam, or being stuck too long in a line at the post office, or waiting too long for [their] son to come home at two a.m. on a Sunday night,\" he observed. Likewise, McCunney said, some people are more bothered by wind turbine noise than others. He referred to a Dutch study's finding that a small percentage of people\u2014about 5 percent of a sample of 725 people living within 2.5 kilometers (4 miles) of a wind turbine\u2014reported being annoyed by wind turbine sounds in the 35- to 40-decibel range. Two separate Swedish studies found that, when turbine sounds reached 40 to 45 decibels, 18 percent of respondents registered annoyance.\n\nNissenbaum shared McCunney's view that people have very different thresholds for perceiving and tolerating noise. \"One person in seven in this room will sense noise at six decibels lower than the average person,\" he said. \"We're all built differently.\" Where he parted ways with McCunney was over the health impacts of wind farm\u2013generated noise. McCunney insisted that there have been no rigorous studies showing a risk of adverse health effects from wind turbine noise. Nissenbaum countered with findings of his own limited investigation at the Mars Hill wind farm. In his evaluation of 22 people living within 3,500 feet of the turbines, 18 reported new or worsened sleep deprivation, 17 said they experienced persistent anger, 9 said they newly suffered from chronic headaches, and 8 had new or worsened depression. People living three or more miles away reported dramatically lower incidences of all these symptoms.\n\nSystematic studies have yet to explore the health effects of wind turbine noise on broad populations, but anecdotal accounts link a range of ailments to wind turbine noise. The U.S.-based Industrial Wind Action Group, whose declared mission is to \"counteract the misleading information promulgated by the wind energy industry and various environmental groups,\" has published numerous testimonials by aggrieved wind farm neighbors on its website. In Australia, health complaints by citizens led the government's National Health and Medical Research Council to evaluate their grievances. Based on this review, it stated: \"While a range of effects such as annoyance, anxiety, hearing loss, and interference with sleep, speech and learning have been reported anecdotally, there is not published scientific evidence to support these adverse effects of wind turbines on health.\"\n\nPhysician Nina Pierpont has coined the term \"Wind Turbine Syndrome\" as a catchall category for the health effects that her own anecdotal research has associated with wind turbine noise. In her interviews with ten families living near commercial-scale wind turbines, she heard about symptoms including sleep disturbance, headache, tinnitus (ringing of the ears), dizziness, nausea, visual blurring, tachycardia, irritability, concentration and memory problems, and panic episodes. Many of these conditions, Pierpont hypothesizes, occur when low-frequency sounds upset the normal balancing or \"vestibular\" function of the inner ear, as well as the brain's ability to process balance-related neural signals. She further hypothesizes that turbine-generated vibrations interfere with the gravity receptors in our visceral organs. These disruptions, taken together, create what she calls \"Visceral Vibratory Vestibular Disturbance.\"\n\nPierpont's study has been roundly attacked for its methodological flaws, including the lack of a control group living away from wind turbines that could provide a baseline against which Pierpont's reported health effects could be compared. Geoff Leventhall, a British acoustical expert, has taken Pierpont to task for her tenuous assumptions linking turbine-generated infrasound to ailments previously associated with much higher noise exposures by workers in aerospace and other heavy industries.\n\nPierpont, in turn, has scolded critics like Leventhall for overstepping their professional bounds. \"Deciding whether people have significant symptoms is not within the expertise of engineers or specialists in acoustics,\" she caustically noted in one of her talks. \"[T]he hallmark of a good doctor is one who takes symptoms seriously and pursues them until they are understood (and ameliorated).\"\n\nWhile Pierpont's findings may be sketchy, enough people are upset by wind farm noise to create real problems for an industry that seeks to cover a lot of new territory, quite literally, in the coming years. Even if we set aside speculation about various diseases arising from turbine noise, an increasingly vocal cohort of angry, sleep-deprived people will not be good ambassadors for an emerging industry that needs to win the public's support. Along with better research into health effects, what's needed are measurable and enforceable limits on noise. Also needed are siting guidelines that ensure neighbors a sufficiently generous setback from turbines to protect them from unwanted noise and other annoyances such as the pulsating light, called \"shadow flicker,\" that rotating blades can cast across the landscape when the sun is at a low angle on the far side of a turbine.\n\nTo set noise limits for wind farms, a decision has to be made about what level of turbine-generated noise is acceptable. Acoustic experts often approach this challenge by comparing wind turbine noise to other, more familiar sounds affecting our daily lives. A dishwasher in the next room produces about 50 decibels of noise. A library interior or a suburban area outdoors at nighttime might register 40 decibels\u2014which is perceived to be half as loud as 50 decibels given the logarithmic scale of sound measurement. Sound at 30 decibels\u2014half as loud again\u2014would approximate a quiet bedroom at night or a quiet rural area with no wind, insects, or traffic.\n\nToday there are no federal noise limits for wind turbines, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) generally recommends that outdoor noise levels should be no higher than 55 decibels during the day and 45 decibels at night. The World Health Organization (WHO)'s Guidelines for Community Noise, issued in 1999, also call for a 45-decibel nighttime limit, measured outside the home on the assumption that noises in a bedroom with the window slightly open would be 15 decibels below that level. In an updated report focusing on Europe, the WHO has recommended a more-protective 40-decibel outdoor nighttime limit. Preventing sleep disturbance is the primary goal of this guideline.\n\nIn the absence of enforceable federal requirements, some states have adopted their own general noise standards. Maine, for example, has set general noise limits that mirror the EPA's daytime and nighttime guidelines. Most states, though, have treated noise as a matter to be governed by counties and municipalities. In some local jurisdictions, new ordinances specifically regulate wind farm noise. Others have deferred to individual wind developers, letting them negotiate ad hoc arrangements with neighbors at their project sites.\n\nSetting numerical limits for wind farm noise is complicated by the difficulty in capturing the _quality_ of the noise generated by turbines, not just the _quantity_ of that noise in decibels averaged over a certain period. Some early-design turbines with rotors mounted downwind of towers were known to make a distinctive thumping noise when their blades passed by the tower. The switch to upwind rotors has reportedly reduced this problem, although even today wind farm neighbors like Phil Bloomstein and Wendy Todd are annoyed by the pulsating sound that sometimes comes from the upwind turbines operating near their Maine homes. This noise apparently results from sound pressure that builds up during the blade's downward sweep. If a three-bladed turbine is rotating at fifteen revolutions per minute, aerodynamic noise can be expected to spike about once every 1.3 seconds. At twenty revolutions per minute, it peaks every second. Noise from multiple turbines can complicate the sound rhythm further, causing wind critics like Mike Nissenbaum to bridle when turbine-generated noise is likened to the steadier sound of a dishwasher or a refrigerator humming in an adjacent room.\n\nNina Pierpont challenges current turbine noise measurement techniques on another ground, taking issue with the commonly used A-weighted decibel scale, which reflects the human ear's sensitivity to different sound frequencies by underweighting inaudible sounds. Her contention is that this scale fails to capture the low-frequency and ultra-low-frequency sounds that may be having the greatest adverse health impact on wind turbine neighbors.\n\nRequiring turbines to be set back a minimum distance from nearby homes is another way to protect wind farm neighbors from noise. The advantage to relying on setbacks is their simplicity: compliance is easily measured, and ongoing enforcement isn't needed once a wind farm has been built. A very real downside, though, is their inaccuracy: setbacks are at best a crude proxy for numerical noise limits. Several environmental factors influence how far and in what direction turbine noise travels. People living downwind of turbines are more exposed to noise than those living on the upwind side. During temperature inversions, sounds stay closer to the ground and are audible at greater distances. Hard surfaces such as frozen ground reflect rather than absorb sound, causing it to carry farther. And the presence or absence of foliage can play a big role in how quickly sounds attenuate as they pass across cultivated fields, pastures, and woodlands.\n\nCertain wind conditions can conspire with topography to increase wind noise. When the wind is blowing at blade height but ground-level air is still, turbine noise can be particularly noticeable. This is often the case at Mars Hill, Wendy Todd told the governor's task force. \"There are many times when winds are high on the ridgeline but are near calm at our homes.\" On these occasions, she said, \"It doesn't matter which room you go to, there is no escape from the noise.\" Pete Ferrell told me he isn't bothered by turbine noise on his Flint Hills ranch, but he does hear the turbines when the winds don't reach down into the wooded hollow where his rustic cabin nestles.\n\nThe National Research Council reports that a commercial-scale turbine produces 90 to 105 decibels, with the sound attenuating to 50 to 60 decibels at a distance of 40 meters (131 feet) and 35 to 45 decibels at 300 meters (984 feet). If these fairly crude estimates were right, a setback of 1,000 feet would provide reasonable noise protection to wind farm neighbors. However, a greater buffer is very likely needed to accommodate acoustical differences between turbines, daily and seasonal changes in weather, varying topography, and the heightened sensitivity of certain people to noise. Maine-based developer Rob Gardiner of Independence Wind believes that setbacks in the 2,500- to 3,000-foot range may be needed, especially in areas where turbines are sited on ridgelines. As for Maine's 45-decibel nighttime limit for turbines, he thinks it's sufficiently stringent. \"All the problem sites in Maine have reported actual sound levels above that limit,\" he observes.\n\nKeeping turbines a half-mile or more away from homes may be what's needed, but such a broad margin of protection will not be an easy sell to many wind developers. Even before newly elected Wisconsin governor Scott Walker created a public uproar with his assault on the collective bargaining rights of labor unions, he angered wind developers when, in January 2011, he called for increasing his state's mandatory turbine setback to 1,800 feet from an adjacent landowner's property line. Not only did wind proponents object to the length of the setback, but they rightly felt it was arbitrary to use the neighbor's property line, rather than distance from the nearest residence, as the delineation point if the primary goal was to protect people in their homes from noise. Michael Vickerman, executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, protested \"the folly of Governor Walker's job-killing proposal\" and warned that its adoption by the legislature would drive $1.8 billion in new wind power development out of state. Vickerman and others favored the less-forbidding standard already adopted by the Public Service Commission, requiring the homes of wind farm neighbors to be set back by the lesser of 1,250 feet or 3.1 times the turbine's maximum blade-tip height. In March 2010, the same legislature that approved the governor's union-busting agenda suspended the commission's wind siting rules, leaving wind developers in limbo and leading AWEA to describe Wisconsin as \"closed for business.\"\n\nDrs. Nissenbaum and Pierpont's recommendations are far more restrictive than Governor Walker's controversial proposal. They have called for 2-kilometer (1.24-mile) setbacks from turbines in ordinary terrain, going up to 2 miles in mountainous areas. While these two doctors' positions may lie beyond the outer fringes of what most regulators are demanding, their outreach to state legislatures and local planning bodies gives their message a prominence that the wind industry can ill afford to ignore.\n\nCommercial power production, by virtue of its scale, is an intrusive presence in our lives. Wind farms are hardly exempt from this liability, as I have learned in my travels over the past two years and from my earlier advocacy work in New England. While the industry will inevitably have its detractors, there certainly are ways to help wind farm developers reach a more harmonious coexistence with their neighbors. Decisions about siting wind farms in areas where feelings about natural, scenic, and historic values run high may be aided by more coherent siting guidelines that balance the protection of those values with the need to take much fuller advantage of our renewable energy resources. The Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, already discussed in chapter 7 as an outspoken player in Wyoming's sage grouse debate, has done a particularly impressive job weighing factors ranging from visual concerns to wildlife protection in its delineation of go and no-go areas for wind energy development.\n\nRegarding turbine-generated noise, a more proactive governmental role is needed to reduce an obvious source of annoyance and discomfort. Current levels of exposure to wind farm noise may upset only a minority of wind farm neighbors today, but those numbers will grow as wind farms proliferate, particularly as we approach the Department of Energy's goal of having 20 percent of our power come from wind by 2030. The federal government could lead the way by adopting uniform noise standards and delegating enforcement authority to the states\u2014just as it has done with many of our federal environmental, public health, and workplace safety laws. Short of setting national standards, the government could surely offer more coherent guidance to state and local agencies as they develop their own. The current regulatory vacuum is substantially responsible for the discontentment that is emerging among at least some people living near wind turbines. Whether disgruntled neighbors turn to the media or take their grievances to court, the wind industry is not being well served by the absence of an adequate, enforceable framework for developing and operating wind farms.\n\nAs with any new industry, knowledge about wind power's impacts is growing as the technology gains traction in the field. Wind energy's enormous promise as a cleaner energy resource will be realized more fully if new information about noise and other concerns is openly and rigorously evaluated and appropriate measures are taken to protect public health and well-being.\n\n## CHAPTER NINE\n\n## Greening the Grid\n\nWHEN MERIDIAN WAY'S ROTORS are turning, electrons race down insulated cables to the base of each tower. From there, a network of collector lines gathers all the power produced by the wind farm's turbines and carries it via miles of underground collector lines to one of two transformer stations at the wind farm site. These transformers then boost the power to 230 kilovolts, readying it for dispatch to the grid. All of this happens almost instantaneously.\n\nHorizon Wind is lucky to have two high-voltage transmission lines nearby. Running through the countryside on tall steel stanchions, these lines carry power to Empire District Electric and Westar, the two utilities that have bought nearly equal shares of Meridian Way's output. Brad Beecher, chief operating officer of Empire District Electric, leads me through what happens next. Knowing roughly how much power his company's 160,000 customers use, he has to be sure to feed an equivalent amount of electricity to the grid. \"We know how much water our customers are taking from the bathtub and we have to put that much water in the bathtub,\" he explains metaphorically. Empire District's electricity comes from a variety of sources\u2014mostly from coal and gas, although wind now supplies about 15 percent of its customers' needs. In addition to owning half of Meridian Way's output, the company has contracted for all the power coming from Elk River, the Flint Hills wind farm that includes Pete Ferrell's land.\n\nSome of the electrons generated at Meridian Way may actually reach the homes, businesses, and factories of Empire District's customers, but electrons are notoriously promiscuous. \"You can't tell which electrons flow to our customers' meters,\" Beecher tells me. Once on the grid, electrons intermingle, not just with other electrons generated by a single company but with all the electrons produced by all the power suppliers that are part of an area's wholesale power pool. These markets typically cover multistate areas and, in much of the country, are governed by entities known as regional transmission organizations or independent system operators. Empire District is part of the Southwest Power Pool, a consortium of power producers, transmission providers, and electricity distributors stretching across all or part of eight states. The Southwest Power Pool's origins go back to 1941, when a group of utilities marshaled all available electricity for wartime aluminum production in Arkansas.\n\nWith transmission lines readily accessible, the developers of Meridian Way and Elk River had a relatively easy time getting their power onto the grid. This is far from the case in many other wind-blown parts of the country. On the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)'s color-coded maps, America's richest wind resources run through stretches of the eastern Rockies and Great Plains where people are few and power demand is pretty stable. Tapping the winds that sweep through these areas is relatively easy. Finding a reliable market for the wind-generated electricity is the hard part. Because existing conventional power plants meet most local needs, wind developers must seek out more distant buyers, often in population centers many hundreds of miles away.\n\nTo get a firsthand look at some of the hurdles involved in moving wind-generated power from where it's produced to where it's most needed, I visited Wyoming, home to some of the nation's strongest and steadiest winds. Nowhere are those winds more robust than along a stretch of Interstate 25 that runs from Casper down to Cheyenne, in the southeastern quadrant of the state.\n\nBob Whitton stood with me on a wooden porch just off the kitchen of his modest wood-frame ranch house, about sixty miles north of Cheyenne and just a mile or so east of I-25. He pointed to the rolled bales of hay that block the lower half of the windows on the west side of his home. These makeshift barriers help deflect the winds that blow hard off the foothills of the Rockies before crossing the gently rolling grasslands where he raises a small herd of Black Angus cattle. He bought his ranch when he retired from the Air Force in 1994, after thirty years of piloting F4s, F5s, and F15s.\n\nEarly one December morning not long ago, Bob gazed out his kitchen window off to the west. There, strewn along I-25 near the Bordeaux junction, he could make out the long rectangular shapes of three overturned semi-trailers, flipped during the night by the howling winds. Later he drove out to the highway and found three more semis lying on their sides.\n\nBob's ranch is in an area that has earned NREL's top ranking, with average winds rated at over 10 meters per second, or 22.4 miles per hour. In the cold winter months, they often reach 30 to 40 miles per hour, posing a particular danger to newborn calves. \"The wind will kill a calf pretty fast; the cold, not quite so fast,\" he says. Shielding calves from the elements is one wintertime ordeal; keeping his herd fed is another, as hay rolled out for feed often gets carried away by the wind. \"Every time the wind blows, it costs me a lot of money.\"\n\nThese winds can be a formidable burden, but Bob knows better than most how to translate them into an economic opportunity. Along with running his ranch, he chairs a coalition of pro-wind landowner associations called the Renewable Energy Alliance of Landowners (REAL). This innovative group has jettisoned the traditional model, whereby a wind developer scouts around for promising sites and then approaches landowners one by one, retaining the upper hand in lining up agreements for the lease of their property.\n\nREAL's 300 members recognize that, along with owning lands that are good for cattle, they hold a valuable resource in the winds that rip through their section of the state. Instead of waiting for a company like Horizon or Invenergy to come to them, they have formed associations that actively seek out takers for the wind on their ranchlands. Some neighbors have created limited liability corporations; others work together informally. Some associations include as many as forty landowners; others involve just a few like-minded property owners. Together, REAL's members have 800,000 acres of southeastern Wyoming lands that they are ready to market for wind.\n\nBack in 2008, Bob and some neighbors formed their own local group, the Bordeaux Landowners Association, now one of REAL's member associations. Putting 15,000 acres on the table, they began reaching out to wind companies with a neat package that included wind data, topographical maps, photos, and other documentation. Their prospectus went out to about fifty developers, and several responded. Negotiations ensued, and in February 2010, they signed on with Pathfinder Renewable Energy LLC, a Wyoming company backed by Dallas-based Sammons Enterprises, a private holding company with close to $45 billion in assets.\n\nI met Pathfinder's land agent Vic Garber at a public board meeting of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, a quasi-governmental agency that helps expand Wyoming's electric transmission infrastructure through planning assistance, financing, and even co-ownership of new lines and related facilities. Vic described Pathfinder's total ambition for its wind farm: 2.1 gigawatts of installed capacity sited across roughly 100,000 acres of land on both sides of Interstate 25. Built at that scale, it will dwarf all other wind farms operating in America today.\n\nWithin Wyoming, Pathfinder may ultimately be surpassed by another mega-project sited about 100 miles to the west. There, on a sprawling ranch covering 500 square miles of rugged upland territory, a local subsidiary of the Denver-based Anschutz Corporation is moving forward with a project that may harness as much as three gigawatts of Wyoming wind by 2015. Philip F. Anschutz, the privately held company's owner, built his multibillion-dollar fortune on oil and gas exploration ventures inherited from his father. In the late 1980s, he began acquiring railroad interests and later diversified into telecommunications, digital video data management, and ownership of a nationwide network of movie theaters. Today he is part-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers and other sports teams. Wind is no impulsive dream for this hard-headed entrepreneur.\n\nRecognizing the market potential for Wyoming wind in faraway places, public utilities and independent \"merchant\" developers are racing to build long-range transmission lines. One of these projects, the Zephyr, has as its starting point the village of Chugwater, just a few miles south of Bob Whitton's ranch. From there, it will travel due west into Idaho and then turn south toward Las Vegas, in the power-hungry Sun Belt. If all goes according to plan, this 1,100-mile electron expressway will be fully operational by 2016. Pathfinder Renewable Energy has committed to take two-thirds of the Zephyr's capacity; two other wind developers\u2014Horizon and BP Wind Energy\u2014have contracted for the remainder. The total project cost is estimated to be $3 billion, or a little less than $3 million per mile.\n\nNevada and California are also prime markets for the Chokecherry-Sierra Madre wind complex. Anschutz is planning on building its own transmission line, the TransWest Express, picking up power from the company's 1,000 or so planned wind turbines in south-central Wyoming and carrying it directly to southern Nevada.\n\nSome of the power moved by these two lines might be consumed in Nevada, which has a renewable electricity standard that calls for 25 percent of its power to come from renewable sources by 2025. The prize destination for Wyoming wind energy, though, is California, trumping all of its neighbors in both the scale of its power market and the ambition of its renewable energy mandate. California will need to import substantial amounts of power from out of state if it is to meet its 33-percent-by-2020 renewable electricity standard. In-state wind and solar projects just aren't being developed quickly enough to meet this mandate.\n\nThe Zephyr and TransWest Express, relying on extra-high voltage current, will be much more energy-conserving than the lower-voltage lines that carry Meridian Way's power to market. If the Zephyr, a 500-kilovolt line, were to rely on AC current, it would lose about 1.3 percent of its power every 100 miles. If it increased its voltage to 765 kilovolts, it would shed as little as a half-percent of its power over the same distance. However, because both projects plan to rely on more highly efficient DC current, they may see as much as a 20 percent further decrease in their line losses.\n\nBuilding a major new power line is not simply a matter of choosing the right technology. The transmission developer must comply with an array of federal laws, including those that govern the use of federal lands and those that protect threatened and endangered species.\n\nIn Wyoming, as throughout much of the West, the federal government is a major stakeholder in the planning and siting of new transmission lines. One look at the pattern of land ownership in Wyoming makes it clear why. Nearly half the land in the state\u2014about 30 million acres\u2014is owned and controlled by the federal government. Some of this land is in sprawling, contiguous parcels, while the rest follows a quirky pattern known as the Wyoming Checkerboard\u2014a holdover from the 1860s, when Congress passed two successive acts aimed at opening up the West. All along a rail right-of-way running across the state, alternating square-mile sections of land were handed over to the Union Pacific Railroad, extending out twenty miles on each side of the tracks.\n\nGiven the role of transmission in creating new frontiers for economic development, it's no coincidence that the labels given to several proposed interstate power lines resonate with the region's rail lore. TransCanada's Zephyr line shares its name with one of Amtrak's most dramatically scenic routes, rolling from Chicago across the Great Plains and the Rockies to San Francisco. The monikers of other planned lines similarly evoke the spirit of America's railroad heritage: the TransWest Express and High Plains Express, both running out of Wyoming, and the Green Power Express, rooted in the Dakotas.\n\nThe U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), within the Department of the Interior, oversees a rigorous, multiyear process of evaluating transmission projects that cross federal lands. In doing so, it has to reckon with a range of factors, reflecting what one BLM official calls its \"schizophrenic\" mandate. On one hand, the agency is charged by various federal laws with promoting the exploitation of commodity resources on federal lands\u2014underground minerals as well as surface assets such as timber and grasslands. On the other hand, another whole set of federal laws calls upon the BLM to conserve our natural resources for future use while protecting the wildlife and habitats on those lands.\n\nAmidst these mixed signals, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 pointed the BLM toward wind development with its call for at least 10 giga-watts of non-hydropower renewable energy projects to be built on public lands by 2015. Tom Lahti, who is the BLM's Renewable Energy Chief in its Wyoming office, decided that the BLM should not simply wait for good projects to present themselves. Instead, he initiated a study to identify the most promising areas for wind development on Wyoming's federal lands. Access to present or proposed transmission lines is one priority. Another concern is preserving wildlife\u2014making sure that key habitats for vulnerable species like sage grouse, eagles, and migrating bats are taken into account. Viewshed protection is a third consideration, giving special attention to the state's extensive network of National Historic Trails.\n\nOnce a number of wind development areas have been identified, Tom expects that the BLM will lease them out on a competitive basis, just as it does today when offering large parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling. This would be fairer, he feels, than the BLM's current ad hoc approach, whereby parcels are leased out in response to wind developers' individual requests. Under the present system, Tom says, \"The only competition is . . . who gets there first.\"\n\nThe BLM and other federal agencies are also taking a proactive approach to charting out corridors that would allow a range of energy resources\u2014oil, gas, and perhaps someday hydrogen, as well as electricity\u2014to move more easily across public lands. In November 2008, the government released its proposed West-Wide Energy Corridor, making it clear to transmission developers that, while they are not strictly confined to this corridor, it will be easier to gain federal approval for lines that stay within its alignment.\n\nObtaining federal rights-of-way is only one piece of a complex set of negotiations that the developers of projects like the Zephyr and the TransWest Express must undertake. States vary widely in the degree of deference given to local zoning boards and county commissions. In Nevada, for example, counties and municipalities largely govern the siting of transmission lines, whereas in Wyoming, primary control over transmission line authorization rests with two state agencies, the Industrial Siting Council and the Public Service Commission.\n\nAs it can take years to arrange rights-of-way over hundreds of miles of public and private lands, wind companies have to time their planning and development efforts carefully. On one hand, they don't want to have wind turbines sitting idle for months\u2014or even years\u2014while a transmission line is moving slowly toward completion. (This has been the situation in China, where wind developers have installed massive new generating capacity in Inner Mongolia and other rural provinces years before the State Grid has built the necessary transmission infrastructure.) On the other hand, wind developers don't want to find themselves carrying the cost of reserved space on a transmission line that is ready for business long before their turbines are in the ground and the blades have started spinning.\n\nBeyond federal and state agency review, proponents of new transmission lines must deal with the concerns of citizen groups, including those who suspect that certain of these lines may be stalking horses for coal power interests. Howard Learner heads up the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a multistate advocacy group headquartered in Chicago. His suspicions center on the Green Power Express, a 3,000-mile network of 765-kilovolt AC power lines, heralded by its proponent, ITC Transmission, as a $10- to $12-billion project \"designed to efficiently move up to 12,000 megawatts of renewable energy in wind-rich areas to major Midwest load centers.\" Howard directed me to a map on the ITC website, which shows the project's starting point in North Dakota's Antelope Valley. \"The wind belt in North Dakota is not principally around Antelope Valley,\" he said flatly. \"You've got to scratch the surface a little bit to figure out who the transmission is going to serve.\"\n\nI took Howard's advice and started scratching. Via the online watchdog group SourceWatch, I had no difficulty finding the Antelope Valley Station, an 870-megawatt coal-burning giant right where Howard said it would be. I also found another five coal-fired power plants within a forty-mile radius of Antelope Valley, adding up to more than 4,000 megawatts of capacity. Might the Green Power Express end up carrying coal-generated electrons out of North Dakota, along with or instead of power from renewables? Nothing under federal law or policy would seem to bar this outcome. To the contrary, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)'s \"open access\" transmission policy, adopted in 1996, is designed explicitly to ensure open, non-discriminatory access to the nation's transmission system.\n\nHoward and his colleagues at the Environmental Law and Policy Center worry that lines like the Green Power Express could become part of a larger network of new transmission lines that deliver coal power, produced and sold relatively cheaply in the Midwest, to higher-priced electricity markets in the Northeast. The Union of Concerned Scientists, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shares this concern. In a 2008 study, the group looked at the market dynamics that could emerge as a result of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the Northeast's cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions. The study pointed to a critical flaw in the RGGI regime's focus on power plants in a single region. Conceptually, the auction-based trading of carbon allowances among northeastern utilities is intended to stimulate a switch to cleaner fuels and energy efficiency measures. In practice, the upward pressure that RGGI places on the price of coal-generated power could entice enterprising Midwest utilities to export their dirtier, cheaper power to the Northeast. Building a new cohort of power lines connecting the two regions would only make it easier for this to happen.\n\nSome East Coast politicians and energy planners express a very different aversion to new power lines coming out of the Midwest. They fear that stepped-up transmission would give wind power generated in the Midwest too ready a market in the East, where large-scale wind farms have been slow to emerge. Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts, for decades a champion of renewable energy development, expressed this view when I visited his Capitol Hill office in April 2010. \"The consensus in New England is to capture this wind revolution and make it our own,\" he told me, earning nods of approval from the three members of his staff who huddled with us around a coffee table strewn with books about U.S. energy policy. At the time, Markey held leadership positions on two key congressional energy committees\u2014positions he lost when the Republicans gained a majority in the House in November 2010.\n\nMarkey's jealous guarding of East Coast wind was based on data he had seen that pointed to the region's surplus of untapped, primarily offshore wind. He said that 30 to 40 gigawatts of offshore wind was already economically developable. (That's about three to four times the total installed power-generating capacity in Massachusetts today.) Hundreds of additional gigawatts would be within reach once deep-water wind technology matures, he added. This bullish embrace of offshore wind struck me as slightly odd, given the equivocal position Markey had long taken on Cape Wind during most of its tormented journey through state and federal permitting. It was not until November 2009, three months after Ted Kennedy's death, that Markey called explicitly for federal approval of the project. Presumably he had refrained from endorsing Cape Wind out of deference to Kennedy's outright hostility to wind turbines in Nantucket Sound. Few members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation had been willing to part ways with the state's senior senator on this controversial issue.\n\nFERC chairman Jon Wellinghoff takes a less-parochial stance on the nexus between wind and wires. He believes that wind could provide upwards of 50 percent of our power needs nationwide, and he is convinced that our most promising wind resources can only be accessed if we make an all-out commitment to building new transmission lines. He punctuates his public presentations with slides showing the advanced visions for grid development that are fast emerging overseas. On one slide, 25,000 miles of high-voltage conduits interconnect a future Europe with renewable resources ranging from Norwegian hydro to vast solar energy farms stretching across North Africa. On another slide, he shows China's fast-emerging supergrid, with row upon row of 800-kilovolt lines bringing power from wind-rich areas in the country's western reaches to major cities in the East.\n\nI asked the FERC chairman how he regarded environmentalists' concerns about coal piggybacking on new American power lines ostensibly built for wind. His response was blunt, even irritated: \"I think it's an urban myth.\" Coal plants like those near Antelope Valley have all the transmission they need, he said, adding that new coal-fired facilities are unlikely to be built in the coming years, given uncertainties about the future price of carbon-based power production. As evidence of the slowdown in coal plant development, he pointed to the tilt toward wind in the commissioning of new generating capacity in 2009: \"We had almost i0,000 megawatts of wind put on the system last year. That was almost ten times the amount of coal.\"\n\nA stepped-up investment in coal-fired power generation may not be as remote a possibility today as it was when I met with Wellinghoff in the spring of 2010. Carbon taxation and market-based trading of carbon allowances were prime targets of the anti-incumbent fervor that brought a new wave of Tea Party-inspired Republicans to Congress just a few months later. The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, cosponsored by Markey and California congressman Henry Waxman, was unfortunately a lightning rod for this hostility. The nationwide cap-and-trade program that it proposed for carbon emissions from major industries was roundly attacked as a punitive drag on an already flagging economy. When the 112th Congress convened, cap-and-trade was dead. Also abandoned was Waxman and Markey's proposal for a nationwide electricity standard that would set explicit targets for power generation from renewable sources. In its stead, discussions shifted to a much more amorphous \"clean energy standard\" that would include nuclear power, as well as advanced methods of burning coal. If this reformulation finds its way into law, there may be added cause for concern about the encroachment of non-renewable electrons onto new \"green\" transmission lines.\n\nQuestions may remain about competing uses of an expanded and modernized grid, yet it's clear that without a major investment in new transmission, much of our nation's wind energy potential will remain beyond reach. Recognizing this, the drafters of the 2009 stimulus package allocated $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy generation and electric transmission projects and another $4.5 billion in matching grants to modernize the grid. In his Earth Day 2009 speech before wind tower factory workers in Newton, Iowa, President Obama was passionate in endorsing this investment. \"The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the twenty-first-century global economy,\" he declared, adding that \"we also need a smarter, stronger electricity grid to carry that energy from one end of this country to the other.\"\n\nIn fact, federal efforts to create priority transmission corridors for new energy investments predated the Obama administration's recovery program by several years. As early as 2002, the Department of Energy began exploring ways for FERC to break transmission bottlenecks when state agencies and regional planning bodies fail to move priority grid expansion projects forward. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 then stretched FERC's role in transmission line siting, giving it authority to issue permits for new transmission investments in designated national priority corridors if state siting bodies \"withheld approval\" for more than a year.\n\nA firestorm ensued when FERC interpreted this law as giving it the power to step in where a state has _denied_ a siting permit, as opposed to simply not acting on it. The Virginia-based Piedmont Environmental Council, together with other citizen groups and state public service commissions, brought suit and won a federal circuit court ruling that preserved the prerogative of states to turn down new transmission lines. When the Supreme Court declined to review this ruling, it became clear that without new federal legislation, states would remain in firm control of transmission line siting.\n\nToday the debate continues to rage over who should be involved in siting decisions about new interstate transmission lines. Two leading industry groups, AWEA and the Solar Energy Industries Association, insist that FERC should have ultimate control over the siting of multistate transmission lines, similar to the authority it currently exercises over interstate natural gas pipelines. Don Furman, a veteran wind developer who recently chaired AWEA's board, candidly refers to state officials as a mismatch for decision making on transmission investments. Governors and public utility commissioners have told him, \"We're not getting paid to go out there and build major interregional transmission. It needs to be done, but you ought not ask us to do it, to approve it, because that's not our job.\"\n\nFurman likens the U.S. grid to a patchwork of country roads. What's needed, he says, is equivalent to our interstate highway system. Just as the interstate's planners and builders relied heavily on the federal government's strong guiding hand, he favors firm federal leadership in building a superhighway network for electric power.\n\nHoward Learner remains wary of giving FERC too free a hand in authorizing new transmission lines. Although his group is an active proponent of wind power, the Environmental Law and Policy Center has also worked to strengthen and enforce state laws protecting wetlands and other natural habitats. These laws, he fears, could be compromised if their protections are downplayed or preempted by a new federal siting regime.\n\nChris Miller of the Piedmont Environmental Council is even more adamant about keeping the federal government away from transmission-line siting. Having won the court battle that now limits FERC's power to override state siting decisions, he strongly rejects the view that the global climate crisis calls for decisions that could trump local planning priorities. \"I don't see climate change and the international consensus of scientists as being any more politically valid than the desire of people here to have control over their viewshed,\" he tells me. At some level, he acknowledges that climate change is a problem. To address it, he argues half-heartedly for energy efficiency and greater use of passive solar building design. He concedes that these steps will fall far short of getting us the cutbacks in U.S. carbon emissions that so much of the scientific community is calling for, but he resents the \"energy geeks\" who are pressing for deeper cuts in pursuit of what he calls \"an unratified policy of 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction.\"\n\nI met with Chris at the Piedmont Environmental Council's headquarters, in a beautifully restored clapboard house just off Main Street in historic Warrenton, Virginia. Driving into Warrenton just before our meeting, I grasped just how far area planners are willing to go to preserve at least the surface trappings of colonial authenticity. Tract houses spill across the rolling hills, their fake clapboard aluminum siding only slightly more convincing than their make-believe window mullions. Post-and-rail fences made of white molded plastic only add to the effect, bracketing the road, dipping down into ravines, and running across empty expanses of close-cropped grass. This is horse country minus the horses.\n\nAs I drove out of Warrenton past shopping malls and medical offices designed to look like eighteenth-century brick manor houses, I couldn't help thinking how tough a time transmission planners will have building a green-power superhighway worthy of the name. However the balance is struck between state and federal decision making on transmission-line siting, tensions between widely divergent values and worldviews will only grow as we move from the abstract notion of a twenty-first-century supergrid to the reality of laying new wires across the American landscape.\n\nTo supply 20 percent of our electricity from wind by 2030, the Department of Energy estimates that we will need to invest about $60 billion in expanding the American grid. That would amount to about $30 per household per year, or a monthly cost of $2.50 per household, between 2012 and 2030. While this may sound like a very modest price for a monumental resource shift in our electricity sector, the dissension over who should pay for new transmission lines has been almost as explosive as the jurisdictional debate over siting them. FERC has refrained from imposing a one-size-fits-all allocation formula on these new transmission investments, instead inviting multi-state transmission groups to develop schemes that fairly reflect the range of generation needs and ratepayer benefits in their service areas.\n\nOne regional transmission organization, the PJM Interconnection, coordinates the flow of power across all or part of thirteen Midwest and Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia. More than 160 gigawatts of generating capacity and more than 50,000 miles of transmission lines are under PJM's control. When PJM proposed to spread the costs of major new transmission lines evenly among all utilities in its system, it raised the hackles of Midwest utilities that rely mainly on lower-voltage power lines to deliver electricity over relatively short distances. The power companies claimed that PJM's cost-spreading formula would force them to underwrite transmission lines built primarily for the benefit of electricity consumers in the eastern PJM states.\n\nThe Southwest Power Pool has just adopted a more nuanced scheme for spreading the costs of new high-voltage transmission across its eight-state region. This \"Highway-Byway\" formula assigns the full costs of \"Electricity Highways\"\u2014high-voltage, longer-distance lines\u2014to all system users. \"Electricity Byways\"\u2014mid-voltage lines generally covering less terrain\u2014allocate a third of costs on a systemwide basis, leaving two-thirds to be paid within the zone where the project is located. And all the costs of lower-voltage lines are borne locally.\n\nAlthough it's an unlikely stretch given the prevailing antitax sentiments in Congress, some have proposed a new federal transmission tariff to supplement regional cost recovery mechanisms like the Highway\/Byway formula. There is precedent for such a tax in the federal portion of the gasoline tax, which has been a financial mainstay of the interstate highway system since the 1950s and, to a lesser extent, a revenue source for federally supported mass transit projects. Susan Tierney, who headed up the Department of Energy's policy efforts during Bill Clinton's administration, symbolically invokes the federal highway system when she calls for this tariff to support a nationwide \"interstate electric highway system.\" She asserts: \"State and utility-service-territory boundaries have no more meaning for the transmission grid than they do for the transportation highway system, since electrons flow across boundaries according to the laws of physics rather than the laws of states.\" More practically, she justifies this investment because of the essential national purposes it would serve: the provision of a \"reliable, economic, secure supply\" of power and the shift toward a U.S. economy based on clean, renewable energy.\n\nHowever the costs of new transmission lines are shared, there is no escaping the fact that building new power conduits across large expanses of the United States will come at a considerable cost to the American public. Arriving at a fair way to socialize these costs will be crucial to gaining public acceptance of a new energy infrastructure that will give wind and other dispersed renewables their rightful place in our energy mix.\n\nBuilding a wind-friendly transmission system is not just about stringing up wires and finding ways to pay for them. Accommodating the wind's variability demands constant vigilance. When winds drop off unexpectedly, grid operators must act immediately to make sure that electricity customers don't suddenly find themselves without electric power. When wind-generated output rises above predicted levels, system operators must take steps to absorb that power without destabilizing the grid.\n\nHydropower has long been used to help overstressed power systems cope with periods of peak demand, particularly on hot summer days when air conditioning needs outstrip the capacity of baseload-serving fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. As wind energy has become a more significant power resource in recent years, hydro dams and pumped-storage reservoirs have increasingly been called into play to keep power systems in balance. Within minutes, a hydro facility can step up its power output by channeling more water through its turbines. To soak up excess power, it can activate pumps that will transport water to an elevated storage reservoir. Coal and nuclear plants, which are slow to heat up and cool down, simply cannot make the swift shifts in power often needed to work in tandem with variable winds.\n\nWhile hydropower and quick-starting, gas-fired turbines play an important role in keeping the grid balanced, today's transmission innovators are coming up with a variety of new technologies and management tools. Jon Wellinghoff brims with enthusiasm when he talks about innovations like smart-metered electric vehicles that allow a centralized, automated dispatcher to send incremental pulses of power to and from plugged-in car batteries to help maintain a balance between energy demand and available electric current. Most cars, he says, sit idle for twenty to twenty-two hours a day. Connected to the grid during those many hours, tens of millions of vehicles in an electric car fleet can serve as a vast balancing resource, easily accessed by grid operators. He and Knud Pedersen of Denmark's DONG Energy would have a lot to discuss as Denmark moves forward with its own electric vehicle network.\n\nWellinghoff also gets excited about buildings whose heating and cooling can be controlled remotely to ease power use in low-wind periods and increase consumption when the winds are strong. In the same animated way, he speaks of \"sentient\" appliances like refrigerators with multiple functions\u2014defrosting, ice making, moisture control, and ordinary cooling\u2014programmed independently to modulate power use. \"You don't care when your refrigerator compressor is on. You don't care when your defrost cycle is on,\" he explains. \"You only care that you have a cold beer, nothing defrosts, and you have ice when you need it.\"\n\nUtility-scale flywheels are now used in a few areas to even out bumps in power flow from second to second and minute to minute. This service is called \"frequency regulation.\" Wellinghoff, a longtime Nevadan, tells me that my home state of Massachusetts is at the forefront in applying this technology. In Tyngsboro, the Beacon Power Corporation has installed 3 megawatts of flywheel storage and is on its way to integrating multiple flywheel units into a 20-megawatt storage system. These devices store excess power by converting it into kinetic energy: a carbon-fiber cylinder, vacuum-sealed and levitated by magnetic bearings to minimize friction, rotates at speeds of up to 16,000 revolutions per minute. When power is needed, the flywheel's stored energy is tapped to drive a generator that feeds electrons back into the grid. Flywheels are sometimes called grid \"shock absorbers\" because of their nimbleness in taking on and discharging energy in rapid response to grid-balancing needs.\n\nFlywheels may be nimble, but Throop Wilder maintains that his company's batteries will do a better job matching the variability of wind power over multihour periods. Wilder is president of 24M, a Massachusetts-based startup located in a small suite of offices adjacent to the MIT campus in Cambridge. According to Wilder, the 24M battery, which uses a lithium ion\u2013based semisolid suspension, will bring down the cost of batteries and reduce the space they require. \"We will be able to deliver 1 megawatt of power over a four-hour period from a battery the size of a small walk-in closet,\" he claims. This compactness will allow battery storage to be sited in urban locations, right near consumers, rather than relying on remote multi-acre sites now used for pumped hydro storage reservoirs\u2014a current mainstay in balancing power from multiple generation sources.\n\nUnderground injection of compressed air is being explored as another means of energy storage that could help level out the fluctuations in power produced by wind farms. With this technology, surplus electricity is used to compress air, which is then pumped into a geological formation such as an abandoned mine, a salt dome, or a capped layer of subterranean sandstone. When power is needed, the air is brought back to the surface. As the air is reheated, its expansion creates sufficient pressure to turn a set of turbines. In Iowa, a consortium of municipalities spent several years studying a thousand-acre site where air would be pumped into a sandstone aquifer two thousand feet below ground. One of the state's top proponents of community-based wind power, appropriately enough named Tom Wind, was a lead consultant on the project. Though this site was ultimately determined a poor match for the planned 270-megawatt project, two other utility-scale compressed-air energy storage facilities are already operating\u2014in Alabama and Germany.\n\nAs we work to green the American grid, we need new planning tools, siting provisions, and financing strategies that will help us create a grid that measures up to the extraordinary wind resources across our continent and off our shores. Regional transmission organizations have a vital role to play in coordinating current grid operations, assessing future needs, and coming up with fair and equitable cost-sharing mechanisms for new projects. Ultimately, though, strategic investments in new grid infrastructure may require a higher degree of national direction to break through state and local logjams.\n\nBuilding a twenty-first-century grid invites ingenuity as well as collaboration. From Beacon Power's flywheels to 24M's batteries, smart innovators are already rising to the challenge. The groundwork for a new power infrastructure that makes wind a major player is now being laid. The next steps will require clear vision and careful planning, as well as political leaders who are committed to moving America to a new era of energy self-reliance and energy security.\n\n## Epilogue\n\nNOW MORE THAN EVER, the winds of change are blowing. In the Middle East and North Africa, the upending of long-entrenched authoritarian regimes has laid bare just how much the United States relies on relationships of convenience with faraway countries whose political and social fabrics we scarcely understand. The need to free ourselves from an overwhelming dependence on energy resources outside our borders and beyond our control has never been more apparent. The OPEC oil embargo of 1973 stirred a new awareness of the need to wean ourselves off foreign oil, but all too soon that clarion call was muffled by a more dominant message: petroleum was there for the taking, even if it threatened to draw us into one war after another in the Middle East.\n\nOn the home front, the opening of the western coal frontier and the exploitation of new natural gas reserves have given us the sense that we can fuel our electricity needs by burning through vast quantities of carbon, with little regard for the environmental consequences. Even though we are the world leader in per-capita greenhouse gas emissions, we have consistently balked at joining the Kyoto Protocol and other international efforts to avert global warming. The cost to our industries and consumers would be too high, our political and industrial leaders have insisted. Unfortunately, the same metric has not been applied to the fortune that we have spent over the past decade fighting ill-defined wars in the Middle East\u2014more than a trillion dollars and counting.\n\nThe Fukushima reactor disaster in March 2011 put us on renewed notice about the perils of nuclear energy just as the United States was considering a new wave of power plant construction. Instead of buffering Japan's bitter memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world's pursuit of civilian nuclear power has brought ever-greater numbers of nations to a roulette table where the stakes are impossibly high. We have begun to learn the hard way that rare events do happen\u2014at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and who knows where next.\n\nIf wind energy looked promising in the first decade of this new millennium, it looks essential as we begin making our way through the second. Wind is no panacea, but the problems it poses are within our ability to address responsibly, and the scale of its potential contribution to our energy economy is staggering. By the end of 2012, we should have upwards of 50 gigawatts of installed capacity at wind farms scattered across most of our fifty states. That will get us a sixth of the way to the Department of Energy's goal of supplying a fifth of our power from wind by 2030, and at least start us down the path to FERC chairman Jon Wellinghoff's longer-term vision of having wind provide half of America's electricity. Happily, we have barely scratched the surface of the 11,000 gigawatts of wind power available to us on land. Equally wide open are the prospects for developing our wind energy resources at sea. Cape Wind, likely to become the nation's first offshore wind farm, has survived the obstacles thrown in its way and should be operational in a few years' time. That project will provide less than a half-gigawatt of installed wind power, leaving about 4,000 gigawatts of offshore wind resources for future development\u2014far more electricity than America could conceivably need in the foreseeable future.\n\nEven with our superabundance of available wind, it would be naive to believe that wind energy alone could free America from its reliance on fossil and nuclear fuels. Wind's variability requires balancing our wind-generated power with other technologies that are not constrained by intermittency. Realistically, fossil fuels like coal and gas, despite their drawbacks, will need to play a role in finding that balance during the next few decades. At the same time, we must make an all-out effort to develop a range of renewable technologies that can complement land-based wind power while doing less damage to the environment than fossil or nuclear fuels. Tidal and geothermal power, deepwater wind, carefully selected crop-derived fuels that have a net energy benefit and don't compete with our food production, and bio-gas drawn from sewage treatment, landfills, and livestock waste are among the options. Solar energy, intermittent like wind but with differently timed peaks and troughs, can further contribute to a balanced power supply, especially if its price becomes more competitive with other generation sources. The way forward will involve an integration of multiple technologies, with full recognition of the trade-offs involved with each.\n\nMaking wind a major American electricity provider will also require us to build a green-power superhighway worthy of the name. A new level of collaboration across state boundaries will be needed to plan these routes, and new mechanisms will have to be established to ensure that national energy priorities are given appropriate weight in decisions about new transmission lines. Beyond making sure that wind-generated power can be tapped where it is strongest and delivered to areas of greatest demand, sophisticated \"smart grid\" management tools and new power storage technologies will have to be developed to translate the wind's natural variability into an assured, continuous flow of power that perfectly matches consumer demand. The options abound, from flywheels and pumped hydro storage reservoirs to plug-in electric cars and industrial-scale batteries. All present timely opportunities to a U.S. technology sector that is looking for ways to make American industry more responsive to twenty-first-century needs.\n\nTo harness the wind's potential, we will need to sustain a level of federal support that places wind energy at least on a par with other new power plant investments. The U.S. government's stimulus program, with its flexible menu of federal production and investment tax credits convertible to treasury grants, has helped even out the playing field for wind energy in recent years. These programs were critical to averting a devastating setback to wind manufacturers and wind farm developers when the recession hit the industry hardest in 2010.  Continuing a program of wind energy tax credits will be a vital counterpoint to the subsidies, overt and hidden, that our government has long bestowed upon the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries.\n\nJust as we dare not pin our hopes for wind on the elimination of government subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy, we would be foolish to chart a course that depended on congressional passage of a federal tax on carbon emissions. More clearly within reach is a federal standard akin to the renewable electricity standards that have already been adopted by more than thirty states, requiring utilities to provide a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy. Yet this approach, too, has proven vulnerable to lobbying attacks by the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. President Obama's commitment to wind, so persuasively articulated during his early days in office, yielded all too quickly to a more ambiguous embrace of \"clean energy\" that risks diverting us from renewable energy investments and sending us down a path toward \"clean coal\" and even \"carbon-free nuclear energy,\" overlooking the horrendous hazards to health, safety, and the environment posed by each.\n\nEven as our political leaders waffle on renewable energy's role in shaping our national energy portfolio, many of our states continue to press forward with policies that significantly advance wind and other renewable technology investments. With renewable electricity standards adopted by nearly two-thirds of our states, the momentum will continue to build. Texas, the nation's oil king, now generates nearly 10 percent of its electricity from wind. In Oregon, 15 percent of the power supply is already based on wind. California now draws nearly 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, and it is charting a course toward 33 percent reliance on wind and other renewables by 2020.\n\nLeading proponents of renewable energy development in those and other states notably cut across party lines. Not only did Texas governor George W. Bush preside over the adoption of the state's first renewable electricity standard, but both Jerry Brown, California's current Democratic governor, and his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, have carried the renewable energy banner with pride and determination. In November 2010, when the Koch brothers and other fossil fuel industry leaders bankrolled a referendum campaign to neutralize the renewable electricity standard and other elements of California's greenhouse gas agenda, one of the state's most vigorous defenders was George Shultz, Ronald Reagan's secretary of state and Richard Nixon's first budget director. Recalling the American car industry's shortsighted folly in opposing tighter air emission standards back in 1990, this lifelong conservative Republican observed: \"There is a long history here of the pessimists underestimating what American ingenuity can do.\"\n\nThe opportunities for ingenuity in developing America's wind energy potential abound. In my travels researching this book, I have witnessed this promise in the determined efforts of turbine manufacturer Clipper Wind. I have seen Rust Belt companies like Timken seize upon wind energy as its next big strategic bet. I have admired the pluck of family-run businesses like Cardinal Fastener as they carve out new niche markets. And I have been awed by the creativity of inventors and innovators who are racing to create a smarter grid.\n\nBut wind energy isn't just about innovation. It's about sound investment and careful planning by a growing corps of U.S. entrepreneurs. It's about creating a new generation of jobs in a renewable energy economy, from assembling turbines on the factory line to building and operating them in the field. It's about making America more energy-independent in an increasingly chaotic world. And it's about bringing much-needed stability to our unsettled global climate. With strong collaboration between government and the private sector, wind can truly become the heartland's new harvest.\n\n## Tables\n\n**Table 1. U.S. Onshore Wind Power Capacity by State in Gigawatts (GW) and Gigawatt Hours (GWH)**\n\n---\n\n**STATE** | **WIND ENERGY POTENTIAL**1 | **CURRENT CAPACITY**2\n\n**CAPACITY  \n(GW)** | **RANK** | **OUTPUT\/YR  \n(GWH)** | **CAPACITY  \n(GW)** | **RANK**\n\nTexas | 1,901.5 | 1 | 6,527,850 | 10.085 | 1\n\nIowa | 570. 7 | 7 | 2,026,340 | 3.675 | 2\n\nCalifornia | 34.1 | 20 | 105, 646 | 3.177 | 3\n\nMinnesota | 489.3 | 12 | 1,679,480 | 2.192 | 4\n\nWashington | 18.5 | 22 | 55,550 | 2.104 | 5\n\nOregon | 27.1 | 21 | 80,855 | 2.104 | 6\n\nIllinois | 249.9 | 15 | 763,529 | 2.046 | 7\n\nOklahoma | 516.8 | 9 | 1,788,910 | 1.482 | 8\n\nNorth Dakota | 770.2 | 6 | 2,983,750 | 1.424 | 9\n\nWyoming | 552.1 | 8 | 1,944,340 | 1.412 | 10\n\nIndiana | 148.2 | 16 | 443,912 | 1.339 | 11\n\nColorado | 387.2 | 13 | 1,288,490 | 1.299 | 12\n\nNew York | 25.8 | 20 | 74,695 | 1.275 | 13\n\nKansas | 952.4 | 2 | 3,646,590 | 1.074 | 14\n\nPennsylvania | 3.3 | 29 | 9,673 | .748 | 15\n\nSouth Dakota | 882.4 | 5 | 3,411,690 | .709 | 16\n\nNew Mexico | 492.1 | 11 | 1,644,970 | .700 | 17\n\nWisconsin | 103.8 | 17 | 300,136 | .469 | 18\n\nMissouri | 274.4 | 14 | 810,619 | .457 | 19\n\nWest Virginia | 1.9 | 33 | 5,820 | .431 | 20\n\nMontana | 944.0 | 3 | 3,228,620 | .386 | 21\n\nIdaho | 18.1 | 23 | 52,118 | .353 | 22\n\nMaine | 11.3 | 25 | 33,779 | .266 | 23\n\nUtah | 13.1 | 24 | 37,104 | .223 | 24\n\nNebraska | 918.0 | 4 | 3,540,370 | .213 | 25\n\nMichigan | 59.0 | 18 | 169,221 | .164 | 26\n\nArizona | 10.9 | 26 | 30,616 | .128 | 27\n\nMaryland | 1.5 | 35 | 4,269 | .070 | 28\n\nHawaii | 3.3 | 29 | 12,363 | .064 | 29\n\nNew Hampshire | 2.1 | 34 | 6,706 | .026 | 313\n\nMassachusetts | 1.0 | 36 | 3,323 | .018 | 32\n\nOhio | 54.9 | 19 | 151,881 | .011 | 33\n\nAlaska | 494.7 | 10 | 1,620,792 | .010 | 34\n\nVermont | 2.9 | 31 | 9,163 | .006 | 364\n\nArkansas | 9.2 | 27 | 26,906 | 0 | \u2014\n\nNevada | 7.2 | 28 | 20,823 | 0 | \u2014\n\nVirginia | 1.8 | 32 | 5,395 | 0 | \u2014\n\nOther | 2.2 | \u2014 | 6,411 | .041 | \u2014\n\n**TOTAL** | 10,956.9 | \u2014 | 38,552,706 | 40.180 | \u2014\n\n1. NREL, AWS Truewind, _80-Meter Wind Maps and Wind Resource Potential,_ February 4, 2010, <http:\/\/www.windpoweringamerica.gov\/>. Potential capacity is based on land areas where winds at 80 meters+ above ground would allow turbines to operate at a 30%+ capacity factor. States with less than 1 gigawatt of potential capacity are listed as \"Other.\"\n\n2. _AWEA U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report_ \u2014Year Ending 2010, figure 16, <http:\/\/www.awea.org\/>.\n\n3. Tennessee is ranked 30 in 2010, with 29 megawatts of installed capacity. It is listed as \"Other\" because its wind energy potential is less than 1 gigawatt (see note 1).\n\n4. New Jersey is ranked 35 in 2010, with 8 megawatts of installed capacity. It is listed as \"Other\" because its onshore wind energy potential is less than 1 gigawatt. It should be noted, however, that New Jersey has substantial offshore wind energy potential.\n\n**Table 2. Top 10 Countries by Cumulative Installed Wind Power Capacity, December 31, 2010**1\n\n---\n\n**COUNTRY** | **MEGAWATTS** | **%**\n\nChina | 44,715 | 22.7\n\nUnited States | 40,180 | 20.4\n\nGermany | 27,214 | 13.8\n\nSpain | 20,676 | 10.5\n\nIndia | 13,065 | 6.6\n\nItaly | 5,797 | 2.9\n\nFrance | 5,660 | 2.9\n\nUnited Kingdom | 5,204 | 2.7\n\nCanada | 4,009 | 2.1\n\nDenmark | 3,752 | 1.9\n\nRest of the World | 26,546 | 13.5\n\n**TOP 10 TOTAL** | 170,272 | 86.5\n\n**WORLD TOTAL** | 196,818 | 100\n\n1. GWEC, _Global Wind Statistics 2010_ , February 2, 2011, modified by updated reportage on China provided by CWEA, _China Wind Power Installed Capacity Data_ , March 18, 2011.\n\n**Table 3. Top 10 Countries by Wind Power Capacity Installed during 2010**1\n\n---\n\n**COUNTRY** | **MEGAWATTS** | **%**\n\nChina | 18,928 | 49.5\n\nUnited States | 5,115 | 13.4\n\nIndia | 2,139 | 5.6\n\nSpain | 1,516 | 4.0\n\nGermany | 1,493 | 3.9\n\nFrance | 1,086 | 2.8\n\nUnited Kingdom | 962 | 2.5\n\nItaly | 948 | 2.5\n\nCanada | 690 | 1.8\n\nSweden | 603 | 1.6\n\nRest of the World | 4,750 | 12.4\n\n**TOP 10 TOTAL** | 33,480 | 87.4\n\n**WORLD TOTAL** | 38,230 | 100\n\n1. GWEC, _Global Wind Statistics 2010_ , February 2, 2011, modified by updated reportage on China provided by CWEA, _China Wind Power Installed Capacity Data_ , March 18, 2011.\n\n**Table 4. U.S. Wind Power Installations by Manufacturer**1\n\n---\n\n**MANUFACTURER** | **ANNUAL INSTALLATIONS (IN MEGAWATTS)** | **% M ARKET SHARE 2009\/2010**\n\n**2005** | **2006** | **2007** | **2008** | **2009** | **2010**\n\nGE Wind (US) | 1,433 | 1,146 | 2,342 | 3,585 | 3,995 | 2,543 | 40.0\/49.7\n\nSiemens (GER) | 0 | 573 | 863 | 791 | 1,162 | 828 | 11.6\/16.2\n\nGamesa (SP) | 50 | 74 | 494 | 616 | 600 | 562 | 6.0\/11.0\n\nMitsubishi (JP) | 190 | 128 | 356 | 516 | 814 | 350 | 8.1\/6.8\n\nSuzlon (IN) | 25 | 92 | 197 | 736 | 702 | 312 | 7.0\/6.1\n\nVestas (DK) | 700 | 439 | 948 | 1,120 | 1,490 | 221 | 11.2\/4.3\n\nAcciona (SP) | 0 | 0 | 00 | 410 | 204 | 99 | 2.0\/1.9\n\nClipper (US) | 3 | 0 | 48 | 470 | 605 | 70 | 6.1\/1.4\n\nREpower (GER) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 94 | 330 | 68 | 3.3\/1.3\n\nDeWind (GER) | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 20 | NA\/0.4\n\nOther | 2 | 2 | 3 | 12 | 94 | 42 | 0.9\/0.8\n\n**TOTAL** | **2,402** | **2,454** | **5,249** | **8,350** | **9,994** | **5,115** | **100.0**\n\n1. DOE, _2009 Wind Technologies Market Report; AWEA U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report\u2014Year Ending 2010._\n\n**Table 5. Global Installed Wind Capacity (in Megawatts), 1996\u20132010**1\n\n---\n\n**YEAR** | **ANNUAL** | **CUMULATIVE**\n\n1996 | 1,280 | 6,100\n\n1997 | 1,530 | 7,600\n\n1998 | 2,520 | 10,200\n\n1999 | 3,440 | 13,600\n\n2000 | 3,760 | 17,400\n\n2001 | 6,500 | 23,900\n\n2002 | 7,270 | 31,100\n\n2003 | 8,133 | 39,431\n\n2004 | 8,207 | 47,620\n\n2005 | 11,531 | 59,091\n\n2006 | 15,245 | 74,052\n\n2007 | 19,866 | 93,820\n\n2008 | 26,560 | 120,291\n\n2009 | 38,610 | 158,738\n\n2010 | 38,230 | 196,818\n\n1. GWEC, _Global Wind Statistics 2010_ , modified by CWEA, _China Wind Power Installed Capacity Data_ , March 18, 2011.\n\n## Acknowledgments\n\nPEOPLE SAY THAT IT TAKES A VILLAGE to raise a child. Writing a book is not altogether different. So many people have helped at every stage\u2014ranchers and farmers who warmly welcomed me onto their lands and into their homes, construction workers and factory laborers who let me take a close look at what they do, wind industry leaders and transmission experts who patiently tutored me in their trades, colleagues and friends in the environmental community who responded to my barrage of queries, a superb crew of research assistants, inspiring editorial guides, and a publishing team that has been masterful in every aspect of creating this book.\n\nMy agent, Colleen Mohyde at the Doe Coover Agency, reassuringly embraced my proposal and was wonderfully sure-footed in leading me to Beacon Press, a publisher that is dedicated to both the authors they take on and the ideas they are advancing. Alexis Rizzuto, my editor at Beacon, has been brilliant in keeping me focused on what readers really need to know about a subject that gets dangerously technical very fast. She and the book's entire Beacon team (Tom Hallock, Susan Lumenello, Reshma Melwani, Will Myers, and P. J. Tierney) are superb at what they do.\n\nThe pages of this book bear the imprints of several other creative forces. Larry Tye has been the best of role models, contagious in his love of book writing and a supportive friend throughout. Rosemary Ahern has been a gifted writing coach, helping a circumspect lawyer bring his own voice to the fore. My sister, Sally Bliumis-Dunn, brought a poet's eye and ear to her reading of the manuscript. Joel Segel aided my early search for a way to infuse a technical subject with life and humor.\n\nFrom his perspective as a wind developer and lifelong environmentalist, Rob Gardiner combed every page for balance and technical accuracy. Seasoned journalist Ira Chinoy was equally vigilant in making sure my writing was well sourced. (I hope he'll forgive the rumored Napoleon quote that opens chapter 4. I liked it too much to delete it.) Dana Peck, a savvy wind project manager and long-ago coworker on Capitol Hill, scrutinized my writing on transmission issues, as did Seth Kaplan, a recent colleague at the Conservation Law Foundation. Renewable energy analyst Jan Hamrin filled out my understanding of California's wind energy boom and bust of the 1980s. Eric Lantz, Michael Milligan, and Suzanne Tegen at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory helped me grasp the economics of wind, as did Andrew Mills and Ryan Wiser at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Matt Kaplan of IHS Emerging Energy Research.\n\nResearching this book took me to remote reaches of America and even more distant corners of the world. Horizon Wind Energy's Tanuj TJ Deora\u2014now director of the Colorado Governor's Energy Office\u2014accompanied my first visit to Meridian Way, where Michelle Graham educated me about the wind farm and was amazingly resourceful in introducing me to Cloud County landowners, educators, and civic leaders. Horizon CEO Gabriel Alonso and company staff across several states were instrumental in demonstrating what it takes to finance, build, and operate a wind farm.\n\nAmong other wind developers, Invenergy's Mark Leaman, together with Art Fletcher, arranged for me to spend a fascinating few days meeting company staff and neighbors at the Grand Ridge Wind Farm. Don Furman at Iberdrola Renewables was enlightening about everything from his company's wildlife protection innovations to the challenges of getting wind power onto the grid.\n\nIn the manufacturing realm, the Vestas team in Denmark and China showed me extraordinary generosity. Michael Holm lined up informative factory visits in Denmark and responded unfailingly to my multiple follow-up queries. I'm sure he's as relieved as I am that this book is finally going to press! In China, Andrew Hilton and Tu Trinh Thai made it possible for me to hear from Danish and Chinese managers about the challenges of fusing Western and Eastern workplace norms.\n\nMary Paul Jesperson and Pernille Florin Elbech at the Danish Embassy shaped my Denmark visit, together with Christian Wedekinck Olesen at the Climate Consortium. Valuable insights on wind energy's Danish ascent were offered by Parliament members Anne Grete Holmsgaard and Per \u00d8rum J\u00f8rgensen, Lars Aagaard at the Danish Energy Association, and Rune Birk Nielsen at the Danish Wind Industry Association. I also want to thank Steen Hartvig Jacobsen for sharing his deep historical knowledge about Danish energy policies.\n\nArmond Cohen at the Clean Air Task Force guided me wisely in preparing my trip to China, and the Natural Resources Defense Council's China staff provided useful background on Chinese wind manufacturing. Lin Wei and Ming Sung arranged informative meetings, capably interpreted by Houji Zhuzhu. Sebastian Meyer of Azure International shared keen observations and timely data on Chinese wind energy development. Along with all I learned from the entrepreneurs and analysts who appear or are cited in chapter 4, I am grateful for the insights offered by Alfred Zhao at the Chinese Wind Energy Association, Ryan Chen at the China New Energy Chamber of Commerce, Ellen Carberry at the China Greentech Initiative, and Jasmine Zhang at PriceWaterhouseCoopers.\n\nStateside, Bob Loyd at Clipper Wind was a blessing. He opened the door to some great discussions with his multigenerational crew at the Cedar Rapids assembly plant, and he was a rich resource on the city's long struggle to hold onto a viable industrial base. Bob Gates, in Clipper's California headquarters, brought decades of wind energy experience to his reflections on the company's technology innovations, its financial hurdles, and the damage caused by erratic federal policies.\n\nOther manufacturers who helped me understand the wind trade were Jim Charmley, Hans Landin, and Lorrie Paul Crum at Timken; Daniel McGahn and Jason Fredette at American Superconductor; Bob Paxton at Broadwind; John Grabner at Cardinal Fastener; and Dheeraj Choudhary at Parker Hannifin. Richard Stuebi at the Cleveland Foundation kindly steered me toward several of these fine people.\n\nGeneral Electric eluded my persistent efforts over several months to arrange factory visits and interviews with company officials. This was unfortunate, given GE's central role in supplying America's turbines. Nevertheless, Millissa Rocker did provide useful speeches and testimony by Vic Abate, vice president of GE Energy's renewables division.\n\nA successful wind industry doesn't just depend on the companies that produce the technology and put up the turbines. I was privileged to meet several economic development boosters who have catalyzed factories and wind farms in their communities: Mayor Charles \"Chaz\" Allen of Newton, Iowa; Joe Jongewaard and Beth Govoni at the Iowa Department of Economic Development; Dennis Jordan at the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce; CloudCorp's Kirk Lowell in Concordia, Kansas; Connie Neininger at the White County Economic Development Organization in Indiana; and Matt Sorensen at the McLean County Commission in Illinois. I also was inspired by the educators who are racing to create a well-trained corps of wind technicians: Bruce Graham at Cloud County Community College, Ahmad Hemami at Iowa Lakes Community College, and P. Barry Butler at the University of Iowa's College of Engineering top the list.\n\nIn exploring the energy industry's wildlife impacts, I was aided by several key people beyond those mentioned in chapter 7. Michelle Carder and Matt Gasner of Western Ecosystems Technology took me into the field to see how they monitor bats at Indiana's Meadow Lake Wind Farm. Shannon Anderson at the Powder River Basin Resource Council and the Sierra Club's Brad Mohrmann filled me in on the ecological devastation wrought by Wyoming's coal, gas, oil, and uranium industries. John Emmerich, executive director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, described his agency's efforts to protect the sage grouse and other wildlife.\n\nLocal battles over wind farm siting took me to the Flint Hills of Kansas, the Northern Laramie Range in Wyoming, and Vermont's Taconic Mountains. The Flint Hills controversy is well covered in the text, but I am especially grateful to Kansas Audubon's Ron Klataske for introducing me to local ranchers and conservation experts. I also thank ranchers Rose Bacon and Pete Ferrell for sharing their very different perspectives on a hotly divisive issue. John Briggs of the Konza Prairie Biological Station, Rob Manes and Brian Obermeyer of the Nature Conservancy, and Chuck Rice of Kansas State University gave me valued tutorials on tallgrass prairie ecology. Broader insights on wind energy's importance to Kansas came from Scott Allegrucci of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy; Steve Baccus and Mike Irvin at the Kansas Farm Bureau; Rod Bremby, former secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment; and Nancy Jackson at the Climate and Energy Project.\n\nSecuring wind energy's place in a state as richly endowed with fossil and nuclear fuels as Wyoming is no small undertaking. In probing that state's policies, I benefited hugely from my conversations with state senate president Jim Anderson; Cheryl Riley and David Picard of the Wyoming Power Producers Coalition; and Aaron Clark, who advised former governor Dave Freudenthal on energy policy. Although the hot debate over wind farm siting in the Northern Laramies didn't find its way into this book, I learned much about wind energy politics from rancher Rick Grant, Ken Lay of the Northern Laramie Range Alliance, and Ed Werner, chair of the Converse County Commission until wind farm opponents voted him out of office. I also spent an eye-opening day with L. J. and Karen Turner, Campbell County ranchers whose cattle graze on the edge of America's largest open-pit coal mine. I wish there was enough room in this book to tell every amazing story I encountered.\n\nIn Vermont's Taconic Mountains, concerns about noise and viewshed protection have dominated the debate about wind. Ken Kaliski of the Resource Systems Group was hugely instructive on the science of acoustics, and Dr. Michael Nissenbaum was forthcoming in explaining his own research on noise issues. I am also indebted to Annette Smith of Vermonters for a Clean Environment for her tour of the contested Vermont Community Wind site west of Rutland.\n\nPower transmission is a hugely technical, bureaucratically intertwined realm that several people made it easier to fathom: Brad Beecher of Empire District Electric; Jay Caspary and Carl Monroe of the Southwest Power Pool; Craig Cox at the Interwest Energy Alliance; Loyd Drain at the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority; Steve Gaw of the Wind Coalition; Mark Fagan of the Harvard Kennedy School; Chris Miller and Bri West at the Piedmont Environmental Council; John Nielsen of Western Resources Advocates; Todd Parfitt and Tom Schroeder of Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality; Chris Petrie at the Wyoming Public Service Commission; and David Smith at TransWest Express LLC. Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, brought his powerful vision to our meeting, and Julia Bovey proved herself a true friend in arranging that interview.\n\nThe obstacles to getting truly transformative energy policies in place came to light in discussions with U.S. representatives Ed Markey and Henry Waxman. These two mavericks have fought long and hard to give our global climate crisis the priority it deserves. Hopefully, their day will come. David Osterberg of the Iowa Public Policy Project was uplifting in describing what his own state has done to bring renewable energy into the mainstream.\n\nIn addition to holding the most informative conferences and workshops in the trade, the American Wind Energy Association has a bright staff of professionals who have been highly responsive to my research needs. My particular thanks go to Rob Gramlich, Kathy Belyeu, Hans Detweiler, Michael Goggin, and Elizabeth Salerno.\n\nEach of my trips yielded new questions and a new crop of interviews to be transcribed. I was lucky to have a spirited and utterly reliable group of research assistants at the ready. Kate Davies uncovered a trove of studies on bird and bat concerns, turned recordings of varying quality into precise transcripts, and offered astute insights on the evolving manuscript. My thanks also go to Kathryn Boucher, Christine Cho, Michael Dorsi, Ari Peskoe, Christina Putz, and Allie Rosene-Mirvis. Vida Margaitis and Diane Sredl, librarians at Harvard University, were ever-resourceful in tracking down valuable government documents. I am grateful as well to my mother, Joan Warburg, for her many phone calls and e-mails alerting me to wind energy coverage in the media.\n\nMy wife, Tamar, has been both a tireless editor and an endless source of support and encouragement. Reading numerous drafts of this book, she praised generously, but she also dared to deliver the difficult news of a chapter's need for fundamental reshaping. I'm sure that she and our daughters, Tali and Maya, have heard more about wind energy than they ever wanted to know.\n\nSpeaking of Tali and Maya, this book is dedicated to them. While plenty of work still lies ahead for my generation, theirs will have to carry on the tough work of steering our national and global energy choices onto a saner course. I only hope that we're all up to the challenge.\n\n## Notes\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n1. Letter from Franklin D. Roosevelt to James P. Warburg, May 23, 1934, quoted in James P. Warburg, _The Long Road Home_ (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1964), 156\u201357.\n\nCHAPTER ONE: CLOUD COUNTY REVIVAL\n\n1. See table 1, estimating total yearly wind generation potential in Kansas at 3.6 million gigawatt hours. U.S. power generation in 2010 totaled 4.1 million gigawatt-hours. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), table 1.1, \"Net Generation by Energy Source: Total (All Sectors),\" released March 11, 2011, <http:\/\/www.eia.gov\/>.\n\n2. American Wind Energy Association, _U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report_ , 12, fig. 12.\n\n3. T. Lindsay Baker, _Field Guide to American Windmills_ , 33\u201340, 339\u2013421.\n\n4. Kansas Statutes 79\u2013201 (effective January 1, 1999). The federal production tax credit, more fully described in chapter 3, \"Rust Belt Renewables,\" had been intermittently available since passage of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (P.L. 102\u2013486).\n\n5. Duane Schrag, \"Wind Turbines Could Resume Spinning Soon,\" _Salina (KS)Journal_ , April 28, 2009, <http:\/\/www.saljournal.com\/>, citing EIA data.\n\n6. Kurt and Helen Kocher, interviews with author, March 19, 2009, and May 14, 2009.\n\n7. Ray Mason, interview with author, May 13, 2009.\n\n8. Monica Perin, \"Wind Energy Visionary Flies under the Radar,\" _Houston Business Journal_ , April 27, 2003, <http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/>.\n\n9. Jim Hoy, \"Environmental Price Tag Too High for Wind Farms,\" undated, Protect the Flint Hills, www.protecttheflinthills.org\/, accessed September 30, 2011.\n\n10. Tim Unruh, \"Company Finds One of the Answers to the Energy Crisis Is Blowing in the Wind,\" _Salina Journal_ , October 8, 2008, <http:\/\/www.salina.com\/>.\n\n11. Tom Fowler, \"Zilkha Wind Firm Purchased by Goldman Sachs,\" _Houston Chronicle_ , March 22, 2005, <http:\/\/www.chron.com\/>.\n\n12. Sergio Goncalves, \"EDP to Buy $2.2 bln U.S. Horizon Wind Energy,\" Reuters, March 27, 2007, <http:\/\/www.reuters.com>.\n\n13. Jim Roberts, senior project manager, Horizon Wind Energy, phone interviews with author, May 12, 2009, and June 17, 2009.\n\n14. See Vestas, _V90\u20133.0 MW: An Efficient Way to More Power_ , <http:\/\/www.autonavzduch.cz\/>, accessed April 4, 2011.\n\n15. Carole Engelder, director of construction management, Midwest Region, Horizon Wind Energy, phone interview with author, June 11, 2009.\n\n16. Roberts phone interview, May 12, 2009. Although he did not discuss per-turbine payments in our conversations, Roberts is cited in media reportage as giving $4,000 to $8,000 per turbine as the range of payments made to Meridian Way landowners. Tim Unruh, \"Company Finds One of the Answers to the Energy Crisis Is Blowing in the Wind,\" _Salina Journal_ , October 8, 2008, <http:\/\/www.salina.com\/>.\n\n17. Bonnie Sporer, Cloud County landowner, phone interview with author, May 18, 2009.\n\n18. Carole Engelder, e-mail to author, June 19, 2009. Roughly 47 percent of the workforce was hired locally.\n\n19. Kirk Lowell, executive director, Cloud County Development Corporation, interview with author, May 20, 2009.\n\n20. Bruce Graham, chairman, Wind Energy Department, Cloud County Community College, interview with author, March 19, 2009, and e-mail to author, March 4, 2011.\n\nCHAPTER TWO: EARLY ADOPTERS\n\n1. Danish Commission on Climate Change Policy, _Green Energy_ , 32.\n\n2. BTM Consult, _World Market Update 2004 (Forecast 2005\u20132009)_ , March 31, 2005, <http:\/\/www.btm.dk\/>.\n\n3. John Acher, \"UPDATE 2\u2014China Rivals Narrow Gap on Wind Leader Vestas,\" Reuters, March 15, 2011, <http:\/\/af.reuters.com\/>.\n\n4. Vestas, _Annual Report\u20142010_ , <http:\/\/www.vestas.com\/>. Conversion to U.S. dollars at exchange rate applicable on December 31, 2010.\n\n5. Lone Mortensen, director of people and culture, Blades Division, Vestas Wind Systems A\/S, Lem, Denmark, October 7, 2009.\n\n6. See Vestas annual reports, 2008\u20132010, <http:\/\/www.vestas.com\/>.\n\n7. Danish Energy Authority, \"Combined Heat and Power Production in Denmark,\" undated fact sheet, <http:\/\/www.ambottawa.um.dk\/>, accessed August 1, 2011.\n\n8. Buen, \"Danish and Norwegian Wind Industry,\" 3890.\n\n9. Wind power producers were paid 85 percent of the pretax price charged to consumers. Birger T. Madsen, \"Public Initiatives and Industrial Development after 1979,\" in Nissen, _Wind Power_ , 52, 54.\n\n10. Toke, \"Wind Power in UK and Denmark,\" 83 et seq.\n\n11. Van Est, _Winds of Change_ , 89. This rule was issued in 1985.\n\n12. Buen, \"Danish and Norwegian Wind Industry,\" 3890.\n\n13. Sijm, _Performance of Feed-in Tariffs_ , 11.\n\n14. Gipe, \"Wind Energy Comes of Age,\" 760.\n\n15. \"Denmark Struggles with Regulations\u2014So Far, So Bad,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , April 1, 2000, <http:\/\/www.windpowermonthly.com\/>. See also Szarka, \"Wind Power,\" 3041, 3046.\n\n16. Toke, \"Wind Power in UK and Denmark,\" 92.\n\n17. Van Est, _Winds of Change_ , 87.\n\n18. Richard M. Nixon, Special Message to the Congress on the Energy Crisis, January 23, 1974, <http:\/\/www.presidency.ucsb.edu\/>.\n\n19. Richard M. Nixon, State of the Union address, January 30, 1974, <http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/>.\n\n20. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), \"Petroleum & Other Liquids: U.S. Imports by Country of Origin,\" released July 27, 2010, <http:\/\/www.eia.doe.gov\/>.\n\n21. Jimmy Carter, Report to the American People on Energy, February 2, 1977 <http:\/\/millercenter.org\/>.\n\n22. Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation on Energy, April 18, 1977, <http:\/\/millercenter.org\/>.\n\n23. Denis Hayes, phone interview with author, July 14, 2010. See also D. Hayes, _Rays of Hope_ , 174\u201380.\n\n24. PURPA, sec. 210. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) encouraged states to set rates at the full \"avoided cost\" of generating the same increment of power in the absence of the independent power sources. See Gipe, _Wind Energy Comes of Age_ , 31.\n\n25. See Thomas A. Starrs, \"Legislative Incentives and Energy Technologies,\" 129\u201334, describing FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U.S. 742 (1982), and American Paper Institute, Inc. v. American Electric Power Service Corp., 461 U.S. 402 (1983).\n\n26. Energy Tax Act of 1978, PL 95\u2013618, 92 STAT. 3195, Sec. 301(a). See also Minan, \"Encouraging Solar Energy Development,\" 31\u201334.\n\n27. Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax of 1980, PL 96\u2013223, 94 STAT. 230, Sec. 221(a).\n\n28. Fred Branfman, \"Moving toward the Abyss,\" _Salon_ , April 18, 1996, <http:\/\/www.salon.com\/>.\n\n29. Lovins, _Soft Energy Paths_ , 55.\n\n30. See Clark, _Energy for Survival_.\n\n31. See U.S. House of Representatives, _Renewable Energy Incentives_ , 147 (testimony of Warren D. Noteware, California Energy Commission).\n\n32. Righter, _Wind Energy in America_ , 208.\n\n33. Ellen Paris, \"The Great Windmill Tax Dodge,\" _Forbes_ , March 12, 1984, 40.\n\n34. Gipe, _Wind Energy Comes of Age_ , 31.\n\n35. See Righter, _Wind Energy in America_ , 215; Starrs, \"Legislative Incentives and Energy Technologies,\" 109, table 1; Smith, \"Wind Farms of the Altamont Pass Area,\" 153, fig. 3.\n\n36. Righter, _Wind Energy in America_ , 158. For testimony by representatives of NASA and major aerospace firms, see U.S. House of Representatives, _Wind Energy Systems Act of 1980_.\n\n37. Gipe, _Wind Energy Comes of Age_ , 106.\n\n38. Ibid., 96.\n\n39. See Asmus, _Reaping the Wind_ , 87\u2013131.\n\n40. Van Est, _Winds of Change_ , 54.\n\n41. Righter, _Wind Energy in America_ , 183, quoting interview with Paul Gipe, November 11, 1992.\n\n42. Danish Wind Industry Association, _Denmark\u2014Wind Power Hub: Profile of the Danish Wind Industry_ , 2008, 13, <http:\/\/www.windpower.org\/>.\n\n43. Van Est, _Winds of Change_ , 59; Righter, _Wind Energy in America_ , 181.\n\n44. Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978, PL 95\u2013620, 42 USC 8301.\n\n45. Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act Amendments of 1987, PL 100\u201342, 42 USC 8312.\n\n46. See Gipe, \"Wind Energy Comes of Age,\" 738; Starrs, \"Legislative Incentives and Energy Technologies,\" 119.\n\n47. Ronald Reagan, \"Acceptance Speech at the 1980 Republican Convention,\" July 17, 1980, <http:\/\/www.nationalcenter.org\/>.\n\n48. Sissine, _Renewable Energy: A New National Commitment?_ , unnumbered table, \"Dept. of Energy (DOE) Renewable Energy R&D Funding: FY74 to FY92.\"\n\n49. Gipe, \"Wind Energy Comes of Age,\" 758, fig. 4.\n\n50. Almost 70 percent of the world's wind-generated electricity came from California's big-three wind farms in 1985. Smith, \"Wind Farms of the Altamont Pass Area,\" 146.\n\n51. Van Est, _Winds of Change_ , 92.\n\n52. See European Monitoring Centre on Change, _EMCC Case Studies: Energy Sector: Vestas, Denmark_ , European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, 2008, 4, <http:\/\/www.eurofound.europa.eu\/>; and _Reference for Business, Encyclopedia for Business_ , 2d ed., \"Vestas Wind Systems A\/S,\" <http:\/\/www.referenceforbusiness.com\/>.\n\n53. See Sijm, _Performance of Feed-in Tariffs_ , 7\u20138 and table 3.2.\n\n54. Ibid., table 3.2; DOE, U.S. Installed Wind Capacity, 2000 Year End Wind Power Capacity (map), <http:\/\/www.windpoweringamerica.gov\/>.\n\n55. Peter Wenzel Kruse, senior vice president for group communication and investor relations, Vestas, interview with author, October 8, 2009.\n\n56. With 327 megawatts of new wind power capacity in 2010, Denmark ranked eleventh among European nations that year. European Wind Energy Association, _Wind in Power: 2010 European Statistics_ , February 2011, <http:\/\/www.ewea.org\/>.\n\n57. Ditlev Engel, press conference on Q3 accounts 2010, Radisson Blue Royal Hotel, Copenhagen, October 26, 2011. Additional information provided via e-mail to author by Michael Holm, public relations manager, Vestas, October 26, 2010, and June 10, 2011.\n\n58. See American Wind Energy Association, _U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report_ , 36.\n\nCHAPTER THREE: RUST BELT RENEWABLES\n\n1. \"President-Elect Obama Visits and Speaks at Cardinal Fastener, Bedford Heights, OH,\" January 16, 2009, YouTube, <http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/>.\n\n2. American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), _U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report_ , 37.\n\n3. Beth Govoni and Elizabeth Conley, Iowa Department of Economic Development, e-mail to author, August 4, 2010.\n\n4. \"Stimulus Money IS Creating US Jobs: American Wind Energy Association Response to American University Study\/ABC World News Story,\" _Electric Energy Online_ , February 12, 2010, <http:\/\/www.electricenergyonline.com>.\n\n5. Elizabeth Salerno and Jessica Isaacs, \"The Economic Reach of a Thriving Sector,\" _Windpower Monthly, Special Report\u2013United States: Wind Industry a Driver of Economic Recovery_ , May 2009, 7.\n\n6. Interviews with Bob Loyd, plant manager, and employees at Clipper Wind Turbine Works were conducted during the author's site visit to Cedar Rapids, IA, February 2, 2010.\n\n7. David Pitt, \"Historic Maytag Factory Shuts Its Doors,\" Associated Press, October 25, 2007, <http:\/\/www.manufacturing.net\/>.\n\n8. Robert Gates, chief commercial officer, Clipper Windpower, phone interview with author, April 13, 2010. See also Jesse Broehl, \"Domestic Supply Chain Must Grow,\" _Windpower Monthly, Special Report\u2013United States: Wind Industry a Driver of Economic Recovery_ , May 2009, 11.\n\n9. \"Drive Train Retrofit Means More Delays\u2014Further Bad News from Clipper on Liberty Component Problems,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , October 2007, 42; \"Series of Blade Repairs Under Way\u2014More Clipper Problems,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , February 2008, 39; \"Growing Revenue but Higher Losses,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , June 2009, 31.\n\n10. \"Growing Revenue but Higher Losses,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , June 2009, 31; \"Analysis\u2013Changing Blades without a Tall Crane,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , April 2010, 22.\n\n11. See Karl-Erik Stromsta, \"Pertz Quits Over Losses,\" _Recharge News_ , March 12, 2010, 10; Robin Pagnamenta, \"Clipper Has the Wind beneath Its Wings after US Funding Deal,\" _Times (London)_ , December 11, 2009, <http:\/\/business.timesonline.co.uk>; Ben Backwell, \"Clipper in a Cash Crisis,\" _Recharge_ , September 24, 2010, www.rechargenews.com\/; and Associated Press, \"United Technologies Optimistic about Wind Power,\" February 10, 2011, <http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/>.\n\n12. \"Clipper Teams Up to Forge New Beginning,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , May 2010, 77.\n\n13. Gates phone interview, April 13, 2010.\n\n14. The production tax credit, under section 1914 of the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (P.L. 102\u2013486), originally targeted wind and biomass derived from field crops or trees grown exclusively for power production. Other forms of renewable energy, including solar, geothermal, landfill gas, trash combustion, and certain kinds of small-scale hydropower, were added later. Sissine, _Renewable Energy: Tax Credit, Budget, and Electricity Production Issues_ , 4.\n\n15. The production tax credit for wind has since been raised to 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour. \"Federal Incentives\/Policies for Renewables & Efficiency: Renewable Electricity Production Tax Credit,\" Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), rev. April 25, 2011, <http:\/\/www.dsireusa.org\/>.\n\n16. See H.R. 1, P.L. 111\u20135, Sec. 1101. The PTC was raised again in 2010 to 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour. For further analysis, see Viva Hammer, \"Special Report: Alternative Energy Gets a Second Chance,\" _Tax Notes_ , November 22, 2010, <http:\/\/vivahammertax.com\/>.\n\n17. See Dan Eggen, \"Four Democratic Senators Aim to Halt Stimulus Wind Project,\" _Washington Post_ , March 4, 2010.\n\n18. AWEA, _U.S. Wind Industry Annual Market Report_ , 36; _AWEA Year-End 2009 Market Report_ , 37.\n\n19. Under the Price-Anderson Act, each licensed reactor pays for $375 million in private insurance covering off-site liability. If an accident were to cause damage above that amount, all 104 licensed U.S. reactors would be assessed a pro rata share of the excess, up to a maximum of $111.9 million apiece. Beyond the $11.6 billion covered by this industrywide pool, state and local governments would have to petition Congress for supplemental disaster relief. See Nuclear Regulatory Commission, \"Fact Sheet on Nuclear Insurance and Disaster Relief Funds,\" June 2011, <http:\/\/www.nrc.gov\/>.\n\n20. For a general overview of this company, see Pruitt, _Timken_.\n\n21. Lorrie Paul Crum, communications department, and James E. Charmley, director of product technology, Timken, interviews with author, March 5, 2010.\n\n22. Ward J. \"Tim\" Timken Jr., \"Private Enterprise: A Cornerstone of American Democracy,\" Major Issues Lecture, Ashland University, Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs, October 16, 2009, <http:\/\/www.ashbrook.org\/>.\n\n23. H. Josef Hebert, \"Timken, Belden, and Their Workers Keep an Eye on Climate Bills,\" Associated Press, October 11, 2009, <http:\/\/www.cantonrep.com\/>.\n\n24. Crum, e-mail to author, December 10, 2009.\n\n25. Associated Press, \"GE Partners to Create Wind Farm in Lake Erie Near Cleveland; Aims for 1,000 MW Farm by 2020,\" May 24, 2010.\n\nCHAPTER FOUR:THE CHINESE ARE COMING\n\n1. The top fifteen global turbine manufacturers in 2010, by rank and market share, were Vestas (Denmark) #1\u201312%; Sinovel (China) #2\u201311%; GE (U.S.) #3\u201310%; Goldwind (China) #4\u201310%; Enercon (Germany) #5\u20137%; Gamesa (Spain) #6\u20137%; Dongfang (China) #8\u20137%; Suzlon (India) #9\u20136%; Siemens (Germany) #10\u20135%; United Power (China) #10\u20134%; Mingyang (China) #11\u20133%; REpower (Germany) #12\u20132%; Sewind (China) #13\u20132%; Nordex (Germany) #14\u20132%; XEMC (China) #15\u20131%. Reuters, \"UPDATE 2-China Rivals Narrow Gap on Wind Leader Vestas,\" March 15, 2011, <http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/>, citing data from MAKE Consulting.\n\n2. This conference, attended by the author, was held on October 21\u201323, 2009.\n\n3. This ceremony, which took place on October 15, 2009, featured remarks by Lars Anderson, president, Vestas-China; Ni Xiangyu, vice chairman, the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area; and others.\n\n4. Chinese Wind Energy Association (CWEA), _China Wind Power Installed Capacity Data (2010)_ , March 18, 2011 (in Chinese), table 2; Global Wind Energy Council, _Global Wind Statistics 2010_ , <http:\/\/www.gwec.net\/>.\n\n5. China's total electricity consumption is predicted to reach 8,200 terawatt-hours by 2020, with total installed capacity growing to 1.885 terawatts. \"China Electricity Consumption to Almost Double by 2020: China Electricity Council,\" Xinhua News Agency, December 21, 2010, <http:\/\/news.xinhuanet.com\/>.\n\n6. McElroy et al., \"Potential for Wind-Generated Electricity in China,\" 1378\u201380.\n\n7. See Keith Bradsher, \"China Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants,\" _New York Times_ , May 11, 2009.\n\n8. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), \"Independent Statistics and Analysis,\" July 2009, <http:\/\/www.eia.doe.gov\/>.\n\n9. See \"China's Coal Demand Likely to Hit 3.8 bln t billion metric tons] in 2015,\" June 9, 2010, iStockAnalyst, [www.istockanalyst.com\/. Projected coal use of 3.8 billion metric tons converts to 4.18 billion \"short\" U.S. tons.\n\n10. The official death toll for Chinese coal miners was 3,215 in 2008 and 2,631 in 2009. \"China Mine Accidents Multiply\u201428 Dead, 192 Missing,\" Agence France-Presse, April 2, 2010, <http:\/\/www.chinamining.org\/>.\n\n11. World Nuclear Association, \"World Nuclear Power Reactors & Uranium Requirements,\" table, March 2, 2011, <http:\/\/www.world-nuclear.org\/>.\n\n12. See Antoaneta Bezlova, \"Three Gorges Dam May Displace Millions More,\" IPS-Inter Press Service, October 12, 2007, <http:\/\/ipsnews.net\/>; Jim Yardley, \"Chinese Dam Projects Criticized for Their Human Costs,\" _New York Times_ , November 19, 2007.\n\n13. Lema, \"Between Fragmented Authoritarianism and Policy Coordination,\" 3882.\n\n14. See Li, _Study on the Pricing Policy of Wind Power in China_ , 7.\n\n15. Renewable Energy Law of the People's Republic of China, approved by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, February 28, 2005, articles 6\u20139.\n\n16. Wu Qi, \"Landmark Project Heralds Grand Vision,\" _Windpower Monthly Special Report\u2013China: Market Ambition Ramps Up a Gear_ , October 2009, 20\u201321. See also Louis Schwartz, \"China's New Generation: Driving Domestic Development,\" March 10, 2009, RenewableEnergyWorld.com, <http:\/\/www.renewableenergyworld.com\/>.\n\n17. Yvonne Chan, \"China Unveils $140bn Plan to Build Seven Giant Wind Farms by 2020,\" _BusinessGreen_ , June 30, 2009, <http:\/\/www.businessgreen.com\/>. See also Rujun Shen and Tom Miles, \"China's Wind-Power Boom to Outpace Nuclear by 2020,\" Reuters, April 20, 2009, <http:\/\/uk.reuters.com\/>.\n\n18. Wu Qi, \"New Milestone for Domestic Leader,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , May 2009, 31.\n\n19. Wilson Guo, China country manager, UPC, interview with author, October 20, 2009.\n\n20. Charles R. McElwee II, Squire Sanders & Dempsey LLP, phone interview with author, November 23, 2009.\n\n21. See Lewis, _Comparison of Wind Power Industry Development Strategies_ , 15\u201317.\n\n22. Goldwind Science & Technology Company, _Company Overview and Highlights_ , September\u2013October 2009, 12, www.goldwindglobal.com.\n\n23. Chunhua Li, director, International Business Department, Goldwind, and Eva Xie, vice director, Investment Department, Tianrun, interview with author, October 18, 2009; Liang Xuan, International Business Department, Goldwind, e-mail to author, June 30, 2010.\n\n24. See Wu Qi, \"Grid Quotas Aim to Connect 9 GW of Stuck Chinese Wind,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , June 2010, 17; Li Jing, \"China Plans for Renewable Energy,\" _China Daily_ , August 25, 2009, <http:\/\/www.chinadaily.com.cn\/>.\n\n25. \"China Electricity Consumption to Almost Double by 2020,\" _China Daily_ , December 22, 2010.\n\n26. Lewis, _A Review of the Potential International Trade Implications_ , 3.\n\n27. Azure International, Beijing, data provided to author via e-mail, September 30, 2010.\n\n28. CWEA, _China Wind Power Installed Capacity Data (2010)_ , March 18, 2011 (in Chinese), table 2. Rankings are based on megawatts installed in 2010.\n\n29. See Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, \"United States Requests WTO Dispute Settlement Consultations on China's Subsidies for Wind Power Equipment Manufacturers,\" December 22, 2010, <http:\/\/www.ustr.gov\/>. See also Keith Bradsher, \"To Conquer Wind Power, China Writes the Rules,\" _New York Times_ , December 14, 2010.\n\n30. See Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, \"United States Requests WTO Dispute Settlement Consultations.\"\n\n31. Chunhua Li interview, October 15, 2009.\n\n32. Wu Qi, \"Goldwind Wins New US Orders,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , April 25, 2011.\n\n33. CWEA, _China Wind Power Installed Capacity Data (2010)_ , table 2.\n\n34. See Lyn Harrison and Eric Prideaux, \"Conference Report China: World Asks China to Drop Its Barriers,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , 57, 60.\n\n35. Matthew Kaplan, associate director, North American Wind Energy Markets, IHS Emerging Energy Research, interview with author, June 7 2011.\n\n36. Jim Bai and Chen Aizhu, \"China Wind Power Capacity Could Reach 1,000 GW by 2050,\" Reuters, October 19, 2011, <http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/>.\n\n37. Friedman, _Hot, Flat, and Crowded_ , 372\u201373.\n\nCHAPTER FIVE: WORKING THE WIND\n\n1. Ira Chinoy, associate professor, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, e-mail to author, March 1, 2011.\n\n2. _Inside Indiana Business_ , \"More Wind Turbine Components Arrive at Port of Indiana,\" June 19, 2009, <http:\/\/www.insideindianabusiness.com\/>.\n\n3. Jesse Broehl, \"Transportation Is the Wind beneath U.S. Industry Wings,\" _Windpower Monthly Special Report: Freight on Board_ , July 2010, 5.\n\n4. \"Western States\u2014Four Ports Make US Top Ten List,\" _Windpower Monthly, Special Report: U.S. Investment and Development_ , September 2010, 23.\n\n5. \"Texas and Oklahoma Lead Quiet Region,\" _Windpower Monthly, Special Report: U.S. Investment and Development_ , September 2010, 16.\n\n6. \"Trains Deliver the Wind,\" _Breakbulk Industry News_ , September 22, 2009; \"Iowa Cornfield Sprouts Wind Towers,\" _Breakbulk Industry News_ , September 22, 2009, <http:\/\/www.breakbulk.com\/> (archival access limited to subscribers).\n\n7. Mark Anderson, \"Trucking Turbines Gets Sophisticated,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , April 2009, 92.\n\n8. Site visit to Grand Ridge Wind Farm, Ransom, IL; Adam Hartman, construction manager, Invenergy, interview with author, May 8, 2009.\n\n9. Alvin Cargill, Horizon Wind Energy, project manager for construction\u2014Meadow Lake Wind Farm, White and Benton counties, IN, interview with author, July 22, 2009.\n\n10. Bruce Graham, presentation on Meridian Way Wind Farm to Kansas\u2013Nebraska Radio Club, Cloud County Community College, observed by author, March 19, 2009.\n\n11. American Wind Energy Association, \"Supply Chain\u2014Anatomy of a Wind Turbine,\" <http:\/\/www.awea.org\/>.\n\n12. See \"President-Elect Obama Visits and Speaks at Cardinal Fastener, Bedford Heights, OH,\" January 16, 2009, YouTube, <http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/>.\n\n13. Clinton Newbold, quality assurance manager, Barnhart, at Meadow Lake Wind Farm, interview with author, July 23, 2009.\n\n14. Martin Culik, Horizon Wind Energy, project manager for development, Meadow Lake Wind Farm, interview with author, July 23, 2009. See also Horizon Wind Energy website, Meadow Lake Wind Farm, <http:\/\/www.horizonwind.com\/>.\n\n15. Connie Neininger, economic development director, White County, IN, interview with author, July 18, 2009.\n\n16. Steve Maples, Barnhart Crane & Rigging, site manager, Meadow Lake Wind Farm, interview with author, July 23, 2009. All subsequent quotes attributed to Steve Maples are from the same source.\n\n17. Justin Van Beusekom, assistant operations manager, Meridian Way Wind Farm, Horizon Wind Energy, May 15, 2009.\n\n18. Leo Jessen, lead technician, Grand Ridge Wind Farm, Invenergy, interview with author, May 10, 2009.\n\n19. Ibid.\n\n20. American Wind Energy Association, _AWEA Year-End 2009 Market Report_ , 37\u201338.\n\n21. See American Wind Energy Association, \"AWEA Seal of Approval Program,\" <http:\/\/archive.awea.org\/>, accessed April 11, 2011.\n\n22. Cloud County Community College Grants List\u2014Wind Energy Technology Training Program, provided to author by Bruce Graham, March 2010.\n\n23. Brad Lowell, \"CCCC Becoming Leader in Wind Energy Education,\" _Concordia (KS) Blade-Empire_ , March 10, 2010, quoting Kim Krull, vice president for academic affairs, Cloud County Community College.\n\n24. Acme Idea Company, New Duracell Smart Power Commercial, December 4, 2009, YouTube, <http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/>.\n\n25. P. Barry Butler, dean, College of Engineering, University of Iowa, interview with author, February 1, 2010.\n\n26. Interviews with students, Wind Energy and Turbine Technology Program, Iowa Lakes Community College, conducted by author, February 5, 2010.\n\n27. Michelle Graham, Horizon Wind Energy, operations administrator, Meridian Way Wind Farm, e-mail to author, May 16, July 9, December 17, 2009, and September 4, 2010.\n\n28. Bruce Graham, e-mail to author, March 4, 2011.\n\n29. Ahmad Hemami, instructor, Iowa Lakes Community College, interview with author, February 5, 2010.\n\n30. Loma Roggenkamp, O&M technician, Siemens Energy, phone interview with author, September 7, 2010; e-mail to author, July 27, 2011.\n\n31. Kristen Graf, executive director, Women of Wind Energy, phone interview with author, September 3, 2010.\n\n32. AWEA Board of Directors, <http:\/\/www.awea.org\/>, accessed April 11, 2011.\n\n33. Jeanna Walters, former student, Wind Energy Technology Training Program, Cloud County Community College, phone interview with author, May 13, 2009.\n\n34. U.S. Department of Energy, _Wind Power in America's Future_ , 12.\n\n35. Ibid., appendix C: \"Wind-Related Jobs and Economic Impact,\" 207\u201310. Data are drawn, in part, from the explanatory text accompanying fig. C-7, with specific numerical projections underlying fig. C-7 provided by Suzanne Tegen, PhD, senior energy analyst, Strategic Energy Analysis Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), e-mail to author, August 31, 2010. Indirect jobs are based on \"the increase in economic activity that occurs . . . when a contractor, vendor, or manufacturer receives payment for goods or services and in turn is able to pay others who support their business.\" Induced employment is caused by \"the changes in wealth that result from spending by people directly and indirectly employed by the project.\" Ibid., 201.\n\nCHAPTER SIX: THE PATH TO CLEANER ENERGY\n\n1. Ryan H. Wiser, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, \"Tracking the US Wind Industry: Update on Cost, Performance, and Pricing Trends,\" AWEA Windpower 2011 Conference, May 23, 2011. In previously published government data, wind was credited with a more modest 2.3 percent of total U.S. electricity supply in 2010: 94,647 gigawatt hours out of 4,120,028 gigawatt hours. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), _Electric Power Monthly_ , table 1.1, accessed July 2011, <http:\/\/www.eia.doe.gov\/>\n\n2. EIA, _Electric Power Monthly_ , table 1.1A. Solar-generated power totaled 1.3 gigawatt hours in 2011.\n\n3. By way of comparison, a coal plant's capacity factor is typically in the 70 to 90 percent range, and a nuclear plant can operate at over 90 percent of its stated capacity.\n\n4. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and AWS Truewind, \"Estimates of Windy Land Area and Wind Energy Potential by State for Areas >=30% Capacity Factor at 80m,\" February 4, 2010, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Wind Powering America, <http:\/\/www.windpoweringamerica.gov\/>.\n\n5. See David Appleyard, \"Record Growth for EU Offshore Wind in 2010,\" _Renewable Energy World_ , February 15, 2011, <http:\/\/www.renewableenergyworld.com\/>. Europe added 883 megawatts in new offshore wind capacity in 2010, about 10 percent of total European wind installations that year.\n\n6. Schwartz, _Assessment of Offshore Wind Energy Resources_ , 3\u20134, table 1. This study understates the total offshore wind resource because it does not include data for Florida, Alabama, or Mississippi; wind maps for these states were unavailable. On the other hand, over 60 percent of the wind resources in NREL's offshore database are in waters deeper than 150 feet, where wind energy development is not yet technically feasible.\n\n7. Vattenfall, _Life-Cycle Assessment_ , 2.\n\n8. Spath, _Life Cycle Assessment_ , 10\u201313, 29, table 29.\n\n9. Estimates of coal power plant CO2 emissions were calculated by David Schoengold, senior consultant, MSB Energy Associates, based on an analysis of DOE data for 2008. David Schoengold, e-mail to author, October 5, 2010; Armond Cohen, executive director, Clean Air Task Force, e-mail to author, September 30, 2010.\n\n10. Vestas, _Lifecycle Assessment of a V90\u20133.0 MW Onshore Wind Turbine_ , 7.\n\n11. Vestas, _Lifecycle Assessment of Offshore and Onshore Sited Wind Power Plants_ , 35\u201340.\n\n12. DOE, _Wind Power in America's Future_ , 13\u201314.\n\n13. Percentages derived from European Wind Energy Association, _Wind Energy_ , 326, table V.1.2.\n\n14. One of the earlier critiques of civilian nuclear power was published under this title. See Richard Curtis and Elizabeth Hogan, _Perils of the Peaceful Atom: The Myth of Safe Nuclear Power Plants_ (New York: Doubleday, 1969).\n\n15. See, e.g., Brit Liggett and Jill Fehrenbacher, \"Stewart Brand Says Nuclear Power Could Save the World,\" video interview, Inhabitat.com, February 19, 2011, <http:\/\/inhabitat.com\/>.\n\n16. See Adriana Petryna, \"The Work of Illness: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl-Exposed Populations,\" _Osiris_ , 2d series, vol. 19, _Landscapes of Exposure: Knowledge and Illness in Modern Environments_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 250\u201365.\n\n17. See Behrens, _Nuclear Power Plants_ , 4.\n\n18. National Academy of Sciences, \"Spent Fuel Stored in Pools at Some U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Potentially at Risk From Terrorist Attacks; Prompt Measures Needed to Reduce Vulnerabilities,\" press release, April 6, 2005. The press release and a link to the full public report are available at <http:\/\/www8.nationalacademies.org\/>.\n\n19. Wald, \"Resolved,\" 52.\n\n20. One of those isotopes, plutonium-239, takes 24,000 years to lose half its radioactivity. Plutonium-242 has a half-life of 376,000 years. See _Nuclear Regulatory Commission_ , \"Backgrounder on Radioactive Waste,\" April 2007, and \"Fact Sheet on Plutonium,\" October 2003, <http:\/\/www.nrc.gov\/>.\n\n21. See U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, \"Fact Sheet on Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plants,\" April 2011, <http:\/\/www.nrc.gov\/>.\n\n22. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), _Electric Power Monthly_ , table 1.1 accessed July 2011, reporting that petroleum liquids produced 23.4 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2010.\n\n23. In 1973, petroleum products supplied to the U.S. market totaled 17.3 million barrels per day. In 2010, total U.S. oil consumption was 19.1 million barrels per day. U.S. Energy Information Administration, \"Short-Term Energy Outlook,\" March 8, 2011, <http:\/\/www.eia.doe.gov\/>.\n\n24. See Pew Center on Global Climate Change, \"Transportation Overview: Transportation Emissions in the United States,\" <http:\/\/www.pewclimate.org\/>, accessed March 29, 2011.\n\n25. DONG Energy Annual Report, 2009, 44\u201345, <http:\/\/www.dongenergy.com\/>.\n\n26. Knud Pedersen, vice president responsible for group R&D and regulatory issues, DONG Energy, Copenhagen, interview with author, October 9, 2009. See also Nelson D. Schwartz, \"In Denmark, Ambitious Plan for Electric Cars,\" _New York Times_ , December 1, 2009; Clive Thompson, \"Batteries Not Included,\" _New York Times Magazine_ , April 16, 2009.\n\n27. EIA, \"U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves,\" table 9, released November 30, 2010, <http:\/\/www.eia.doe.gov\/>.\n\n28. In 2010, U.S. consumption of natural gas totaled 24.1 trillion cubic feet. EIA, \"Natural Gas Consumption by End Use,\" released March 29, 2011, <http:\/\/www.eia.doe.gov\/>.\n\n29. See, e.g., Natural Gas Supply Association, \"Resources,\" <http:\/\/www.naturalgas.org\/>, accessed April 7, 2011. Among the sources cited here is the EIA's _Annual Energy Outlook 2010_ , which estimates that the United States has 2,349 trillion cubic feet of \"unproved\" technically recoverable gas resources.\n\n30. See Sandra Steingraber, \"The Whole Fracking Enchilada,\" _Orion_ , September\/October 2010, <http:\/\/www.orionmagazine.org\/>; Ian Urbina, \"Regulation Lax as Gas Wells' Tainted Water Hits Rivers,\" _New York Times_ , February 27, 2011.\n\n31. See Ian Urbina, \"Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush,\" _New York Times_ , June 26, 2011. In the immediate wake of these revelations, congressional leaders called on several federal agencies to investigate the industry's possibly exaggerated claims of shale gas productivity and profitability. See Ian Urbina, \"Lawmakers Seek Inquiry of Natural Gas Industry,\" _New York Times_ , June 28, 2011.\n\n32. EIA, \"International Gas Reserves and Resources,\" updated March 3, 2009, <http:\/\/www.eia.doe.gov\/>.\n\n33. DOE, _Wind Power in America's Future_ , 154, appendix A.\n\n34. Jon Wellinghoff, chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), interview with author, Washington, DC, April 15, 2010. Wellinghoff's ideas for developing a smart grid substantially supported by renewable energy are explored further in chapter 9, \"Greening the Grid.\"\n\n35. Pew Center on Global Climate Change, \"Renewable & Alternative Portfolio Standards,\" <http:\/\/www.pewclimate.org\/>. This webpage, accessed on March 17, 2011, lists thirty-one states and the District of Columbia with renewable or alternative electricity standards.\n\n36. H.B. 2369, Kan. Reg. Sess. (2009); Kan. State. Ann. Sec. 79\u2013201 (Supp. 2008).\n\n37. Todd Wood, \"California Utilities (Just) Miss Renewable Energy Deadline,\" _Grist_ , March 8, 2011, <http:\/\/www.grist.org\/>.\n\n38. Yin, \"Do State Renewable Portfolio Standards Promote In-State Renewable Generation?\" 1144.\n\n39. While not a direct indicator of the cost of a particular energy technology to consumers, wholesale prices\u2014paid by utilities to wind power producers\u2014are generally seen as a more accurate reflection of wind energy's competitiveness than the retail price of power, which can vary widely depending on the generation sources in a utility's portfolio, local distribution costs, the corporate structure of the utility (public- or investor-owned, regulated or deregulated), and the rate-setting policies of different states.\n\n40. DOE, _2009 Wind Technologies_ , 36\u201342; Ryan H. Wiser, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, \"Tracking the U.S. Wind Industry: Update on Cost, Performance, and Pricing Trends,\" PowerPoint presentation, AWEA Windpower Conference, Anaheim, CA, May 23, 2011, 13\u201314 (summarizing data forthcoming in the DOE's _2010 Wind Technologies Market Report)_.\n\n41. The monthly natural gas price for electric power reached $11.84 per thousand cubic feet in October 2005, dropped as low as $5.76 in 2006, and then spiked again in 2008, topping out at $12.41. In 2010, it dropped to $4.44 in October, but was back up to $5.66 by December. EIA, _Monthly U.S. Natural Gas Electric Power Price_ , <http:\/\/www.eia.gov\/>.\n\n42. Nancy Rader, California Wind Energy Association, \"Wind Energy Development in the Desert,\" PowerPoint presentation, AWEA Windpower Conference, Anaheim, CA, May 23, 2011.\n\n43. Lazard Ltd., _Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis\u2014Version 4.0, 2010_ , cited in National Conference of State Legislatures, _Meeting the Energy Challenges of the Future: A Guide for Policymakers_ , 2010, 3, fig. 2, <http:\/\/www.ncsl.org\/>.\n\n44. Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, \"Innovating China's Wind Energy Market via Engineering Excellence & Supply Chain Integration.\" PowerPoint presentation, China Wind Power Conference, Beijing, October 21, 2009.\n\n45. Bloomberg New Energy Finance, \"Wind Turbine Prices Fall to their Lowest in Recent Years,\" February 7, 2011, <http:\/\/bnef.com\/>.\n\n46. Ibid., 32.\n\n47. DOE, _2009 Wind Technologies Market Report_ , 27.\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN:BIRDS AND BATS\n\n1. Center for Biological Diversity v. FPL Group, Inc. et al., Complaint for Violations of California Business and Professions Code Section 17200 et seq., Case No. RG04183113, Superior Court of the State of California, Alameda County, November 1, 2004, paragraphs 46\u201359.\n\n2. BioResource Consultants, _Developing Methods to Reduce Bird Mortality_ , table\n\n3. When Audubon reached a legal settlement with Alameda County in 2007, agreeing on a 50 percent mortality reduction goal, the Center for Biological Diversity strongly objected to the agreement's failure to spell out enforceable means of achieving that goal. It registered its views in a letter addressed to the members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, January 10, 2007, <http:\/\/www.biologicaldiversity.org\/>.\n\n4. Elizabeth McCarthy, \"Legal Battle over Altamont Windmill Bird Deaths Ends,\" _California Current_ , December 10, 2010, <http:\/\/www.cacurrent.com\/>.\n\n5. Scott Richardson, \"Audubon Society Wants Invenergy Study Redone,\" _Wind Watch: Industrial Wind Energy News_ , October 25, 2006, <http:\/\/www.wind-watch.org\/>.\n\n6. Dr. Angelo Capparella, associate professor of zoology, Illinois State University, Bloomington, interview with author, May 10, 2009.\n\n7. See National Renewable Energy Laboratory, _Power Technologies Energy Data Book_ , Wind Farm Area Calculator, <http:\/\/www.nrel.gov\/>, accessed August 1, 2011.\n\n8. Paul Kerlinger, \"Prevention and Mitigation of Avian Impacts at Wind Power Facilities\" in Resolve, Inc., _Proceedings of the Wind Energy and Birds\/Bats Workshop_ , 84\u201385.\n\n9. See Erickson, _Summary and Comparison of Bird Mortality from Anthropogenic Causes_ , 1033\u201334. The Federal Aviation Administration calls for lighting, at a minimum, on towers that define the periphery of all wind farms with turbines taller than 200 feet. See _FAA Advisory Circular: Obstruction Marking and Lighting_ , February 12, 2007, chapter 13, <http:\/\/www.windaction.org\/>.\n\n10. Capparella interview, May 10, 2009.\n\n11. Karl Kosciuch, \"Evaluating Whooping Crane Stop-over Habitat at Potential Wind Power Sites to Understand and Minimize Risk,\" AWEA Windpower Conference, Chicago, May 7, 2009.\n\n12. Diane Bailey, \"Whooping Cranes Use Wind Corridor\u2014Environmental Interests Clash,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , June 1, 2009, 52.\n\n13. Don Furman, senior vice president for development, Iberdrola Renewables, phone interview with author, February 19, 2010.\n\n14. AES Geo Energy, _Saint Nikola Kavarna Wind Farm Environmental Management and Monitoring Plan;_ Darius Snieckus, \"Early-Warning System Ensures the Safety of Millions of Migratory Birds,\" _Recharge_ , October 8, 2010, <http:\/\/www.rechargenews.com\/>.\n\n15. Erickson, _A Summary and Comparison of Bird Mortality from Anthropogenic Causes_ , 1035\u201336.\n\n16. National Research Council, _Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects_ , 75. See also Wallace P. Erickson, \"Bird Fatality and Risk at New Generation Wind Projects\" in Resolve, Inc., _Proceedings of the Wind Energy and Birds\/Bats Workshop_ , 29\u201331.\n\n17. See U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, _Draft Voluntary Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines;_ and _Draft Eagle Conservation Plan Guidance_. See also _Comments of the American Wind Energy Association on Draft Eagle Conservation Plan Guidance_ , May 19, 2011, <http:\/\/www.awea.org\/>.\n\n18. Erickson, _Avian Collisions with Wind Turbines_ , 7\u201312.\n\n19. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, _Migratory Bird Mortality: Many Human-Caused Threats Afflict Our Bird Populations_ , January 2002, <http:\/\/www.fws.gov\/>.\n\n20. Nico Dauphine and Robert J. Cooper, \"Impacts of Free-Ranging Domestic Cats _(Felis Catus)_ on Birds in the United States: A Review of Recent Research with Conservation and Management Recommendations,\" _Proceedings of the Fourth International Partners in Flight Conference: Tundra to Tropics_ , October 2009, 205\u20139, <http:\/\/www.abcbirds.org\/>.\n\n21. The Fish and Wildlife Service avoids giving numerical estimates of past and current sage grouse populations. See U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, \"Questions and Answers for the Greater Sage-Grouse Status Review,\" 8, website updated March 5, 2010, <http:\/\/www.fws.gov\/>. However, when the Interior Department designated the bird as a candidate species under the Endangered Species Act (see discussion later in this chapter), press accounts reported total numbers of sage grouse as ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 today, down from 16 million a century ago. See, e.g., John M. Broder, \"No Endangered Status for Plains Bird,\" _New York Times_ , March 5, 2010.\n\n22. Hadassah Reimer, \"A Small Bird with a Big Footprint,\" _Wyoming Lawyer_ 31, no. 1 (February 2008): 2, <http:\/\/www.wyomingbar.org\/>.\n\n23. State of Wyoming Executive Order 2008\u20132, Greater Sage-Grouse Area Protection, August 1, 2008, paragraphs 2\u20133, <http:\/\/www.fws.gov\/>. The governor described the purposes of this order in a letter to State Senator Jim Anderson, chair of the legislature's Task Force on Wind Energy, May 18, 2009, <http:\/\/www.windaction.org\/>.\n\n24. Freudenthal letter to Anderson, May 18, 2009.\n\n25. For the 2011\u201312 biennium, mineral severance taxes and federal mineral royalties are projected to account for 51.4 percent of Wyoming's total state revenues. Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, _Wyoming State Government Revenue Forecast, Fiscal Year 2011\u2013Fiscal Year 2016_ , October 2010, <http:\/\/eadiv.state.wy.us\/>.\n\n26. State of Wyoming Executive Order 2010\u20134, Greater Sage-Grouse Area Protection, August 18, 2010, Specific Stipulations, <http:\/\/psc.state.wy.us\/>.\n\n27. See Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, \"Wildlife Protection Recommendations for Wind Energy Development in Wyoming,\" April 23, 2010, 7\u201310, <http:\/\/gf.state.wy.us\/>.\n\n28. John M. Broder, \"No Endangered Status for Plains Bird,\" _New York Times_ , March 5, 2010.\n\n29. Erik Molvar, executive director, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Laramie, WY, phone interview with author, January 11, 2010. See also Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, _Wind Power in Wyoming_.\n\n30. Natural Resources Conservation Service and Wildlife Habitat Council, \"Greater Prairie-Chicken (Tympanuchus cupido),\" _Fish and Wildlife Management Leaflet No. 27_ , February 2006, 1\u20132, <http:\/\/policy.nrcs.usda.gov\/>.\n\n31. Robert J. Robel, professor of environmental biology (ret.), Kansas State University, phone interview with author, January 13, 2010.\n\n32. Pitman, \"Location and Success of Lesser Prairie-Chicken Nests,\" 1267.\n\n33. Stephanie Manes, Smoky Hills coordinator, Ranchland Trust of Kansas, phone interview with author, December 23, 2009.\n\n34. Brian Obermeyer, Flint Hills project director, Nature Conservancy, interview with author, July 21, 2010.\n\n35. Rick Plumlee, \"Regulations Few in State's Flint Hills Burning Plan,\" _Wichita Eagle_ , December 7, 2010, <http:\/\/www.kansas.com\/>.\n\n36. John M. Briggs, director, Konza Prairie Biological Station, Kansas State University, interview with author, July 21, 2010.\n\n37. Robel, \"Spring Burning.\"\n\n38. Rene Braud, director of permitting and environmental affairs, Horizon Wind Energy, phone interview with author, December 17, 2009.\n\n39. See Kunz, \"Ecological Impacts of Wind Energy Development on Bats,\" 316, 320\u201322.\n\n40. Kunz, \"Assessing Impacts of Wind-Energy Development on Nocturnally Active Birds and Bats,\" 2450. Nationwide, three species of migratory, tree-dwelling bats\u2014the eastern red bat, the hoary bat, and the silver-haired bat\u2014make up almost 75 percent of fatalities from wind turbines. Kunz, \"Ecological Impacts of Wind Energy Development on Bats,\" 316.\n\n41. National Research Council, _Environmental Impacts of Wind Energy Projects_ , 97\u201398.\n\n42. Kunz, \"Ecological Impacts of Wind Energy Development on Bats,\" 318.\n\n43. Arnett, \"Patterns of Bat Fatalities,\" 64.\n\n44. Judge Roger W. Titus, Memorandum Opinion, Animal Welfare Institute, et al., v. Beech Ridge Energy LLC, et al., Case No. RWT 09cv1519, U.S. District Court, District of Maryland, December 8, 2009, 67, <http:\/\/www.mdd.uscourts.gov\/>.\n\n45. Judge Roger W. Titus, Order, Animal Welfare Institute, et al., v. Beech Ridge Energy LLC, et al., Case No. RWT 09cv1519, U.S. District Court, District of Maryland, December 8, 2009, <http:\/\/www.awionline.org\/>.\n\n46. \"Settlement Reached at Beech Ridge Industrial Wind Installation,\" _Charleston (WV) Daily Mail_ , January 27, 2010, <http:\/\/alleghenytreasures.wordpress.com\/>.\n\n47. Don Furman, senior vice president for development, transmission, and policy, Iberdrola Renewables, and AWEA president (2009\u201310), phone interview with author, February 19, 2010. See also \"Iberdrola Renewables, BWEC Second Year of Ground-Breaking Bat Study Again Shows Large Reduction in Bat Mortality,\" press release, November 11, 2010, <http:\/\/www.iberdrolarenewables.us\/>.\n\n48. Edward B. Arnett, \"Reducing Bat Fatalities at Wind Energy Facilities by Changing Turbine Cut-In Speed,\" Bat Conservation International, PowerPoint presentation, March 25, 2009, slide 23, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website, <http:\/\/www.fws.gov\/>.\n\n49. Kunz, \"Ecological Impacts of Wind Energy Development on Bats,\" 316\u201319.\n\n50. See also U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, _Draft Voluntary Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines_ , February 2011, <http:\/\/www.fws.gov\/>.\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT: THE NEIGHBORS\n\n1. Sylvia White, \"Towers Multiply, and Environment is Gone with the Wind,\" _Los Angeles Times_ , November 26, 1984.\n\n2. Paul Gipe, \"Aesthetic Guidelines for a Wind Power Future,\" in Pasqualetti, _Wind Power in View_ , 195, photo caption referring to the Zond Victory Garden wind farm in Tehachapi.\n\n3. A revealing account of this controversy appears in Williams, _Cape Wind_ , 248\u201398. See also American Wind Energy Association et al., \"Diverse Coalition Announces Campaign to Urge Congress to Reject Backroom Attack on Offshore Wind Power,\" press release, April 20, 2006, <http:\/\/www.capewind.org\/>; Philip Warburg and Susan Reid, \"Wind Power with No Direction,\" _Boston Globe_ , February 27, 2006; Philip Warburg and Susan Reid, \"Cape Wind Myths and Facts,\" _Cape Cod Times_ , May 16, 2006, <http:\/\/www.capewind.org\/>.\n\n4. The rapid return of porpoises to wind farm construction areas was documented at Horns Rev, Denmark's other large offshore wind energy complex. Jakob Tougaard et al., _Harbour Porpoises on Horns Reef\u2014Effects of the Horns Reef Wind Farm_ , Annual Status Report 2004 to Elsam Engineering A\/S (Roskilde, Denmark: National Environmental Research Institute, July 2005), 7, <http:\/\/www.hornsrev.dk\/>.\n\n5. E.ON Sverige, _R\u00f8dsand 2 Offshore Wind Farm: Environmental Impact Assessment\u2014Summary of the EIA-Report_ , E.On Sverige AB, June 2007, 12, www.dhi.dk.\n\n6. Bjarne Haxgart, site manager, R\u00f8dsand 2 Offshore Wind Farm, E.ON Climate & Renewables, R\u00f8dbyhavn, Denmark, interview with author, October 5, 2009.\n\n7. E.ON Sverige, _R\u00f8dsand 2\u2014Summary of the EIA-Report_ , 5, 9.\n\n8. Frank and Sarah Diss, Robert and Ruth Widman, Ransom, IL, interviews with author, May 8, 2009.\n\n9. Invenergy, _Grand Ridge Easement Agreement Summary_ , provided to author by Andrew Downey, land agent for the Grand Ridge Wind Farm, May 8, 2009. These fees escalate by either the cost-of-living index or 2 percent annually, whichever is greater.\n\n10. Bob Widman interview, May 8, 2009.\n\n11. Rose Z. Bacon, coproprietor, RK Cattle, Council Grove, KS. This and subsequent quotes are from interviews with author, January 5, 2010, and July 20, 2010.\n\n12. Rose Z. Bacon, \"Statement in Support of the Flint Hills National Heritage Area,\" undated, provided to author by R. Bacon.\n\n13. Ron Klataske, executive director, Audubon of Kansas, phone interview, December 21, 2009. Quotations are from Audubon of Kansas, \"Audubon of Kansas is a Leader in Efforts to Protect the Flint Hills,\" _Prairie Wings_ , Fall\/Winter 2004, 4\u20137.\n\n14. Garland P. (Pete) Ferrell III, rancher, Beaumont, KS, and principal, Energy for Generations, LLC, Tulsa. This and subsequent quotes are from interviews with author, January 19 and July 19, 2010.\n\n15. Leslie Wayne, \"Brothers at Odds,\" _New York Times Magazine_ , December 7, 1986.\n\n16. Tim Doyle, \"Koch's New Fight,\" _Forbes_ , September 21, 2006, <http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/>.\n\n17. \"Cape Wind Foes Spent $2 Million on Lobbying,\" _National Journal_ , February 23, 2009, <http:\/\/undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com\/>. The multiple steps taken by Koch to fund anti\u2013Cape Wind efforts are documented in Greenpeace, _Bill Koch: The Dirty Money Behind Cape Wind Opposition_ , July 22, 2010, <http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/>.\n\n18. Greenpeace, _Koch Industries: Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine_ (March 2010) and _Koch Industries: Still Fueling Climate Denial_ (2011 rev'd. ed.), <http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/>. See also Tom Hamburger et al., \"Koch Brothers Now at Heart of GOP Power,\" _Los Angeles Times_ , February 6, 2011.\n\n19. See Wind and Prairie Task Force, _Final Report_ , 10, fig. 1.\n\n20. See Ken Vandruff, \"Governor Considers Making Kansas Flint Hills into a No-Wind-Farm Zone,\" _Wichita Business Journal_ , December 5, 2004, <http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/>.\n\n21. See Office of the Governor, State of Kansas, \"Governor Announces Road Map for Wind Energy Policy,\" news release, May 6, 2011, https:\/\/governor.ks.gov\/; Associated Press, \"Brownback Strikes Deal with Wind Farms,\" _Topeka Capital-Journal_ , May 8, 2011, <http:\/\/cjonline.com\/>.\n\n22. Rose Z. Bacon, e-mail to author, May 6, 2011.\n\n23. Pete Ferrell, Grinnell Alumni Lecture, \"Dances with Hooves,\" June 4, 2010, <http:\/\/loggia.grinnell.edu\/>. Ferrell attributes this timeline to Wes Jackson, founder of the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, and a longtime advocate for sustainable agricultural practices in the prairie.\n\n24. See Gipe, _Wind Power_ , 129\u201346.\n\n25. See Clark, _Energy for Survival_ , 541\u201345; Hills, _Power from Wind_ , 274\u201375; and Righter, _Wind Energy in America_ , 126\u201336.\n\n26. \"Mountain-Top Wind Turbine To Be Built by Rutland Corporation,\" _Rutland (VT) Herald_ , January 21, 1946.\n\n27. Nina Keck, \"Ira Struggles with Proposed Wind Farm,\" Vermont Public Radio, June 9, 2009.\n\n28. Vermont Community Wind press releases: \"Vermont Community Wind Farm LLC Revises Project Scope,\" June 18, 2009; \"Vermont Community Wind Farm Removes Potential Susie's Peak Turbines from Project Plans,\" January 15, 2010, <http:\/\/vtcomwind.com\/>.\n\n29. Mary Pernal, assistant professor of English, Green Mountain College, Poultney, VT, interview with author, May 6, 2010.\n\n30. Phil Bloomstein, \"Living Next to a Wind Turbine,\" July 1, 2009, personal account, on Industrial Wind Action Group website, <http:\/\/www.windaction.org\/>.\n\n31. Wendy Todd, testimony presented to Governor's Task Force on Wind Power Development, State of Maine, September 26, 2007, <http:\/\/www.maine.gov\/>. See also Resource Systems Engineering, _Sound Level Study: Ambient & Operations Sound Level Monitoring_, June 21, 2007, <http:\/\/www.marshillwind.com\/>.\n\n32. Stanley M. Shapiro, MD, \"Can Wind Turbines Cause Heart Disease?\" _Heart Health News_ , Rutland Regional Medical Center, Winter 2010; \"The Industrial Wind Health Impact Debate Rages on at the Rutland (Vermont) Herald,\" February 6, 2010, on Allegheny Treasures website, <http:\/\/alleghenytreasures.wordpress.com\/>.\n\n33. Vermont Public Radio News, \"Plan for Ira Wind Is Tabled,\" April 27 and April 28, 2010, <http:\/\/www.vpr.net\/>.\n\n34. Colby, _Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects_.\n\n35. Brett Horner et al., _Wind Energy Industry Acknowledgment of Adverse Health Effects_. The debate between Drs. McCunney and Nissenbaum, held on May 6, 2010, can be viewed on YouTube, RRMC Wind Health Forum, <http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/>.\n\n36. See Colby, _Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects_ , sec. 3.4.1.\n\n37. Among the group living three miles or more away from the wind farm, one person reported new or worsened chronic sleep deprivation, one reported new chronic headaches, and none reported persistent anger or new or worsened depression. See Michael A. Nissenbaum, MD, \"Wind Turbines, Health, Ridgelines, and Valleys,\" media release, May 7, 2010, Society for Wind Vigilance website, <http:\/\/www.windvigilance.com\/>. Mars Hill residents have filed a civil lawsuit against the wind farm's owner, First Wind, seeking compensation for emotional and physical distress, as well as for decreased property values. See Jen Lynds, \"Mars Hill Windmills Prompt Civil Lawsuit,\" _Bangor (ME) Daily News_ , August 12, 2009, <http:\/\/new.bangordailynews.com\/>.\n\n38. See Industrial Wind Action Group website, <http:\/\/www.windaction.org>.\n\n39. Government of Australia, National Health and Medical Research Council, \"Wind Turbines and Health,\" July 2010, <http:\/\/www.nhmrc.gov.au\/>.\n\n40. Pierpont, _Wind Turbine Syndrome_ , 26, 48\u2013103.\n\n41. Geoff Leventhall, \"Direct Testimony on Behalf of Wisconsin Electric Power Company,\" _Application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to Construct and Place in Service a Wind Turbine Electric Generation Facility Known as Glacier Hills Wind Park in Columbia County, Wisconsin_ , Docket No. 6630-CE-302, October 20, 2009, R1.80-R1.87, <http:\/\/www.co.whatcom.wa.us\/>; and Geoff Leventhall, \"Vibroacoustic Disease (VAD) and Wind Turbines,\" presented as Exhibit 20 at the same proceeding, <http:\/\/psc.wi.gov\/>.\n\n42. Nina Pierpont, letter to Geoff Leventhall, January 14, 2007, _Wind Turbine Syndrome_ book website, <http:\/\/www.windturbinesyndrome.com\/>. In this letter, Pierpont quotes her own remarks at a previous public presentation.\n\n43. See Tech Environmental, \"Acoustic Study of Vestas V82 Wind Turbines\u2014Fairhaven, Massachusetts,\" 4, table 1; and Resource Systems Group, Inc. (RSG), _Noise Impact Study for Georgia Mountain Community Wind_ , 4, fig. 2.\n\n44. See RSG, _Noise Impact Study for Georgia Mountain Community Wind_ , 6\u20137.\n\n45. WHO, _Night Noise Guidelines for Europe_ , 2009, xiv\u2013xviii.\n\n46. Maine Dept. of Environmental Protection, Chapter 375, \"No Adverse Environmental Effect Standard of the Site Location Law,\" sec. 10\u2014Control of Noise, effective January 18, 2006, <http:\/\/www.maine.gov\/>.\n\n47. Here are a few examples: In Ashe County, North Carolina, wind turbines rated above 20 kilowatts cannot produce more than 5 decibels above the average noise level on adjacent properties and are barred from exceeding 45 decibels except on properties leased or owned by the wind company; Ashe County, North Carolina, _An Ordinance to Regulate Wind Energy Systems_ , art. 6, sec. 2.7 (2007). In Chippewa, Minnesota, there is a 50-decibel daytime and nighttime noise limit at adjacent residences, but tighter limits may be imposed on pulsating and tonal sounds; Chippewa, Minnesota, _Windpower Management_ , sec. 12.8 (2005). In Huron County, Michigan, turbine noise measured outside residences, schools, hospitals, churches, and public libraries cannot exceed 50 decibels or 5 decibels above ambient levels, whichever is greater, for more than 10 percent of any hour; Huron County, Michigan, _Zoning Ordinance_ , art. X, sec. 3E (2009).\n\n48. Colby, _Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects_ , sec. 3.1.3.\n\n49. See Pierpont, _Wind Turbine Syndrome_ , 112\u201321; Colby, _Wind Turbine Sound and Health Effects_ , secs. 3\u20137.\n\n50. Wendy Todd, testimony presented to the Governor's Task Force on Wind Power Development, State of Maine, September 26, 2007, <http:\/\/www.maine.gov\/>.\n\n51. National Research Council, _Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects_ , 157\u201358.\n\n52. Robert Gardiner, cofounder and co-owner, Independence Wind, e-mail to author, February 13, 2011.\n\n53. State of Wisconsin, 2011\u20132012 Legislature, January 2011 Special Session, Assembly Bill 9, 6\u20137, <http:\/\/www.renewwisconsin.org\/>.\n\n54. RENEW Wisconsin, \"Walker Proposal Would Torpedo $1.8 Billion in New Wind Power Investments,\" January 14, 2011, <http:\/\/www.renewwisconsin.org\/>.\n\n55. Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, \"Modifications to the Wind Siting Rules Approved by the Public Service Commission on December 9, 2010,\" PSC Docket 1-AC-231, 3, <http:\/\/www.renewwisconsin.org\/>.\n\n56. Jonathan Tilley, \"Wisconsin Suspends Wind Siting Rules,\" _Windpower Monthly_ , March 2, 2011, <http:\/\/www.windpowermonthly.com\/>.\n\n57. See Affidavit of Michael A. Nissenbaum, MD, State of Maine Board of Environmental Protection, In Re: Record Hill Wind, LLC, September 17, 2009, <http:\/\/www.wind-watch.org\/>.\n\n58. See, e.g., State of New Jersey, 214th Legislature, Senate Bill 2374, introduced November 8, 2010, <http:\/\/www.njleg.state.nj.us\/>. A stated purpose of this bill, which would establish a 2,000-foot turbine setback from residences and residentially zoned property, is to protect New Jersey residents from \"the ill health effects associated with 'wind turbine syndrome,' \" whose symptoms it then enumerates. The bill was referred to the Senate Environment and Energy Committee for consideration.\n\nCHAPTER NINE: GREENING THE GRID\n\n1. Bob Whitton, rancher, Bordeaux Junction, WY, and chair, Renewable Energy Alliance of Landowners, interview with author, November 6, 2010.\n\n2. U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), \"Wind Powering America: Wyoming Wind Map and Resource Potential,\" <http:\/\/www.windpoweringamerica.gov\/>.\n\n3. The Wyoming Infrastructure Authority has $1 billion in bonding authority for new transmission infrastructure. See <http:\/\/wyia.org\/>. See also Wyoming Statutes 37\u20135-301 et seq.\n\n4. Victor E. Garber, president, VeJay Energy & Land, Inc., and land agent for Pathfinder Renewable Energy, LLC, e-mail to author, November 19, 2010.\n\n5. See <http:\/\/www.powercompanyofwyoming.com>. See also Associated Press, \"Anschutz Corp. Has Wind Farm in the Works,\" May 25, 2009, <http:\/\/billingsgazette.com\/>.\n\n6. Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, Zephyr Project (ZTP), 2011, <http:\/\/wyia.org\/>.\n\n7. American Electric Power, \"Transmission Facts,\" undated, 4, <http:\/\/www.aep.com\/>, accessed June 19, 2011.\n\n8. Electric Power Research Institute, \"EPRI Finds Direct Current Power Uses 15% Less Electricity Than Alternating Current System at Duke Energy Data Center,\" news release, November 16, 2010, <http:\/\/my.epri.com\/>. A higher estimate of 20 percent loss reduction was cited in the summary of the EPRI High Voltage Direct Current & Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems Conference, October 28, 2010, <http:\/\/www.cvent.com\/>.\n\n9. See Bureau of Land Management, table 1\u20133: \"Mineral and Surface Acres Administered by the Bureau of Land Management, Fiscal Year 2009,\" <http:\/\/www.blm.gov\/>.\n\n10. Pacific Railway Act of 1862 (12 Stat. 489); Pacific Railway Act of 1864 (13 Stat. 356).\n\n11. Walter E. George, national project manager, BLM, Wyoming State Office, Cheyenne, interview with author, November 8, 2010.\n\n12. U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Order No. 3283, Enhancing Renewable Energy Development on the Public Lands, January 16, 2009.\n\n13. Tom Lahti, renewable energy chief, BLM, Wyoming State Office, Cheyenne, interview with author, November 8, 2010.\n\n14. In 2010 alone, the BLM held four public auctions for oil and gas leases in Wyoming, covering more than 300,000 acres. See Bureau of Land Management, _Competitive Lease Sale Notices & Results_, <http:\/\/www.blm.gov\/>.\n\n15. Lahti interview, November 8, 2010.\n\n16. See Energy Policy Act of 2005, Public Law 109\u201358 (August 8, 2005), Sec. 368: Energy Right-of-Way Corridors on Federal Land.\n\n17. See U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Interior, and Defense, News Release: \"Agencies Publish Final Environmental Impact Statement on Energy Corridor Designation in the West,\" November 26, 2008, <http:\/\/corridoreis.anl.gov\/>. These corridors have been legally challenged on a number of grounds by environmental groups. See Kate Galbraith, \"Environmentalists Sue over Energy Transmission Across Federal Lands,\" _New York Times_ , July 8, 2009. Western Resource Advocates and fourteen other environmental and conservation groups registered their concerns about the corridors in _Group Comments on the Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for the Designation of West-Wide Corridors_ , February 14, 2008, <http:\/\/www.westernresourceadvocates.org\/>.\n\n18. Holtkamp, _Transmission Siting in the Western United States_ , 28. This report, in part, describes the state-local division of authority over transmission infrastructure siting in eleven western states.\n\n19. See Wu Qi, \"Projects Waiting as Grid Build Lags Behind,\" _Windpower Monthly, Special Report\u2014China: Market Ambition Ramps Up a Gear_ , October 2009, 8\u20139.\n\n20. See ITC website, <http:\/\/www.itctransco.com\/>.\n\n21. Howard Learner, executive director, Environmental Law and Policy Center, phone interview with author, March 18, 2010.\n\n22. These plants include Antelope Valley Station (870 megawatts), Coal Creek Station (1,210 megawatts), Coyote Station (450 megawatts), R.M. Heskett Station (115 megawatts), Leland Olds Station (656 megawatts), and Milton R. Young Station (734 megawatts). See SourceWatch website, <http:\/\/www.sourcewatch.org\/>.\n\n23. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Promoting Wholesale Competition Through Open Access Non-Discriminatory Transmission Services by Public Utilities; Recovery of Stranded Costs by Public Utilities and Transmitting Utilities, Order No. 888, Final Rule, April 24, 1996, 75 FERC 61,080, Docket Nos. RM95-8-000 and RM94-7-001, <http:\/\/www.ferc.gov\/>.\n\n24. John Rogers et al., _Importing Pollution: Coal's Threat to Climate Policy in the U.S. Northeast_ , Union of Concerned Scientists, December 2008, <http:\/\/www.ucsusa.org\/>.\n\n25. Edward J. Markey, U.S. rep. (D-MA), Washington, DC, interview with author, April 16, 2010.\n\n26. See Beth Daley, \"Markey Urges Federal Cape Wind Approval,\" _Boston Globe_ , November 9, 2009.\n\n27. See, e.g., Wellinghoff, \"Federal Transmission Initiatives for Renewables.\"\n\n28. Jon Wellinghoff, chairman, FERC, interview with author, Washington, DC, April 15, 2010.\n\n29. The Waxman-Markey bill would have required retail electric distributors to provide an increasing percentage of power from renewable sources and electricity-saving measures, reaching 20 percent of all power sold in 2020. See H.R.2454, American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, 111th Congress, approved by the House of Representatives, June 26, 2009, Sec. 101, <http:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/>. The bill's summary can be found at the same site.\n\n30. See Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, \"ARRA Appropriations Provisions Table,\" <http:\/\/baltimore.uli.org\/>.\n\n31. Barack Obama, \"Remarks by the President on Clean Energy,\" Newton, IA, April 22, 2009, <http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/>.\n\n32. DOE, National Transmission Grid Study, May 2002, 53\u201359, <http:\/\/www.ferc.gov\/>.\n\n33. See Energy Policy Act of 2005, Public Law 109\u201358 (August 8, 2005), 16 U.S. Code Annotated Sec. 824p(i)(1), 824p(a), and 824p(b).\n\n34. See Regulations for Filing Applications for Permits to Site Interstate Electric Transmission Facilities, 71 Fed. Reg. 69,440, 69,444 (December 1, 2006).\n\n35. Piedmont Environmental Council et al. v. FERC, 558 F.3d 304 (4th Cir. 2009), cert denied, 130 S.Ct 1138 (2010). An enlightening analysis of this case appears in Dorsi, \"Case Comment.\"\n\n36. American Wind Energy Association, _Green Power Superhighways_ , 20\u201321.\n\n37. Don Furman, senior vice president for development, transmission, and policy, Iberdrola Renewables, and AWEA president (2009\u201310), phone interview with author, February 19, 2010.\n\n38. Chris Miller, president, Piedmont Environmental Council, Warrenton, VA, interview with author, April 14, 2010.\n\n39. DOE, _Wind Power in America's Future_ , 98.\n\n40. See Illinois Commerce Commission et al. v. FERC et al., 576 F.3d 470, 476 (2009).\n\n41. See FERC, _Order Accepting Tariff Revisions_ , June 17, 2010, 131 FERC 61,252, Docket No. ER10-1069-000, <http:\/\/www.ferc.gov\/>. See also Southwest Power Pool, \"FERC Approves New Cost Sharing Method for Expanding SPP's Transmission Grid,\" June 17, 2010, <http:\/\/www.spp.org\/>.\n\n42. Tierney, _A 21st-Century \"Interstate Electric Highway System,\"_ 44\u201345.\n\n43. See the discussion of DONG Energy's emerging plug-in vehicle network in chapter 6, \"The Path to Cleaner Energy.\"\n\n44. Wellinghoff interview, April 15, 2010.\n\n45. See Beacon Power, \"Smart Energy 25 Flywheel,\" <http:\/\/www.beaconpower.com\/>. See also Business Wire, \"Beacon Power Integrates Additional Megawatt of Flywheel Energy Storage on New England Power Grid,\" December 17, 2009, <http:\/\/www.businesswire.com\/>.\n\n46. Throop Wilder, president, 24M Technologies, phone interview with author, February 13, 2011. See also Gregory T. Huang, \"A123 Spinoff, 24M Technologies, Raises $10M to Develop Energy Storage Systems for Utilities, Electric Vehicles,\" Xconomy-Boston, August 16, 2010, <http:\/\/www.xconomy.com\/>.\n\n47. Tom Wind, Wind Utility Consulting PC, Jamaica, IA, interview with author, February 4, 2010. See also, \"Wrong Geology Sinks Iowa's $400m Wind Storage Dream,\" _Recharge_ , July 29, 2011, <http:\/\/www.rechargenews.com\/>.\n\nEPILOGUE\n\n1. See National Priorities Project, \"Cost of War,\" <http:\/\/costofwar.com\/>, accessed June 20, 2011.\n\n2. See, e.g., U.S. Partnership for Renewable Energy Finance, \"Prospective 2010\u20132012 Tax Equity Market Observations,\" July 2010, <http:\/\/www.uspref.org\/>.\n\n3. George P. Shultz, \"Viewpoints: Clean Air Law Is Key to Our Future,\" _Sacramento Bee_ , September 12, 2010, <http:\/\/www.sacbee.com\/>. Proposition 23 sought to freeze implementation of California's Global Warming Solutions Act until the state's unemployment rate dropped to 5.5 percent or below for four consecutive quarters. 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New York: Viking, 2009.\n\n##  _Index_\n\nPlease note that page numbers are not accurate for the e-book edition.\n\nAcciona, 40, 188\n\nAES Corporation, and AES Geo Energy, 120\n\nAgassi, Shai, 106\n\nAgriculture Department. _See_ U.S. Department of Agriculture\n\nair pollution: in China, 61, 63; from coal, 51\u201352, 63, 99\u2013101; from prairie burning in Kansas, 127\u201328, 142, 168; from wind compared to other power sources, 100\u2013101. _See also_ carbon emissions; greenhouse gas emissions\n\nAlliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. _See_ Cape Wind\n\nAltamont Pass, California, 30, 116\u201317, 118, 119, 134\n\nAmerican Clean Energy and Security Act (2009), 171\n\nAmerican Gas Association, 109\n\nAmerican Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009), 50\n\nAmerican Superconductor, 39\n\nAmerican Wind Energy Association (AWEA), 51, 80, 93, 152, 159, 172\u201373\n\nAndersen, Lars, 61\n\nanemometer, 88\n\nAnimal Welfare Institute, 130\n\nAnschutz, Philip F., and Anschutz Corporation, 164\u201365\n\nAntelope Valley Station, North Dakota, 168\u201369, 171\n\nArab oil embargo, vii, 22, 25, 26, 109, 180\n\nAudubon: Bay Area, 116; Illinois, 117\u201318; Kansas, 8, 142, 193\n\navailability (wind turbines), 87\n\navian impacts of wind farms, bats: and causes of death, 129\u201330; Indiana bats, x, 130\u201331; and mitigation efforts, 131\u201332; and mortality rates, 129, 132\n\navian impacts of wind farms, birds: bald and golden eagles, 116, 117, 121, 133; and comparative causes of death, 121\u201322; and Endangered Species Act, 122, 130\u201331; long-tailed ducks, 137; migratory birds, 119; prairie chicken habitats, x, 9, 11, 125\u201329, 142; raptor deaths and mitigation efforts, 116\u201319; sage grouse habitats, x, 122\u201325, 159; and turbine technology changes, 118\u201319; white storks, 120; whooping cranes, 119\u201320\n\nAWEA. _See_ American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)\n\nBacon, Rose and Kent, 140\u201342, 147\u201349\n\nbalancing wind with other power sources, 105\u20136, 176\u201378, 181, 182\n\nBarnhart Crane & Rigging, 80\u201383\n\nbats. _See_ avian impacts of wind farms, bats\n\nBeacon Power Corporation, 177, 179\n\nbearings: magnetic, for flywheel power storage, 177; maintenance of, in wind turbines, 45, 46; Timken and, 52\u201357, 59, 69, 184\n\nBeaver Ridge Wind Project, Maine, 151\n\nBeecher, Brad, 161\n\nBeech Ridge Energy LLC, 130\u201331\n\nBeech Ridge Wind Farm, West Virginia, 130\u201331\n\nBetter Place, 106\u20137\n\nBiodiversity Conservation Alliance, 124\u201325, 159\n\nbiomass energy, 111\n\nbirds. _See_ avian impacts of wind farms, birds\n\nblades: composition of, 21\u201322, 31, 149; controlling pitch of, 86, 150; defects in and repair of, 31, 47\u201348, 91, 150; detection of, by bats, 129; length of, 14, 49, 74, 114; length of, related to power output, 114; lower and upper reach of, 118\u201319; manufacture of, 19\u201322, 40, 46, 60; shadow flicker created by, 155; sounds produced by, 153, 156\u201357; swept area of, 114; tip speed of, 153; transportation of, 74\u201378\n\nBLM. _See_ U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM)\n\nBloomstein, Phil, 151, 156\n\nBlue Canyon Wind Farm, Oklahoma, 8\n\nBode, Denise, 93\n\nBoeing, 31\n\nBonus company, 32\n\nBoots, Mick, 41\n\nBousbib, Ari, 48\n\nBP Wind Energy, 165\n\nBradford, Peter, 103\n\nBrand, Stewart, 101\n\nBraud, Rene, 128\u201329\n\nBriggs, John, 128\n\nBrightwell, Joe, 89\n\nBrown, Jerry, 28\u201330, 34, 101, 183\n\nBrownback, Sam, 148\n\nBrowning, Bill, 143\n\nBuffalo Mountain Wind Energy Center, Tennessee, 129\n\nBush, George W., viii, 124, 183\n\nButler, Barry, 89\n\nCalifornia: bird deaths from wind turbines in, 116\u201318, 121; Danish turbine exports to, 24\u201325, 32\u201335, 114; electric vehicle network planned in, 107; energy policy in, 28\u201335, 183\u201384; hydroelectricity in, 111; need for out-of-state renewable power in, 165; public utility wind power purchases in, 28, 30, 34; renewable electricity standards for, 111, 112, 183\u201384; solar energy in, 29, 30, 111, 165; tax credits for wind industry in, 30\u201331, 33\u201335; visual chaos of early wind farms in, 31, 34, 116, 134\u201335; wind resources and wind energy use in, vii, 2, 25\u201335, 183\u201384\n\nCalifornia Energy Commission, 30, 116\n\nCalifornia Office of Appropriate Technology, 29\n\ncapacity factor (wind power), 3, 97, 114. _See also_ installed capacity\n\ncap-and-trade, viii, 56, 169, 171\n\nCape Wind: Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and, 145\u201346; East Coast perspective on, 18; Ted Kennedy's opposition to, viii, 135\u201336, 145, 170; Bill Koch's opposition to, 145\u201346; Ed Markey and, 170; Ted Stevens and, 135\u201336; Don Young and, 135\u201336\n\nCapparella, Angelo, 117\u201319, 124\n\ncarbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. _See_ carbon emissions; greenhouse gas emissions\n\ncarbon emissions: cap-and-trade regimes for, viii, 56, 169, 171; CO2 gap between coal, gas, and wind power, 98\u2013101; proposed federal tax on, 171, 183; reduction of, competing with other values, 173; Timken opposition to U.S. regulation of, 52, 56\u201357. _See also_ greenhouse gas emissions\n\nCardinal Fastener, 39, 80, 184\n\nCargill, Alvin, 14\u201316, 79, 80\n\nCarter, Jimmy, vii, viii, 26\u201328, 34, 109\n\nCasselman Wind Power Project, Pennsylvania, 131\u201332\n\nCenter for Biological Diversity, 116\n\nCharmley, James E., 54\u201355\n\nChernobyl nuclear disaster, 63, 101\u20132, 104, 181\n\nChina: air pollution in, 61, 63; coal production and use in, 63, 65; economy of, 62, 64; electricity use in, 62, 68; energy planning and policy in, 62\u201366, 72; environmental movement in, 67; export of wind turbines from, 60, 68\u201372; foreign investment in wind farms in, 66\u201368; hydroelectricity in, 63\u201364; land acquisition for wind farms in, 65\u201368; manufacture of wind turbines in, 21, 55\u201356, 59\u201362, 68\u201372; market for U.S. wind energy equipment in, 55\u201356, 59; nuclear power in, 63; protectionist rules of, 59, 60, 68\u201369; state and private ownership of wind industry in, 66, 67\u201368; transmission needs in, 168, 170; Vestas factories in, 60\u201362, 69, 71; wind resources and wind energy use in, ix, 19, 59, 61\u201362, 64\u201365, 187; World Trade Organization and, 69\n\nChina Wind Power conference, 59, 60\n\nChinese Renewable Energy Industries Association, 60\n\nChokecherry\u2013Sierra Madre wind complex, 164\u201365\n\nChunhua Li, 70\n\nClark, Wilson, 29\n\nclimate change: China's contribution to, 63; consequences of, 132\u201333; fossil fuels and, viii; skepticism about, 90, 142, 146, 173; wind energy as response to, xi, 13, 18, 57, 184. _See also_ carbon emissions; greenhouse gas emissions\n\nClipper Wind: Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and, 39\u201343; employees and workplace morale at, 40\u201345; financial problems of, 39, 47\u201350, 57; lessons to be learned from, 49\u201352, 57\u201358; Liberty turbine manufactured by, 42, 44; market share of, 188; quality control issues at, 47\u201348; remote monitoring by, 44\u201346; supply chain for, 46\u201347; United Technologies Corporation bailout of, 48, 49; worker safety at, 45\u201346\n\nCloudCorp, 10, 17\u201318\n\nCloud County, Kansas. _See_ Kansas\n\nCloud County Community College, 17, 87\u201388, 91\u201392\n\ncoal: air pollution from, 51\u201352, 63, 99\u2013101; capping carbon emissions from, 56; in China, 63, 65; cost of coal plants, 113; in Denmark, 22\u201323; energy balance for, 100; failure to internalize environmental costs of, 51, 110; landscape impacts of, 52, 63, 123; mining hazards from, 51\u201352, 63; price uncertainty of, 112; U.S. policies favoring, 27, 33, 34, 51; U.S. reliance on, 56\u201357, 96; Wyoming politics regarding sage grouse and, 123\u201324\n\ncoal-bed methane, 108\n\nColorado: wind manufacturing in, 37, 40; wind resources and wind energy use in, 185\n\nCommonwealth Edison, 70\n\ncompressed-air energy storage. _See_ storage of electricity\n\nconservation easements, 126\u201327, 143\n\nConservation Law Foundation, viii, 135\n\nconstruction of wind farms, 13\u201316, 77, 78\u201384, 90\u201391, 94, 113\n\ncost: of coal, gas, nuclear, and solar energy vs. wind, 105, 112\u201313; of modernizing the national grid, 174\u201376; of wars, 180. _See also_ economics of wind power\n\nCrude Oil Windfall Profits Tax (1980), 28\n\nCrum, Lorrie, 53, 56\u201357\n\nCube rule of wind power, 114\n\nCulik, Martin, 81\n\ncut-in speed (wind turbines), 131\u201332\n\nDalian Heavy Industry Group, 71\n\nDanish International Development Agency, 35\n\nDanish Oil and Natural Gas. _See_ DONG Energy\n\nDanish Wind Industry Association, 32\n\nDefense Department. _See_ U.S. Department of Defense\n\nDenmark: Arab oil embargo and, 22\u201323; coal use in, 22\u201323; DONG (Danish Oil and Natural Gas) in, 105\u20136, 177; electric vehicles in, 105\u20137, 177; nuclear plants banned by, 22; offshore wind farms in, 36, 136\u201338; oil and natural gas in, 22, 23; policies promoting wind in, 23\u201325, 36; policies reducing greenhouse gas emissions in, 19, 23, 106\u20137; population of, 37; Ris\u00f8 National Laboratory in, 23, 32; wind energy use in, viii, ix, 19, 22\u201325, 36\u201337, 106, 136\u201338, 187; wind manufacturing in, 32\u201333, 35\u201337, 58, 188. _See also_ Vestas Wind Systems\n\nDeukmejian, George, 34\n\nDeWind, 188\n\ndirect-drive turbines, 55, 70. _See also_ geardriven turbines\n\nDiss, Frank and Sarah, 139\n\nDOE. _See_ U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)\n\n_Doing It Smart from the Start_ (Biodiversity Conservation Alliance), 124\u201325\n\nDONG Energy, 105\u20136, 177\n\nDonghai Bridge offshore wind farm, China, 65\n\nDunham, Richard, 89\u201390\n\neconomics of wind power: benefits to rural communities, 3\u201310, 15\u201318, 43, 44, 90\u201391; California tax credits, 30, 33; feed-in tariffs (Europe), 35\u201336; capital outlays for wind power, 113; cost of turbines, 11\u201312, 113; life-cycle costs of wind compared to other power sources, 113; payments to landowners, ix, xi, 3\u20137, 15\u201316, 139, 145; productivity gains through technology changes, 113\u201315; utility purchases of wind power, 11, 12\u201313, 30, 34, 70, 161\u201362; wholesale price of wind power, 112. _See also_ employment related to wind power; wind power incentives, federal; wind power incentives, state\n\nEDP Renewables, 12\n\nelectricity: China's use of, 62, 68; from coal, 23, 56\u201357, 96; Denmark's shift to wind for, viii, ix, 19, 22\u201325, 36\u201337, 106, 136\u201338, 187; global supply of, by wind, 187\u201388; from hydroelectric dams, 63\u201364, 96, 111, 176, 182; from natural gas, 96, 107; number of households supplied with, from U.S. wind farms, ix, xii, 3, 81; present and potential price of, 112\u201315; purchase of, from U.S. wind farms, 11\u201313, 27\u201328, 30, 34, 35\u201336, 70, 111, 112, 161\u201362, 165, 183\u201384; renewable standards for, by states, 111, 112, 165, 183; supplied by wind (U.S.), ix, x, 1, 2, 94, 96, 97\u201398, 110, 112, 181, 185\u201386; Timken Company's use of, 56\u201357\n\nelectric vehicles, 106\u20137, 177, 182\n\nElk River Wind Power Project, Kansas, 148, 149, 161, 162\n\nEmpire District Electric, 12, 161\u201362\n\nemployment related to wind power: in construction, 13\u201316, 77, 78\u201384, 90\u201391, 94; \"indirect\" and \"induced\" jobs, 16, 95; in manufacturing, 20, 35, 37, 39\u201340, 51, 54, 94; in operations and maintenance (O&M), 84\u201387, 90\u201391; total jobs (present and projected), 37, 51, 94\u201395; training programs for technicians, ix, 17, 41, 44, 87\u201394; women in, 13\u201315, 17, 79, 82, 91, 92\u201394\n\nEndangered Species Act. _See_ avian impacts of wind farms, birds\n\nEnel, 150\n\nEnergias de Portugal (EDP), 12\n\nenergy balance, 100\n\nEnergy Department. _See_ U.S. Department of Energy\n\nEnergy Policy Act (1992), 50\n\nEnergy Policy Act (2005), 167, 172\n\nEnergy Tax Act (1978), 28\n\nEngel, Ditlev, 37\n\nEngelder, Carole, 13\u201315, 79, 91\n\nenvironmental issues. _See_ air pollution; avian impacts of wind farms, bats; avian impacts of wind farms, birds; carbon emissions; climate change; greenhouse gas emissions; noise from wind farms; visual appearance of wind farms; wildlife impacts of wind farms\n\nEnvironmental Law and Policy Center, 168, 169, 173\n\nEnvironmental Protection Agency. _See_ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)\n\nE.ON Climate and Renewables, 137\n\nEPA. _See_ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)\n\nEuropean Union: greenhouse gas reduction goal, 106\n\nFAG, 55\n\nfarms and farming: in China, 66; economic strains of, ix, 3, 4, 6, 90, 143\u201344; exodus of young people from, ix, 3\u20134, 7; in Illinois, 118; in Iowa, 44, 140; in Kansas, ix, 3\u20135, 9, 12\u201313, 15\u201318, 140\u201349; roots of Vestas turbines in equipment for, 20, 32; water-pumping windmills and, 1\u20132; wildlife impacts of, 122; wind farms as income supplement to, ix, xi, 3\u20137, 15\u201316, 44, 139, 145, 148; and working landscape of farms and ranches compatible with wind, 5, 9, 18, 118, 138\u201340, 141, 162\u201364. _See also_ landowners\n\nFederal Aviation Administration, 10, 119\n\nFederal Communications Commission, 11\n\nfederal energy policy: of George W. Bush, viii, 94\u201395; of Jimmy Carter, vii, viii, 26\u201328, 34, 109; on coal, 27, 33, 34, 51; of Richard Nixon, 25\u201326, 109; of Barack Obama, 39, 50\u201351, 56, 103, 124, 172, 183; of Ronald Reagan, vii, 34. _See also_ coal; natural gas; nuclear energy; oil; solar energy; wind power incentives, federal\n\nFederal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), 110, 169\u201374, 181\n\nfeed-in tariffs (Europe), 35\u201336\n\nFERC. _See_ Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)\n\nFerrell, Garland P. \"Pete,\" III, 143\u201349, 157\u201358, 161\n\nFish and Wildlife Service. _See_ U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service\n\nFitz, Rusty, 83\n\nFlint Hills, Kansas, x, 8\u20139, 127, 140\u201349\n\nflywheel power storage. _See_ storage of electricity\n\nFowler Ridge Wind Farm, Indiana, 45\n\nFrance: nuclear fuel reprocessing in, 103; wind power use in, 187\n\nFreudenthal, Dave, 123, 124\n\nFriedman, Thomas, 72\u201373\n\nFuhrl\u00e4nder, 71\n\nFukushima Daiichi, Japan, reactor disaster, 52, 63, 102, 104, 180\u201381\n\nFurman, Don, 131\u201332, 172\u201373\n\nGamesa, 35, 37, 69, 188\n\nGarber, Victor E., 164\n\nGardiner, Robert, 158\n\nGates, Robert, 48, 51, 52\n\ngear-driven turbines: assembly of gearboxes in, 41\u201344, 46, 51; contrast with direct-drive turbines, 55, 70; defects in and repair of, 31, 47\u201348; monitoring and maintenance of, 45\u201347, 86\u201387, 91; quality control in manufacture of, 46\u201347, 49; rotor-to-generator speed ratio in, 45, 53, 55; supply chain for, 46, 51\n\nGeneral Electric (GE), 31, 39, 40, 45, 46, 59, 69, 71, 86, 151, 188\n\ngeothermal energy, 28, 111\n\nGermany: compressed-air energy storage in, 178; feed-in tariff and other policies favoring solar and wind in, 35\u201336; manufacture of wind turbines in, 35, 58, 188; wind energy use in, viii, 36, 187\n\nGE Wind. _See_ General Electric (GE)\n\nGipe, Paul, 30, 134\n\nGlass, Tyler, 44\n\nglobal warming. _See_ climate change\n\nGlobal Wind Energy Council, 60\n\nGoldman Sachs, 12, 49\n\nGoldwind Science & Technology. _See_ Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology\n\nGordon, Jim, 134\n\nGore, Al, 142\n\nGraf, Kristen, 93\n\nGraham, Bruce, 17, 87\u201388, 91\n\nGraham, Michelle, 17, 91\n\nGrandpa's Knob, Vermont, 149\u201351\n\nGrand Ridge Wind Farm, Illinois, 79, 85\u201387, 90\u201391, 138\u201340\n\nGrassley, Chuck, 50\n\nGray County Wind Energy Center, Kansas, 3, 146\n\nGreat Lakes: manufacturing region for wind, 39; shipment of wind equipment via, 77\u201378; wind resources of, 57, 98\n\ngreenhouse gas emissions: California's agenda on, 184; coal's contribution to Denmark's, 23; Denmark's commitment to reducing, 19, 105\u20136; European Union commitment to reducing, 106; nuclear power and, 101, 104; Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (U.S. Northeast), viii, 169; U.S. as world leader in per capita, 180; U.S. resistance to international curbs on, viii, 19, 146, 180. _See also_ carbon emissions; climate change\n\nGreenlight Energy Resources, 146, 147\n\nGreenpeace, 60\n\nGreen Power Express, 166, 168\u201369\n\ngreen power option. _See_ wind power incentives, state\n\nGrumman Aerospace, 31\n\nGuo, Wilson, 66\n\nGuo Zheng, 66\n\nHansen, H. S., 20\n\nHansen, Peder, 20\n\nHartman, Adam, 79\n\nHarvard University, 62\n\nHawaii, 107, 186\n\nHaxgart, Bjarne, 137\n\nHayes, Denis, 27\n\nHemami, Ahmad, 88\u201389\n\nHigh Plains Express, 166\n\nHinkels and McCoy, 79\u201380, 83\n\nHorizon Wind Energy, 12\u201316, 79, 81, 85, 113, 126, 161, 163, 165\n\n_Hot, Flat, and Crowded_ (Friedman), 72\u201373\n\nhouseholds supplied by wind farms (U.S.), ix, xii, 3, 81\n\nHoy, Jim, 8\n\nhubs: attachment of blades to, 49, 82; height of, 49, 114; manufacture of, 42, 46, 61; raising of, 82\u201383; rotational speed of, 45; transport of, 77\n\nhydropower: in China, 63\u201364; power storage using, 176, 182; in U.S., 96, 111\n\nIberdrola Renewables, 120, 131\u201332, 148\n\nIllinois: Chinese-owned wind farm in, 70; eagle flyway near White Oak Wind Energy Center, 117\u201318; employment in wind manufacturing in, 40; Grand Ridge Wind Farm in, 85\u201387, 90\u201391, 138\u201340; nuclear energy in, 138; renewable electricity standards in, 111; wind resources and wind energy use in, 57 Illinois State University, 117\u201318\n\nIndependence Wind, 158\n\nIndia: wind energy use in, 35, 187; wind turbine manufacturing in, 37\u201338, 188\n\nIndiana: Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in, 45; Meadow Lake Farm in, 74\u201384, 90; wind resources and wind energy use in, 57, 81\n\nIndiana bats. _See_ avian impacts of wind farms, bats\n\nIndustrial Wind Action Group, 154\n\ninfrasound. _See_ noise\n\ninstalled capacity (wind power): in China, 66; defined, 3; in Denmark, 36, 106, 136\u201337; in Germany, 36; global, 189; of top ten countries, 187\u201388; of states, 185\u201386; of turbines, 13, 31, 99; U.S. total, 36, 181, 187; of U.S. wind farms, xii, 3, 92, 130, 149, 164\n\nInterior Department. _See_ U.S. Interior Department\n\nInternational Atomic Energy Agency, 103\n\nInternational Organization for Standardization (ISO), 99\n\nInvenergy, 79, 85\u201386, 117\u201318, 130, 163\n\ninvestment tax credits. _See_ wind power incentives, federal; wind power incentives, state\n\nIowa: factory closures in, 40, 41, 42\u201343; flooding in, 40\u201341; Iowa Lakes Community College in, 88\u201390, 92; population of, 39; wind resources and wind energy use in, 185. _See also_ Clipper Wind\n\nIowa Lakes Community College, 88\u201390, 92\n\nISO. _See_ International Organization for Standardization (ISO)\n\nITC Transmission, 168\n\nJapan: Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in, 52, 63, 102, 104, 180\u201381\n\nJessen, Leo, 85\u201387, 90\u201391\n\nJiquan Wind Farm Base, China, 65\n\njobs. _See_ employment related to wind power\n\nJohnson, Paul, 90\n\nKansas: Cloud County Community College in, 17, 87\u201388, 91\u201392; early uses of wind power in, 1\u20132; economic benefits of wind power for Cloud County, 16\u201318; Flint Hills wind controversy in, x, 8\u20139, 140\u201349; land deals for wind farms in, 5\u201316, 144\u201346; prairie chickens in, 125, 128, 142; ranching practices in, 127\u201328, 143\u201344; whooping cranes in, 120; wind energy policy in, 8, 111, 146\u201348; wind farms in, ix, 3\u201318, 64, 79, 80, 146\u201349, 161; wind resources and wind energy use in, 1, 9, 97, 144\u201345, 149, 185\n\nKansas Livestock Association, 126, 127\n\nKansas State University, 93, 126, 128\n\nKaplan, Matthew, 71\u201372\n\nKennedy, Edward M. \"Ted,\" viii, 135\u201336, 145, 170\n\nKerlinger, Paul, 119\n\nKlataske, Ron, 142\u201343\n\nKoch, Bill, 145\u201346, 183\u201384\n\nKoch, Charles and David, 146, 183\u201384\n\nKocher, Kurt, and family, 3\u20135, 12\u201313\n\nKoch Industries, 145\u201346\n\nKonza Prairie Biological Station, Kansas, 128\n\nKosciuch, Karl, 120\n\nKruse, Peter Wenzel, 36\u201337, 121, 122\n\nKyoto Protocol, 180\n\nLahti, Tom, 167\n\nLalley, Matt, 43, 44\n\nlandowners: income from wind farms, ix, xi, 3\u20137, 15\u201316, 139, 145, 148; negotiations with wind developers, 5\u201316, 144\u201346, 150, 163\u201364; perspectives on wind farm noise, 5, 151\u201359; opposition to wind farms among, 8\u20139, 140\u201349, 150\u201359\n\nland used by wind farms: acreage leased or optioned to wind developers, 6, 10, 12\u201313, 15, 145, 150, 163\u201364; footprint of wind farms, 81, 164; \"go-zones\" in Wyoming, 125; land needed per turbine, 5; setbacks from residential buildings, 157\u201359; spacing between turbines, 118\u201319\n\nLaSalle County Nuclear Station, 138\n\nLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 112\n\nlayout of wind farms. _See_ visual appearance of wind farms\n\nLazard Ltd., 113\n\nLearner, Howard, 168\u201369, 173\n\nLeventhall, Geoff, 155\n\nLiberty turbines. _See_ Clipper Wind\n\nLi Fan, 70\n\nlife cycle environmental assessment, wind and other power sources, 98\u2013101\n\nLi Junfeng, 60\n\nLone Star Transportation, 74\n\nLovins, Amory, 29, 30\n\nLowell, Kirk, 10, 17\u201318\n\nlow-frequency sound. _See_ noise\n\nLoyd, Bob, 41\u201345, 47, 89\n\nMackinaw Ecosystem Partnership, 117\n\nMaine: Governor's Task Force on Wind Power, 151, 157; wind farm noise in, 151, 154, 156\u201358; wind resources and wind energy use in, 186\n\nmaintenance of wind turbines, 84\u201387, 90\u201391\n\nManes, Stephanie, 126\u201328\n\nmanufacture of wind turbines: in China, 21, 55\u201356, 59\u201362, 68\u201373; in Denmark, ix, 13\u201314, 19\u201325, 32\u201333, 35\u201337, 58; employment in, 20, 35, 37, 39\u201340, 94; in Germany, 35, 58; in India, 38; leading manufacturers serving U.S. market, 188; quality control in, 31\u201333, 46\u201349, 52\u201355; smaller companies in, 49\u201350, 57; in Spain, 35, 37, 58, 69; in U.S., 31\u201332, 37\u201358, 188; worker safety and, 45\u201346; workplace morale and, 44\u201345. _See also_ manufacturers of wind turbine components; manufacturers of wind turbines\n\nmanufacturers of wind turbine components. _See_ American Superconductor; Cardinal Fastener; FAG; SKF; Timken; TPI Composites; Trinity Structural Towers\n\nmanufacturers of wind turbines. _See_ Acciona; Bonus; Clipper Wind; DeWind; Fuhrl\u00e4nder; Gamesa; General Electric (GE); Mitsubishi; NEG Micon; Nordtank; REpower; Siemens; Sinovel; Suzlon; United Technologies Corporation (UTC); Vestas Wind Systems; XEMC Wind-power; Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology\n\nMaples, Steve, 80\u201384, 90, 91\n\nMarkey, Edward J. \"Ed,\" 169\u201371\n\nMars Hill wind farm, Maine, 151, 154, 157\n\nMason, Ray, 5\u20137, 17\n\nMassachusetts: flywheel power storage in, 177; Ed Markey on wind, 169\u201371; wind resources and wind energy use in, 97, 186. _See also_ Cape Wind\n\nMcCunney, Robert, 152\u201354\n\nMcDonnell Douglas, 31\n\nMcElwee, Charles R., II, 67\n\nMeader, Mark, 40\u201341, 43\n\nMeadow Lake Farm, Indiana: construction of, 77, 78\u201384, 90, 91; delivery of turbine parts to, 74\u201378; generating capacity of, 81; land used by, 81\n\nMeridian Way Wind Farm, Kansas: conservation easements and, 126\u201327, 143; construction of, 13\u201316, 78\u201380; cost of, 11\u201312; economic benefits of, for community, 16\u201318; financial backing for, 12, 49; generating capacity of, ix, 64; income for landowners from, 4\u20137, 15; jobs created by, 16\u201317; land acquisition for, 9\u201316, 127; location of, 3; naming of, 11; prairie chickens at, 126\u201328; purchase of power from, 11, 12\u201313, 161\u201362; transmission lines from, 161\u201362; Vestas wind turbines at, xii, 3, 4\u20136, 14, 84\u201385, 99\u2013100\n\nmeteorological towers, 9, 10, 124, 145\u201346\n\nmethane emissions: wind compared to other power sources, 101\n\nMiddle East: Arab oil embargo, vii, 22, 25, 26, 109, 180; gas resources in, 109; oil from, 104, 105; political changes in, 180\n\nMiller, Chris, 173\u201374\n\nMitsubishi, 38, 188\n\nMolvar, Erik, 124\u201325\n\nMortensen, Lone, 19\u201322\n\nnacelle: described, 14, 42, 44; failed climb attempt, 84; installation of, 80, 81, 82, 83; manufacturing of, 37, 42, 44, 61, 70; transport of, 74; working conditions in, 86, 88\u201389, 92\n\nNASA, 31\n\nNational Academy of Sciences, 102\n\nNational Health and Medical Research Council, 154\n\nNational Historic Trails, 167\n\nNational Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), 96\u201399, 119, 144, 162, 163\n\nNational Research Council, 158\n\nnatural gas: changing federal policies regarding use of, 33\u201334; China and, 63; environmental impacts of, 107\u201310, 122; federal land leases for extraction of, 167; federal subsidies for, 51; FERC jurisdiction over natural gas pipelines, 172; levelized cost of combined-cycle gas plants, 113; life-cycle air emissions of electricity generated by, 99\u2013101; ongoing role for, 181; prospects for shifting to wind power from, 109\u201310; unconventional recovery methods for (hydraulic fracturing), 108\u20139; U.S. and foreign supplies of, 107\u20138; use of, for electricity and household heating, 96, 107; volatile price of, 112; Wyoming sage grouse politics and, 122\u201325\n\nNature Conservancy, 8, 143\n\nNEG Micon, 20\n\nNevada: proposed nuclear waste repository in, 103; transmission line siting in, 165, 167; wind resources and wind energy use in, 97, 186\n\nNewbold, Clint, 80, 82\n\nNew York: wind resources and wind energy use in, 57, 81, 185\n\nNew Zealand, 35\n\nNextEra Energy Resources, 117\n\nNissenbaum, Michael, 152, 153\u201354, 157, 159\n\nnitrogen oxide emissions: wind compared to other power sources, 101\n\nNi Xiangyu, 61\n\nNixon, Richard, 25\u201326, 109, 184\n\nnoise from wind farms: annoyance thresholds for, 153\u201354; distance from turbines and, 151\u201359; downwind and upwind rotors and, 156; health concerns about, 152\u201359; setbacks as safeguard against, 157\u201359; setting noise limits for, 155\u201360; sound frequencies and, 153\n\nNordtank company, 32, 35\n\nNorth China Electric Power University, 66\n\nNorth Dakota: Antelope Valley Station and coal use in, 168\u201369; coal piggybacking on Green Power Express in, 168\u201369; wind resources and wind energy use in, 57, 185\n\nNREL. _See_ National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)\n\nnuclear energy: \"carbon neutrality\" and \"clean energy\" claims for, 101, 104, 171; Carter's policy on, 27, 33; in China, 63; cost of, 113; decommissioning of, 103; Denmark's ban on, 22; disasters involving, 52, 63, 101\u20132, 104, 115, 180\u201381; in France, 103; in Illinois, 138; liability limits and other federal support for, 52, 57; Nixon's policy on, 25; number of nuclear power plants in U.S., 52; poorly matched to wind power balancing needs, 176; Reagan's policy on, vii, 34; share of U.S. electricity production, 96; waste disposal for, 52, 103\u20134; weapons proliferation risk of, 102\u20133\n\nObama, Barack, 39, 50\u201351, 56, 69, 103, 124, 172, 183\n\n\"Obama Bolt,\" 39, 80\n\noffshore wind power: Cape Wind, viii, 18, 134\u201336, 145\u201346, 170, 181; China and, 65; Denmark and, 36, 136\u201338; Great Lakes and, 57; porpoises and, 137; U.S. potential for, 98; visual appearance of, 134\u201338\n\nOhio: wind equipment manufacturing in, 51, 52\u201357; wind resources and wind energy use in, 57, 186\n\noil: Arab embargo of, vii, 22, 25, 26, 109, 180; in Denmark, 22, 23; drilling for, on federal land, 167; electric vehicles to reduce reliance on, 104\u20137; lobbying by leaders of, to block climate change policies, 145\u201346; Nixon's policy on, 25\u201326, 109; price history of, 33, 35, 112; Reagan's policy on, 34; subsidies for, 51; U.S. reliance on foreign sources of, 18, 26, 104\u20137, 180; U.S. consumption of, 26, 96, 104, 105, 107\u201310; wars fought over, xi, 18, 110\u201311, 180; Wyoming politics regarding sage grouse protection and, 123\u201325\n\nOklahoma: Blue Canyon Wind Farm in, 8; whooping crane migration through, 120; wind resources and wind energy use in, 185\n\nOPEC, 109, 180. _See also_ Arab oil embargo\n\noperations and maintenance (O&M) jobs, 84\u201387, 90\u201391\n\nopposition to wind farms: in California, 116\u201317, 134; in Flint Hills, x, 8\u20139, 140\u201349; in Vermont, 150\u201359; in Wyoming, 122\u201325. _See also_ avian impacts of wind farms, bats; avian impacts of wind farms, birds; Cape Wind; noise from wind farms; visual appearance of wind farms\n\nOregon: wind resources and wind energy use in,183, 185\n\nOrganization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), 109, 180. _See also_ Arab oil embargo\n\nOxbow Power Corporation, 145\u201346\n\nPacific Gas & Electric, 30, 34\n\nParsons, Stan, 144\n\nPathfinder Renewable Energy LLC, 164\u201365\n\nPederson, Knud, 105\u20136, 177\n\nPe\u00f1ascal Wind Farm, Texas, 120\n\nPennsylvania: bat protection efforts at Casselman Wind Power Project in, 131\u201332; wind resources and wind energy use in, 57, 185\n\nPercy, Charles \"Chuck,\" vii\n\nPernal, Mary, 151\n\nPeyton, Joel, 44, 45\u201346\n\nPiedmont Environmental Council, Virginia, 172, 173\u201374\n\nPierpont, Nina, 154\u201355, 157, 159\n\nPJM Interconnection, 174\u201375\n\nPowerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act (1978), 33\n\nPPM Energy, 147\u201348\n\nprairie chickens. _See_ avian impacts of wind farms, birds\n\nPrice Anderson Act, 52\n\nproduction tax credit (PTC). _See_ wind power incentives, federal\n\nProtect the Flint Hills, 148\n\nPTC. _See_ production tax credit\n\nPublic Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), 27\u201328\n\nPutnam, Palmer Cosslett, 149\u201350\n\nranches and ranching. _See_ farms and farming\n\nRanchland Trust of Kansas, 126\u201327, 143\n\nReagan, Ronald, vii, 34, 184\n\nREAL. _See_ Renewable Energy Alliance of Landowners (REAL)\n\nRegional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), viii, 169\n\nReisky, Sandy, 146\u201348\n\nRen Dongming, 64\u201365\n\nrenewable electricity standards: adopted by states, 111, 112, 165, 183; proposed federal, 111\n\nRenewable Energy Alliance of Landowners (REAL), 163\u201364\n\nRENEW Wisconsin, 158\n\nREpower, 188\n\nresearch and development (R&D): on power storage, 176\u201378; on wind turbines, 23, 31\u201335\n\nRevere, Paul, 60\n\nRGGI. _See_ Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)\n\nRis\u00f8 National Laboratory, Denmark, 23, 32\n\nRobel, Robert, 125\u201328\n\nRoberts, Jim, 7\u201316, 66, 127\n\nR\u00f8dsand Offshore Wind Farm, Denmark, 136\u201338\n\nRoggenkamp, Loma, 92\u201393\n\nRomney, Mitt, 135, 136\n\nRoosevelt, Franklin D., x\n\nrotors: axis of, 31; cut-in speed of, 131\u201332; expanding diameter of, 114; monitoring speed of, 86; number of blades on, 2, 14, 20, 32, 80, 82\u201383, 134; rotational speed of, 45, 119, 131\u201332, swept area of, 114; tip speeds of, 153\n\nRoyko, Mike, 29\n\nRutland Regional Medical Center, 152\n\nsafety. _See_ worker safety\n\nsage grouse. _See_ avian impacts of wind farms, birds\n\nSalazar, Ken, 124\n\nSammons Enterprises, 164\n\nSan Gorgonio Pass, California, 30, 134\n\nSavory, Allan, 144\n\nSawyer, Steve, 60\n\nSchwarzenegger, Arnold, 183\n\nSebelius, Kathleen, 8, 146\u201348\n\nsetbacks for wind turbines, from residential buildings, 157\u201359\n\n\"shadow flicker\" from wind turbines, 155\n\nShultz, George, 184\n\nSiemens\/Siemens Energy, 38, 40, 92, 188\n\nSinovel, 71\n\nsiting of wind farms: in China, 66\u201367; in general, 159\u201360; in Illinois, 117\u201318, 138\u201340; Indiana, 75; in Kansas, 5, 8\u20139, 127, 140\u201349; in Vermont, 149\u201359; in Wyoming, 163\u201364. _See also_ avian impacts of wind farms, bats; avian impacts of wind farms, birds; Cape Wind; noise impacts of wind farms; visual appearance of wind farms; wildlife, impacts from wind farms\n\nSKF, 55\n\nsmart grid. _See_ transmission of electricity\n\n_Soft Energy Paths_ (Lovins), 29\n\nsolar energy: in California, 29, 30, 111, 165; Carter's policy on, 26, 27, 34; cost of, 113, 182; definition of, 27; in Germany, 35; Nixon's policy on, 25; solar thermal power, 113; statistics on, 96; tax credit for, 28; White House solar water-heating panels, viii, 27, 34\n\nSolar Energy Industries Association, 172\n\nSolar Energy Research Institute, 27\n\nSourceWatch, 168\n\nSouthern California Edison, 30, 34\n\nSouthwest Power Pool, 162, 175\n\nSpain: wind energy in, viii, 36, 187; wind industry in, 12, 35, 37, 40, 69, 120, 188\n\nSporer, Bonnie, 15\u201316\n\nStark, Pete, 30\n\nStevens, Ted, 135\u201336\n\nSt. Nikola Kavarna wind farm, Bulgaria, 120\n\nstorage of electricity: batteries and, 178\u201379, 182; compressed air and, 178; electric vehicles and, 106\u20137, 177, 182; flywheels and, 177\u201379, 182; hydro dams and, 176, 182; smart-metered buildings and appliances and, 177\n\nStovall, Bill, 74\u201378\n\nsulfur dioxide emissions, 100\u2013101\n\nSundgren, Jacque and Steve, 143\n\nSupreme Court, U.S. _See_ U.S. Supreme Court\n\nSuzlon, 188\n\nswept area. _See_ blades; rotors\n\nTehachapi Pass, California, 30, 31, 134\n\nTennessee Valley Authority, 129\n\nTexas: drilling for natural gas in, 108; employment in wind manufacturing in, 40; greater prairie chicken in, 125; whooping cranes in, 120; wind energy use in, 183; wind farms in, 120; wind resources and wind energy use in, 185\n\nThree Mile Island nuclear accident, 63, 101, 104, 181\n\nTianrun New Energy Investment Company, Ltd., 67, 68\n\nTiedeman, Mary, 44\n\nTierney, Susan, 175\u201376\n\nTimken, Henry, 53\n\nTimken, Ward J. \"Tim,\" Jr., 56\n\nTimken Company, 52\u201357, 59, 69, 184\n\ntip speed. _See_ blades\n\nTitus, Roger W., 130\u201331\n\nTodd, Wendy, 151, 156, 157\n\nTop of the World Windpower Project, Wyoming, 92\n\ntowers: buckling of, 31; climbing of, 84\u201386; erection of, 14, 78\u201382, 91; height and weight of, ix, 14, 79, 149; height of, related to output, 114; manufacture of, 20, 37, 40, 46, 172; recycling of, 100; transport of, 14, 74, 77\u201378; visual appearance of, 114, 134; working conditions in, 84, 86, 91\u201392\n\nTPI Composites, 40\n\ntraining programs for wind energy technicians, 17, 87\u201393\n\nTransCanada's Zephyr line, 166\n\ntransmission of electricity: to California, 165; in China, 168, 170; citizen groups and, 168\u201374; coal piggybacking and, 171; costs of, and cost-sharing formulas for new transmission lines, 174\u201376; East Coast and, 169\u201370; in Europe, 170; federal role in, 166\u201374; \"smart grid\" management tools for, x, 176\u201378, 182; in Kansas, 161\u201362; from Midwest, 166, 168\u201370, 174\u201375; modernization of, 171\u201379, 182; in Nevada, 165, 167; and siting of new interstate transmission lines, 161\u201374; West-Wide Energy Corridor, 167; for wind energy, 161\u201379; in Wyoming, 164\u201367. _See also_ storage of electricity\n\ntransportation: cost of, for turbine transport, 105; electric vehicles for wind power storage and use, 106\u20137, 177, 182; energy consumed in U.S. for, 105; trucking of turbine components, 14, 74\u201377; use of rail and ships for turbine transport, 77\u201378\n\nTransWest Express, 165, 166, 167\n\nTrinity Structural Towers, 40\n\nTsinghua University, 62\n\nturbines. _See_ wind turbines\n\n24M, 178, 179\n\nUnion of Concerned Scientists, 169\n\nUnion Pacific Railroad, 78, 166\n\nUnited Kingdom: wind resources and wind energy use in, 35, 187, 188\n\nUnited Steelworkers, 69\n\nUnited Technologies Corporation (UTC), 48\n\nUniversity of Georgia, 122\n\nUniversity of Iowa, 89\n\nUPC Renewables, 66, 67, 68\n\nU.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 166\u201367\n\nUSDA. _See_ U.S. Department of Agriculture\n\nU.S. Department of Agriculture, 15\n\nU.S. Department of Defense, 10\u201311\n\nU.S. Department of Energy (DOE), x, 94\u201395, 100, 109, 110, 121, 160, 172, 175, 181\n\nU.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 156\n\nU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 121, 122, 131, 133\n\nU.S. Interior Department, 122, 124, 166\n\nU.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 103\n\nU.S. Supreme Court, 28, 172\n\nutility purchases of wind power: Commonwealth Edison, in Illinois, 70; Empire District Electric and Westar, in Kansas, 11\u201313, 161\u201362; feed-in tariffs as catalysts to, in Europe, 35\u201336; Nevada and California utilities as prime markets for, 30, 34, 165; PURPA's creation of market for, 27\u201328; renewable electricity standards as catalysts to, 111, 112, 183\u201384\n\nVan Beusekom, Justin, 84\u201385\n\nVan Est, Rinie, 32\n\nvariability of wind, and need for balancing, 105\u20137, 176\u201378, 181, 182\n\nVattenfall, 99\n\nVermont: Grandpa's Knob wind turbine in, 149\u201351; opposition to wind farms in, 150\u201359; Taconic Mountains in, x; wind resources and wind energy use in, 186\n\nVermont Community Wind, 150\u201352\n\nVestas Wind Systems: blade manufacture in Lem, Denmark, 19\u201322; in China, 60\u201362, 69, 71; and climb attempt, 84; compared with Clipper Wind, 45, 46; and construction of Meadow Lake Wind Farm, Illinois, 74, 77, 80; diagram and dimensions of turbines made by, xii, 14, 74, 84\u201385; employment by, 20, 35, 37; factory locations of, 20\u201321, 35, 37, 60\u201362; global headquarters of, 36\u201337; history of, 20, 32\u201336; life-cycle analyses of wind turbines by, 99\u2013100; markets for, 24\u201325, 35\u201336, 188; revenues of, 20; as world's top-ranked turbine supplier, ix, 20\n\nVickerman, Michael, 158\n\nVirginia: as home of Piedmont Environmental Council, 172\u201374; wind resources and wind energy use in, 186\n\nVisceral Vibratory Vestibular Disturbance, 155\n\nvisual appearance of wind farms: aviation lights on turbines, 137\u201338; Cape Wind and, 134\u201336; Flint Hills objections to, 8, 141\u201343; Illinois farm families' divergent perspectives on, 138\u201340; increasing size of turbines, 113\u201315, 119, 135; Kurt Kocher and, 5; layout of turbines and, 15, 81, 116, 118\u201319, 134\u201335, 138; National Historic Trails and, 167; R\u00f8dsand Offshore Wind Farm (Denmark) and, 136\u201338; spacing between turbines, 118\u201319, 138; turbine design changes and, 31, 114, 134\u201335, 138; visual chaos at older California wind farms, 31, 34, 116, 134\u201335; water-pumping windmills, 1\u20132\n\nWalker, Scott, 158\u201359\n\nWalters, Jeanna, 93\u201394\n\nwater-pumping windmills, 1\u20132\n\nWaxman, Henry, 171\n\nWellinghoff, Jon, 110, 170\u201371, 177, 181\n\nWennberg, Jeff, 152\n\nWestar Energy, 12, 13, 161\n\nWestinghouse, 31\n\nWest Virginia: bat protection effort in, 130\u201331; wind resources and wind energy use in, 186\n\nWest-Wide Energy Corridor, 167\n\nWheatley, Dave, 41, 43\n\nWhite, Sylvia, 134\n\nWhite Oak Wind Energy Center, Illinois, 117\u201318\n\nwhite storks. _See_ avian impacts of wind farms, birds\n\nWhitton, Bob, 162\u201365\n\nWHO. _See_ World Health Organization (WHO)\n\n_Whole Earth Catalog_ , 101\n\nwhooping cranes. _See_ avian impacts of wind farms, birds\n\nWidman, Bob and Ruth, 139\n\nWilder, Throop, 178\n\nwildlife, impacts from wind farms: on big-game species, 125; offshore wind farms, 137; and pacing of wind farm development, 118. _See also_ avian impacts of wind farms, bats; avian impacts of wind farms, birds\n\nWind, Tom, 178\n\nWind and Prairie Task Force (Kansas), 8\n\nwind chargers, 2\n\nwind farm developers. _See_ Beech Ridge Energy LLP; BP Wind Energy; EDP Renewables; Enel; E.ON Climate and Renewables; Greenlight Energy Resources; Horizon Wind Energy; Iberdrola Renewables; Independence Wind; Invenergy; NextEra Energy Resources; Oxbow Power Corporation; Pathfinder Renewable Energy; PPM Energy; Sammons Enterprises; Tianrun New Energy Investment Company, Ltd.; Vermont Community Wind\n\nwind farms (non\u2013U.S.). _See_ Donghai Bridge offshore wind farm, China; Jiquan Wind Farm Base, China; R\u00f8dsand Offshore Wind Farm, Denmark; St. Nikola Kaverna Wind Farm, Bulgaria\n\nwind farms (U.S.). _See_ Altamont Pass, California; Beaver Ridge Wind Project, Maine; Beech Ridge Wind Farm, West Virginia; Blue Canyon Wind Farm, Oklahoma; Buffalo Mountain Wind Energy Center, Tennessee; Cape Wind, Massachusetts; Casselman Wind Power Project, Pennsylvania; Chokecherry\u2013 Sierra Madre wind complex, Wyoming; Elk River Wind Power Project, Kansas; Fowler Ridge Wind Farm, Indiana; Grandpa's Knob, Vermont; Grand Ridge Wind Farm, Illinois; Gray County Wind Energy Center, Kansas; Mars Hill wind farm, Maine; Meadow Lake Wind Farm, Indiana; Meridian Way Wind Farm, Kansas; Pe\u00f1ascal Wind Farm, Texas; San Gorgonio Pass, California; Tehachapi Pass, California; Top of the World Windpower Project, Wyoming; White Oak Wind Energy Center, Illinois\n\nwind power capacity: as affected by wind speed (\"cube rule\"), 114; in California, 30\u201333, 185; in China, 19, 59\u201373, 187; as a factor of blade length, 114; global installed wind power capacity (1996\u20132010), 189; in Kansas, 1\u201318, 97, 144\u201345, 149, 185; in Massachusetts, 97, 186; ranking of installed wind power capacity, by country, 187\u201388; ranking of U.S. onshore wind power capacity (present and potential), by state, 185\u201386; in U.S., 96\u201398, 125, 185\u201386; U.S. offshore wind power potential, 98, 170, 181; in Wyoming, 125, 162\u201365, 185\n\n_Wind Power in America's Future_ (DOE report), 94\n\nwind power incentives, federal: grid modernization grants, 172; investment tax credits, 28, 34\u201335, 51; loan guarantees, 172; Obama stimulus measures, 50\u201351, 56, 172; production tax credit, 2\u20133, 13, 50\u201351, 111, 113, 182\u201383; technical training grants, 88. _See also_ wind power incentives, state\n\nwind power incentives, state: grants and loans, 111; green power option, 111; investment tax credits and tax-free bonds in California, 30\u201331, 33\u201335; net-metering laws, 111; property tax exemption in Kansas, 2, 147; renewable electricity standards, 111, 112, 165, 183. _See also_ wind power incentives, federal\n\nwind speed: and bat fatalities, 131\u201332; definition of \"windy land areas,\" 97; impact on turbine capacity factor, 97, 114; impact on turbine durability, 53\u201354; turbine tower height and, 114; and U.S. wind power potential, 96\u201398, 185\u201386\n\nwind turbine components. _See_ blades; hubs; nacelles; rotors; towers\n\nwind turbines: availability of, 87; capacity factor of, 3, 97, 114; climbing of, 84\u201385, 91, 92; cost of, 11\u201312, 113; cut-in speed for, 131\u201332; design of, 31\u201332, 34, 39, 113\u201317, 149\u201350; diagram of, xii; dimensions and weight of, xii, 14, 49, 74, 75, 84\u201385, 92, 114\u201315, 119; direct-drive vs. gear-driven, 31, 41\u201351, 53, 55, 70, 86\u201387, 91; erection of, 13\u201314, 81\u201384, 90\u201391; foundations for, 80; installed capacity of, 13, 31, 99; land required for, 5, 118\u201319; maintenance of, 84\u201387, 90\u201391; noise from and noise limits for, x, 5, 149\u201360; research and development on, 23, 31\u201335; rotational speed of, 119; setbacks for, from neighboring homes, 157, 158\u201359; \"shadow flicker\" from, 155; transport of, 74\u201378; wildlife impacts from, x, 116\u201333, 159, 167. _See also_ manufacture of wind turbines; visual appearance of wind farms; wind turbine components\n\nWind Turbine Syndrome, 154\u201355\n\nWisconsin: turbine setback controversy in, 158\u201359; wind resources and wind energy use in,185\n\nwomen, employment of: at wind farms, 13\u201315, 17, 79, 82, 91\u201394; in technical training programs, 91\u201394; in top corporate positions, 93\n\nWomen of Wind Energy, 93\n\nWood, Grant, 18\n\nworker safety: in operations and maintenance of turbines, 83, 86, 88, 92\u201393; at turbine manufacturing plants, 45\u201346\n\nWorld Health Organization (WHO), 156\n\nWorld Trade Organization (WTO), 69\n\nWyoming: coal mining in, 122, 123; coalition of pro-wind landowner associations (REAL) in, 163\u201364; electric transmission lines originating in, 164\u201367; federal lands in, 166\u201367; National Historic Trails in, 167; oil and gas resources in, 123\u201324; ranching in, 162\u201363; sage grouse in, 122\u201325, 159; wildlife conservation in, 122\u201323, 125, 159, 167; wind farm siting in, 123\u201325, 167; wind resources and wind energy use in, 124\u201325, 162\u201365, 185\n\nWyoming Infrastructure Authority, 164\n\nXEMC Windpower, 55\n\nXinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology, 67\u201368, 70\u201371\n\nYoung, Don, 135\n\nYucca Mountain, Nevada, 103\n\nZehtindjiev, Pavel, 120\n\nZephyr transmission line, 164\u201365, 166, 167\n\nZilkha Renewable Energy, 7, 8\u201312, 49, 127, 147\n_To Tali and Maya  \nMay your generation continue the journey_\n\nBeacon Press  \n25 Beacon Street  \nBoston, Massachusetts 02108-2892  \nwww.beacon.org\n\nBeacon Press books  \nare published under the auspices of  \nthe Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.\n\n\u00a9 2012 by Philip Warburg  \nAll rights reserved  \nPrinted in the United States of America\n\n15 14 13 12 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\nThis book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper  \nANSI\/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.\n\nText design by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data  \nWarburg, Philip.  \nHarvest the wind : America's journey to jobs, energy  \nindependence, and climate stability \/ Philip Warburg.  \np.cm.  \nIncludes bibliographical references and index.  \nISBN 978-0-8070-0107-3 (alk. paper)  \nE-ISBN 978-0-8070-0108-0  \n1. Wind power plants\u2014United States. 2. Wind power  \nindustry\u2014United States. I. Title.  \nTK1541.W36 2012\n\n333.9'20973\u2014dc23 2011039420\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by David Reed\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAST STETSON\n\nBy John Fox Jr.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nA MIDSUMMER freshet was running over old Gabe Bunch's water-wheel into\nthe Cumberland. Inside the mill Steve Marcum lay in one dark corner with\na slouched hat over his face. The boy Isom was emptying a sack of corn\ninto the hopper. Old Gabe was speaking his mind.\n\nAlways the miller had been a man of peace; and there was one time when\nhe thought the old Stetson-Lewallen feud was done. That was when Rome\nStetson, the last but one of his name, and Jasper Lewallen, the last\nbut one of his, put their guns down and fought with bare fists on a high\nledge above old Gabe's mill one morning at daybreak. The man who was\nbeaten was to leave the mountains; the other was to stay at home and\nhave peace. Steve Marcum, a Stetson, heard the sworn terms and saw the\nfight. Jasper was fairly whipped; and when Rome let him up he proved\ntreacherous and ran for his gun. Rome ran too, but stumbled and fell.\nJasper whirled with his Winchester and was about to kill Rome where he\nlay, when a bullet came from somewhere and dropped him back to the ledge\nagain. Both Steve Marcum and Rome Stetson said they had not fired the\nshot; neither would say who had. Some thought one man was lying, some\nthought the other was, and Jasper's death lay between the two. State\ntroops came then, under the Governor's order, from the Blue Grass, and\nRome had to drift down the river one night in old Gabe's canoe and on\nOut of the mountains for good. Martha Lewallen, who, though Jasper's\nsister, and the last of the name, loved and believed Rome, went with\nhim. Marcums and Braytons who had taken sides in the fight hid in the\nbushes around Hazlan, or climbed over into Virginia. A railroad started\nup the Cumberland. \"Furriners came in to buy wild lands and get out\ntimber.\" Civilization began to press over the mountains and down on\nHazlan, as it had pressed in on Breathitt, the seat of another feud,\nin another county. In Breathitt the feud was long past, and with good\nreason old Gabe thought that it was done in Hazlan.\n\nBut that autumn a panic started over from England. It stopped the\nrailroad far down the Cumberland; it sent the \"furriners\" home, and\ndrove civilization back. Marcums and Braytons came in from hiding, and\ndrifted one by one to the old fighting-ground. In time they took up the\nold quarrel, and with Steve Marcum and Steve Brayton as leaders, the\nold Stetson-Lewallen feud went on, though but one soul was left in the\nmountains of either name. That was Isom, a pale little fellow whom Rome\nhad left in old Gabe's care; and he, though a Stetson and a half-brother\nto Rome, was not counted, because he was only a boy and a foundling, and\nbecause his ways were queer.\n\nThere was no open rupture, no organized division--that might happen no\nmore. The mischief was individual now, and ambushing was more common.\nCertain men were looking for each other, and it was a question of\n\"draw-in' quick 'n' shootin' quick\" when the two met by accident, or of\ngetting the advantage \"from the bresh.\"\n\nIn time Steve Marcum had come face to face with old Steve Brayton in\nHazlan, and the two Steves, as they were known, drew promptly. Marcum\nwas in the dust when the smoke cleared away; and now, after three months\nin bed, he was just out again. He had come down to the mill to see Isom.\nThis was the miller's first chance for remonstrance, and, as usual,\nhe began to lay it down that every man who had taken a human life must\nsooner or later pay for it with his own. It was an old story to Isom,\nand, with a shake of impatience, he turned out the door of the mill, and\nleft old Gabe droning on under his dusty hat to Steve, who, being heavy\nwith \"moonshine,\" dropped asleep.\n\nOutside the sun was warm, the flood was calling from the dam, and the\nboy's petulance was gone at once. For a moment he stood on the rude\nplatform watching the tide; then he let one bare foot into the water,\nand, with a shiver of delight, dropped from the boards. In a moment his\nclothes were on the ground behind a laurel thicket, and his slim white\nbody was flashing like a faun through the reeds and bushes up stream.\nA hundred yards away the creek made a great loop about a wet thicket\nof pine and rhododendron, and he turned across the bushy neck. Creeping\nthrough the gnarled bodies of rhododendron, he dropped suddenly behind\nthe pine, and lay flat in the black earth. Ten yards through the\ndusk before him was the half-bent figure of a man letting an old army\nhaversack slip from one shoulder; and Isom watched him hide it with\na rifle under a bush, and go noiselessly on towards the road. It was\nCrump, Eli Crump, who had been a spy for the Lewallens in the old feud\nand who was spying now for old Steve Brayton. It was the second time\nIsom had seen him lurking about, and the boy's impulse was to hurry back\nto the mill. But it was still peace, and without his gun Crump was not\ndangerous; so Isom rose and ran on, and, splashing into the angry little\nstream, shot away like a roll of birch bark through the tawny crest of\na big wave. He had done the feat a hundred times; he knew every rock and\neddy in flood-time, and he floated through them and slipped like an eel\ninto the mill-pond. Old Gabe was waiting for him.\n\n\"Whut ye mean, boy,\" he said, sharply, \"reskin' the fever an' ager this\nway? No wonder folks thinks ye air half crazy. Git inter them clothes\nnow 'n' come in hyeh. You'll ketch yer death o' cold swimmin' this way\natter a fresh.\"\n\nThe boy was shivering when he took his seat at the funnel, but he did\nnot mind that; some day he meant to swim over that dam. Steve still lay\nmotionless in the corner near him, and Isom lifted the slouched hat\nand began tickling his lips with a straw. Steve was beyond the point of\ntickling, and Isom dropped the hat back and turned to tell the miller\nwhat he had seen in the thicket. The dim interior darkened just then,\nand Crump stood in the door. Old Gabe stared hard at him without a word\nof welcome, but Crump shuffled to a chair unasked, and sat like a toad\nastride it, with his knees close up under his arms, and his wizened face\nin his hands.\n\nMeeting Isom's angry glance, he shifted his own uneasily.\n\n\"Seed the new preacher comm' 'long today?\" he asked. Drawing one dirty\nfinger across his forehead, \"Got a long scar 'cross hyeh.\"\n\nThe miller shook his head.\n\n\"Well, he's a-comm'. I've been waitin' fer him up the road, but I reckon\nI got to git 'cross the river purty soon now.\"\n\nCrump had been living over in Breathitt since the old feud. He had been\n\"convicted\" over there by Sherd Raines, a preacher from the Jellico\nHills, and he had grown pious. Indeed, he had been trailing after Raines\nfrom place to place, and he was following the circuit-rider now to the\nscene of his own deviltry--Hazlan.\n\n\"Reckon you folks don't know I got the cirkit-rider to come over hyeh,\ndo ye?\" he went on. \"Ef he can't preach! Well, I'd tell a man! He kin\njus' draw the heart out'n a holler log! He 'convicted' me fust night,\nover thar in Breathitt. He come up thar, ye know, to stop the feud, he\nsaid; 'n' thar was laughin' from one eendo' Breathitt to t'other; but\nthar was the whoppinest crowd thar I ever see when he did come. The\nmeetin'-house wasn't big enough to hold 'em, so he goes out on the\naidge o' town, n' climbs on to a stump. He hed a woman with him from the\nsettlemints--she's a-waitin' at Hazlan fer him now-'n' she had a cur'us\nlittle box, 'n' he put her 'n' the box on a big rock, 'n' started in a\ncallin' 'em his bretherin' 'n' sisteren, 'n' folks seed mighty soon\nthet he meant it, too. He's always mighty easylike, tell he gits to the\nblood-penalty.\"\n\nAt the word, Crump's listeners paid sudden heed. Old Gabe's knife\nstopped short in the heart of the stick he was whittling; the boy looked\nsharply up from the running meal into Crump's face and sat still.\n\nWell, he jes prayed to the Almighty as though he was a-talkin' to him\nface to face, 'n' then the woman put her hands on that box, 'n' the\nsweetes' sound anybody thar ever heerd come outen it. Then she got to\nsingin'. Hit wusn't nuthin' anybody thar'd ever heerd; but some o' the\nwomen folks was a snifflin' 'fore she got through. He pitched right into\nthe feud, as he calls hit, 'n' the sin o' sheddin' human blood, I tell\nye; 'n' 'twixt him and the soldiers I reckon thar won't be no more\nfightin' in Breathitt. He says, 'n' he always says it mighty loud\n--Crump raised his own voice--\"thet the man as kills his feller-critter\nhev some day got ter give up his own blood, sartin 'n' shore.\"\n\nIt was old Gabe's pet theory, and he was nodding approval. The boy's\nparted lips shook with a spasm of fear, and were as quickly shut tight\nwith suspicion. Steve raised his head as though he too had heard the\nvoice, and looked stupidly about him.\n\n\"I tol' him,\" Crump went on, \"thet things was already a-gettin' kind o'\nfrolicsome round hyeh agin; thet the Marcums 'n' Braytons was a-takin'\nup the ole war, 'n' would be a-plunkin' one 'nother every time they got\ntogether, 'n' a-gittin' the whole country in fear 'n' tremblin'--now\nthet Steve Marcum had come back.\"\n\nSteve began to scowl and a vixenish smile hovered at Isom's lips.\n\n\"He knows mighty well--fer I tol' him--thet thar hain't a wuss man in all\nthese mountains than thet very Steve--\" The name ended in a gasp, and the\nwizened gossip was caught by the throat and tossed, chair and all, into\na corner of the mill.\n\n\"None o' that, Steve!\" called the miller, sternly. \"Not hyeh. Don't hurt\nhim now!\"\n\nCrump's face stiffened with such terror that Steve broke into a laugh.\n\n\"Well, ye air a skeery critter!\" he said, contemptuously. \"I hain't\ngoin' to hurt him, Uncl' Gabe, but he must be a plumb idgit, a-talkin'\n'bout folks to thar face, 'n' him so puny an' spindlin'! You git!\"\n\nCrump picked himself up trembling--\"Don't ye ever let me see ye on this\nside o' the river agin, now \"--and shuffled out, giving Marcum one look\nof fear and unearthly hate.\n\n\"Convicted!\" snorted Steve. \"I heerd old Steve Brayton had hired him to\nwaylay me, 'n' I swar I believe hit's so.\"\n\n\"Well, he won't hev to give him more'n a chaw o' tobaccer now,\" said\nGabe. \"He'll come purty near doin' hit hisseif, I reckon, ef he gits\nthe chance.\"\n\n\"Well, he kin git the chance ef I gits my leetle account settled with ole\nSteve Brayton fust. 'Pears like that old hog ain't satisfied shootin'\nme hisself.\" Stretching his arms with a yawn, Steve winked at Isom and\nmoved to the door. The boy followed him outside.\n\n\"We're goin' fer ole Brayton about the dark o' the next moon, boy,\" he\nsaid. \"He's sort o' s'picious now, 'n' we'll give him a leetle time to\ngit tame. I'll have a bran'-new Winchester fer ye, Isom. Hit ull be like\nole times agin, when Rome was hyeh. Whut's the matter, boy?\" he asked,\nsuddenly. Isom looked unresponsive, listless.\n\n\"Air ye gittin' sick agin?\"\n\n\"Well, I hain't feelin' much peert, Steve.\"\n\n\"Take keer o' yourself, boy. Don't git sick now. We'll have to watch Eli\nCrump purty close. I don't know why I hain't killed thet spyin' skunk\nlong ago, 'ceptin' I never had a shore an' sartin reason fer doin 'it.\"\n\nIsom started to speak then and stopped. He would learn more first; and\nhe let Steve go on home unwarned.\n\nThe two kept silence after Marcum had gone. Isom turned away from old\nGabe, and stretched himself out on the platform. He looked troubled. The\nmiller, too, was worried.\n\n\"Jus' a hole in the groun',\" he said, half to himself; \"that's whut we're\nall comm' to! 'Pears like we mought help one 'nother to keep out'n hit,\n'stid o' holpin' 'em in.\"\n\nBrown shadows were interlacing out in the mill-pond, where old Gabe's\neyes were intent. A current of cool air had started down the creek to\nthe river. A katydid began to chant. Twilight was coming, and the miller\nrose.\n\n\"Hit's a comfort to know you won't be mixed up in all this devilment,\"\nhe said; and then, as though he had found more light in the gloom:\n\"Hit's a comfort to know the new rider air shorely a-preachin' the right\ndoctrine, 'n' I want ye to go hear him. Blood for blood-life fer a life!\nYour grandad shot ole Tom Lewallen in Hazlan. Ole Jack Lewallen shot him\nfrom the bresh. Tom Stetson killed ole Jack; ole Jass killed Tom, 'n' so\nhit comes down, fer back as I can ricollect. I hev nuver knowed hit to\nfail.\" The lad had risen on one elbow. His face was pale and uneasy, and\nhe averted it when the miller turned in the door.\n\n\"You'd better stay hyeh, son, 'n' finish up the grist. Hit won't take\nlong. Hev ye got victuals fer yer supper?\"\n\nIsom nodded, without looking around, and when old Gabe was gone he rose\nnervously and dropped helplessly back to the floor.\n\n\"'Pears like old Gabe knows I killed Jass,\" he breathed, sullenly.\n\"'Pears like all of 'em knows hit, 'n' air jus' a-tormentin' me.\"\n\nNobody dreamed that the boy and his old gun had ended that fight on the\ncliff; and without knowing it, old Gabe kept the lad in constant torture\nwith his talk of the blood-penalty. But Isom got used to it in time,\nfor he had shot to save his brother's life. Steve Marcum treated him\nthereafter as an equal. Steve's friends, too, changed in manner towards\nhim because Steve had. And now, just when he had reached the point of\nwondering whether, after all, there might not be one thing that old Gabe\ndid not know, Crump had come along with the miller's story, which he had\ngot from still another, a circuit-rider, who must know the truth. The\nfact gave him trouble.\n\n\"Mebbe hit's goin' to happen when I goes with Steve atter ole Brayton,\"\nhe mumbled, and he sat thinking the matter over, until a rattle and a\nwhir inside the mill told him that the hopper was empty. He arose to\nfill it, and coming out again, he heard hoof-beats on the dirt road. A\nstranger rode around the rhododendrons and shouted to him, asking the\ndistance to Hazlan. He took off his hat when Isom answered, to wipe the\ndust and perspiration from his face, and the boy saw a white scar across\nhis forehead. A little awestricken, the lad walked towards him.\n\n\"Air you the new rider whut's goin' to preach up to Hazlan?\" he asked.\n\nRaines smiled at the solemnity of the little fellow. \"Yes,\" he said,\nkindly. \"Won't you come up and hear me?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" he said, and his lips parted as though he wanted to say\nsomething else, but Raines did not notice.\n\n\"I wished I had axed him,\" he said, watching the preacher ride away.\n\"Uncle Gabe knows might' nigh ever'thing, 'n' he says so. Crump said\nthe rider said so; but Crump might 'a' been lyin'. He 'most al'ays is. I\nwished I had axed him.\"\n\nMechanically the lad walked along the millrace, which was made of hewn\nboards and hollow logs. In every crevice grass hung in thick bunches to\nthe ground or tipped wiry blades over the running water. Tightening\na prop where some silvery jet was getting too large, he lifted the\ntail-gate a trifle and lay down again on the platform near the old\nwheel. Out in the mill-pond the water would break now and then into\nripples about some unwary moth, and the white belly of a fish would\nflash from the surface. It was the only sharp accent on the air. The\nchant of the katydids had become a chorus, and the hush of darkness\nwas settling over the steady flow of water and the low drone of the\nmillstones.\n\n\"I hain't afeerd,\" he kept saying to himself. \"I hain't afeerd o'\nnothin' nor nobody;\" but he lay brooding until his head throbbed, until\ndarkness filled the narrow gorge, and the strip of dark blue up through\nthe trees was pointed with faint stars. He was troubled when he rose,\nand climbed on Rome's horse and rode homeward--so troubled that he\nturned finally and started back in a gallop for Hazlan.\n\nIt was almost as Crump had said. There was no church in Hazlan, and, as\nin Breathitt, the people had to follow Raines outside the town, and he\npreached from the roadside. The rider's Master never had a tabernacle\nmore simple: overhead the stars and a low moon; close about, the trees\nstill and heavy with summer; a pine torch over his head like a yellow\nplume; two tallow dips hung to a beech on one side, and flicking to the\nother the shadows of the people who sat under them. A few Marcums and\nBraytons were there, one faction shadowed on Raines's right, one on\nhis left. Between them the rider stood straight, and prayed as though\ntalking with some one among the stars. Behind him the voice of the woman\nat her tiny organ rose among the leaves. And then he spoke as he had\nprayed; and from the first they listened like children, while in their\nown homely speech he went on to tell them, just as he would have told\nchildren, a story that some of them had never heard before. \"Forgive\nyour enemies as He had forgiven his,\" that was his plea. Marcums and\nBraytons began to press in from the darkness on each side, forgetting\neach other as the rest of the people forgot them. And when the story\nwas quite done, Raines stood a full minute without a word. No one was\nprepared for what followed. Abruptly his voice rose sternly--\"Thou\nshalt not kill\"; and then Satan took shape under the torch. The man was\ntransformed, swaying half crouched before them. The long black hair fell\nacross the white scar, and picture after picture leaped from his tongue\nwith such vividness that a low wail started through the audience, and\nwomen sobbed in their bonnets. It was penalty for bloodshed--not in this\nworld: penalty eternal in the next; and one slight figure under the dips\nstaggered suddenly aside into the darkness.\n\nIt was Isom; and no soul possessed of devils was ever more torn than\nhis, when he splashed through Troubled Fork and rode away that night.\nHalf a mile on he tried to keep his eyes on his horse's neck, anywhere\nexcept on one high gray rock to which they were raised against his\nwill--the peak under which he had killed young Jasper. There it was\nstaring into the moon, but watching him as he fled through the woods,\nshuddering at shadows, dodging branches that caught at him as he passed,\nand on in a run, until he drew rein and slipped from his saddle at the\nfriendly old mill. There was no terror for him there. There every bush\nwas a friend; every beech trunk a sentinel on guard for him in shining\narmor.\n\nIt was the old struggle that he was starting through that night--the old\nfight of humanity from savage to Christian; and the lad fought it until,\nwith the birth of his wavering soul, the premonitions of the first dawn\ncame on. The patches of moonlight shifted, paling. The beech columns\nmottled slowly with gray and brown. A ruddy streak was cleaving the east\nlike a slow sword of fire. The chill air began to pulse and the mists to\nstir. Moisture had gathered on the boy's sleeve. His horse was stamping\nuneasily, and the lad rose stiffly, his face gray but calm, and started\nhome. At old Gabe's gate he turned in his saddle to look where, under\nthe last sinking star, was once the home of his old enemies. Farther\ndown, under the crest, was old Steve Brayton, alive, and at that moment\nperhaps asleep.\n\n\"Forgive your enemies;\" that was the rider's plea. Forgive old Steve,\nwho had mocked him, and had driven Rome from the mountains; who had\nthreatened old Gabe's life, and had shot Steve Marcum almost to death!\nThe lad drew breath quickly, and standing in his stirrups, stretched out\nhis fist, and let it drop, slowly.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nOLD Gabe was just starting out when Isom' reached the cabin, and the old\nman thought the boy had been at the mill all night. Isom slept through\nthe day, and spoke hardly a word when the miller came home, though the\nlatter had much to say of Raines, the two Steves, and of the trouble\npossible. He gave some excuse for not going with old Gabe the next day,\nand instead went into the woods alone.\n\nLate in the middle of the afternoon he reached the mill. Old Gabe sat\nsmoking outside the door, and Isom stretched himself out on the platform\nclose to the water, shading his eyes from the rich sunlight with one\nragged sleeve.\n\n\"Uncl' Gabe,\" he said, suddenly, \"s'posin' Steve Brayton was to step\nout'n the bushes thar some mawnin' 'n' pull down his Winchester on ye,\nwould ye say, 'Lawd, fergive him, fer he don't know whut he do'?\"\n\nOld Gabe had told him once about a Stetson and a Lewallen who were heard\nhalf a mile away praying while they fought each other to death with\nWinchesters. \"There was no use prayin' an' shootin',\" the miller\ndeclared. There was but one way for them to escape damnation; that was\nto throw down their guns and make friends. But the miller had forgotten,\nand his mood that morning was whimsical.\n\n\"Well, I mought, Isom,\" he said, \"ef I didn't happen to have a gun\nhandy.\"\n\nThe humor was lost on Isom. His chin was moving up and down, and his\nface was serious. That was just it. He could forgive Jass--Jass was dead;\nhe could forgive Crump, if he caught him in no devilment; old Brayton\neven--after Steve's revenge was done. But now--The boy rose, shaking his\nhead.\n\n\"Uncl' Gabe,\" he said with sudden passion, \"whut ye reckon Rome's\na-doin'?\"\n\nThe miller looked a little petulant. \"Don't ye git tired axin' me thet\nquestion, Isom? Rome's a-scratchin' right peert fer a livin', I reckon,\nfer hisself 'n' Marthy. Yes, 'n' mebbe fer a young 'un too by this time.\nEf ye air honin' fer Rome, why don't ye rack out 'n' go to him? Lawd\nknows I'd hate ter see ye go, but I tol' Rome I'd let ye whenever ye got\nready, 'n' so I will.\"\n\nIsom had no answer, and old Gabe was puzzled. It was always this way.\nThe boy longed for Rome, the miller could see. He spoke of him sometimes\nwith tears, and sometimes he seemed to be on the point of going to him,\nbut he shrank inexplicably when the time for leaving came.\n\nIsom started into the mill now without a word, as usual. Old Gabe\nnoticed that his feet were unsteady, and with quick remorse began to\nquestion him.\n\n\"Kinder puny, hain't ye, Isom?\"\n\n\"Well, I hain't feelin' much peert.\"\n\n\"Hit was mighty keerless,\" old Gabe said, with kindly reproach,\n\"swimmin' the crick atter a fresh.\"\n\n\"Hit wasn't the swimmin',\" he protested, dropping weakly at the\nthreshold. \"Hit was settin' out 'n the woods. I was in Hazlan t'other\nnight, Und' Gabe, to hear the new rider.\"\n\nThe miller looked around with quick interest. \"I've been skeered afore\nby riders a-tellin' 'bout the torments o' hell, but I never heerd\nnothin' like his tellin' 'bout the Lord. He said the Lord was jes as\npore as anybody thar, and lived jes as rough; thet He made fences and\nbarns n' ox-yokes 'n' sech like, an' He couldn't write His own name when\nHe started out to save the worl'; an' when he come to the p'int whar His\nenemies tuk hol' of Him, the rider jes crossed his fingers up over his\nhead 'n' axed us if we didn't know how it hurt to run a splinter into\na feller's hand when he's loggin' or a thorn into yer foot when ye're\ngoin' barefooted.\"\n\n\"Hit jes made me sick, Uncl' Gabe, hearin' him tell how they stretched\nHim out on a cross o' wood, when He'd come down fer nothin' but to save\n'em, 'n' stuck a spear big as a co'n-knife into His side, 'n' give Him\nvinegar, 'n' let Him hang thar 'n' die, with His own mammy a-stand-in'\ndown on the groun' a-cryin' 'n' watchin' Him. Some folks thar never\nheerd sech afore. The women was a-rockin', 'n' ole Granny Day axed right\nout ef thet tuk place a long time ago; 'n' the rider said, 'Yes, a long\ntime ago, mos two thousand years.' Granny was a-cryin', Uncl' Gabe, 'n'\nshe said, sorter soft, 'Stranger, let's hope that hit hain't so'; 'n'\nthe rider says, But hit air so; n' He fergive em while they was doin'\nit.' Thet's whut got me, Uncl' Gabe, 'n' when the woman got to singin',\nsomethin' kinder broke loose hyeh\"--Isom passed his hand over his thin\nchest--\"'n' I couldn't git breath. I was mos' afeerd to ride home. I jes\nlayed at the mill studyin', till I thought my head would bust. I reckon\nhit was the spent a-work-in me. Looks like I was mos' convicted, Uncl'\nGabe.\" His voice trembled and he stopped. \"Crump was a-lyin',\" he cried,\nsuddenly. \"But hit's wuss, Und' Gabe; hit's wuss! You say a life fer a\nlife in this worl'; the rider says hit's in the next, 'n' I'm mis'ble,\nUncl' Gabe. Ef Rome--I wish Rome was hyeh,\" he cried, helplessly. \"I\ndon't know whut to do.\"\n\nThe miller rose and limped within the mill, and ran one hand through\nthe shifting corn. He stood in the doorway, looking long and perplexedly\ntowards Hazlan; he finally saw, he thought, just what the lad's trouble\nwas. He could give him some comfort, and he got his chair and dragged it\nout to the door across the platform, and sat down in silence.\n\n\"Isom,\" he said at last, \"the Spent air shorely a-workin' ye, 'n' I'm\nglad of it. But ye mus 'n t worry about the penalty a-fallin' on Rome.\nSteve Marcum killed Jass--he can't fool me--'n' I've told Steve he's got\nthet penalty to pay ef he gits up this trouble. I'm glad the Spent's\na-workin' ye, but ye mus'n' t worry 'bout Rome.\"\n\nIsom rose suddenly on one elbow, and with a moan lay back and crossed\nhis arms over his face.\n\nOld Gabe turned and left him.\n\n\"Git up, Isom.\" It was the miller's voice again, an hour later. \"You\nbetter go home now. Ride the hoss, boy,\" he and, kindly.\n\nIsom rose, and old Gabe helped him mount, and stood at the door. The\nhorse started, but the boy pulled him to a standstill again.\n\n\"I want to ax ye jes one thing more, Uncl' Gabe,\" he said, slowly.\n\"S'posin' Steve had a-killed Jass to keep him from killin' Rome, hev he\ngot to be damned fer it jes the same? Hev he got to give up eternal life\nanyways? Hain't thar no way out'n it--no way?\"\n\nThere was need for close distinction now and the miller was deliberate.\n\n\"Ef Steve shot Jass,\" he said, \"jes to save Rome's life--he had the right\nto shoot him. Thar hain't no doubt 'bout that. The law says so.\nBut\"--there was a judicial pause--\"I've heerd Steve say that he hated Jass\nwuss' n anybody on earth, 'cept old Brayton; 'n' ef he wus glad o' the\nchance o' killin' him, why--the Lord air merciful, Isom; the Bible air\ntrue, 'n' hit says an 'eye fer an eye, a tooth fer a tooth,' 'n' I never\nknowed hit to fail--but the Lord air merciful. Ef Steve would only jes\nrepent, 'n' ef, 'stid o' fightin' the Lord by takin' human life, he'd\nfight fer Him by savin' it, I reckon the Lord would fergive him. Fer\nef ye lose yer life fer Him, He do say you'll find it agin\nsomewhar--sometime.\"\n\nOld Gabe did not see the sullen despair that came into the boy's tense\nface. The subtlety of the answer had taken the old man back to the days\nwhen he was magistrate, and his eyes were half closed. Isom rode away\nwithout a word. From the dark of the mill old Gabe turned to look after\nhim again.\n\n\"I'm afeerd he's a-gittin' feverish agin. Hit looks like he's convicted;\nbut\"--he knew the wavering nature of the boy--\"I don't know--I don't\nknow.\"\n\nGoing home an hour later, the old man saw several mountaineers climbing\nthe path towards Steve Marcum's cabin; it meant the brewing of mischief;\nand when he stopped at his own gate, he saw at the bend of the road a\nfigure creep from the bushes on one side into the bushes on the other.\n\nIt looked like Crump.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nIT was Crump, and fifty yards behind him was Isom, slipping through the\nbrush after him--Isom's evil spirit--old Gabe, Raines, \"conviction,\"\nblood-penalty, forgotten, all lost in the passion of a chase which has\nno parallel when the game is man.\n\nStraight up the ravine Crump went along a path which led to Steve\nMarcum's cabin. There was a clump of rhododendron at the head of the\nravine, and near Steve's cabin. About this hour Marcum would be chopping\nwood for supper, or sitting out in his porch in easy range from the\nthicket. Crump's plan was plain: he was about his revenge early, and\nIsom was exultant.\n\n\"Oh, no, Eli, you won't git Steve this time. Oh, naw!\"\n\nThe bushes were soon so thick that he could no longer follow Crump by\nsight, and every few yards he had to stop to listen, and then steal on\nlike a mountain-cat towards the leaves rustling ahead of him. Half-way\nup the ravine Crump turned to the right and stopped. Puzzled, Isom\npushed so close that the spy, standing irresolute on the edge of\nthe path, whirled around. The boy sank to his face, and in a moment\nfootsteps started and grew faint; Crump had darted across the path, and\nwas running through the undergrowth up the spur. Isom rose and hurried\nafter him; and when, panting hard, he reached the top, the spy's\nskulking figure was sliding from Steve's house and towards the Breathitt\nroad; and with a hot, puzzled face, the boy went down after it.\n\nOn a little knob just over a sudden turn in the road Crump stopped, and\nlooking sharply about him, laid his gun down. Just in front of him were\ntwo rocks, waist-high, with a crevice between them. Drawing a long knife\nfrom his pocket, he climbed upon them, and began to cut carefully away\nthe spreading top of a bush that grew on the other side. Isom crawled\ndown towards him like a lizard, from tree to tree. A moment later the\nspy was filling up the crevice with stones, and Isom knew what he was\nabout; he was making a \"blind\" to waylay Steve, who, the boy knew, was\ngoing to Breathitt by that road the next Sunday. How did Crump know\nthat--how did he know everything? The crevice filled, Crump cut branches\nand stuck them between the rocks. Then he pushed his rifle through the\ntwigs, and taking aim several times, withdrew it. When he turned away\nat last and started down to the road, he looked back once more, and Isom\nsaw him grinning. Almost chuckling in answer, the lad slipped around the\nknob to the road the other way, and Crump threw up his gun with a gasp\nof fright when a figure rose out of the dusk before him.\n\n\"Hol' on, Eli!\" said Isom, easily. \"Don't git skeered! Hit's nobody but\nme. Whar ye been?\"\n\nCrump laughed, so quick was he disarmed of suspicion. \"Jes up the river\na piece to see Aunt Sally Day. She's a fust cousin o' mine by marriage.\"\n\nJsom's right hand was slipping back as if to rest on his hip. \"D'you say\nyou'd been 'convicted,' Eli?\"\n\nCrump's answer was chantlike. \"Yes, Lawd reckon I have.\"\n\n\"Goin' to stop all o' yer lyin', air ye,\" Isom went on, in the same\ntone, and Crump twitched as though struck suddenly from behind, \"an'\nstealin' 'n' lay-wayin'?\"\n\n\"Look a-hyeh, boy--\" he began, roughly, and mumbling a threat, started\non.\n\n\"Uh, Eli!\" Even then the easy voice fooled him again, and he turned.\nIsom had a big revolver on a line with his breast. \"Drap yer gun!\" he\nsaid, tremulously.\n\nCrump tried to laugh, but his guilty face turned gray. \"Take keer, boy,\"\nhe gasped; \"yer gun's cocked. Take keer, I tell ye!\"\n\n\"Drap it, damn ye!\" Isom called in sudden fury, \"'n' git clean away from\nit!\" Crump backed, and Isom came forward and stood with one foot on the\nfallen Winchester.\n\n\"I seed ye, Eli. Been makin' a blind fer Steve, hev ye? Goin' to shoot\nhim in the back, too, air ye? You're ketched at last, Eli. You've done\na heap o' devilment. You're gittin' wuss all the time. You oughter be\ndead, 'n' now--\"\n\nCrump found voice in a cry of terror and a whine for mercy. The boy\nlooked at him, unable to speak his contempt.\n\n\"Git down thar!\" he said, finally; and Crump, knowing what was wanted,\nstretched himself in the road. Isom sat down on a stone, the big pistol\nacross one knee.\n\n\"Roll over!\" Crump rolled at full length.\n\n\"Git up!\" Isom laughed wickedly. \"Ye don't look purty, Eli.\" He lifted\nthe pistol and nipped a cake of dirt from the road between Crump's feet.\nWith another cry of fear, the spy began a vigorous dance.\n\n\"Hol' on, Eli; I don't want ye to dance. Ye belong to the chu'ch now,\n'n' I wouldn't have ye go agin yer religion fer nothin'. Stan' still!\"\nAnother bullet and another cut between Crump's feet. \"'Pears like ye\ndon't think I kin shoot straight. Eli,\" he went on, reloading the empty\nchambers, \"some folks think I'm a idgit, 'n' I know 'em. Do you think\nI'm a idgit, Eli?\"\n\n\"Actin' mighty nateral now.\" Isom was raising the pistol again. \"Oh,\nLawdy! Don't shoot, boy--don't shoot!\n\n\"Git down on yer knees! Now I want ye to beg fer mercy thet ye never\nshowed--thet ye wouldn't 'a' showed Steve... Purty good,\" he said,\nencouragingly.\n\n\"Mebbe ye kin pray a leetle, seem' ez ye air a chu'ch member. Pray fer\nyer enemies, Eli; Uncl' Gabe says ye must love yer enemies. I know how\nye loves me, 'n' I want yer to pray fer me. The Lawd mus' sot a powerful\nstore by a good citizen like you. Ax him to fergive me fer killin' ye.\"\n\n\"Have mercy, O Lawd,\" prayed Crump, to command--and the prayer was\nsubtle--\"on the murderer of this Thy servant. A life fer a life, Thou\nhev said, O Lawd. Fer killin' me he will foller me, 'n' ef Ye hev not\nmussy he is boun' fer the lowes' pit o' hell, O Lawd--\"\n\nIt was Isom's time to wince now, and Crump's pious groan was cut short.\n\n\"Shet up!\" cried the boy, sharply, and he sat a moment silent. \"You've\nbeen a-spyin' on us sence I was borned, Eli,\" he said, reflectively.\n\n\"I believe ye lay-wayed dad. Y'u spied on Rome. Y'u told the soldiers\nwhar he was a-hidin' Y'u tried to shoot him from the bresh. Y'u found\nout Steve was goin' to Breathitt on Sunday, 'n' you've jes made a blind\nto shoot him in the back. I reckon thar's no meanness ye hain't done.\nDad's al'ays said ye sot a snare fer a woman once--a woman! Y'u loaded a\nmusket with slugs, 'n' tied a string to the trigger, 'n' stretched hit\n'cross the path, 'n' y'u got up on a cliff 'n' whistled to make her slow\nup jes when she struck the string. I reckon thet's yer wust--but I don't\nknow.\"\n\nSeveral times Crump raised his hands in protest while his arraignment\nwas going on; several times he tried to speak, but his lips refused\nutterance. The boy's voice was getting thicker and thicker, and he was\nnervously working the cock of the big pistol up and down.\n\n\"Git up,\" he said; and Crump rose with a spring. The lad's tone meant\nrelease.\n\n\"You hain't wuth the risk. I hain't goin' ter kill ye. I jus' wanted\nter banter ye 'n' make ye beg. You're a good beggar, Eli, 'n' a powerful\nprayer. You'll be a shinin' light in the chu'ch, ef ye gits a chance ter\nshine long. Fer lemme tell ye, nobody ever ketched ye afore. But you're\nketched now, an' I'm goin' to tell Steve. He'll be a-watchin' fer ye,\n'n' so 'll I. I tell ye in time, ef ye ever come over hyeh agin as long\nas you live, you'll never git back alive. Turn roun'! Hev ye got any\nballs?\" he asked, feeling in Crump's pockets for cartridges. \"No;\nwell\"--he picked up the Winchester and pumped the magazine empty--\"I'll\nkeep these,\" he said, handing Crump the empty rifle. \"Now git away--an'\ngit away quick!\"\n\nCrump's slouching footsteps went out of hearing, and Isom sat where he\nwas. His elbows dropped to his knees. His face dropped slowly into his\nhands, and the nettles of remorse began to sting. He took the back of\none tremulous hand presently to wipe the perspiration from his forehead,\nand he found it burning. A sharp pain shot through his eyes. He knew\nwhat that meant, and feeling dizzy, he rose and started a little blindly\ntowards home.\n\nOld Gabe was waiting for him. He did not answer the old man's querulous\ninquiry, but stumbled towards a bed. An hour later, when the miller was\nrubbing his forehead, he opened his eyes, shut them, and began to talk.\n\n\"I reckon I hain't much better 'n Eli, Und' Gabe,\" he said, plaintively.\n\"I've been abusin' him down thar in the woods. I come might' nigh\nkillin' him onct.\" The old man stroked on, scarcely heeding the boy's\nwords, so much nonsense would he talk when ill.\n\n\"I've been lyin' to ye, Uncl' Gabe, 'n' a-deceivin' of ye right along.\nSteve's a-goin' atter ole Brayton--I'm goin' too--Steve didn't kill\nJass--hit wusn't Steve--hit wusn't Rome--hit was--\" The last word stopped\nbehind his shaking lips; he rose suddenly in bed, looked wildly into the\nmiller's startled face, and dropping with a sob to the bed, went sobbing\nto sleep.\n\nOld Gabe went back to his pipe, and while he smoked, his figure shrank\nslowly in his chair. He went to bed finally, but sleep would not come,\nand he rose again and built up the fire and sat by it, waiting for day.\nHis own doctrine, sternly taught for many a year, had come home to him;\nand the miller's face when he opened his door was gray as the breaking\nlight.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nTHERE was little peace for old Gabe that day at the mill. And when he\nwent home at night he found cause for the thousand premonitions that had\nhaunted him. The lad was gone.\n\nA faint light in the east was heralding the moon when Isom reached Steve\nMarcum's gate. There were several horses hitched to the fence, several\ndim forms seated in the porch, and the lad halloed for Steve, whose\nshadow shot instantly from the door and came towards him.\n\n\"Glad ter see ye, Isom,\" he called, jubilantly. \"I was jus' about to sen'\nfer ye. How'd ye happen to come up?\"\n\nIsom answered in a low voice with the news of Crump's \"blind,\" and Steve\nlaughed and swore in the same breath.\n\n\"Come hyeh!\" he said, leading the way back; and at the porch he had Isom\ntell the story again.\n\n\"Whut d' I tell ye, boys?\" he asked, triumphantly. \"Don't believe ye\nmore 'n half believed me.\"\n\nThree more horsemen rode up to the gate and came into the light. Every\nman was armed, and at Isom's puzzled look, Steve caught the lad by the\narm and led him around the chimney-corner. He was in high spirits.\n\n\"'Pears like ole times, Isom. I'm a-goin' fer thet cussed ole Steve\nBrayton this very night. He's behind Crump. I s'picioned it afore; now\nI know it for sartain. He's a-goin' to give Eli a mule 'n' a Winchester\nfer killin' me. We're goin' to s'prise him to-night. He won't be\nlook-in' fer us--I've fixed that. I wus jus' about to sen' fer ye. I\nhain't fergot how ye kin handle a gun.\" Steve laughed significantly.\n\"Ye're a good frien' o' mine, 'n' I'm goin' to show ye thet I'm a frien'\no' yourn.\"\n\nIsom's paleness was unnoticed in the dark. The old throbbing began to\nbeat again at his temple; the old haze started from his eyes.\n\n\"Hyeh's yer gun, Isom,\" he heard Steve saying next. The fire was blazing\ninto his face. At the chimney-corner was the bent figure of old Daddy\nMarcum, and across his lap shone a Winchester. Steve was pointing at it,\nhis grim face radiant; the old man's toothless mouth was grinning, and\nhis sharp black eyes were snapping up at him.\n\n\"Hit's yourn, I tell ye,\" said Steve again. \"I aimed jes to lend it\nto ye, but ye've saved me frum gittin' killed, mebbe, 'n' hit's yourn\nnow--yourn, boy, fer keeps.\"\n\nSteve was holding the gun out to him now. The smooth cold touch of the\npolished barrel thrilled him. It made everything for an instant clear\nagain, and feeling weak, Isom sat down on the bed, gripping the treasure\nin both trembling hands. On one side of him some one was repeating\nSteve's plan of attack. Old Brayton's cabin was nearly opposite, but\nthey would go up the river, cross above the mill, and ride back. The\nnight was cloudy, but they would have the moonlight now and then for the\nclimb up the mountain. They would creep close, and when the moon was hid\nthey would run in and get old Brayton alive, if possible. Then--the rest\nwas with Steve.\n\nAcross the room he could hear Steve telling the three new-comers, with\nan occasional curse, about Crump's blind, and how he knew that old\nBrayton was hiring Crump.\n\n\"Old Steve's meaner 'n Eli,\" he said to himself, and a flame of the old\nhate surged up from the fire of temptation in his heart. Steve Marcum\nwas his best friend; Steve had shielded him. The boy had promised to\njoin him against old Brayton, and here was the Winchester, brand-new, to\nbind his word.\n\n\"Git ready, boys; git ready.\"\n\nIt was Steve's voice, and in Isom's ears the preacher's voice rang after\nit. Again that blinding mist before his eyes, and the boy brushed at\nit irritably. He could see the men buckling cartridge-belts, but he sat\nstill. Two or three men were going out. Daddy Marcum was leaning on a\nchair at the door, looking eagerly at each man as he passed.\n\n\"Hain't ye goin', Isom?\"\n\nSomebody was standing before him twirling a rifle on its butt, a boy\nnear Isom's age. The whirling gun made him dizzy.\n\n\"Stop it!\" he cried, angrily. Old Daddy Marcum was answering the boy's\nquestion from the door.\n\n\"Isom goin'?\" he piped, proudly. \"I reckon he air. Whar's yer belt, boy?\nGit ready. Git ready.\"\n\nIsom rose then--he could not answer sitting down--and caught at a bedpost\nwith one hand, while he fumbled at his throat with the other.\n\n\"I hain't goin'.\"\n\nSteve heard at the door, and whirled around. Daddy Marcum was tottering\nacross the floor, with one bony hand uplifted.\n\n\"You're a coward!\" The name stilled every sound. Isom, with eyes afire,\nsprang at the old man to strike, but somebody caught his arm and forced\nhim back to the bed.\n\n\"Shet up, dad,\" said Steve, angrily, looking sharply into Isom's face.\n\"Don't ye see the boy's sick? He needn't go ef he don't want to. Time to\nstart, boys.\"\n\nThe tramp of heavy boots started across the puncheon floor and porch\nagain. Isom could hear Steve's orders outside; the laughs and jeers and\ncurses of the men as they mounted their horses; he heard the cavalcade\npass through the gate, the old man's cackling good-by; then the horses'\nhoofs going down the mountain, and Daddy Marcum's hobbling step on the\nporch again. He was standing in the middle of the floor, full in the\nfirelight, when the old man reached the threshold--standing in a trance,\nwith a cartridge-belt in his hand.\n\n\"Good fer you, Isom--\"\n\nThe cry was apologetic, and stopped short.\n\n\"The critter's fersakcn,\" he quavered, and cowed by the boy's strange\nlook, the old man shrank away from him along the wall. But Isom seemed\nneither to see nor hear. He caught up his rifle, and, wavering an\ninstant, tossed it with the belt on the bed and ran out the door. The\nold man followed, dumb with amazement.\n\n\"Isom!\" he called, getting his wits and his tongue at last. \"Hyeh's yer\ngun! Come back, I tell ye! You've fergot yer gun! Isom! Isom!\"\n\nThe voice piped shrilly out into the darkness, and piped back without\nanswer.\n\nA steep path, dangerous even by day, ran snakelike from the cabin down\nto the water's edge. It was called Isom's path after that tragic night.\nNo mountaineer went down it thereafter without a firm faith that only by\nthe direct help of Heaven could the boy, in his flight down through the\ndark, have reached the river and the other side alive. The path dropped\nfrom ledge to ledge, and ran the brink of precipices and chasms. In a\ndozen places the boy crashed through the undergrowth from one slippery\nfold to the next below, catching at roots and stones, slipping past\ndeath a score of times, and dropping on till a flood of yellow light\nlashed the gloom before him. Just there the river was most narrow; the\nnose of a cliff swerved the current sharply across, and on the other\nside an eddy ran from it up stream. These earthly helps he had, and he\nneeded them.\n\nThere had been a rain-storm, and the waves swept him away like\nthistle-down, and beat back at him as he fought through them and stood\nchoked and panting on the other shore. He did not dare stop to rest.\nThe Marcums, too, had crossed the river up at the ford by this time, and\nwere galloping towards him; and Isom started on and up. When he reached\nthe first bench of the spur the moon was swinging over Thunderstruck\nKnob. The clouds broke as he climbed; strips of radiant sky showed\nbetween the rolling masses, and the mountain above was light and dark\nin quick succession. He had no breath when he reached the ledge that ran\nbelow old Steve's cabin, and flinging one arm above it, he fell through\nsheer exhaustion. The cabin was dark as the clump of firs behind it;\nthe inmates were unsuspecting; and Steve Marcum and his men were not\nfar below. A rumbling started under him, while he lay there and grew\nfaint--the rumble of a stone knocked from the path by a horse's hoof.\nIsom tried to halbo, but his voice stopped in a whisper, and he\npainfully drew himself upon the rock, upright under the bright moon.\nA quick oath of warning came then--it was Crump's shrill voice in the\nBrayton cabin--and Isom stumbled forward with both hands thrown up and\na gasping cry at his lips. One flash came through a port-hole of the\ncabin. A yell broke on the night--Crump's cry again--and the boy swayed\nacross the rock, and falling at the brink, dropped with a limp struggle\nout of sight.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nTHE news of Isom's fate reached the miller by way of Hazlan before the\nnext noon. Several men in the Brayton cabin had recognized the boy in\nthe moonlight. At daybreak they found bloodstains on the ledge and on a\nnarrow shelf a few feet farther down. Isom had slipped from one to the\nother, they said, and in his last struggle had rolled over into Dead\nCreek, and had been swept into the Cumberland.\n\nIt was Crump who had warned the Braytons. Nobody ever knew how he had\nlearned Steve Marcum's purpose. And old Brayton on his guard and in his\nown cabin was impregnable. So the Marcums, after a harmless fusillade,\nhad turned back cursing. Mocking shouts followed after them,\npistol-shots, even the scraping of a fiddle and shuffling on the ledge.\nBut they kept on, cursing across the river and back to Daddy Marcum,\nwho was standing in the porch, peering for them through the dawn, with a\nstory to tell about Isom.\n\n\"The critter was teched in the head,\" the old man said, and this was\nwhat the Braytons, too, believed. But Steve Marcum, going to search for\nIsom's body next day, gave old Gabe another theory. He told the miller\nhow Daddy Marcum had called Isom a coward, and Steve said the boy had\ngone ahead to prove he was no coward.\n\n\"He had mighty leetle call to prove it to me. Think o' his takin' ole\nBrayton all by hisself!\" he said, with a look at the yellow, heaving\nCumberland. \"'N', Lord! think o' his swimmin' that river in the dark!\"\n\nOld Gabe asked a question fiercely then and demanded the truth, and\nSteve told him about the hand-to-hand fight on the mountain-side, about\nyoung Jasper's treachery, and how the boy, who was watching the fight,\nfired just in time to save Rome. It made all plain at last--Rome's and\nSteve's denials, Isom's dinning on that one theme,' and why the boy\ncould not go to Rome and face Martha, with her own blood on his hands.\nIsom's true motive, too, was plain, and the miller told it brokenly to\nSteve, who rode away with a low whistle to tell it broadcast, and left\nthe old man rocking his body like a woman.\n\nAn hour later he rode back at a gallop to tell old Gabe to search the\nriver bank below the mill. He did not believe Isom dead. It was just his\nfeelin', he said, and one fact, that nobody else thought important--the\nBrayton canoe was gone.\n\n\"Ef he was jus' scamped by a ball,\" said Steve, \"you kin bet he tuk the\nboat, 'n' he's down thar in the bushes somewhar now waitin' fer dark.\"\n\nAnd about dusk, sure enough, old Gabe, wandering hopefully through the\nthicket below the mill, stumbled over the canoe stranded in the bushes.\nIn the new mud were the tracks of a boy's bare feet leading into the\nthicket, and the miller made straight for home. When he opened his door\nhe began to shake as if with palsy. A figure was seated on the hearth\nagainst the chimney, and the firelight was playing over the face and\nhair. The lips were parted, and the head hung limply to the breast. The\nclothes were torn to rags, and one shoulder was bare. Through the upper\nflesh of it and close to the neck was an ugly burrow clotted with blood.\nThe boy was asleep.\n\nThree nights later, in Hazlan, Sherd Raines told the people of Isom's\nflight down the mountain, across the river, and up the steep to save his\nlife by losing it. Before he was done, one gray-headed figure pressed\nfrom the darkness on one side and stood trembling under the dips. It was\nold Steve Brayton, who had fired from the cabin at Isom, and dropping\nhis Winchester, he stumbled forward with the butt of his pistol held out\nto Raines. A Marcum appeared on the other side with the muzzle of his\nWinchester down. Raines raised both hands then and imperiously called on\nevery man who had a weapon to come forward and give it up. Like children\nthey came, Marcums and Braytons, piling their arms on the rock before\nhim, shaking hands right and left, and sitting together on the mourner's\nbench.\n\nOld Brayton was humbled thereafter. He wanted to shake hands with Steve\nMarcum and make friends. But Steve grinned, and said, \"Not yit,\" and\nwent off into the bushes. A few days later he went to Hazlan of his own\naccord and gave up his gun to Raines. He wouldn't shake hands with old\nBrayton, he said, nor with any other man who would hire another man\nto do his \"killin';\" but he promised to fight no more, and he kept his\nword.\n\nA flood followed on New Year's day. Old Gabe's canoe--his second\ncanoe--was gone, and a Marcum and a Brayton worked side by side at the\nmill hollowing out another. The miller sat at the door whittling.\n\n\"'Pears like folks is havin' bad luck with thar dugouts.\" said Brayton.\n\"Some trifin' cuss took old Steve Brayton's jes to cross the river,\nwithout the grace to tie it to the bank, let 'lone takin' it back. I've\nheard ez how Aunt Sally Day's boy Ben, who was a-fishin' that evenin,\nsays ez how he seed Isom's harnt a-floatin' across the river in it,\nwithout techin' a paddle.\"\n\nThe Marcum laughed. \"Idgits is thick over hyeh,\" he said. \"Ben's\na-gittin' wuss sence Isom was killed. Yes, I recollect Gabe hyeh lost a\ncanoe jus' atter a flood more'n a year ago, when Rome Stetson 'n' Marthy\nLewallen went a-gallivantin' out' n the mountains together. Hyeh's\nanother flood, 'n' old Gabe's dugout gone agin.\" The miller raised\na covert glance of suspicion from under his hat, but the Marcum was\nlaughing. \"Ye oughter put a trace-chain on this un,\" he added. \"A rope\ngits rotten in the water, 'n' a tide is mighty apt to break it.\"\n\nOld Gabe said that \"mebbe that wus so,\" but he had no chain to waste; he\nreckoned a rope was strong enough, and he started home.\n\n\"Old Gabe don't seem to keer much now 'bout Isom,\" said the Brayton.\n\"Folks say he tuk on so awful at fust that hit looked like he wus goin'\ncrazy. He's gittin' downright peert again. Hello!\"\n\nBud Vickers was carrying a piece of news down to Hazlan, and he pulled\nup his horse to deliver it. Aunt Sally Day's dog had been seen playing\nin the Breathitt road with the frame of a human foot. Some boys had\nfound not far away, behind a withered \"blind,\" a heap of rags and bones.\nEli Crump had not been seen in Hazlan since the night of the Marcum\nraid.\n\n\"Well, ef hit was Eli,\" said the Brayton, waggishly, \"we're all goin' to\nbe saved. Eli's case 'll come fust, an' ef thar's only one Jedgment Day,\nthe Lord 'll nuver git to us.\"\n\nThe three chuckled, while old Gabe sat dreaming at his gate. The boy had\nlain quiet during the weeks of his getting well, absorbed in one aim--to\nkeep hidden until he was strong enough to get to Rome. On the last night\nthe miller had raised one of the old hearth-stones and had given him the\nhire of many years. At daybreak the lad drifted away. Now old Gabe was\nfollowing him down the river and on to the dim mountain line, where the\nboy's figure was plain for a moment against the sky, and then was lost.\n\nThe clouds in the west had turned gray and the crescent had broken\nthe gloom of the woods into shadows when the miller rose. One star was\ncoming over Black Mountain from the east. It was the Star of Bethlehem\nto old Gabe; and, starlike on both sides of the Cumberland, answering\nfires from cabin hearths were giving back its message at last.\n\n\"Thar hain't nothin' to hender Rome 'n' Marthy now. I nuver knowed\nanybody to stay 'way from these mount'ins ef he could git back; 'n' Isom\nsaid he'd fetch 'em. Thar hain't nothin' to hender--nothin' now.\"\n\nOn the stoop of the cabin the miller turned to look again, and then on\nthe last Stetson the door was closed.\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Stetson, by John Fox Jr.\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":" \n# How to Create Chemistry with Anyone\n**Other Books by Leil Lowndes**\n\n_How to Talk to Anyone:  \n92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships_\n\n_How to Instantly Connect with Anyone:  \n96 More Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships_\n\n_How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You_\n\n_Good-Bye to Shy: 85 ShyBusters that Work!_\n\n_Undercover Sex Signals_\n\n_How to Be a People Magnet:  \nFinding Friends\u2014and Lovers\u2014and Keeping Them for Life_\n\n# How to  \nCreate  \nChemistry  \nwith Anyone\n\n**75 Ways to Spark It Fast . . . and Make It Last**\n\nLeil Lowndes\n\nCopyright \u00a9 2013 by Leil Lowndes\n\nAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02210.\n\nEditorial production by Lori Hobkirk at the Book Factory.  \nSet in 11.5 point Minion Pro by the Perseus Books Group.\n\nCataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.  \nFirst Da Capo Press edition 2013  \nISBN 978-0-7382-1612-6 (e-book)\n\nPublished by Da Capo Press  \nA Member of the Perseus Books Group  \nwww.dacapopress.com\n\nDa Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com.\n\n10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1\n\n## Contents\n\n**PROLOGUE**\n\n**What Just Happened to Me?**\n\n **_How Fast Does Chemistry Happen?_**\n\n **_Does Timing Count?_**\n\n **_What's Happening to My Brain?_**\n\n **_Who Discovered Why We Feel Chemistry?_**\n\n **_But I Thought Chemistry Is Either There . . . Or It Isn't_**\n\n**Chemistry Makes the World Go 'Round**\n\n **_Why Did It Happen?_**\n\n **_Are You the Master or the Slave of Love?_**\n\n**Why Are We So Naive About Love?**\n\n **_Skull and Crossbones_**\n\n **_Now the Good News_**\n\n**A Few Important Housekeeping Notes (Don't Skip These!)**\n\nCHAPTER 1\n\n**LOVE IN LIMBIC LAND**\n\n**Where Love Lives**\n\n **_Your Amygdala Nickname_ : Ms. Emotions**\n\n **_Your Hippocampus Nickname_ : Mr. Memory**\n\n **_Your Hypothalamus Nickname_ : Mr. Action**\n\n **_Your Caudate Nucleus and Environs Nickname_ : Pleasure Island**\n\n **_Your Prefrontal Cortex Nickname_ : The Professor**\n\n**The Six Sexy Chemicals of Love**\n\n **_Dopamine_**\n\n **_Serotonin_**\n\n **_Testosterone_**\n\n **_Estrogen_**\n\n **_Oxytocin_**\n\n **_Vasopressin_**\n\nCHAPTER 2\n\n**CHEMISTRY AT FIRST SIGHT**\n\n**\"All Men Are Animals\"**\n\n**\"All Women Are Gold Diggers\"**\n\n**Huntresses, Cut the Animals Some Slack**\n\n **_Sex Scrambles His Brain_**\n\n **_Blame Mom and Co._**\n\n**Hunters, Cut the Gold Diggers Some Slack**\n\n**What Sparks a Hunter's Chemistry\u2014and Why**\n\n **_Babies \"R\" Us_**\n\n **_Let's Break It Down to Body Parts. Guys Do._**\n\n**What Sparks a Huntress's Chemistry\u2014and Why**\n\n**Planet Earth's Colossal Unisex Chemistry Sparker**\n\n **_Cliff Notes_**\n\nCHAPTER 3\n\n**HOW TO SPARK CHEMISTRY TO ATTRACT**\n\n**Forget the Golden Rule When Trying to Spark Chemistry**\n\n**Fight, Flight, or Chemistry at First Sight?**\n\n **_Get Wise to the Geisha in Every Woman_**\n\n **_Huntresses, Fight Your Instincts_**\n\n **_Eye Contact is Not Unisex_**\n\n**Hunters' Fishing Trip**\n\n **_Your Actions Speak Louder Than Looks_**\n\n **_Smiling Is Not Just Smiling_**\n\n **_Does She Really Care What I Wear?_**\n\n **_Why Coordination Counts_**\n\n**Huntresses' Fishing Trip**\n\n **_What Went Wrong?_**\n\n **_How the \"Beauty Challenged\" Can Ace the \"Tens\"_**\n\n **_A Hunter's Brain Is Like a Light Switch with a Delayed Connection_**\n\n **_Hunting Gear for Trapping First-Class Quarry_**\n\n **_Forget Fashion, Think Flirtation_**\n\n**Sizzling Sparkers for Serious Huntresses**\n\n **_One Huntress's Triple-X Tip_**\n\n **_Erotic Truth Is Stranger than Fiction_**\n\nCHAPTER 4\n\n**HOW TO SPARK CYBER CHEMISTRY**\n\n**The Successful Online Hunter**\n\n **_Hunters' Clothes_**\n\n **_Hunters' Background_**\n\n**The Successful Online Huntress**\n\n **_Huntresses' Clothes_**\n\n **_Huntresses' Background_**\n\n **_Number of Photos and Poses_**\n\n**A Devious Digital Tip for Both Sexes**\n\n**Your Online Name**\n\n**Your First Message**\n\n **_Who Is Your Quarry_ Really _Interested In?_**\n\n **_Talk About What You Read Between the Lines_**\n\n **_A Beautiful Tip from an Unsightly Man_**\n\nCHAPTER 5\n\n**HOW TO SPARK CHEMISTRY IN YOUR FIRST CONVERSATION**\n\n**Chemistry Sparking \"Pickup Lines.\" (Hunters, Bite Your Tongue!)**\n\n**What Every Woman Needs to Know\u2014But Few Do**\n\n **_Guys Just Don't Get It!_**\n\n**The Case for Female Proceptivity**\n\n **_Huntresses' Pickup Lines (Try a Few\u2014He'll Love It!)_**\n\n **_But Won't He Think I'm Being Aggressive?_**\n\n **_The Physical Side of \"Hello\"_**\n\n**Spark Your Quarry During the First Conversation**\n\n **_The Rapid Transit System Called the Female Brain_**\n\n **_She Reads Between the Lines\u2014So Talk Between the Lines_**\n\n **_A Pivotal Question_**\n\n **_Today the Who-Impresses-Whom Rules Are Reversed_**\n\n**Huntress, Are You One in a Million, or One Among a Million?**\n\n **_Begin the Bait and Switch_**\n\n **_Double Name Talk_**\n\n **_So Far, So Good_**\n\nCHAPTER 6\n\n**HOW TO SPARK CHEMISTRY ON DATES**\n\n**Hunters, \"Sell\" Her on the Date Like a Pro**\n\n**Crack the Old Hard-to-Get Chestnut**\n\n**How to Get the Date without Asking**\n\n**The Most Chemistry-Sparking First Date**\n\n **_The First Half of the Date_**\n\n **_The Second Half of the Date_**\n\n **_Eating Sparkers_**\n\n**Play Games with Your Quarry**\n\n**Chemistry-Sparking Conversation on Every Date**\n\n **_He Says\/She Says, What?_**\n\n **_Hunters, Follow Your Quarry's Rhythm_**\n\n **_Huntresses, Don't Fill in the Blanks_**\n\n **_Give a \"You Fit My LoveMap\" Feeling_**\n\n **_So . . . How Should I Listen?_**\n\n**I Want a Man Who Makes Me Laugh**\n\n **_What Makes Huntresses Laugh_**\n\n **_What Makes Hunters Laugh_**\n\nCHAPTER 7\n\n**HOW TO SPARK CHEMISTRY FOR SEX**\n\n**Huntresses, How Soon Should You Have Sex?**\n\n**Why Sex Blows Your Mind**\n\n **_Huntresses, Sex Has an Even Bigger Effect on You!_**\n\n **_Hunters, Hints for You on First-Date Sex_**\n\n**Foreplay Begins Way Long Before the Bedroom**\n\n **_Set the Stage for Sex_**\n\n **_When It's Time to Get Naked_**\n\n **_Oral Sex (It's Not What You're Thinking)_**\n\n **_The Educational Value of Daytime Soaps_**\n\n **_\"Oh, Great, How Do I Find Out What She Really Wants?\"_**\n\n**Why She Needs All That Stuff First**\n\n **_Squares versus Swirls_**\n\n **_Women Don't Come with Pull-Down Menus and Online Help_**\n\n **_Who Stole the G-Spot?_**\n\n**Huntresses Are Naturals**\n\n **_Go Where Women Aren't Allowed_**\n\n **_Better Yet, Get It Straight from the Horse's Mouth_**\n\n**Why Won't He Cuddle After Sex?**\n\n**Do You Decide Who Turns You On\u2014or Does Mother Nature?**\n\n **_If the First Kiss Stinks, Forget About It_**\n\n **_Huntresses on the Pill, Read This Carefully_**\n\nCHAPTER 8\n\n**HOW TO SPARK CHEMISTRY FOR A RELATIONSHIP**\n\n**Mars and Venus Told You the _What_ , Now the _Why_**\n\n**The Ball of Yarn vs. the Stack of Boxes**\n\n **_His Box Brain_**\n\n **_Her Yarn-Ball Brain_**\n\n **_P.S. for Huntresses_**\n\n**What Are You Thinking About?**\n\n**How Do You Feel About That?**\n\n **_Why He's Tongue-Tied_**\n\n **_Learn a Very Different Body Language_**\n\n**Shall We Talk It Out, or Slug It Out?**\n\nCHAPTER 9\n\n**HOW TO SPARK CHEMISTRY FOR FALLING IN LOVE**\n\n**Is This Quarry a Keeper?**\n\n **_Why Is He Afraid to Commit?_**\n\n**I See Life That Way Too!**\n\n**How Do You Define \"Togetherness\"?**\n\n**\"In Sickness and in Health\"**\n\n**The Magnificent Twenty-First-Century Mantra\u2014Personal Growth**\n\n**\"Vet\" Your Quarry**\n\n**May I Have a Word with Young Lovers?**\n\n **_Don't Marry Until You're Myelinated (Parents, Don't Miss This!)_**\n\n **_Shall We Make a Federal Case Out of It?_**\n\nCHAPTER 10\n\n**HOW TO SPARK CHEMISTRY FOR A LIFETIME OF LOVE**\n\n**Making Beautiful Beginnings Last Forever**\n\n**The Two-Year Itch**\n\n**A Little Mouse in the Meadow Holds a Secret of Togetherness**\n\n**How to Spark Long-Lasting Chemistry Anywhere, Anytime**\n\n **_Time Out, Sports Fans_**\n\n **_What If I'm Ticked and Don't Feel Like Touching Right Now?_**\n\n**Couples Who Play Together Stay Together**\n\n**Laughing Is Just Another Way to Say \"I Love You\"**\n\n**What About Long-Term Sizzling Sex?**\n\n **_Here's the Good News\u2014No, the Great News!_**\n\n **_Why \"Quickies\" Count_**\n\n **_Turnabout Is Fair Foreplay_**\n\n**Everyone Has Something They Need to Hear**\n\n**Hunters, _Why_ Her Feeling Loved Creates Lasting Chemistry**\n\n**Huntresses, _Why_ His Feeling Needed Creates Lasting Chemistry**\n\n**\"To What Do You Credit Your Lifelong Love?\"**\n\n**What to Expect When You're Expecting Lasting Love**\n\n**_References_**\n\n**_About the Author_**\n\n## Prologue\n\nLove. The word is but a pale shadow of the ecstasy it brings us. We spend years, sometimes a lifetime longing for it. If we're lucky, we find it\u2014and pray it lasts. But if it doesn't, we seek it again and again. Face it\u2014we're hooked!\n\nCupid's quiver contains chemicals that bathe the brain and compel us to act in ways we can't fathom. When you have finished reading _How to Create Chemistry with Anyone_ , though, you will. You'll know about love in a way that very few people currently do. And to the extent it is possible, you will be able to Spark romantic Chemistry with the man or woman of your choice.\n\nYou will also discover how and why nature injects you with different chemicals at various phases in your relationship and throughout your life. Finally, you will learn how to work with the changing Chemistry and create bonding chemicals so you both can \"live happily ever after\"\u2014not just \"until divorce do us part.\" Your new knowledge will not banish Cupid to the greeting card aisle, but it will help keep him in your life forever.\n\n### What Just Happened to Me?\n\nYou've felt it. Your heart pounds like a jackhammer, your tongue feels like sandpaper, your palms turn into a waterfall, and your words mysteriously start missing syllables. \"Hello\" becomes the hardest word in the English language.\n\nBut as your vital signs return to normal and a semblance of rationality sets in, you anxiously ask yourself if this person you just met felt the same Chemistry for you. If not, unrequited potential lovers used to think nothing could be done except sulk, swear, cry, or kick the cat. They were wrong, as you'll soon learn.\n\nWhy does this particular person blow you away like a tornado through a trailer camp, whereas with others, it's ennui at first sight? Because, unbeknownst to you, buried deeply in your brain, you have the ability to size someone up instantly. This skill has strong evolutionary roots, dating from when an instantaneous \"fight or flight\" decision was a matter of life or death.\n\nThroughout the centuries our crystal-ball capabilities have evolved with us. Just as DNA experts can tell a lot about a person from a sliver of his toenail, human beings have developed an incredible subconscious capability to sense whether someone will be fun to be with, fulfill their needs, and match a million other qualities on a very subjective laundry list of longings.\n\nYou've been setting the stage for love all through your life, just waiting for the star of the show to walk on the set. Your experiences from birth to the second you picked up this book draw a chart of the type of person you would\u2014or even could\u2014fall in love with. This map\u2014your \"LoveMap\" as it is called\u2014bears the mark of your unique individuality and can be specific down to details of physiognomy, personality, intellect, ambition, sense of humor, and hundreds of etceteras. A very new field called \"interpersonal neurobiology\" also shows how your brain constantly rewires itself through your relationships. Even a brief dalliance with someone you'd never want to see again could tweak your LoveMap forever.\n\nBy far the largest part of this map was charted in childhood before you were age five. If you were fortunate, you were surrounded by people you loved and who loved you, primarily your relatives. Their proximity programmed a tendency in you to feel Chemistry with someone who looks like she could be from the same gene pool or the type of man who was around when you were a child. Have you ever noticed how many couples look alike?\n\nThe influences on this diagram of who you could love ranges from milliseconds ago to millions of years before. To complicate matters further, your memories get rewritten every time they are invoked. Is it any wonder that Chemistry is confusing?\n\n#### _How Fast Does Chemistry Happen?_\n\nHow much time does it take to feel Chemistry? Compare the speed to a big ruckus in movie theaters back in the 1950s concerning subliminal advertising. Clever Madison Avenue types flashed words like \"Hungry?\" \"Get popcorn!\" and product names like \"Lipton Tea\" on the screen for less than a thousandth of a second during a movie. The messages flickered too fast for the audience to read. In fact, moviegoers reported they hadn't seen anything. But theaters sold a lot more popcorn on those particular days!\n\nUnbeknownst to the audience, the \"unseen\" flashes on the screen not only made them hungry or thirsty; it also told them specifically what brands they wanted. Previously, moviegoers who used to order just tea now requested it by brand\u2014Lipton, of course. Is it any surprise that neuroimaging shows you feel that Spark in a fifth of a second?\n\n#### _Does Timing Count?_\n\nUnquestionably. It could have a lot to do with other events happening in life when you meet. Perhaps he is in love with someone else or maybe she just suffered a tragic loss. You might find yourself in conversation with a smart, sensitive, stunning, sensuous single someone who would be the perfect partner for you. This spectacular specimen of humanity blows you away instantly, but she is stifling a yawn. Or he is glancing over your shoulder for someone he'd rather talk to.\n\n\"What's wrong with me?\" you scream at yourself between frantic heartbeats. Nothing. It's simply that thousands of other current emotional, physical, personal, or professional issues could close off his or her receptivity to you. Another time, another place, you might meet, and the magnetic field would make the two of you want to fall into each other's arms and bond together forever. Not only that, but for women it depends on the time of the month you meet  (More about that later.) Yes, timing counts.\n\n#### _What's Happening to My Brain?_\n\nBefore you spotted this special person the one hundred billion nerve cells in your head were, relatively speaking, in what Cognitive Science calls \"resting potential.\" But of course, they weren't really resting. The comparatively lethargic neurons were tediously _neurotransmitting_ (we'll call it \"texting\") messages to each other about the weather, the boring party, the tasteless snacks, the whatever.\n\nThen _KA-POW_! When your eyes spot this special someone across the crowded room, bar, bus station, McDonald's, or wherever, it's neurons gone wild! They hysterically contact their colleague neurons who live in other neighborhoods of the brain across tiny rivers called _synapses_ to tell them the electrifying news. That's what neurologists call _action potential\u2014_ and what we call _Wow!_\n\nPractically all of the techniques in the first sections of this book tell you how to create a neuronal response in someone to get feelgood chemicals, primarily one called _dopamine_. gushing into a brain region that Cognitive Science calls your _pleasure_ or _reward center_. This response is so incredible that your target person gets a high, chemically similar to cocaine.\n\n#### _Who Discovered Why We Feel Chemistry?_\n\nAs you are reading this, neuroscientists are breaking new ground tracking the galaxy of nerve cells in your brain that are wired together with a million billion connections. Obviously, romance was not their motivation. These pioneering professionals' goal was far more significant, saving lives and preserving human physical and mental health. However, seekers of love benefit greatly by grasping their extraordinary contributions. We can now understand\u2014and, to a certain extent, manipulate\u2014the chemicals that marinate his brain or flow through her body when you meet. Let's call this person your \"Quarry.\" And you are the \"Hunter\" or \"Huntress\" of hearts.\n\nIt is not only the cognitive community we must thank for unraveling the mysteries of romantic Chemistry; let's also tip our hats to evolutionary biologists and psychologists who further explore why we make such sudden and sometimes puzzling choices in relationships. These fields hold the key to why our neurons go berserk spotting one person and, comparatively speaking, hardly lift their sleepy heads for another.\n\n#### _But I Thought Chemistry Is Either There . . . Or It Isn't_\n\nMost people would agree with you. There are, of course, certain elements that, no matter what you say or do, can't change a thing when it comes to creating Chemistry. For instance, you can't change your or your potential partner's face, body, genotype, phenotype, or DNA. Additionally, by the time you are ready for love and sex, scillions of unconscious associations to pain or pleasure are etched in both your brains: How his stepdad dealt with him. How kindergarten schoolmates treated her. Who he previously loved. Who she hated. The instant you come into sight, all of the \"whos,\" \"whats,\" and \"whys\" of your potential partner's previous relationships resurrect neuronal activity from the past.\n\n\"Whew, if it's so complicated,\" you're thinking, \"I can't possibly make my Quarry feel Chemistry for me.\" Sure, and people once thought, \"The world is flat,\" \"Heavier objects fall faster than light,\" and \"All planets revolve around the earth.\" Scientists have tossed those three myths into the trash like dirty Kleenex. And the first just landed on top of them. Chemistry responds to very specific stimuli, many of which you _can_ affect.\n\nI do want to make one thing perfectly clear before we start, however: You can never have 100 percent control over a person's chemical reaction to you due to your Quarry's previous experiences, brain structure, and other factors listed above. But that's only part of the story. Mother Nature plays an equally large if not even bigger role in romance. You're going to learn how to be her coconspirator at the beginning of a relationship to capture your Quarry. Then you'll learn how to break away from the common forces that can demolish Chemistry between couples and destroy lasting love.\n\nYou are fortunate to be the first generation to benefit from fresh insights of Cognitive Science and the relatively new field called Developmental Evolution. Understanding what's in your Quarry's brain and how it develops will permit you to be more than just a pawn in nature's game. To a certain extent you can create specific chemically based emotions in the man or woman of your choice. The slight peek into neuroscience and new discoveries in evolutionary psychology in this book will give you further understanding of why and how you can create Chemistry and turn it into lasting love.\n\n### Chemistry Makes the World Go 'Round\n\nThey say \"Love makes the world go 'round.\" But just as accurate is \"Chemistry makes the world go 'round.\" Why? Because feeling Chemistry with someone is the precursor to passion, which leads to love, which leads to commitment. And that can lead to contentment, children, companionship, and many of life's greatest joys.\n\nWhat do you think? Is feeling Chemistry and then falling in love a decision? A destiny? A choice? Some say you _decide_ to fall in love. Sure, that's as easy as _deciding_ to stop breathing or cherishing your children. Others say it's _destiny_. Well, move to an archipelago in Antarctica and wait for your _destined_ one to come along. Many people think it's a _choice_. Of course, just like _choosing_ not to eat, drink, or sleep.\n\nNeurologists have proven that it is something else entirely. It is a _condition_ that involves neurons, neurotransmitters, hormones, receptors, and circuits in your brain. They define \"being in love\" as\u2014get ready for a long sentence\u2014an \"elevated activity in the brain pathways which cause feelings of euphoria, strong motivation, and heightened energy which can induce sleeplessness, loss of appetite, and obsessive thinking about the beloved.\"\n\nThat doesn't sound like much fun! And how crass to reduce it all to a rush of chemicals gushing through three pounds of gray slimy sponge under your scalp. Nobody wants to hear that, least of all me.\n\nWhen humans first began to explore the sun, some people worried that God would be pushed aside. Likewise, some now fear discovering that love is simply a \"condition\" will make it less magic. Not at all! Understanding what love is just makes us a lot smarter in our choice of partner and teaches us how to keep that love alive.\n\nBesides, who says a condition has to be crass or that a motivation system can't feel like magic? We know what it is. It's _love_ , the greatest happiness known to humankind, and it has no parallel in human experience. Skeptics aside, love truly can last a lifetime and get better and better. But only if you recognize the powerful neurological, chemical, and evolutionary forces controlling it.\n\n#### _Why Did It Happen?_\n\nDoes it really matter? The two of you fell in love, and life will never be the same. You have found \"the one\"\u2014the one you always knew would come along. Early love is the most exhilarating, extraordinary, ecstatic, and unforgettable part of the relationship. Your brain is brimming over with the intoxicating chemicals we'll soon meet called _dopamine, serotonin_ , and incipient _oxytocin_ and _vasopressin_. Hormones are at their highest levels ever. _Testosterone_ and _estrogen_ can hardly contain themselves. You and your lover want to cling tightly together and never part. \"It's delightful, it's delicious, it's delectable, it's delirious,\" Mother Nature is urging. \"Let yourself go!\" This period is the best part\u2014at least until the beauty of long-lasting lifetime love sets in.\n\nSo you cast off in the Love Boat with carefree abandon. But is it true that the course of true love never did run smooth? Sometimes it seems that way. Often, when embarking on a love affair, you think you are in control. When you first step into the Love Boat, it's like a sailboat on a calm sea on a sunny morning. Everything is beautiful. All's right with the world. You are sailing to Happily-Ever-After Land. An occasional gust of wind sweeps across the sea, and you break into song as it tingles your skin. Then the wind picks up, and that makes it even more exciting. You laugh out loud as you adjust the sails. The boat is a bit rocky, but you have faith it's propelling you toward ecstasy.\n\nSuddenly the wind changes and you fear you may be going off course. What happened? What went wrong? The tempest makes you all the more desperate to get back on track. Your heart beats faster. But each time you think you've regained control, a bigger wind comes up.\n\nNow there's an uncomfortable chill in the air, and the waves are rocky. Threatening clouds race across the sky and it starts to rain. The stabilizer cracks, and you desperately struggle to keep the boat afloat in the downpour. Soon darkness surrounds you, and you are helplessly tossed around. You are caught in the perfect storm. Will the Love Boat reach \"happily ever after?\" Or will it sink? It's up to you and how you'll use your new wisdom.\n\n#### _Are You the Master or the Slave of Love?_\n\nIf only we could all be as wise in love as an Italian captain of a cruise ship, whom I'll introduce you to later, was in his profession. Captain Giorgio Accornero was once offered the command of a 150,000-ton tanker. He refused. The flabbergasted shipowner asked, \"But why? No captain has ever refused before. It is a great honor to be the master of such a large ship.\"\n\nCaptain Accornero replied, \"Because, sir, I want to control the ship. I don't want her to control me.\"\n\nThe problem is that most people let the Love Boat master them rather than the other way around. The only way to be in control of the relationship is to admit that, in addition to magic, love is indeed a condition, a blissful one that we want to stay afloat forever.\n\nJust as knowing how to create rain, feed animals, and nurture plants doesn't make the world less wondrous, likewise, wisdom about creating, feeding, and nurturing Chemistry doesn't make it less magnificent. In fact, knowledge about love gives you the ability to make love stronger and last longer.\n\n### Why Are We So Naive About Love?\n\nOther than those life-sustaining needs like air, water, and shelter, I can think of no other need except love that begins at birth and lasts until we die. Yet I am shocked\u2014no, stunned\u2014by how little people know about this exquisite emotion that we idolize in music, film, and poetry, not to mention personally throughout our lives. We live for it. Some have died for it. In the song, \"Oh Love,\" Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood sang, \"You're the simple truth. And you're the biggest mystery.\" Up until recently, that it was. Happily, however, love is no longer a mystery, and we're learning more about it every day.\n\nFor centuries philosophers, psychiatrists, and way too many lay people scratched their heads, made assumptions, and spouted theories about this phenomenon. Linguists, every bit as befuddled as the rest of them, wound up giving it a then-meaningless, cop-out name: \"Chemistry.\" Little did they know how right they were!\n\nPerhaps the wordsmiths were inspired by Aldous Huxley, who, in the early 1900s, wrote, \"In one way or another, all our experiences are chemically conditioned.\" In his day, thanks to visual tools like the telescope, scientists could explore outer space. But the astronomically closer inner space, the brain, was beyond the reach of the best of them. How ironic. They had the equipment to view planets light years away but not the tools to travel a few centimeters in the other direction. Today, however, extraordinary instruments like _f_ MRI, CT, PET scanners, and a few other brain-imaging devices with mysterious acronyms permit cognitive neuroscientists to examine precisely what's going on in that wrinkly gray tofu between your ears.\n\nThe relatively new field of Cognitive Science\u2014defined as the interdisciplinary study of the mind embracing philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology\u2014is making phenomenal progress in putting pieces of the puzzle together. Although there are still unanswered questions\u2014as there always will be in life\u2014scientists have uncovered the influences that generate the electrochemical activity in your brain, making you feel that magical chemical Spark with someone. They have also discovered how identical chemicals can influence a male brain and a female brain and nervous system in very different ways. Thus, the ways to Spark romantic Chemistry in this book will be gender specific\u2014 _very_ gender specific!\n\nMany people stubbornly insist that igniting Chemistry and making it last are not possible. They are wrong. Making it last is indeed doable, but _only_ if you understand what kind of Chemistry we're talking about and work within the context of the following:\n\n1.Your neuroanatomy is constructed in a very different way from that of the other sex, almost as different as your bodies.\n\n2.Your brain is saturated by dissimilar drugs that dictate how you think, feel, and act as well as what you respond to.\n\n3.Distinct evolutionary influences are working on males and females.\n\n4.Mother Nature has carved out diverse roles for you.\n\n5.As a relationship matures, it is natural and unavoidable that different chemicals flood your brain and body, affecting your emotions and desires.\n\nI will give you techniques called _Chemistry Sparkers_ to generate these specific bonding chemicals that keep you and your partner together. And, to the extent it is possible, regenerate some of the earlier thrilling ones.\n\n#### _Skull and Crossbones_\n\nAlthough love is the most exquisite emotion known to man and woman since the beginning of time, a sinister face sometimes hides behind an alluring mask. We all know beauty can be deceiving. If you're unaware of what you're dealing with, love can destroy you. Some people feel a Spark with someone who treats them badly because it's a familiar dynamic from childhood. Other common fragilities and shared unhealthy pathology can create damaging needs. Sadly, some people replicate these detrimental and sometimes risky relationships over and over again.\n\nYou've seen the TV ads for antidepressants that show previously despondent people dancing with delight through meadows tossing daisies at each other. Unless you listen carefully, you don't hear the lightning-speed voiceover saying, \"Side effects may include nausea, vomiting, internal hemorrhaging, epileptic seizures, respiratory arrest, coma, loss of hair, impotency, and, in rare cases, death. Ask your doctor if [this medication] is right for you.\"\n\nLikewise, when feeling that Spark, everyone is deaf to that internal voice warning, \"Side effects may include hyperactivity, loss of appetite, trembling, obsessive thinking, compulsive acts, and symptoms associated with mental illness. Ask yourself if [this particular person] is right for you.\"\n\nSometimes, when writing this book, I closed my laptop and gazed out the window, questioning whether I was writing a tutorial on how to create a bomb. The word _Chemistry_ , in the sense we're using it, is indeed like a chemical weapon that, if you are not careful, can claim you as a victim. I hope you get more from this book than you thought you would. Like learning to tell which mushrooms are poisonous, I want you to realize when you should run from Chemistry with someone before it thrusts you into a rotten relationship.\n\n#### _Now the Good News_\n\nThe other valuable lesson this book teaches is essential to your long-term happiness. Mother Nature makes the type of Chemistry between lovers change over time. Even in the best of relationships, it will. Don't let the books that tell you you'll want to jump each other's bones until you are eighty fool you. You can, however, create bonding chemicals that make love stay longer and generate delicious tides of sex more often. Unbeknownst to most people, these chemicals that replace the early hot ones are far more precious and essential to a fulfilling life than the sizzling kind. They are definitely not household names like _testosterone_ and _estrogen_ , and they are relatively unknown by people outside science-related fields; however, they are the essence of long-lasting happy relationships.\n\nFor the moment please use your new knowledge on how to create the more sizzling hot Chemistry that we'll talk about in the first sections wisely. Despite the overwhelming lust that you are absolutely sure is true love, slow down. Love can be as fragile and fleeting as an ice formation on the petal of a rose, or it can be as strong and enduring as an oak in the Petrified Forest.\n\nUsually, if you are very young, it's more like the former. It has nothing to do with intelligence. You could be as smart as Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, and Lisa Simpson all rolled into one, but no matter how brilliant you are, your neural connections are not fully developed until about age twenty-five. In other words, you won't be able make the wisest decision about a partner until then. However, the love and passion chemicals gushing through your brain can blind you to reality at any age. That's part of Mother Nature's plan, which we'll discuss shortly. I pray this book will help you avoid the pattern of perceived love with the wrong person, marriage, disillusionment, divorce, and the tragedy of children left behind.\n\n### A Few Important Housekeeping Notes (Don't Skip These!)\n\nStaring at the blank computer screen with my anxious fingers hovering above the keyboard, I had to make a few choices before tapping the first key. Here's what the Ouija Board decided.\n\n#### _Gender Grammar_\n\nAh, the scourge of the English language, gender-specific pronouns! There was a day when the masculine \"he,\" \"his,\" and \"him\" graced most prose when referring to a nonspecific gender. Thankfully we are now an equal-opportunity pronoun language.\n\nIn the history of the world, however, there has never been progress without problems. The phrases \"he or she\" and \"his or her\" are unbearably clunky. Writer's Commandment Number One is \"Thou shalt avoid clunkiness at all costs.\" So when a sentence is not gender specific, I will sometimes alternate \"he\" or \"she\" in the same paragraph. After much soul searching, I chose minor confusion over major clunkiness. I hope you won't find it too distracting.\n\nYou may also encounter the signs for male and female, \u2642 and \u2640 respectively. The techniques for Hunters are marked with \u2642, and Huntresses with \u2640. The Chemistry Sparkers for both sexes are indicated by \u2640\u2642. You will find an almost equal number of Sparkers for men and for women. However don't skip the Sparkers for the other sex. Not only will they give you tremendous gender insights, but you'll also understand why your own Chemistry gets Sparked and by whom.\n\n#### _Gender Generalizations_\n\nUnfortunately, most sociological studies make a gross gender generalization saying females are primarily searching for a mate, and males just want a fling. There are many millions of exceptions, but until proven otherwise, I'll follow their findings that this is primarily the case. Keep in mind, however, that most men do want to marry and settle down someday. And I've yet to meet a modern woman who hasn't had a quickie tryst\u2014or at least hasn't thought about it!\n\nDevelopmental evolution shows that nothing is written in stone, especially human relationships. Are we headed toward a world of mainly Mr. Moms and predominately working wives? Probably not in our lifetime. But who knows what the future holds?\n\n#### _Same-Sex Relationships_\n\nGay and lesbian Chemistry is every bit as powerful as opposite-sex relationships, and often their love can last even longer due to samesex couples' neuroanatomical and neurochemical similarities. In this book, however, I speak primarily about male-female relationships because the structural, chemical, and functional brain differences are germane to the findings. They cause many of the most common relationship problems.\n\n#### _Political Correctness_\n\nThis brings me to a related maintenance issue. Should I obey or break the unspoken rule about avoiding gender stereotypes such as women being talkative and men being terse, women being in touch with their feelings and men asking, \"What feelings?\" I didn't have to think twice about this one because it is all biologically brain based. Whenever political correctness was contrary to the truth, I chose the latter.\n\nGo ahead, PC police. Arrest me.\n\n#### _Places Where Singles Mingle_\n\nHappily, most meetings don't take place in a bar these days. Because many studies were conducted in pubs and at singles parties, however, I will sometimes use those locales as examples when speaking generically. Obviously, please dub in a venue more pertinent to your lifestyle, whether it's educational events, religious gatherings, concerts, or anywhere\u2014including in front of your computer! The number of relationships that start with a cursor click is increasing exponentially. I'll also give you some deliciously devious but not untruthful ways to Spark Chemistry online before the first flesh-and-blood meeting.\n\n#### _Big Sparks and Little Sparks_\n\nThere are two ways to Spark Chemistry. The most renowned is the instantaneous, split-second BLAM. Unfortunately, unless you fit in your Quarry's LoveMap\u2014or invoke a \"forgotten\" intense adult experience\u2014it's an almost-impossible task. So sometimes when I talk of \"Sparkers,\" I'm referring to smaller pops that, when added up with a flurry of others, make the big Spark.\n\n#### _How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You_\n\nThose of you who have read my first book on love by the above title will find this one quite different in two important ways. In _How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You_ , I shared eighty-five techniques to, as the title promised, make someone fall in love with you. Each \"Little Trick,\" as I called them, was based on the latest sociological studies at the time. _How to Create Chemistry with Anyone_ , however, deals with the most recent and current findings in the groundbreaking Cognitive Sciences and neuroimaging fields, which, when I wrote my previous book, were barely in their formative stages.\n\nThe best thing about my first book is that, as readers told me, the techniques worked. The worst thing is that some were a tad scheming. Although I never condoned lying, some methods involved presenting yourself in a way that magnified or minimized certain qualities depending on what your Quarry wanted. Now, with the new neuroscientific insights on love, however, retroactively I feel a bit guilty.\n\nMark Twain said that speaking with an uneasy conscience was like a having a hair in your mouth. Nowadays, when someone from the media asks me to tell their readers, listeners, or viewers some of the techniques from _How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You_ , I feel a follicle on my tongue.\n\nSo let's make a deal. I will give you techniques to kick your Quarry's nervous and hormonal systems into action. But when speaking with your Quarry, keep that hair out of your mouth! Don't misrepresent your qualities or magnify your attributes. Simply highlight the truths about yourself that relate to the pertinent Chemistry Sparking technique we're discussing. I say this not just on moral principles. When you embark on a serious love affair, any fabrication or falsehood could ruin two lives, your Quarry's and yours. Maybe more\u2014your eventual kids'.\n\n#### \" _Trailer\" of What's Coming_\n\nChapter 1, _Love in Limbic Land_ , gives you a mini-tour of the territory (your Quarry's brain) and the tools (chemicals) you have to create Chemistry with him or her.\n\nChapter 2, _Chemistry at First Sight_ , unravels the mysteries of that instant Spark that blows you away.\n\nChapter 3, _How to Spark Chemistry to Attract_ , gives you twelve surprising techniques to ignite it. (Be prepared, some are extreme\u2014but proven to work.)\n\nChapter 4, _How to Spark Cyber Chemistry_ , gives you six unique ways to Spark your Quarry into clicking on your dating site picture, then responding to your profile.\n\nChapter 5, _How to Spark Chemistry in Your First Conversation_ , presents thirteen verbal Chemistry Sparkers to turn \"Hello\" into \"Let's make a date.\"\n\nChapter 6, _How to Spark Chemistry on Dates_ , furnishes thirteen techniques to keep things Sparking between you two every time you go out together.\n\nChapter 7, _How to Spark Chemistry for Sex_ , provides ten unusual Sparkers to light erotic explosions in your Quarry's brain and keep them detonating time after time.\n\nChapter 8, _How to Spark Chemistry for a Relationship_ , gives you eight techniques to turn a new relationship into a serious one\u2014a seriously wonderful one.\n\nChapter 9, _How to Spark Chemistry for Falling in Love_ provides five methods to make your Quarry want to take the tumble\u2014into a beautiful life with you.\n\nChapter 10, _How to Spark Chemistry for a Lifetime of Love_ , gives you eight methods to make beautiful beginnings last forever.\n\n#### _Sizzling Techniques Can Lead to Lasting Love_\n\nIt is said that if you marry for any reason other than love, you pay for it every day for the rest of your life. Let me expand that. If you commit for the all-too-common initial madness of what you might mistake as \"love,\" you also run that risk. Only if you marry with your new knowledge on what love is, and then nurture it, can \"happily ever after\" really happen.\n\nThe first half of this book gives you \"little tricks\" to Spark that initial erotic Chemistry. Some readers might call them \"games.\" But ethical games have rules. The rules of this game of not-so-trivial pursuit are no deception, no dishonesty, and definitely no doing anything that would harm or mislead your Quarry. I warn you, however, that the ploys will involve a little strategy on your part\u2014and also courage!\n\nWomen especially: you may be shocked to find the early flirtation techniques fripperous or outrageous. But absorb them because, as the content of the book deepens along with your relationship, you'll retroactively understand the wisdom behind them. You will learn how to turn sizzling sexy lure into significant long-lasting love.\n\n#### _Sources_\n\nPractically all the information in this book comes from original studies referenced in the back of the book. While proofreading the manuscript, however, I found that phrases like \"a study proved,\" \"the [name of journal] proved,\" and so forth were a snore. I fell asleep reading phrases like \"the highly respected [neurologist, psychologist, sociologist, or anthropologist] found that . . .\" So I decided simply to state the fact and put a reference number beside each. For more information on each subject, I invite you to visit the annotated original source in the back of the book.\n\nThere are hundreds of contributors to the neuroscience of love to whom I'm indebted, and you will find many of their names in the references. Let me take a second, however, to express my admiration and gratitude to three of them for their extra-special contributions to the material in this book. First to Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist at Rutgers who, in addition to original research, wrote several beautifully written books for the layman on the subject. I am also in awe of the fascinating studies by Arthur Aron, PhD (SUNY, Stony Brook,) and David Buss, PhD (University of Texas at Austin) concerning the cognitive and evolutionary aspects of relationships. And a personal note of gratitude to my friend and \"fact checker,\" Dr. William Hoffman. This esteemed neurosurgeon made sure I followed the convoluted paths of the human brain accurately and didn't drown in some of its synapses.\n\nA multitude of research substantiates each fact in this book. For conciseness, however, I cite only one or two landmark studies on each finding. In my previous book, _How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You_ , I also referenced a great many studies. Except when absolutely necessary, I avoided citing those again.\n\n#### _The Only Fiction You'll Find_\n\nAnyone who has witnessed the blue of the sky on a clear day, the green of the grass in spring, and the brightness of the sun at midday realizes Mother Nature's breathless beauty. Anyone who has survived a tornado, a blinding snowstorm, or a tempest at sea is in awe of her power. And anyone who has fallen in love has unknowingly been her ecstatically willing pawn\u2014for better or for worse. Mother Nature's main task is to keep the earth flourishing by assuring that all fish in the sea, birds in the sky, plants of the land, and mammals on earth, including humans, go forth and multiply.\n\nThe personification of this powerful force is the only fiction. Other than that, the entire book consists of information (proven), stories (true), and humor (weak).\n\n#### _How Complicated Is It?_\n\nSome of you have already surmised that, considering the magnitude of the subject, _How to Create Chemistry_ is, to say the least, simplified. I do this because the riveting field of Cognitive Science, which covers so many disciplines, needs a little simplification!\n\nTo readers who are more knowledgeable about Cognitive Science, I beg your pardon in advance for the oversimplification. _How to Create Chemistry with Anyone_ is written in layman's language. Sometimes too layman. Enjoy!\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _1_\n\n## Love in Limbic Land\n\nWhere do we feel love? If you asked most people, they would answer, \"In the heart, of course.\" Valentine's Day proves it, right? Lovers give and receive cards, pendants, and chocolates in the shape of hearts. We carve our names surrounded by a heart in tree trunks and tell each other, \"My heart belongs to you.\" Only a fanatic neuroscientist would insist on accuracy. He would send his ladylove a Valentine's Day card with the image of a squishy gray blob evocative of a rotting cauliflower, the brain, because that's where romance really resides.\n\n### Where Love Lives\n\nLove dwells where all your emotions do, in the region I'm calling \"Limbic Land.\" More correctly, Cognitive Science labels it your _limbic system_. It's the part of your brain that houses the laughs, the tears, the hopes, the disappointments, the anger, the ardor, the ups, the downs, the in-betweens, and the profounds. The seed of _all_ your emotions resides in your limbic system, and one of the most powerful is love. Someday it will be a household word. Instead of saying, \"Don't get so emotional about it,\" chastising family, friends, and lovers will say, \"Oh, don't get so limbic!\"\n\nLet me present the five main residents of Limbic Land in alphabetical order. The \"relationship chemicals,\" which I'll introduce afterward, affect regions of a \u2642 brain and \u2640 brain differently. Limbic Land is a very sexist place to live.\n\n#### _Your Amygdala Nickname_ : Ms. Emotions\n\nI hesitate to present this brain region first because the _amygdala_ is hands down the emotional leader of Limbic Land. In love she can sometimes be flaky and totally irrational. But after you've read this book you'll never again need to tear your hair out over your partner and scream, \"She's nuts!\" or \"He's an animal!\" You will understand _why_ the two sexes are so different.\n\nIt should come as no surprise that women have a larger, deeper limbic system than men do. But here's some happy news for Huntresses: A man's love is often stronger and can last even longer for reasons to be explained.\n\nA Huntress also has a more direct neurological connection to her _amygdala_ because her neurons are more tightly packed. In fact, they have an ongoing dialogue about her day-by-day, night-by-night relationship with her Quarry. Think of the female brain's neurons as a group of women walking along on a clear day in the bright sunshine, all talking to each other at the same time. They are so close to each other that, amazingly enough, they don't miss a word.\n\nConversely, a male thinks primarily with his gray matter, of which he has six and a half times more of than a female. Gray matter is very good stuff because of its great ability to focus. Picking up on subtleties or communicating emotions, however, is not gray matter's specialty.\n\nImagine a Hunter's grey matter neurons are like a scattered herd of guys plodding along a rocky path in the pouring rain and gusty wind. They're so far apart that they'd have shout to even hear each other, let alone make any sense out of what the other guys are saying. Is it any wonder that women are more in touch with their emotions?\n\n#### _Your Hippocampus Nickname_ : Mr. Memory\n\nThe _hippocampus_ is memory\u2014short term, long term, and, most of the time, subconscious. This other Limbic Land dweller also has a closer relationship with the _amygdala_ when it comes to emotional issues in the female brain. It drives a Hunter crazy when his wife or girlfriend remembers all the details of the inconsiderate thing he did, the insinuation he made, or the birthday he forgot. \"Why can't she just let it go?\" he agonizes. Sorry, guys, it's not her fault. The more closely knit team of her _hippocampus_ and _amygdala_ won't let her.\n\n#### _Your Hypothalamus Nickname_ : Mr. Action\n\nNow comes the part everyone in the brain wants to influence, your _hypothalamus_ , which shoots messages down the spine 24\/7, controlling your central nervous system. He's the strong man who makes you physically act and react. Blame this brain region when, upon feeling that Spark of Chemistry, your mouth goes dry, your heart skips a beat, and your flushed face resembles a radish.\n\nYour _hypothalamus_ deals with sex, big time, especially in guys. In fact, it's more than twice as large in the male brain, and has an excellent working relationship with _testosterone._ This brain region is in charge of the temporary growth of a significant male appendage at tender moments\u2014and _testosterone_ cheers him on. In addition to erections, the _hypothalamus_ also monitors entities (at certain times considered secondary by men) such as eating, sleeping, and breathing.\n\n#### _Your Caudate Nucleus and Environs Nickname_ : Pleasure Island\n\nBefore we get to the \"brainy\" part of your brain, let's get to the happiest. It's a region called your _caudate nucleus_. This feel-good area encompasses the _nucleus accumbens_ and the nearby _ventral tegmental area (VTA_ ). Combined, Cognitive Science calls it your _pleasure_ or _reward center_. Excitement, enjoyment, and exhilaration hang out there. After a few gulps of a certain love chemical that I'll introduce next, _Pleasure Island_ lights up like a Las Vegas slot machine. Life would be hardly worth living if it weren't for this happy neighborhood in your brain.\n\n#### _Your Prefrontal Cortex Nickname_ : The Professor\n\nLast but most assuredly not least is the wisest part of your brain, which we're nicknaming the _Professor_. The _prefrontal cortex_ does not live in la-la _Limbic Land_ with the rest of the cast _of Chemistry_. His throne is at the front of your brain. This sage assiduously reviews neurotransmissions (which we'll call \"texts\" or \"tweets\") from _Limbic Land_ and tries to determine who is bad for you, who is better for you, and who is best for you.\n\nUnfortunately, most new lovers don't listen to the _Professor_. When a couple is in the early hot love \"condition,\" Mother Nature is blasting their brains with so many intoxicating chemicals that the signals from the rational brain section are weaker. The _Professor_ tries to prevent lovers from making a fool of themselves and doing self-destructive things while smitten. But when in love, who listens?\n\nThat's the emotional housing complex of the brain. Bear with me while I now introduce the chemicals that live inside. They play the biggest roles in love, and knowing about them is necessary to understand how to create Chemistry with someone.\n\n### The Six Sexy Chemicals of Love\n\n#### _Dopamine_\n\nThe star of the early show in love is _dopamin_ e. He's on the scene every time you feel sudden Chemistry with someone, and his influence is mind-blowing. (He has helper chemicals like _norepinephrine_ and _phenylethylamine_ , but he's the leader when you're \"crazy in love.\") When you first meet _dopamine_ , he introduces himself as ecstasy, euphoria, exaltation, exhilaration, and intoxication. Sometimes he appears in a split second; at other times he creeps up slowly. As you're falling in love, he scoops you up and whisks you off to that most beautiful place you will ever go, _Pleasure Island_ , or the _caudate nucleus_ , located deep in your limbic system.\n\n_Dopamine_ loves action and jumps into the fray when you feel fear. That's why movie thrillers filled with bloody bodies and crashing cars give some people a kick. _Dopamine_ is also summoned by beautiful music, stirring sermons, and activities you enjoy. People do desperate things to make him stay because, if he disappears or starts slipping away, they can become despondent, even self-destructive.\n\nIn fact, he has such a powerful ecstasy influence that many of today's most credible anthropologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists say that love is simply _dopamine_ 's effect on the _pleasure center_ in your brain. Personally, I don't like to think of it that way, but the evidence makes a pretty good case.\n\nDid someone liken this chemical to cocaine? Yes, everybody with even a passing knowledge of Cognitive Science does.\n\n#### _Serotonin_\n\nWhen _serotonin_ is high in your system, you feel superb. This blissful chemical floods your brain when you exercise, genuinely laugh, sunbathe, go sailing, skiing, surfing, dancing, or do anything else you love. She is so central to your happiness that if she starts to shrink drastically, you become melancholy, morose, and miserable. Some sad souls turn to alcohol\u2014or worse\u2014just to bring her back for short visits.\n\nIdeally, _serotonin_ and _dopamine_ would work well together. But there is a problem. If _dopamine_ makes you act too frenetic about your relationship, _serotonin_ doesn't like that. She'll start shrinking away, leaving you with insomnia, eating disorders, negative thoughts, anxiety, and worse. When _serotonin_ is artificially introduced, such as in antidepressants, she can also mess with your ability to love. It's up to couples to keep _serotonin_ and _dopamine_ in balance working together, without medication.\n\n#### _Testosterone_\n\nNeed I even introduce this famous performer? It is the most revered and reviled romance chemical of all. Sometimes _testosterone_ gets a bad rap and people blame him for starting street brawls, civil wars, stabbing adversaries in the back, piloting corporate takeovers, driving too fast, robbing, raping, sleeping around, and channel surfing. Although some of these unsavory types are, indeed, high-T men, it's not all true. _Testosterone_ is a good guy who plays a big role in developing creativity, intellect, thought patterns, assertiveness, and drive. He also gives guys large muscles, increased bone mass, and, of course, colossal, sometimes uncontrollable, sexual desire.\n\n#### _Estrogen_\n\nEqually well known, _estrogen_ is a hot commodity for women. Those who want to look younger and more beautiful\u2014like 100 percent of the world's female population\u2014crave her effects. Lucky ladies blessed with a lot of this hungered-after hormone have clearer complexions, shinier hair, rosier cheeks, fuller lips, larger breasts, and they are generally healthier. High- _estrogen_ women also get pregnant more easily. Due to Mother Nature's influence, that is a (very) subconscious Chemistry Sparker for guys, as you will soon learn.\n\nThis leads us to the family-friendly chemicals.\n\n#### _Oxytocin_\n\n_Oxytocin_ is wonderful. Everybody loves her because she generates affectionate feelings, increases trust, and promotes long-lasting relationships. It would be an exaggeration to say that _oxytocin_ is more of a woman thing, and the next \"togetherness chemical,\" called _vasopressin_ , a guy thing. Male and female brains create both. However, mixed with _estrogen, oxytocin_ has a powerful bonding effect.\n\n_Oxytocin_ and her colleague chemical, _vasopressin_ , help keep lovers together and make them more devoted parents. Neurologists don't call them the \"bonding\" or \"cuddle chemicals\" for nothing, and we'll learn more about them later in the book.\n\n#### _Vasopressin_\n\n_Vasopressin_ 's effects are similar to _oxytocin_ 's, and the two often have the hyphenated name _oxytocin-vasopressin_. They are both family folks. The latter does a terrific job of making a man bond with his lifetime partner and become a more involved dad. Unfortunately, _vasopressin_ and _testosterone_ don't get along well together. The former can drive the latter down. Because he's not coming on to his wife as much after childbirth, a wife often mistakenly fears the new dad is not sexually attracted to her anymore. But, women, look on the bright side: It means he's bonding better with you and the baby. Besides, less _testosterone_ reduces his desire to seek sex elsewhere.\n\nGirl, I know what you're thinking, but don't hold your breath. It will be a while before some profit-hungry drug company gets FDA approval for a _vasopressin_ pill you can slip in your man's orange juice.\n\nNow, let's talk about your specific qualities, which will play a major role in Sparking your Quarry's Chemistry, and how to get Mother Nature to help you do the job. You may wonder why I'm breaking it down into body parts. It's because the information is crucial to the Sparking techniques.\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _2_\n\n## Chemistry at First Sight\n\nAs you read in the Introduction, due to DNA, past experiences, and a myriad of other elements, you can never have 100 percent control over the Chemistry between you and someone. That's just part of the picture, though. Mother Nature plays a _huge_ role. In fact, she is your best friend in helping you Spark your Quarry. Animals follow Mother Nature's guidance instinctively. When another of their species excites them, they growl, grunt, cluck, crow, pant, or emit some other form of indigenous whooping it up. (Humans have to be a bit more subtle about it.)\n\nAnimals strive to entice the best mate according to the neurological, chemical, and evolutionary influences defining \"best\" in their species. Although you may not think of it that way, but you do too. Something else comes into the human equation, though. You have a bigger brain and are, unfortunately, restricted by certain social conventions. Because you are more complicated, the Sparking process is too.\n\n### \"All Men Are Animals\"\n\nHuntresses, have you or a friend ever complained, \"Guys are only interested in sex\"? If not, you've probably thought it. My girlfriend Brandy from Baton Rouge certainly does. Brandy is a beautiful woman, a serial dater, and a constant complainer about men. She comes to New York every year to run the marathon. Here is our annual ritual: The night before the big event, we go to the same restaurant for the same pasta with olive sauce, and I listen to her same gripes about the men in her life.\n\nLast November, twirling spaghetti around her fork and making direct eye contact with a pimento-stuffed olive, she griped, \"Guys are only interested in sex. They're all big penises with a man attached. From the first date, they're pressuring me. Why can't I find a man I can connect with? Someone I can talk to . . . a guy who talks to me, not my breasts? I want a guy to cuddle, not fall asleep right after sex. Is that too much to ask?\"\n\n\"Well, Brandy, that last part is.\" I started to tell her about the universal male condition called \"postcoital narcolepsy\" and the chemical reason a man can't help zonking out after ejaculation. But she cut me off. There is no stopping Brandy once she's on a roll.\n\nIn previous Novembers I just nodded while she went on and on. But this year, while writing _How to Create Chemistry_ , I could hold it in no longer. I interrupted her diatribe and said, \"Well, hell-OH, Brandy, what do you expect?\"\n\nShocked, she glared at me. \"What . . . what do you mean?\"\n\n\"Brandy, my dear friend, you can take a male out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle completely out of the male. In fact you wouldn't want to. Usually a guy's initial motive for even asking you out is because he wants sex, the sooner the better. He doesn't want to spend all night touching your soul. He'd prefer to touch your breasts. Brandy, you have to give it time!\"\n\n\"Sure,\" she said rolling her eyes. I would have continued, but I knew she needed sleep to face the challenge she'd been training for all year. I hugged her and gave her my annual \"Tear up the road tomorrow, Tiger.\" Then I made a mental note to send her this book.\n\nSo was Brandy wrong about men? Sex is definitely not the only thing most men think about when asking you out\u2014just usually the first. In addition to some of the aforementioned elements, it is what makes a guy feel that Spark for a particular woman. Most men do want a permanent relationship eventually. But sexual attraction is crucial because it's the match that lights the fire. Deep conversations, communicating, connecting, and commitment come later.\n\n### \"All Women Are Gold Diggers\"\n\nIf you've read my previous books, you are familiar with Phil, my dear friend and platonic male roommate, or \"friend without benefits.\" Phil makes my personal research into the male psyche quite convenient. Besides, he's the best roommate a gal could ever have. Naturally, every time he comes home from a date, I grill him mercilessly about it.\n\nOne night Phil returned with that \"She was the date from hell\" expression on his face. His wobbly walk and martini breath told me he'd consumed more than his customary one drink. He obviously wasn't in the mood to submit his social report.\n\nAs I was attempting an \"I'm not the least bit curious\" expression, my mild-mannered roomie uncharacteristically grumbled under his breath, \"Freakin' gold digger!\" The usually fastidious Phil tossed his coat on the couch and staggered unsteadily toward the bathroom. Under the rumble of his electric toothbrush, I heard him bellowing something in French, which he doesn't speak. \"Le Bernardin, Le Bernardin, Le Bernardin!\"\n\n\"Did you say something, Phil?\" I called.\n\nHe opened the door and, Crest foaming out of the sides of his mouth, shouted, \"Le Bernardin! It's the most %@!& expensive restaurant in New York!\" Spitting out the foamy water, he continued, \"This afternoon, I texted her the name of the restaurant where I wanted her to meet me. But oh no, that wasn't good enough for Goldilocks! She texted back that she preferred a 'nice little restaurant' near where she worked. Oh, it was nice all right. The bill came to over two hundred dollars, and all evening she's asking me creepy questions. Oh, ho ho. I read between the lines with no problem. She was trying to figure out how much money I make. Damn gold digger!\" he bellowed as he slammed his bedroom door.\n\nOf course, money is not a woman's major criterion for a man. However, no matter how much she herself has, Mother Nature is whispering in her ear, \"Make sure he'll be a good provider for you and your eventual babies, dear.\" Even if she earns enough herself to put an entire orphanage through college, most women feel her man should earn more than she does.\n\n### Huntresses, Cut the Animals Some Slack\n\nSisters, his constant pressure for sex is not his fault. You wouldn't blame a guy for limping due to a birth defect. Likewise, you can't blame him for his greater sexual drive, which nature also programmed into him before he was born. It's an almost insurmountable challenge for a male to push sex out of his mind. Mother Nature (MN for short) injected men at least with ten times more testosterone than you. It's not an exact proportion, but think about it: If you were ten times more ravenous for sex, wouldn't you act a little more needy, greedy, and aggressive about it? Women can go for months, sometimes years, between relationships without sex. But for men, it's practically impossible.\n\nIn fact, a guy's testosterone level shoots up a full third even casually chatting with a female stranger  Just thinking of you being naked makes dopamine gush through his brain like a cocaine rush. Unfortunately, that feel-good chemical short-circuits messages en route to his prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of his brain. Consider the ever-lengthening list of male politicians, sports figures, and other celebrities who throw away valuable careers for a few rolls in the hay. Girl, you have the power to turn a dignified gentleman into a dyslexic octopus when he's around you.\n\n#### _Sex Scrambles His Brain_\n\nIn fact, guys don't just make dumb decisions about sex; they can make pretty dangerous ones. Researchers on the Florida State University campus gathered a group of gutsy girls and directed them to approach male students they didn't know and ask, \"Will you have sex with me tonight?\" Seventy-five percent of the guys agreed immediately. That shocked even the relatively unshockable me. More recently, in a follow-up study after AIDS awareness, 69 percent of the males agreed. That stunned me even more and made me very, very sad.\n\nNeedless to say, when the study, \"Gender Receptivity to Sexual Offers,\" was reversed, and men approached the female students, none of them agreed to sex, pre-or post-STD awareness.\n\n#### _Blame Mom and Co_.\n\nHere is yet another complication. The guy brain is spinning with mixed signals. He probably grew up with a mother who implied that anything sexual was naughty. Maybe she scolded him for looking at his sister when she was dressing. Or was furious when she caught him looking at \"nasty pictures\" in magazines. She told him to keep his hands off his tiny crotch in public. One of my seminar students told me that his mom once spanked him when she walked into his room and caught him masturbating. In short, little guys grew up thinking sex was dirty.\n\nThen suddenly, a whole new set of signals replaced it. His high school buddies bragged about their sexual conquests; many self-proclaimed studs exaggerate them to gain status in their friends' eyes. No guy wants to admit he's still a virgin, so he becomes obsessed with curing himself of that \"contemptible\" condition. The social pressure to score is tremendous.\n\nI learned that at my girlfriend Sheila's sixteenth birthday party. At one point while we were talking, she leaned toward me and whispered, \"What are those boys doing over there?\" Five or six of them were comparing something they'd taken out of their pockets.\n\n\"I think it's their combs,\" I guessed.\n\n\"They must be pretty old,\" she murmured, \"because it looks like some of them lost a lot of teeth.\" When one boy proudly held up a totally toothless comb, they all cheered. Sheila called across the room, \"Hey, guys, whatcha doing?\" That detonated an outburst of hilarity that would have merited the acronym ROTFL. They were literally rolling on the floor laughing.\n\nIt wasn't until a week later that Sheila and I managed to wrestle her brother to the floor and demand he tell us what was going on at the party. Gasping for breath, he was forced to rat on his buddies. \"The guys were comparing combs. Every missing tooth represented sex with a different girl.\"\n\nA male who sleeps around is enviably called a \"stud.\" A female with the same sleeping habits is disparagingly called a \"slut.\" Fair? No. Understandable? Yes, at least in terms of evolutionary psychology.\n\n### Hunters, Cut the Gold Diggers Some Slack\n\nIt is impossible for a female to close her ears to the cries of her ancient foremothers. Here is her recurring subconscious nightmare: After a stupendous night of sex with you, you hop onto your trusty steed and ride off into the sunset . . . alone. She is left pregnant. Your fifteen minutes or so of bliss could mean fifteen years or so of burden for her.\n\n\"But that's not going to happen,\" you protest. Of course it isn't. She knows that too. But speak to the sticky cognitive modules floating around in her brain. Consult with her Cro-Magnon grandmother. Subconsciously she does, and the response is always, \"It happened to me, dearie, it can happen to you.\" Her primeval grannies also remind her that she will suffer morning sickness, migraines, throwing up, leg cramps, and hip pains.\n\nGentlemen, a bad bout of morning sickness is the same sensation you'd feel after scarfing down seafood cocktail and a dozen raw eggs, followed by a Big Mac, a hot fudge sundae, and a six-pack of beer. And then deciding to go for a spin on the roller coaster.\n\nIf your girlfriend gets pregnant, she pays a big biological cost. You can't have another whole human being residing inside you without crowding your own body space and causing some huge hassles, like sharing calcium, iron, vitamins, and other elements crucial to health and beauty.\n\nThen there's the weight gain, the dumpy clothes, and no sex. If you don't believe it, put a cement block inside a beach ball and strap it to your stomach. Then try to have sex.\n\nAfter that is the excruciating pain of childbirth, followed by changing diapers, the terrible twos, the tantrum threes, the fiendish fours, the feisty fives, and so on. Because her plight won't permit her to work through the early childrearing process, can you see why your financial status is at least a factor? Primordial memories stick like glue, so is it any wonder that a woman doesn't want to jump into bed with you right away?\n\nYour biological cost as a male? Zip. You only spin off sperm to start the whole process, and that's a whole lot of fun. Gentlemen, I applaud you. It is truly charming, if not naive, that when you fall deeply in love, you become blind to some of the realities of life. Females are usually more sensible about partner choice. Brain-imaging studies of women in love show activity in many more areas than yours. However, when a guy has flipped, in a sense, he's _really_ flipped, because more of his critical thinking pathways close down. She's making her decision with more of her head, whereas yours are made with, well, more of your other body parts.\n\nBe thankful that most women are more realistic in relationships. If she were as resistant to the reality of resources as you are when you fall in love, there would be more miserable marriages of the all-too-common kind in which he is broke, she's freaking, and the kids are hungry. Bottom line, brothers: Respect your Quarry's realization, that, in the long run, you really can't live on love alone.\n\nHere's food for thought: Is her immediate consideration of your wealth any worse than you immediately considering how physically attractive she is\u2014and how soon she'll go to bed with you?\n\n### What Sparks a Hunter's Chemistry\u2014and Why?\n\nHuntresses, if any of you are still harboring any doubt that your looks are the first thing a man cares about, let me quote one landmark study that doesn't mince words: \"A woman's physical attractiveness is the cardinal component of women's mate value.\" \"Mate value\" is the crass word that researchers use for how desirable someone is in the \"meat market.\" Yep, Huntresses, your looks matter, big time, at least until he gets to know you and your amazing qualities.\n\nA man can be sexually turned on by a gorgeous woman he would never dream of having a relationship with\u2014a mindless model, a knockout with bust size 38 and IQ to match, or a hot lady of the night he would be ashamed of the next morning. Those lasses may be delicious company for one night, maybe two if they're lucky. But definitely not someone he'd want to raise a family with. When thinking of a date, many guys' fantasies of the future end at orgasm.\n\nThe specifics may seem obvious. However, in this section I want to quickly review the particulars of what excites males, because only when you understand _why_ your Quarry gets whacked over certain features can you confidently and courageously use the Chemistry Sparkers in the next section.\n\n#### _Babies \"R\" Us_\n\nGuys don't realize it themselves and would surely deny it, but the number one subconscious Chemistry Sparker boils down to one word: _fertility_. Procreation is the name of nature's game. It's the bottom line, the nitty gritty of what guys find hot. Science calls it like it is: \"Instinctively, the male of all species wants to get the 'biggest reproductive payoff' for his,\" ahem, \"investment.\" After all, Mother Nature figures, why should a guy squander his sperm in a woman who can't bear him a healthy baby with good genes and a strong immune system? That would be a humongous waste of time.\n\nGentlemen, even if you are planning a peaceful life without the smell of baby poop and getting barfed on, Mother Nature doesn't know that. She programs you to be attracted to a female who looks like she'd be a good baby factory.\n\nSisters, Big Mama's got it all rigged to help that along. At ovulating time she gives you a natural cosmetic makeover and even makes you more symmetrical. Your eyes get larger, your lips get fuller, and your cheeks become rosier during the big O days (ovulation, not orgasm). It's like female apes whose lower cheeks get redder when they're in estrus. In case any guy ape would miss it, she grows a humongous pink butt at target time. Similarly, your rosy facial cheeks subconsciously signal guys that it's the best time to \"make the shot.\"\n\nIncidentally, ladies, if the big tough High-T guys aren't usually your preference, be extra vigilant during those big \"O\" days. MN slips you a chemical cocktail that makes you more attracted to them when you're most apt get pregnant.\n\n#### _Let's Break It Down to Body Parts. Guys Do_.\n\nA Hunter doesn't look at you and specifically think, \"Wow, smooth skin, big breasts, narrow waist, long shiny hair, and youth.\" It's the whole package that hits his eyes. But to have more \"ammunition\" on your hunting expedition, I'll tell you why each element counts.\n\n_**Smooth Skin.**_ Skin is a measuring stick for your hormonal state, which is, incidentally, more detectable in the lighter skin of blondes. That's why it is said that \"gentlemen prefer blondes.\" Do you remember the classic Marilyn Monroe film by that name? If a biologist were naming the film, it would have a less catchy but more telling title like, \"Gentlemen prefer females with lighter hair and skin to more easily detect anemia, cyanosis, jaundice, and other skin diseases.\" But then the movie wouldn't have been a box-office blockbuster.\n\n_**Long Hair.**_ Even short, shiny hair signals health and estrogen and, thus, that you're more easily impregnable. But long, shiny hair shows you've been healthy and chock-full of that enviable hormone for a couple of years. Natch', that means you'd be easier to impregnate with a healthy baby.\n\nWhile we're discussing hair, here's a bit of trivia that has absolutely no scientific basis, simply something from a men's website survey. Rather than the bushy look downstairs, the majority of men prefer the more youthful, completely shaved or famous \"landing strip\" look of Brazilian fame, shaved on both sides evenly.\n\nI once told my hairdresser that I had a great business idea for her: She should open a chic pubic hair trimming salon. I've had a lot of bad business ideas.\n\n_**Hourglass Figure.**_ So what's the big deal about a shapely body, you ask? Mother Nature murmurs in his ear, \"Dude, she'll get pregnant faster and easier and is less apt to have a miscarriage. A male subliminally recognizes that Ms. Shapely's roomier hips would give his unborn progeny's head more room to expand. To add more fuel to his firing neurons, her bigger breasts signal about 37 percent more estrogen.\n\n_**Eyes?**_ Larger \"ovulating signaling\" eyes are a bigger draw. Concerning color, blue-eyed men are drawn to similarly light-eyed women because it's a good cuckoldry indicator that his little one didn't have a brown-eyed daddy.\n\n_**Hey, What About My Face?**_ I always thought a woman's face was the first thing a Hunter looked at, so I was shocked at the studies that report a male registers your body first. He probably doesn't even realize it himself, but nanoseconds beforehand he has subconsciously sensed your body to see if your face is \"worth checking out.\" Disbelieving, I decided to ask Giorgio, the ship's captain I mentioned earlier who subsequently became my guy. Giorgio is an extremely cultured gentleman, so I naturally assumed that he'd say \"her face.\"\n\n\"Giorgio, if you could choose between a woman with an averagely attractive body and a spectacular face, or a dynamite body and an average face, which would you choose?\" I couldn't have counted to one before his answer zapped back, \"The latter.\" I sucked in my stomach and slunk back to the studies.\n\nA few weeks later, while rearranging my library, I came upon my freshman yearbook. Flipping through it reminded me of something that happened the first night in my new dorm that should have given me a clue way back then. A senior was showing us the previous year's book and chatting about some of the girls we'd soon meet on campus.\n\n\"And here's Shelly,\" she said pointing to one headshot. Several of us had to stifle an insensitive smile. It is only a slight exaggeration to say her face could have been the prototype for the Muppet's Miss Piggy. Our senior informant went on, \"The guys are crazy about her.\" The rest of us looked at each other in shock.\n\nA few weeks later I met Shelly at the campus pool. Her face was, indeed, evocative of the Muppet celebrity, but certainly not her body. She had the breasts of Beyonc\u00e9, the butt of Jennifer Lopez, and the waist of a wasp. And to think I still wondered why guys were so attracted to her.\n\n_**Does My Age Matter That Much?**_ Despicable perverts aside, a young girl doesn't usually begin Sparking a Hunter's Chemistry until she begins to get curvy around the time her periods start. Even preteen guys fantasize about older girls when they're all alone in their bedrooms with their doors locked. Mother Nature figures, \"Why fritter away fantasies on girls who can't get pregnant?\"\n\nThis brings us to an unsettling but inevitable fact: We grow old. So do guys, but that's no problem for Big Mama in the sky. She figures men can still spread sperm in younger women for as long as they can get it up. Depressingly, after menopause Mother Nature makes a female's breasts and butt start to sag, nipples soften, waists thicken, lips thin, complexions roughen, cheeks pale, and hair lose its shine. Personally, I think MN gave us a raw deal. She's telling guys, in no uncertain terms, \"That old lady is no longer fertile. So screw her\u2014or, rather, don't.\"\n\n### What Sparks a Huntress's Chemistry\u2014and Why?\n\nHunters, whenever a clearly stunning female slinks into the room, male eyeballs start to whirl like a beanie cap. So you probably assume that a great-looking guy\u2014tall, big muscles, flat abs\u2014would spin females' heads. In another era you would have been right. A cave woman needed a mate with enormous muscles to bash a wild boar on the head and spacious shoulders to carry the bloody beast home. Tall was better too, because he could run faster if he missed his target. The cave lady wanted her man oozing testosterone out of every pore, signifying aggression, high sexual desire, and strong genes to bear beefier babies.\n\nIn those days selecting a sensitive, compassionate, loving male would have been a really lamebrain choice. Imagine a caveman's success at intellectually reasoning with the tiger poised to pounce on him. If the ferocious animal didn't concede, her little one would have no daddy. So Mother Nature poked the primitive pretty and said, \"Better to go with the powerful jerk, dear.\"\n\nBeing drawn to brawny guys with a touch of the brute lasted a surprisingly long time. A scant fifty years ago women swarmed to movie theaters to swoon over the Rock Hudson, Burt Lancaster, and Clark Gable types. Their hearts fluttered when Rhett Butler told Scarlett O'Hara, \"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.\" Now women tell men who don't live up to their standards, \"Frankly, mister, I don't give a damn.\"\n\nOne thing will never change, however: survival of the fittest. Huntresses are programmed to prefer men who match Darwin's definition \"best adapted for survival in the immediate, local environment.\" Today, however, the \"immediate local environment\" is dramatically different. Now the crucial survival qualities are cooperation, compassion, curiosity, kindness, competitiveness, and an open mind.\n\nEvolutionary psychologists who recognize that there are physiological spurts would call these \"neo-Darwinian\" qualities. The field encompassing that, developmental evolution, recognizes that the social environment changes in spurts, not at an even pace like evolutionists used to think.\n\nIn the twenty-first century something new has been added to a woman's wish list. She wants intellectual growth and to reach her full potential as a person and a professional. A Huntress seeks a partner who will be supportive and help her accomplish that.\n\nHunters, even for ladies who are just looking for one-night nookie, your success and \"good dad\" indicators are what shoot brief spikes of voltage through your Quarry's brain. But don't fret if you aren't a candidate for a _Men's Health_ cover with bulging biceps and deltoids on steroids. This isn't to say that a woman doesn't like a really ripped guy\u2014but only if it's attached to the right brain and attitude.\n\nHunters, when is the last time you strutted into a bar and said to yourself, \"Dude, tonight I am going to look so cooperative, compassionate, curious, kind, competitive, and show how supportive I am of a woman's personal growth that chicks will be lining up to meet me?\" (Stay tuned, aspiring studs. You'll learn how to do that in the next section.) In short, a woman's looks are the first thing a man notices. A man's character and personality are number one on a woman's most wanted in a partner list.\n\nNow we come to the most alluring physical quality for both sexes. It's one we seldom think of.\n\n### Planet Earth's Colossal Unisex Chemistry Sparker\n\nHaving a symmetrical face and body is like winning the lottery in attraction for both Hunters and Huntresses the world over because it screams \"healthy genes.\" You and I could see a good gene sitting next to a bad one on a plate, and it wouldn't say anything to us. But dump a batch of good ones into one baby and you'll see a big difference. Each tiny toe on his left foot looks exactly like the same one on the right. His little ears are mirror images of each other. Yet few would be conscious of its draw. Have you ever heard a woman swoon, \"Honey, your symmetrical nose drives me wild\"? Or a guy brag, \"Dude, she's got the most balanced eyebrows I've ever seen\"?\n\nWhen you look at most faces, you think, \"Sure, that's symmetrical.\" But I'm talking precise symmetry to the millimeter that only a fortunate one-tenth of 1 percent of the population has. If it's off one iota, it makes a difference. And it's not just perfectly balanced _faces_. We're talking symmetrical legs, shoulders, hips, thighs, fingers, elbows, breasts\u2014and yes, even both sides of \"it.\" Mother Nature draws females to symmetrical types, even if it's for one-night stands\u2014especially when they're ovulating  After all, she figures, even that one shot could result in another healthy earthling.\n\nSymmetry is also a powerful beauty plus in reptiles, insects, birds, and mammals because good genes also do a better job of battling environmental pollutants and parasites. Any self-respecting female fruit fly wouldn't even consider a guy fruit fly with asymmetrical spiracles.\n\nSymmetrical guys, go ahead and gloat because studies show:\n\n1.you start having sex four years earlier than your more symmetry-challenged brothers;\n\n2.you get laid more often and have a greater number of partners throughout your lifespan;\n\n3.you smell better to women than your more uneven, asymmetrical competitors; and\n\n4.you will give your girlfriends more and better orgasms than the more lopsided chaps do.\n\nHuntresses, here is a warning for you. They may look great, but be careful about those super-symmetrical guys. Statistically, they are less apt to stay with one partner and have more extramarital affairs throughout their lives. Also be extra vigilant if you don't want to get pregnant, because your vagina sucks up more sperm from the better orgasms that symmetrical Hunters give you.\n\n#### _Cliff Notes_\n\nYou'll see the reasoning behind the Sparkers in the next section, but for now let's tally the list of what pokes Chemistry and gets the opposite sex's hormones hopping.\n\n_Hunters . ._.\n\nThe _what_ : Your signs of health, mental strength, compassion, wit, and assets or potential for same.\n\nThe _why_ : Healthy men produce babies with stronger immune systems. Compassionate men care for them. Mentally strong men solve problems for them. And men with money give both baby and mother a better lifestyle.\n\n_Huntresses . ._.\n\nThe _what_ : Your large breasts, full lips, smaller waist, shapely hips, rosy cheeks, clear eyes, unblemished skin, and shiny hair.\n\nThe why: All the above qualities reflect high estrogen, meaning he can impregnate you quicker for a healthier baby.\n\nIn short . . .\n\n_A man is attracted to a woman's ability to grow a baby inside her_.\n\n_A woman is attracted to a man's ability to grow a baby outside him_.\n\nSo now we know _what_ charges the electrical fields in your Quarry's brain and _why_. Let's move on to the specific Chemistry Sparkers and _how_ to set the traps for the Big Catch.\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _3_\n\n## How to Spark Chemistry to Attract\n\nLet's say one Saturday you and a few friends decide to go fishing. You get some poles, pack a bucket of worms for bait, and head out to the local lake. Trout are leaping onto the hooks, and you all have a fabulous time. Everyone laughs and cheers as they make catch after catch. The guys take turns carrying the big basket of fish to a friend's country cabin. You open a case of beer, turn on some music, and cook a great trout dinner.\n\nIt was such a blast that you plan a repeat experience the next Saturday. With fishing rods over your shoulders and toting a bucket of minnows for bait this time, your group treks to the lake, humming all the way. Excitedly, you put your bait on the hook and cast off. Everyone waits for the fish to swarm toward them like the previous week.\n\nAn hour goes by. No bites. Hmm. Two hours pass. Still nothing. After three hours you all give up and get Chinese takeout on the way back to the cabin.\n\nWhat went wrong? Those of you who fish probably know the answer. You used the wrong bait. Trout don't eat minnows.\n\nCut to a party. Now you're fishing for a bigger catch, someone to date, have sex with, love, and perhaps build a life with. Lots of attractive people are swimming around the bar and everybody is hoping for the best catch. But only a lucky few lovers succeed. Why doesn't the majority? They use the wrong bait.\n\nHere's the right kind.\n\n### Forget the Golden Rule When Trying to Spark Chemistry\n\nYou've heard of the Golden Rule: _Do unto others as you would have them do unto you_. That's fine for most situations. But not for igniting that Spark at first sight. Forget the Golden Rule and use the Platinum Rule, which I'll explain shortly.\n\nWhen a Huntress first spots a man, she is instinctively aware of his character, confidence, kindness, and demeanor. She hopes to find intelligence and humor. If she likes him, she wants respect from the gentleman from the first \"hello.\" In the back of her mind she's wondering if a relationship might be in the future.\n\nWhen a Hunter first spots a woman, he judges her looks and receptivity to him. In the front of his mind he's wondering if sex might be in the future\u2014and how soon.\n\nUsing the Golden Rule\u2014treat others as you'd like to be treated\u2014to appeal to a Quarry is one of the most foolish and common mistakes that potential lovers make. Huntresses are especially guilty of this. Girlfriend, at this point a guy is not judging your character, kindness, intelligence, and how much of a lady you are. Later, for a serious relationship with you, your character and other fine qualities are all important to him. _But not at first_. Luring him with those aspects of your personality before the first \"hello\" is the wrong bait because most guys are not thinking beyond the bedroom.\n\nConversely, Hunters, she is. Your abs of steel and bulging biceps pale as bait compared to other qualities she craves in a man. Later, when the two of you are in a loving relationship, she'll long to lick your killer pecs and squeeze your muscles. _But not at first_. She's visualizing beyond the bedroom. In fact, unless you have the \"beyond\" qualities, there probably won't even be the bedroom. Sexiness is the wrong bait for a guy to cast because she's thinking possible relationship.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #1**\n\n**Use the Platinum Rule When Luring Quarry**\n\nWhen trying to entice your Quarry, do not \"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.\" Instead, \"Do unto others as _they_ would like to be done unto.\" Hunters, displaying your good-guy qualities and demonstrating respect for the lady is the best bait. Huntresses, sexiness and showing that you're receptive to him are what reels him in.\n\n### Fight, Flight, or Chemistry at First Sight?\n\nI didn't name this segment \"Eye Contact\" lest you skip it. I understand. I probably would have too. Millions of magazines, newspapers, books, and blogs\u2014including mine\u2014have done the subject to death. That aside, I would be remiss not to address it first.\n\nContinuing unbroken eye contact can cause even a small Spark to catch fire. In studies, opposite-sex strangers directed to have extended eye contact reported neurochemical reactions similar to romantic sentiments. Additionally, eyes locked for a period of time can give the sense that you are already in love. The _Journal of Research in Personality_ reported that people who are deeply in love gaze at each other 30 to 40 percent more than other couples do, and they are slower to look away during an intrusion.\n\nThere's more. Maintaining enduring eye contact also gives you the cachet of being a wiser abstract thinker because confident and creative individuals integrate incoming data more easily than concrete thinkers. They can continue looking into someone's eyes even during the silences.\n\nUnfortunately, most writers make it sound like \"eye contact\" is simply staring into each other's eyeballs. No, plain old eye contact between a man and a woman is all too common to Spark your Quarry majorly on its own without a strong message emanating from your eyes. I'll give you a few ways to use those grenades over your nose to capture your Quarry. But, first, gentlemen . . .\n\n#### _Get Wise to the Geisha in Every Woman_\n\nUnfortunately, there is a lot of misunderstanding about what eye contact signifies. Here is an all-too-common scenario: Guy smiles at girl. Girl looks away. Guy thinks it's rejection. Girl is disappointed. End of story.\n\nMost Western males think a female glancing away means she's not interested. Wrong! Japanese men don't fall for it. They know that the lady's little smile and demure downward glance is part of the game, the world-famous geisha ploy. Her shyly (or slyly) lowering gaze is part of the female International Courtship Ritual.\n\nThis eye contact edict has been in effect since the beginning of time. If you've seen the infamous painting, _The Fall of Man: Adam and Eve_ , you'll observe that the first human Hunter is looking at his Quarry's eyes. But Eve is demurely gazing elsewhere, all the while enticing him with the forbidden apple.\n\nGentlemen, it's not _if_ she looks away. She will. (Well, unless she's read this book.) It's _how_ she does it that counts. When you reward her with a smile, your Quarry will either . . .\n\n1. _Modestly sweep her eyes down at the floor as though admiring the carpet_. Experienced and confident Hunters know this is standard operating procedure for a flirting female and is as good as an engraved invitation. Go introduce yourself.\n\n2. _Turn away with her eyes parallel, like inspecting the wall's paint job_. She's thinking, \"Hmm, I'll reserve my judgment on you until after our first chat. The probability is good if you pass the \"chat test.\" Go for it.\n\n3. _Look up and away like checking the ceiling for ugly cracks_. Here she might as well be rolling her eyes into the next state and your chances of victory are slim. But, hey, you never know. Make a move\u2014but only if you're good at accepting rejection.\n\nGentlemen, here is another clue. After she looks away, if she glances back at you again within the minute, you must approach or else she'll be sorely disappointed.\n\n#### _Huntresses, Fight Your Instincts_\n\nHuntresses, if you are one of the vast majority of women who demurely look away when a man smiles at you, it's not your fault. Nature programmed you that way a very long time ago. Cro-Magnon males loved the thrill of the chase, just like guys today. But his female Quarry's feigned modesty didn't bother him one bit because the outcome would be the same either way. The confident Cro-Magnon just kept marching toward her with his erect club. However, Mother Nature didn't factor on modern males becoming so insecure that they would interpret the ladies' looking down as rejection and give up.\n\nGirl, do not look away. Gaze into his eyes, smile, and put down your book, drink, or anything else that a panicky Hunter could mistake as a warrior's brass shield. When he's within easy conversational distance, be the first to say \"hi.\" You will hear his palpable sigh of relief.\n\n#### _Eye Contact Is Not Unisex_\n\nHunters and Huntresses must use their eyes in diverse and complex tactical ways to keep the Chemistry churning. The following Sparker Number Two is for Hunters, Three and Four are for Huntresses, and Five for both.\n\n##### **A PPRAISING EYES**\n\nFor an attractive woman, being ogled is as common as hearing her own breath. A brief meeting of the eyes gives her no neural jolt\u2014unless your eyes stay persistently on hers and say something special. Here's how. Upon spotting your Quarry, keep your eyes on her face, not with an all-too-common hungry smile but in a mode I call \"appraising eyes\" to give her a several-layer chemical rush.\n\nI didn't comprehend what was happening to me at the time, but I now know I was the happy victim of that emotional tidal wave. At a dinner party I smiled at a distinguished gentleman near the end of the table. Apparently not noticing, he continued conversing with the lady on his left. When he tenderly touched her hand, I felt a jab of jealousy, assuming they were a couple.\n\nThen, while drowning my disappointment in the bowl of soup, I felt his eyes on me. Looking up, I almost dropped my spoon. He was stroking his chin and staring at me through squinted eyes like a radiologist inspecting an x-ray. It lasted only a few seconds, but it gave me emotional vertigo. When a smile flooded his face, I felt like I'd been saved from the lions. I wouldn't have appreciated it had his attention been too quick. Metaphorically, if I'd been hooked up to an _f_ MRI, the activity in my brain would have blown the circuits. Hunters, if you make it seem like she's earned your approval, she'll crave it all the more. Incidentally, the man at the end of the table was the ship's captain I mentioned earlier who is now my partner.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #2**\n\n**Don't Just Look At but \"Appraise\" Your Quarry**\n\nWhen she notices your gaze, don't give her the panting puppy dog smile that a lot of misguided guys do. Take charge and inspect her face like a jeweler appraising a valuable gem. Appear to be judging her demeanor, her disposition, her character, her comportment, her sensitivity, her soul, her whatever. Anything but her looks. The lady wants to feel that it was more than her beauty that caught your eye. Only after she sees you looking at her, let your lips form a slow smile of considered approval.\n\nHuntresses, the next two are for you. In a sense the techniques are opposites.\n\n##### **S UBMISSIVE EYES**\n\nMales are instinctively super-sensitive to hostile aggression.. Even if you are only half his size, a Hunter could find your extremely intense eye contact threatening. When he glances your way, look straight into his eyes, but let yours express instant admiration and slight submissiveness.\n\nYou can give him an extra Spark with a ploy that has animal origins. When two foxes fight in the wilderness, the one that loses submits and bares his exposed neck to the knifelike teeth of the victor. This vulnerability is an exhilarating feeling for the latter. Give him the homosapien version of this \"I submit to you\" signal.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #3**\n\n**Tilt Your Head and Caress Your Neck During Eye Contact**\n\nHuntresses, keep your eyes glued to his, but tilt your head to soften the exchange. Meanwhile, gently stroke your neck. Primal instinct tells him that you are protecting it because if it came to bloodshed, you know he'd win. It makes him feel like the masterful Hunter he imagines himself to be.\n\n##### **D ARING EYES**\n\nBe prepared, girl. Some of the following Chemistry-Sparking techniques are over the top and for gutsy Huntresses only. You must have the feminine version of brass balls to carry them off\u2014and the skill to turn him around later during the first conversation. However, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I am _not_ suggesting you have loose morals or be less than the lady you are. I am _not_ suggesting you jump into bed with him any time soon. But you must lure him sexually so he can discover the real you. Casting the correct bait, then reeling in your Quarry, require two very different skill sets.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #4**\n\n**Scan His Body Shamelessly with Your Eyes**\n\nAs your eyes meet, let yours travel south. Start at his shoulders, work your way down his chest, then linger a second on his belt. (Courageous Huntresses, go a bit farther.) Explore his body top to crotch like an airport security officer inspecting a passenger in a body scanner.\n\nWhen you've finished your scrutiny, swiftly look up into his eyes and reward him with your smiling seal of approval.\n\nNeedless to say, gentlemen, for the sake of your freedom, do not attempt this on her. You do not need a police report on your record. The next Sparker is for both sexes and makes you feel a connection at the first meeting of the eyes.\n\n##### **L OVING EYES**\n\nDo you remember we talked about how the people who surrounded an infant in the first five years form a great part of the person's LoveMap? As a child, your Quarry's parents' eyes expressed unconditional love\u2014watching her sleeping in the crib, taking her first step, wobbling on his first bicycle ride, putting a bandage on his scraped knee. When he was a baby, he felt the love in Mommy's eyes while holding him. She sensed the adoration in Daddy's when he made funny faces to entertain her.\n\nHave you heard people say, \"She has loving eyes,\" or \"I could see the love in his eyes?\" It's true. That deep emotion does show in a person's eyeballs because internal thoughts produce physiological responses that your observer is subliminally aware of. So physiologically, you can come a step nearer to fitting your Quarry's LoveMap with this self-talk technique. To those of you who think the following Sparker is too far-fetched or \"touchie-feelie,\" I invite you to view the part of any video in which lovers fall in love at first sight. Press the pause button at the second their eyes meet. Now study all four eyes looking at their soon-to-be beloved and you'll see their pupils are ever so slightly enlarged.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #5**\n\n**Give Your Quarry \"Family Eyes\"**\n\nWhile maintaining eye contact, repeat to yourself, \"I feel you're like my family and therefore I love you.\" That automatically enlarges your pupils and softens your eyes, making them even more attractive and inviting. It simulates the admiration, acceptance, and unconditional love that your Quarry basked in as a child.\n\nI said earlier that Hunters and Huntresses should use their eyes in different ways to attract Quarry. Consider that a gross understatement when it comes to using your body, personality, and clothes. I flipped a coin to see which sex's strategy we'd explore first. Heads, Hunters. Tails, Huntresses.\n\nHeads won.\n\n### Hunters' Fishing Trip\n\nPickup Artists, or PUAs, as men on the prowl proudly refer to themselves, dig sexy women. So it's understandable that many misguided men assume \"sexy\" is near the top of a woman's wish list. But when was the last time you think a woman said, \"Hey girlfriend, I sure would like to meet that hairy half-naked stud over there who looks like his jeans were put on with a spray can?\" (That only happens on some TV so-called reality shows.) Guys have a hard time getting it into their heads that the female brain is totally different from theirs. Keep in mind that her hormones intuitively respond to qualities like compassion, confidence, consideration, intelligence, and financial security.\n\n\"Okay,\" you are saying, \"if I hear you correctly, these are qualities I can prove to her when we start talking and dating. But what's that got to do with her feeling quick Chemistry with me? I can't just go up to a chick and say, 'Hi, I'm caring, kind, clever, loaded with capital, can coach you to achieve your full potential, and be a great dad. Can I buy you a drink?' I mean, she doesn't even know me yet.\"\n\nOh yes she does! Compared to you, a female is a clairvoyant with x-ray vision. She senses more about you in a split second than you can in an hour of gaping at her. There are three main reasons:\n\n1.A female's neurons are more densely crowded in certain layers of the cortex that are responsible for signals coming in and out of the brain, so they have enhanced communication with each other\u2014and with subtleties in the outside world.\n\n2.A woman also has ten times more \"white matter\" in her brain\u2014and that's where she does a lot of her thinking. The significance of that? Neurons in white matter have more connections between them and have something like a greased tube called a _myelin sheath_. This makes her interbrain signals even quicker. Compare it to the clarity of a land line versus a cell phone.\n\n3.The connection between a female's left brain (logical and analytical) and right brain (intuitive and subjective) is stronger. That means she can put you under a microscope to examine your every expression, every gesture, and every syllable for its significance. Even what it revealed about you when you asked the bartender for more peanuts.\n\nShe's probably given you the thumbs up or cast you to the lions before you take your first step toward her, so from her first glance, you must demonstrate that you are an evolved twenty-first-century-kinda guy.\n\n#### _Your Actions Speak Louder Than Looks_\n\nLet's say you're at a Looking-4-Luv singles bar, and of course, the women are furtively checking you out. (It's a fact. Women who are single and searching check out every man who enters the room.) Gentlemen, carefully visualize yourself doing the following and then we'll analyze the coolness of your strategy step by step.\n\nYou are well dressed, pause in the doorway, survey the situation, and pretend not to notice your Quarry. You enter at a smooth pace, and as you head toward the bar, a couple of guys give you a fist bump. Then you greet a buddy and slap him on the back. Asking the bartender for a beer, he smiles and chats with you while two women try unsuccessfully to catch your eye. Then an attractive girl you obviously know approaches. When you whisper something in her ear, she laughs and you brush a hair off her cheek. You then put an arm around her shoulder and the two of you continue talking with your friends.\n\nThe reason your moves are Sparking her pleasure center (or caudate nucleus) is because this brain region has a tendency to live somewhat in the future. It fantasizes kicks\u2013to-come more than it pictures the joys of the present. She's instinctively and subconsciously imagining you playing a future role in her life.\n\nGentlemen, one by one, let's go over the dozen super-cool moves you made.\n\n_1. You dressed well_.  \nThe lady likes that. She knows good clothes will travel further in the business world than ripped jeans do.\n\n_2. You paused and looked around with a friendly expression_. That makes you look kind. If you come across as tough, Mother Nature nudges her, \"Watch out, dear, he might be ruthless to you and the family someday!\"\n\n_3. You strolled in at a smooth pace_.  \nYour walk evidences a strong immune system. If you limp into the room like a centipede with ninety-six missing legs, your uneven gait could signal a weak one. Huntresses pick up on the scent of bad genes like the smell of a dead mouse under the refrigerator.\n\n_4. You didn't appear to notice her_.  \nThat was a very cool move. It made you look like you weren't on the prowl.\n\n_5. A couple of guys gave you the fist bump_.  \nA man needs supportive colleagues to get ahead so having male friends is a big plus to women.\n\n_6. You greeted a buddy and slapped him on the back_. Excellent. That displays friendly dominance. Think about it, an employee doesn't slap his employer's back. A slave doesn't slap his master's back. It's the other way around. In other words, the slapper is \"on top.\"\n\n_7. The bartender smiled and chatted with you_.  \nHis respect proves you have a good reputation in that establishment.\n\n_8. Two women looked at you flirtatiously_.  \nYou are more of a prize if other women want you.\n\n_9. An attractive girl approached you_.  \n\"Uh oh,\" you might think. \"My Quarry might assume that's my girlfriend, that I'm 'taken.'\" Not a problem, gentlemen. It's okay to give her a little scare because it triggers fearful electrochemical activity in her amygdala. In a perverse way, however, she gets a kick out of it, like a scary movie.\n\nBesides, if you're in a relationship with a woman, that means you are \"preapproved.\" It's like buying a string of pearls at a yard sale versus a reputable antique store. At the yard sale you're taking a chance. In the antique store they're probably the real McCoy.\n\n_10. You whispered something in the woman's ear and she laughed_. That evidenced your good sense of humor. In Chapter 6 you'll learn some surprising reasons why women like men who make them laugh.\n\n_11. You brushed a hair off her cheek_.  \nThat was a killer move. Mother Nature tells her \"Girl, this guy is the protective sort and will take care of you and the kids.\"\n\n_12. Then you put your arm around her_.\n\nThat is a male version of \"playing hard to get.\" The jealousy gene bites and kicks your Quarry's competitive juices into action. Here's one that's in _Ripley's Believe It or Not_ , or at least \"Leil's Believe It or Not.\" I didn't until I read the studies. Most women don't mind doing what sociologists call \"mate poaching.\" Researchers asked women at Oklahoma State if they would actively pursue a man with qualities matching her wish list. Fifty-nine percent said yes. Then they asked, \"What if the man was already in a committed relationship?\" This time 90 percent of the women said they would go after him\n\nLet's sum it up. You've given the lady's pleasure center hints of good things to come with your smell of success, good genes, sense of humor, respect from other men, and caring qualities. Then you gave her brain an electrical jolt of fear that you're taken. Now when you approach your Quarry, she will be fully primed.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #6**\n\n**Don't Act \"Hot.\" Act \"Cool Dad.\"**\n\nHunters, in preparing for your next pursuit, the key words are not \"sexy hot\" or even \"handsome.\" Think \"caring.\" Think \"coach.\" Think \"kind,\" think \"clever,\" think \"capital.\" Think\u2014are you ready?\u2014\"cool dad.\" I know it's impossible to replicate the previous scenario, but squeeze in as many elements as possible to give tiny Sparks to any woman watching you.\n\n#### _Smiling Is Not Just Smiling_\n\nWhen the usual horny Hunter smiles at a woman, his objective is as obvious as a tarantula on his lips. You must show that you are different. I discovered the perfect expression to accomplish that while watching a teenager at a playground with his little sister. He obviously adored her and seldom took his eyes off her. I'll never forget the warm, protective look on his face as he helped her climb the precarious jungle gym. I call it the \"Little Sister Smile.\" Use the following visualization technique.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #7**\n\n**Bestow the \"Little Sister Smile\" on Your Quarry**\n\nLet your mind play a trick on your lips. When you first spot her, visualize a vulnerable someone you love and want to protect at all costs as you would a little sister. Your caring smile instinctively warms her heart and sets you apart from \"all those other animals\" with their leering grins.\n\n#### _Does She Really Care What I Wear?_\n\nIn a word, \"Yes!\" To her, your clothes are a projection of who you are. Never lose sight of the fact that a woman reads something into everything. Unlike you, she doesn't have sex-ray vision to undress her Quarry mentally. No matter what you think, she is not salivating to see the bulging biceps and washboard abs beneath your threads. She loves a great body but prefers it covered until impending intimacy.\n\nIn an infamous research project called the \"Hamburger Study,\" women saw photos of guys ranging from Tom Cruise look-alikes down to pictures of men even the photographer would be afraid to be alone with in the studio. The women didn't know the photos were of the same guys, sometimes wearing suits, sometimes in Burger King uniforms. Many of the former were chosen as \"husband material,\" but none of the poor fast-food slingers. Yes, a male's hunting gear is important to make the kill. To a woman, a well-dressed male is a bigger turn-on than an almost-naked one.\n\nWhen I was cruise director on a ship, the waiters were all Italian and gorgeous. At the grand finale dinner on the last night, we had a surprise tradition. Suddenly all the lights would go out. Just as passengers were freaking over a power outage, the music blared out. A hundred drop-dead gorgeous, sizzling waiters marched out of the kitchen wearing only tiny Speedo bathing suits and carrying candle-decorated baked Alaska above their shoulders.\n\nThe women hooted. The girls screamed. The men closed their eyes. Everyone laughed hysterically. The women told me they thought it was hilarious\u2014but not a turn-on.\n\nConversely, Hunters, if you saw a parade of practically naked beauties carrying cakes with candles above their heads, your eyeballs would jump out and dangle by the optic nerve. Even if you were starving, you wouldn't even notice the cake.\n\n#### _Why Coordinated Clothes Counts_\n\nSometimes, when my roommate Phil dresses for a date, he asks me how he looks. I break it to him gently, but I don't dare let him go out in his brown Timberland boots with navy pants and an olive, short-sleeved shirt. (Gentlemen, even if it's hot as a jet's exhaust outside, do not sport short sleeves. It short-circuits your sex appeal. Go for long sleeves rolled up.)\n\nThink \"coordinated.\" No black slacks with brown shoes; no brown belt with black shoes; no black socks with olive pants. And, horror of horrors, no piece of hairy leg showing in between. That merits you a female's \"yuck\" every time.\n\nYou've heard rumors that women always notice your shoes. Well, kill the rumor and file it under fact. Some have an uncanny ability to spot a pair of Pradas attached to the bottom of a male sitting on the other side of a crowded party. Buy one quality pair of shoes for your hunting expeditions.\n\n\"Why does the female population care about what I wear?\" you ask. Because coordinated clothes demonstrate creativity, taste, and intelligence. Perhaps you're thinking, \"But the kind of women I want wouldn't care about such surface stuff.\" Don't be so sure! Even the waitress from the One Horse Coffee Shop, who has never been outside of the town it's named after, has an uncanny sense of the quality of your clothes.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #8**\n\n**Dress Like You're Auditioning to Be Her Husband**\n\nMake sure your threads are good quality and soft because females are more sensitive to touch than you. Think quality, not quantity. And neatness counts. Even though the other guys might think it's cool to go out dressed like an unmade bed, set yourself apart. You can be casual, of course, but be casual chic, not casual cheap.\n\nDon't sweat it if your budget is more beer than champagne. Run the numbers. A small closet of fine-quality clothes costs a fourth of all the junk you most likely have stashed in it now. Unlike women, you can wear the same outfit more often\u2014as long as you air it out every now and then.\n\nA final tidbit: Before the big date that you're hoping will end with her asking \"Your place or mine?\" you have a tough decision. Boxers or briefs? Brief briefs or full briefs? Plain boxers or bright boxers? Colored briefs or white briefs?\n\nThere are no referenced studies for the following, but the results of the \"Official Dr. Lowndes Seminar Participants Survey\" says women prefer good-quality, low-cut white or black briefs on a man. But not too brief.\n\n### Huntresses' Fishing Trip\n\nHuntresses, now it's your turn to embark on the Quarry safari at the same location, the Looking-4-Luv singles spot. Let's say, because you are drop-dead gorgeous, you know men will soon swoop down on you like seagulls fighting over a crumb. But naturally you don't want just any ol' male sidling up to you, saying, \"What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?\" You deserve a gentleman. So to attract more refined Quarry, you take a ladylike position and cross your legs daintily. Oops, your skirt rides up. A few men glance your way and you shyly look down. Another nice-looking man smiles at you. You quickly pull your skirt down lest he think you're cheap. When you look up again, he's chatting up some overly made-up hussy who is way less good looking than you. What an animal!\n\nAnother cool guy glances your way. As you demurely rearrange your blouse, he goes back to talking to his buddy. Ten minutes go by, and a few other Hunters smile at you. You sweetly look away and await their approach.\n\nBut it never happens! Why didn't any of them come over to say, \"hi\"? Not one of them offered to buy you a drink. You're thinking, \"I could be lying on the floor gasping for breath, dying of thirst, and no one would care.\" You figure every man in the bar is either blind, gay, or with a jealous girlfriend who packs a pistol in her purse.\n\n#### _What Went Wrong?_\n\nNo one approached because, when you sat down, your body looked like it was wearing a \"Private Property\" or \"Keep Out\" sign. When one gentleman glanced your way, you went into the archaic geisha act. Another stole a peek at your knees and you hid them. Then you modestly rearranged your blouse so guys couldn't see your alluring neckline.\n\nDo you really think a guy will tell his buddy, \"Hey Bro, think I'll go make a move on that prim little lady over there who turned away and hid her knees from me?\" To any woman who wants to capture the \"grand slam,\" as animal hunters call the biggest and the best of each species, I'm saying \"Girl, you have to change your stalking style!\" All the studies prove it: Friendly slightly suggestive aggressiveness is the name of the game if you want to win.\n\n#### _How the \"Beauty Challenged\" Can Ace the \"Tens_ \"\n\nHuntresses, earlier we talked about the extraordinary importance of looks. So one would logically assume that most men, spotting both an attractive woman and a plain one at a party, would approach the former. This is not true!\n\nUsing the common one-to-ten beauty-scale measurement, researchers engaged courageous young women of average attractiveness to go to pubs where singles mingle and to flirt overtly with men they didn't know. During all the activity the eagle-eyed investigators feverishly took notes on cocktail napkins, tracking which women various men approached\u2014the gorgeous women or the average-looking ladies in the experiment. Their findings?\n\nIf you are friendly and obviously flirtatious, men are more apt to approach you than they are the most gorgeous women in the room. But don't just take my word for it. Enjoy all the delicious details in any of dozens of studies. They are a thrilling read for us single-digit gals.\n\n#### _A Hunter's Brain Is Like a Light Switch with a Delayed Connection_\n\nYou've felt that instant Spark just spotting a guy on the street. Sure, guys can feel that too, _if_ the lady fits his previously established LoveMap. Perhaps she has just the right face, precise body, and DNA to invoke those scillions of pleasurable subconscious associations. But if you're not that one in a million, all is not lost. You can still give his brain brief spikes of voltage that he'll swear was an \"instant\" Spark. Why? Because the male neural \"instant\" is longer than yours due to those slower neurotransmissions and lack of lubricated myelin sheaths in his gray matter. His relative sluggishness on interpersonal subtleties is excellent news when trying to Spark Chemistry because you have time to flip his switch before the male \"instant\" is up. You toggle it by doing something suggestive.\n\nSisters, I'm assuming your first interest in meeting your Quarry is not just sex but also a possible relationship. You want him to be interested in you as a person, not a sex object. But of course, his first interest _is_ sex! So why shouldn't _you_ do what you expect _him_ to do for you? The Platinum Rule, remember? Don't approach him with _your_ interests in mind. Approach him with _his_. In other words, lure your Quarry with hints of sex\u2014then capture him with your substantial qualities.\n\nFor us women, it's just the opposite. We like a guy and, when we recognize his fine qualities, we become all the more sexually interested in him. But for a man, the sexual excitement must be there first. We'll talk about that now\u2014then we'll get to turning him around. A little later I'll give you techniques to show him that you are most definitely not just a sex object and dozens of ways to win his respect and love.\n\n#### _Hunting Gear for Trapping First-Class Quarry_\n\nIn light of what I wrote in the \"body parts\" paragraphs in Chapter 2, you have every right to assume I'll suggest you dress seductively.\n\nAbsolutely not! My Granny was no fool. Her words are as true today as when I was a teen. Once, as I was proudly spinning around, showing off my new micro-miniskirt, she took my hand and cautioned, \"Leilie, there are two kinds of girls in this world. The marrying kind and 'the other kind.'\" I rolled my eyes.\n\nThis many years later I owe her an apology. All serious studies support her wisdom. Instead of Granny's very unacademic designation of \"the other kind,\" however, researchers call them females with \"short-term mating strategies\" or \"munificent\" women. Yes, I had to look that word up too. It means \"bountiful,\" \"willing to give gifts,\" \"generous.\" Seeing her in too much makeup and too few clothes, no one needs to ask what she's generous with.\n\nWe've all seen guys at parties or at the mall salivating over these short-term-strategy ladies. But not one of those panting males would invite a woman with Cleopatra makeup and cleavage to her navel to his company's Christmas party. So tone down the makeup and torch the scanty outfit that you store in a matchbox. That gets you a large _quantity_ of attention, but not _quality_ attention.\n\nI told Hunters about the quality and fashion of their clothes. What about yours? Do men make judgments about that? Absolutely not. The coordination, the cost, how it reflects your deep, inner qualities, how much money you make, and whether your outfit augurs well for your future together is lambda calculus to them. In research similar to the Hamburger Study, men viewed women wearing everything from designer garb to bag-lady clothes. Men always chose the good-looking females even if they were sporting Salvation Army rejects. It doesn't matter what you wear; it's the little tricks you'll soon learn about using your clothes that count.\n\n#### _Forget Fashion, Think Flirtation_\n\nNaturally, you should match the intensity of the following techniques to your personality, the venue, the class, and the presumed mindset of your Quarry. But do not match them to your \"comfort level.\" Unless you are a hooker on heroin, I guarantee your comfort level is far too low. You'll have plenty of time later to demonstrate you are not a woman of easy virtue or \"that kind of girl.\" If you want a long-term relationship with him, you must start doing that during the first conversation.\n\nA Hunter doesn't notice your clothing, but he certainly notices what he sees of your body. That's where \"adjustable clothing\" comes in. Dress conservatively but in clothes you can shift around to reveal a little more of your body to _only_ your target man. An example is a soft blouse with a scoop neck that you can tug revealingly to the side to show more skin. Alternatively, you can let your blouse \"accidentally\" slip off one shoulder when he looks your way. Or a full skirt you can slide up to show more leg. Incidentally, here's a model's trick to make your legs shapelier when you do. With your legs crossed, push the calf of your top calf out with your bottom knee. Try it now and you'll see what I mean.\n\nIf a man's testosterone shoots up by a third just talking to an attractive woman, can you imagine how it skyrockets when you gently tug at your attire to expose a tad more of yourself? Getting a glimpse of even a relatively \"innocent\" part of your body like a thigh, a naked shoulder, or even a bare foot when you dangle a shoe on your toes gives him a little Spark\u2014and they all add up to a big one.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #9**\n\n**Don't Wear Revealing Clothes. Wear \"Adjustable\" Ones**\n\nDon't reveal cleavage or too much leg that any guy in the vicinity could gape at. Instead, sport outwardly conservative clothing that you can shift and slide around to reveal only _what_ you want, _when_ you want, and _how_ you want to excite the _who_ you want. Make it obvious that your ministrips are solely for your Quarry's viewing pleasure alone.\n\nBy the way, here's a neuroanatomical heads up: Don't waste your artillery more than forty degrees to his right or left during any of these maneuvers. A Hunter has fewer receptor rods and cones in his retina, so his peripheral vision is narrower. Stand as close as you can to his direct line of vision whenever casting bait.\n\n### Sizzling Sparkers for Serious Huntresses\n\nI learned this scorching Sparker in college. Not in class but from a petite brunette who had just moved into my dorm. Shannon was sweet but shy\u2014the reserved, quiet type. So we were all shocked when Carson, the Big Catch on Campus, who had only dated hot women, fell for her.\n\nLate one Saturday night after she and I had both returned from dates, I walked into the dorm's community shower room. Shannon was just slipping out of her dress revealing\u2014I gasped\u2014a skimpy, black lace garter belt, stockings, and a see-through bra! Embarrassed, she threw a towel around herself and scurried back to her room.\n\nSitting on the shower bench struggling to remove my tight pantyhose, I instantly realized what Carson saw in her. She was the type of girl he'd be proud to introduce to his family. Yet underneath, Shannon obviously was sexually savvier than any of his previous hot dates.\n\nI thought that was pretty cool and made it a point to become her friend to see what else I could learn. On our way to lunch one time we passed a Victoria's Secret lingerie store. I asked if she wanted to stop in.\n\n\"Why, Leil?\" Then I teased her about her sizzling undergarments.\n\n\"Laugh all you like,\" she said. \"It works.\"\n\n\"I'm sure it does, Shannon. And you go strutting around the campus in hot sexy underwear for all the guys to enjoy, ha ha!\"\n\n\"No!\" Taking mock offense, she continued, \"I'm very particular who gets to see it. In fact, that's how I met Carson.\" She looked around and lowered her voice. \"I knew he always had lunch at the campus canteen, so one day I sat at another table directly across from him. Then, pretending I didn't notice, I let the top of my garter show. Naturally, he looked over, and when he did, I winked at him before hiding it. Of course he came over and said 'hi.'\"\n\n\"Shannon, you've got to be kidding!\"\n\n\"No, I am dead serious!\"\n\n\"Girlfriend, you are one sassy lady! And when we met, I thought you were so shy.\"\n\n\"Not in all ways,\" she said coyly.\n\nSisters, it all has to do with your Quarry getting a private peek at the sexy forbidden, especially if you're revealing it especially for him. In the late nineteenth century savvy women in floor-length skirts flashed ankle. You need to raise the bar on this antiquity to just above your knees. Many men have told me that they find \"the peek\" at something usually hidden more exciting than nudity. Purposefully revealing a touch of a black garter or the top of a red lace bra says, \"I may look conservative outside. But on the inside I'm bitchin' hot _just for you._ \"\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #10**\n\n**Look Sedate on the Outside, but Reveal Something Sizzling Underneath**\n\nWhen you're around small game, turn your body away, pull down your skirt, and button up your blouse. But when you spot your grand slam Quarry, reveal something sexy you are wearing underneath like the top of a lacy bra. It gives him a chock-full-of-testosterone Spark.\n\nI highly suggest garters and stockings because a man seldom sees them in the twenty-first century except in hot magazines. The somewhat uncomfortable but very sexy contraptions have come a long way since Granny's day. They now spell s-e-x.\n\nTake another tip from Shannon and put a touch of humor in your microstrip show. Your smile can express, \"I know you know what I'm doing and I'm having fun. Hope you are too.\" Winks work wonderfully during your self-presentation. The beauty of this ocular flutter is your later claim, \"What wink? I had something in my eye.\" (And you did\u2014him.)\n\n#### _One Huntress's Triple-X Tip_\n\nI can't in all good conscience put my seal of approval on this next one, but I do have evidence of its efficacy. Again I'd like to repeat, in no way whatsoever should you come across as cheap. But you can conspire with Mother Nature to bag your Quarry quickly. A clever girl in one of my dating seminars came up with an ingenious little trick. During the coffee break several men were surrounding a particular young lady who was quite poised, well spoken, and dressed in a medium-length skirt and a silk turtleneck. There was nothing cheap about her. I remember being pleased at my male students' good taste.\n\nWhen the class reconvened I asked participants to place their nametags higher on their right shoulders so I could see them from the podium. At that point I noticed Brittany's breasts\u2014not large, but tipped with little BB-like protrusions.\n\nBefore the break I had asked the group to write attraction techniques anonymously on a card, which, with their permission, I would later read to the class. When I got to Brittany's card, my jaw dropped. I looked up and saw the demure little lady grinning as wide as a banana. She squeezed her lips together signaling, \"Shh, it's our secret.\" The class was understandably confused when I broke out laughing.\n\nGentlemen, please skip the following. It's just a fashion tip (pun intended) for the ladies. Here's what Brittany had written on her card:\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #11**\n\n**\"Modify\" Your Bra**\n\n\"Leil, please don't use my name if you read this to the class, but here's a technique that works like magic. Whenever I'm going somewhere there might be interesting guys, I dress conservatively but I snip the tips off my bras so the shape of my nipples shows under my blouse.\"\n\nThe class had no idea why I was laughing as I tucked the card away.\n\nLike all erotica, Mother Nature is behind the nipple magnetism for men. During sex your nipples become firmer, and when you're nursing, the area expands. Big nipples also help your baby find lunch. So girl, if you weren't blessed with protruding nipples, take a tip from Brittany. Big Mama in the sky would even give you the shears!\n\n#### _Erotic Truth Is Stranger than Fiction_\n\nYou've probably never consciously thought about it\u2014nor has he\u2014but a male is aroused by the scent of female underarms, therefore, also the sight of a lady's pits. As a further draw, Big Mama even makes them even spicier when you're ovulating.\n\nNapoleon, in his famous love letters to Josephine, wrote of the \"intoxicating pleasures\" of being with her. In one, he beseeched, \"I am arriving in Paris in three days. Don't wash.\"\n\nThis one sounds too silly to merit a specific Sparker, so just consider it a hint. If you are wearing a sleeveless top, lift your arm and pretend to be arranging the back of your hair. He's too far away to actually sniff your pheromones, but it invokes sweet subliminal memories of other times his nose has nuzzled that usually unseen female territory.\n\n##### **T HE OVULATING WALK**\n\nIn the 1600s, a young orphan named Catherine commissioned a cobbler to craft a pair of shoes with a higher heel in the back. This had the effect of arching her back, thrusting out her buttocks and bosom, and putting a wiggle in her walk. (Not so incidentally, Catherine de' Medici managed to bag the future king of France at the age of fourteen.) Marilyn Monroe also took hip swinging seriously. Rumor has it that she shaved down one heel of all her stilettos to put a swing in her stride.\n\nHowever, we're talking about a different gait that is more subtly sexually appealing than a wiggling walk or swinging stride. The best way to describe it would be an \"undulating, very slow-motion gallop.\" The study, \"Differences in Gait Across the Menstrual Cycle and Their Attractiveness to Men,\" demonstrated that women unconsciously dress more provocatively, and walk in this more sensuous manner during her big \"O\" days. Mother Nature knows its power and programmed it into the walk of ovulating women to signal males that \"it's time for you to make your move on me.\"\n\nLadies, don't be scandalized by some of the previous techniques. In Chapter 5, I will give you proof that if you handle your Quarry strategically in the ways I suggest, the blend of his weaker memory for details plus his stronger male ego will make him think he initiated the entire encounter. In fact, it's proven that females initiate two-thirds of all marriages, be it a smile, a come-hither look, or the first hello.\n\nObviously you should tailor your tricks to your desired catch. Refined Quarry or someone residing on Easy Street might be turned off by techniques that would excite a guy living on the other side of the tracks, and vice versa. But even if your Quarry is sitting on the top of the invisible class totem pole, you can use potent soft-x techniques to Spark him.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #12**\n\n**Do the Undulating Ovulating Walk When He's Watching**\n\nThe next time you're ovulating (around midpoint between your period) take note of how your walk instinctively changes. Or view a video of a high-fashion model in skyscraper heels swiveling her skeleton butt on the catwalk. Then practice, practice, practice. Just don't walk that way at church or work. It's for \"special occasions\" only, like when your Quarry is watching you.\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _4_\n\n## How to Spark Cyber Chemistry\n\nWhen first introduced, online dating was a hush-hush humiliation for the pioneering few who clandestinely indulged in it. During that primitive period of romance, I remember asking one happy couple where they'd met. After an anxious change of glances, the wife nervously sputtered, \"Well, it was, er, umm, at . . .\" Her quick-thinking husband squeezed her hand and deftly jumped in, \"Oh, I happened to see her picture and knew immediately I had to meet her.\" He didn't say where he'd seen it! Now, however, online dating is standard operating procedure for finding love and may soon be responsible for the majority of meetings. When today's babies reach teenhood, they might ask, \"What were singles' bars?\"\n\nIf the term _computer dating_ still holds cringe-worthy associations for you, tell your hippocampus to banish the bad connotations. Dating sites are not just populated by cave trolls. Millions of single, divorced, and widowed fabulous folks are sincere love seekers just like you, and it may be just a click away.\n\nBecause information on writing a profile is plastered all over the web, and I promised to give you information that is found in few, if any, other places, I'll concentrate primarily on your picture. That's where the Chemistry starts.\n\n### The Successful Online Hunter\n\nGentlemen, a Huntress studies your face on the screen through her crystal ball to unearth what type of guy you are. Because she'll read between the lines on your face, choose a photo that shows character, not just a handsome guy. If wisdom is her big turn-on, she'll search for intelligence in your eyes. If she values a sense of humor, she'll look for credible laugh lines, not just a grimace for the camera. In the \"Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction\" category, researchers found that women can determine whether a guy wants kids just by looking at a picture of his face\n\nA good haircut is a big draw. You don't need to go to a stylist who charges by the follicle, but forget your neighborhood barber who moonlights as a butcher. The _Journal of Social Behavior and Personality_ discovered that glasses can be an asset for men. When asked why, women responded, \"They make him look more intelligent.\" The female mind doesn't stop there. Glasses are also a \"fashion statement.\" Are your frames up to date, meaning are you an _au courant_ type of guy? Are they the right ones for your facial shape, meaning are you smart enough to make the right choices in life?\n\nAnd, of course, your skin must scream \"good genes.\" Gentlemen, here's a \"You've got to be kidding\" moment, but hang in there. To prove to her that you've got all-class genes, furtively slip into the cosmetic aisle of a drugstore to buy a gooey skin-colored product called \"concealer.\" Just before the photo, lock your bathroom door and smear concealer on any pimples, rashes, broken capillaries, canker sores, large pores, or any other blight on your otherwise perfect face. (Do you think there is a newscaster, actor, or rock star alive who doesn't wear a little guy-liner while facing a camera or crowd?)\n\nFour photos are optimal. More, you look vain. Less, the ladies can't see enough to make a considered choice. Final caution: Never post a self-taken shot of you in the bathroom mirror. That says, \"I don't have a friend in the world, not even one I can talk into taking my picture.\"\n\n#### _Hunters' Clothes_\n\nGentlemen, your garb represents a possible future lifestyle to your Quarry. Does she see herself on the arm of a business tycoon in a suit, a surgeon in scrubs, a jock in a football uniform, or a casual fun-loving guy in jeans? Give the lady fodder for her fantasies.\n\nIf you select the \"I'm a nice, regular guy\" image, which is probably the best choice, follow the guidelines in Chapter 3 on clothing. The whole \"ensemble\" should look casually coordinated, perhaps a bit costly. Depending on your age and lifestyle, gentlemen, one shot in a suit doesn't hurt. It makes you look more successful professionally.\n\nYes, gentlemen, the job in your profile makes big difference. To cover your bets, unless you have controlling interest in all creation, some men told me they had more success listing a generic category (i.e., \"business,\" \"the arts,\" etc.) than stating their specific job. Some of you really hot-looking dudes might be asking, \"What about one shirtless shot showing my rippling muscles and ripped abs?\" No, that is way beyond cheesy as a choice. Your biceps may show success at the gym, but she's more interested in your success in life. She figures it's better that her future kids have a bright daddy than a beefcake daddy.\n\n#### _Hunters' Background_\n\nYou may not be aware of it, but Huntresses also scrutinize every megapixel of what's behind you in your picture. Your surroundings can make her respond\/delete decision. What's in the background of your outdoor shot? A battered truck, a motorcycle, a Subaru, or a Mercedes? What about an indoor shot? For some picky Huntresses, the click\/no-click decision comes down to curtains, blinds, or stark-naked dirty windows. Whatever is in the background, she's pondering, \"Would I like to live there or ride in that?\"\n\nIt doesn't hurt to have another woman in a secondary shot, but only if she's stunning. A study called, \"The Effects of Having a Physically Attractive Partner on Person Perception\" confirmed that when a man has a dazzling woman in tow, the world considers him richer, more accomplished, and better looking. If you decide to go this route, make sure that _all_ of the woman shows, not part of her cropped out. I've seen some pretty lame photos of Hunters with a woman's hand on his arm, and the rest of her sliced off. Your Quarry subconsciously fears that the next woman he slices out of his life will be her. Alas, our gentle sex reads something into everything.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #13**\n\n**Photo Tips: Show Character in Your Face and Have an Appealing Background**\n\nMake sure the lighting shows character and depth in your face and that you're not \"just another good looking guy.\" Don't forget the touch of concealer to signal, \"I have good genes.\" Pay extra attention to the background to make her feel, \"I'd like to be there with you.\"\n\n### The Successful Online Huntress\n\nGirl, let's say a Hunter writes you a cool message. You write an even cooler one back. You text a bit and then plan to talk. So far, so good. Visions of romance and maybe happily-ever-after dance through your head.\n\nBut stop. None of these pleasures will be part of your future if he doesn't like your cyber image. It's no news to women that their picture is the primary\u2014probably only\u2014factor that encourages a Hunter to click on their profiles. My only ubiquitous recommendation is to make sure it is recent and resembles you somewhat. I mention that merely because a male student in one of my relationship seminars told me that while waiting in a restaurant to meet his online date, a woman vaguely resembling the lady's picture walked through the restaurant door. He assumed she had sent her mother to apologize for her daughter being unable to keep the date. The rest of the men laughed knowingly. Obviously they had suffered a similar experience.\n\nMy regular readers may remember that, for a short while, I ran a modeling agency, and my girls gave me two great photo tips. First, the world's most photographed women close their eyes for a few seconds between camera clicks to magnify their pupils, making them more attractive. Second, a professional model doesn't \"suck\" in her tummy before the camera clicks. She first expels all her breath to slenderize herself\u2014then \"pulls\" in her tummy and lifts her breasts to \"hourglass\" herself.\n\nHuntresses sometimes ask me, \"Should I hire a professional photographer?\" No. Pros are great for wedding albums and business annual reports, but not your online picture. If you're itching to pay someone to make you look even more beautiful on the site, engage a local makeup artist and say you want natural-looking \"makeup for the camera,\" which is totally different from what you put on your face for a date.\n\nA client once hired a French makeup artist named Simone to \"fix\" my face for the cover of one of my audio programs. After an hour of sitting in the chair under bright lights while she futzed with brushes and pencils, pots and goo, I was dying of curiosity. I asked her if I could look in the mirror. Simone shook her head. I thought she was kidding, so I surreptitiously snatched it off the counter. I gasped at the ghoulish face plastered with gobs of makeup staring back at me. Simone pulled the mirror out of my hand, muttering, \"Zat ees makeup for zee camera only. It ees completely different.\" How right she was! It was the best and most natural-looking photo ever taken of me.\n\n#### _Huntresses' Clothes_\n\nHunters are not going to analyze your garb so, unless it's too revealing or too prim, don't worry about it. However, take a tip from an unusual source, the _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_. Researchers showed men pictures of women wearing clothing in a wide variety of colors. Then the questioning began:\n\n\"Sir, tell us which women you would like to kiss.\"\n\n\"Which would you like to have sex with?\"\n\n\"Which would you be willing to spend a lot of money on?\"\n\nIn all three cases the winning lady was usually wearing red. Why? This sizzling hot hue physically stimulates a faster heartbeat and heavier breathing. So post your picture as a lady in red, and then check your in-box. If you don't have any red clothes, a red backdrop serves the same purpose.\n\n#### _Huntresses' Background_\n\nUnless you're in a jail, a house of ill repute, or surrounded by women more beautiful than you, don't worry about the background. Of these three negative settings, the last is the worst. Male subjects viewing a series of women's photos invariably judged a lady less appealing if the previous female had been more attractive. Ditto if any other woman in the same shot was more alluring. In fact, unless you're with a somewhat beauty challenged acquaintance, leave other women out of your secondary pictures. Why subject yourself to comparisons?\n\n#### _Number of Photos and Poses_\n\nMales joke about being a \"breast man,\" \"butt man,\" or \"leg man,\" and you want to cover all of these\u2014shall we say, \"special interests.\" Post one shot tastefully revealing your legs from just smidgeon higher than the knees down. Make the second a modestly covered head to waist shot, torso in profile, and no cleavage. To please the third set of aficionados, have one full body \"rear\" shot but with your face turned around toward the camera. That plus a couple of face shots and you've got all bases covered.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #14**\n\n**Photo Tips: Wear Red; Apply Camera-Ready Makeup; and Have a Shot for Each \"Special Interest\"**\n\nJust before the camera clicks, briefly close your eyes to enlarge your pupils. Exhale all your breath and further pull in your tummy. Wear red for your primary photo and, in addition, casual but conservative full-body shots\u2014make sure a leg man, breast man, or butt man can find what he's looking for. Now, with expertly applied camera ready makeup\u2014lots of it to look like none\u2014you'll get some possibly life-changing photographs.\n\n### A Devious Digital Tip for Both Sexes\n\nAs you now know, throughout nature a symmetrical insect, fish, bird, reptile, amphibian, invertebrate, or humanoid is considered hotter by other insects, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and humanoids.\n\nUnless you are one of those rare genetically blessed beasts (.001 percent of the population) whose face is utterly symmetrical, turn it ever so slightly away from the camera. That disguises any microscopic imbalance that your Quarry could mistake as you being less than perfectly symmetrical.\n\nBeing a believer in truth in advertising, I hesitate to share the following. But with a little computer expertise\u2014and a lot _chutzpah\u2014_ you can rival any competing symmetrical creature on the service. Here's how.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #15**\n\n**Enhance Your Looks with the \"Mirror Trick\"**\n\nTake a full-face picture of you facing directly into the camera. Then make a computer image of one side of your face, flip it over, and put it on the other side. You'll be dumbfounded how fantastic you look with perfect symmetry. Is this cheating? Well, only half!\n\n### Your Online Name\n\nIf a neuroscientist had been sitting next to Shakespeare at the auditions for _Romeo and Juliet_ and heard the lines \"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,\" he'd shout, WRONG! And he'd be right. Would a bouquet of flatulence smell as sweet?\n\nThe millisecond your name pops up on that dating service screen, your Quarry's hippocampus runs it through its gargantuan memory bank to see if your name has a positive, negative, or somewhat neutral association.\n\nIf you think names don't affect attraction, consider this. Hunters, let's say a friend tells you can have a blind date with a Hortense or a Heather. Which would you chose? Ladies, sight unseen, you must pick between a Bosworth and a Brad. I'll place my bets on Heather and Brad.\n\nTo prove the \"what's in a name\" concept, researchers posted a sign and a half-dozen girls' pictures on a college bulletin board announcing a supposed upcoming pageant. Written under each picture was a female's false name. The girls were all equally attractive and the students had to vote for one of six contestants for beauty queen. They then repeated the same study at another college with the same pictures but the girls' names were changed under the photos. Here are the results averaged. The girls named Heather got 59 votes, the ones called Jennifer received 52, and Kathy 47. The Gertrudes and Harriets got only 14 votes, and the poor Ethels just 11. That's 159 votes for the girls with the predetermined attractive names and 39 for the others.\n\nHunters, it seems the ladies are even pickier when it comes to your name. They preferred one-syllable monikers with a hard-stressed front consonant. Names like Curt, Dirk, Grant, Kent, Nash, Pierce, and Troy give females a tiny electrochemical jolt. If you are a Michael, Christopher, Daniel, Joseph, or Ronald, go by Mike, Chris, Dan, Joe, or Ron.\n\nConversely, gentlemen, if you are thirty-five or older, take the opposite counsel. With age and sophistication a lady prefers a two-syllable name. It sounds classier.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #16**\n\n**Choose a Real, Proven-to-Please Pseudonym**\n\nDon't try to be clever or cute with a made-up moniker. Huntresses, select a bona-fide girl's name with as much thought as you'd choose your future daughter's. Your fave is taken? No problem. Just add some underscores or a symbol to it.\n\nDitto, Hunters. But avoid names like \"Manson\" or \"Bundy.\" You don't want your Quarry subconsciously connecting it with a serial killer's.\n\nYou like her picture? You're impressed by his profile? Now it's time to plan your strategy. But first I must extend my sympathies to the millions of misguided Huntresses who suffer an atavistic ailment spread by word of mouth. They are under the impression that the male of our species must first write the female. Absolutely untrue. Those were the dark ages of computer dating, and it's time for us all to see the light.\n\n### Your First Message\n\nEveryone who has ever sent a message to an attractive someone on a dating site has endured the agony of a condition I'm all too familiar with\u2014writer's block. I feel your pain all the more because it's ten times more challenging to write about yourself. After the \"Hi,\" \"Hello,\" \"Hey,\" \"Yo,\" or \"How's it going,\" your fingers freeze. What should I say to this Quarry whose picture and profile I like?\n\nTo excavate pearls of wisdom on the subject, I ran an online search about how to present yourself in your first message\u2014and came up with a mere 333 million hits. Most of the suggestions were the same: Be upbeat, check your spelling, demonstrate your sense of humor, mention any shared elements, tell her about your hobbies and interests, tell him about your taste in music, movies, or thirteenth-century madrigals.\n\n#### _Who Is Your Quarry_ Really _Interested In?_\n\nPonder this: Of course your Quarry is curious about you. But who is she more interested in? Right, herself. Who is he most going to enjoy hearing about? Himself, of course. So in your introductory message, write about your Quarry's favorite subject\u2014him or herself. In fact, avoid using the word \"I\" as much as possible and try to start as many sentences as you can with _you_ or _your_. When you sprinkle _you_ like salt and pepper throughout your message, your reader finds it an irresistible spice. Gentlemen, applaud her qualities. Ladies, compliment his demeanor. How many people do you think will click \"delete\" in the middle of reading about themselves?\n\nThere's a saying in sales, \"When you're tellin', you're not sellin',\" and it's true here too. You don't need to sell yourself further because your picture and profile do the basic job. Besides, the most enticing thing about you is what's in your Quarry's imagination and fantasies. That's what keeps computer-dating companies in business.\n\n#### _Talk About What You Read Between the Lines_\n\nEven more tantalizing than talking about your Quarry's concrete qualities is what you, and only you, read between the lines about their intangible magnificence. Go through the profile again with a fine-tooth comb and get a sense of the inner person, not the outward physical appearance that any old love seeker ogles. Tell her you sense her creativity, gentleness, kindness, and honesty. Tell him you feel his integrity, dependability, loyalty, or leadership qualities.\n\nThis is not just speculation. The _Journal of Social Issues_ proved the overwhelmingly greater response to that approach in a study called, \"Can You See the Real Me?\" about detecting your Quarry's \"true self\" on the Internet.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #17**\n\n**Forget the External. Write About Your Quarry's Internal Qualities**\n\nRead your Quarry's profile with an \"inner\" eye. Then tell her about, say, the openness and gentleness that shines through her writing. Comment on his self-assured style that has depth and his humor that came jumping off the screen at you.\n\nYour Quarry will admire your insight and good taste. It confirms what they've known all along\u2014they are special and wonderful. And they want to meet the person who recognizes that.\n\nBefore sending, check your message yet again. If you've written something that could be sent to any other woman or man on the site, you're missing the target. Start over.\n\n#### _A Beautiful Tip from an Unsightly Man_\n\nAlthough the next Sparker is for both Hunters and Huntresses, it works better on females. In the play _Cyrano de Bergerac_ the beautiful Roxanne fell in love, sight unseen, with a hideous-looking man who, beneath her balcony, described a kiss as \"A wish that longs to be confirmed, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.'\"\n\nEvery woman has an inner Roxanne. If you're a sucker for a pretty face, she's more of one for a well-turned phrase. Words work wonders and, although you don't want to wax as poetically as Cyrano, take a hint from the verbal heartthrob by spicing up your adjectives. All you need to do is use the thesaurus feature on your computer to impress.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #18**\n\n**Create Magic in Your Message with a Thesaurus**\n\nDon't use words that are as common as weeds and just as unwelcome. If you want to tell your Quarry that her profile was \"interesting,\" run a synonym search and then substitute a word like, _enchanting, engrossing, or intriguing_.\n\nHuntresses, tell him his profile _mesmerized, impressed or captivated_ you. Your less common words and expressions of sentiment demonstrate that you're a cut above the rest of the trite, online love seekers waiting to ride off into the sunset with \"the one.\"\n\nNow let's go from written Sparkers to spoken Sparkers.\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _5_\n\n## How to Spark Chemistry in Your First Conversation\n\nAfter the looking and luring\u2014either in person or online\u2014is over, the real road to the bed, beyond, and maybe forever begins at \"Hi,\" \"Hello,\" \"How do you do,\" or \"Hey.\" What follows in the next few seconds determines whether there will even be a next few seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, or years. Hunters and Huntresses must use diverse strategies if they want the first conversation to culminate in making a date.\n\nHunters, as you know, the minute you open your mouth, your Quarry is evaluating your intelligence, character, kindness, creativity, sense of humor, and everything else on her want-in-a-partner list. Huntresses, he is eyeing your attractiveness and how receptive you are to him. Clearly, the first conversation is a bigger challenge for males, so let's start there. However, women, do not skip it! These insights into the male psyche are crucial for you to have a successful hunting expedition.\n\n### Chemistry Sparking \"Pickup Lines.\" (Hunters, Bite Your Tongue!)\n\nMy shelf holding books for men on meeting women sags from the weight. Practically all the books include a chapter on clever opening lines, but most would only work on an eighty-year-old nymphomaniac when she was crunked. They are penned by elastic-facts players who brag they could seduce any woman, anytime, anywhere. Gentlemen, you'd have better luck finding the Loch Ness monster than a one-size-fits-all opening line.\n\nEvidence aside, the question of \"What is a good one\" is such a pathetic perennial, an invasive weed that won't die, that I must address it here:\n\nA group of sociologists who wanted their names forever enshrined in professional journals eavesdropped on male opening gambits in bars, restaurants, parties, laundromats, and other incubators of \"intergender acquaintanceship,\" as they called them. The analysts divided the overheard lines into three categories: the _direct_ , the _innocuous_ , and the _cute flippant_. Here are the stats on which approaches scored with the ladies and which hit the skids.\n\nWomen found the third category of opening lines, \"cute flippant,\" abominable. The second category, \"innocuous\" (a casual pleasantry to elicit conversation), came in second. The most successful was the \"direct\" approach, with no pretense of the pickup being anything else. Researchers wrote, \"The approaches which rated the highest were direct approaches displaying positive character traits as well as cultural knowledge.\" The conversation opener was even more welcome when the Hunter, with a confident demeanor, voiced a word of embarrassment.\n\nIf you're still not comfortable with that, here is the world's second-best approach. According to the \"Leil Lowndes Unofficial Survey of Women Sixteen to Sixty,\" women preferred it nine times out of ten, and it has stood the test of time. I prefer it. My mother preferred it. And her mother before her preferred it. The trumpet blare please: \"Hello, my name is ________. And yours?\" Try it. She'll like it.\n\nUnless a beautiful woman sounds like she's hog calling, you won't take special note of her voice, but she will yours. It can be beautiful music or microphone feedback to her. Mother Nature programs females to respond viscerally to a deep male voice because it signals more testosterone, which, in turn, makes your sperm stronger, which, in turn, makes you a better begetter of babies.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #19**\n\n**Forget Macho. Use a Slightly Self-Effacing Direct Approach**\n\nApproach your Quarry with total confidence\u2014but verbalize a slight touch of self-effacement. Example: \"Hi, I feel a little embarrassed about this, but I'd really like to meet you. My name is . . .\" Presenting yourself that way displays self-assurance, intelligence, and no pretense. You don't believe it works? Check out the original study called, quite aptly, \"Preference for Opening Lines\" in the references.\n\n### What Every Woman Needs to Know\u2014But Few Do\n\nThe word \"rejection\" mainlines terror into the veins of the most confident of men. They can hardly say the \"R word.\" Guys wrack their brains for pick-up lines, read books on how to be a \"player,\" take online courses, and practice personality tricks to make you swoon. Some spend thousands to attend seminars. I've spoken at these conferences and am shocked how it petrifies a guy that you won't accept his overture. He has nightmares of someone shouting out, \"Hey, everybody, look at that sniveling little critter. He actually thinks he can pick up the likes of her.\" The crowd laughs uproariously, and stripped of his manhood, he crawls away.\n\n#### _Guys Just Don't Get It!_\n\nGirl, you must make your interest outrageously blatant. One of the country's most respected sex and relationship researchers determined that 97 percent of men just don't \"get it\" when you signal them. It's not his fault. Never forget: The male brain is not constructed to sense subtleties in nonverbal communication.\n\nSome years ago, before my cousin, Rory, married his lovely wife, Camilla, he was visiting me. A nearby pub is known as one of the best meat markets in New York City, so off we went. I noticed a beautiful redhead sitting at the bar who kept smiling at Rory. To me and every other woman in the room, it was as obvious as a fly in a sugar bowl. Rory talked to a few girls and, not finding anyone special, suggested we leave. Walking home, I commented, \"Gee Rory, it's really too bad you didn't see any girls you liked.\"\n\n\"Oh, I did,\" he said.\n\n\"Really, which ones?\"\n\n\"Did you happen to notice the girl at the end of the bar with the long red hair?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" I sputtered. \"The one who was giving you the clear come-on signals.\"\n\n\"Giving me the what?\" he gasped.\n\n\"The poor girl kept flirting her little red head off trying to get your attention.\"\n\n\"C'mon Leil, don't tease me like that.\"\n\n\"Rory, I'm serious. Her signals were as clear as crystal to me and every other woman in the bar. And obviously clear as mud to you.\"\n\nTo this day, he thinks I was kidding.\n\n### The Case for Female Proceptivity\n\nFor female what? The word _proceptive_ is sociological\/anthropological lingo for the female initiating the relationship. In order to produce successful products, a company requires both quantity and quality. On Planet Earth, males are responsible for quantity of output and females are in charge of quality. It's true all throughout nature. Female mammals in Mother Nature's magnificent skies, seas, and earth are extremely picky about their \"sperm donors.\" A ladybug, bee, bird, or fish spots her preferred target bug, bee, bird, or fish. Then, by tongue flicking, self-licking, or obscene sucking sounds, she lures her chosen Quarry. Chuckling inside, if animals could chuckle, she pretends to run away. He chases her, convinced that all those spicy signals mean sure sex.\n\nLadies, learn from the lower creatures. They are smarter than you in this sense because they openly practice female proceptivity. Your mantra should be \"If you want a top-rate mate, you must initiate.\" Females are the logical pursuers. Society, however, has repressed our natural proclivities. Just as many gays and lesbians once felt obligated to hide theirs, it's time for us all to come out of the closet!\n\n#### _Huntresses' Pickup Lines (Try a Few, He'll Love It!_ )\n\nLadies, I'm not even going to bother with the kid stuff suggestions. You'll get the same old chestnuts about being the first to make eye contact and to smile from plenty of other sources. And, yes, it's good advice. To obliterate any lingering doubt about its overwhelming power, the research project, \"Giving Men the Come-on: Effect of Eye Contact and Smiling in a Bar Environment\" proves it. It's elementary. It's effortless. And yes, it works to lure him over. But we're not just talking \"lure\" in this book; we're talking about creating that chemical Spark.\n\nGirl, I cautioned Hunters to forget they ever heard the words \"pickup line.\" Conversely, I implore you to learn a few. When the bars\/restaurants\/parties\/laundromats study was reversed, males responded overwhelmingly to women's opening lines. \"Reactions to Heterosexual Opening Gambits\" proved that the direct, innocuous\u2014and even cute-flippant ones\u2014were equally effective when coming from a female.\n\nYou'd want to wear a bag over your head while delivering any of the following pickup lines, and I am _not_ suggesting any of them verbatim. I present them merely to give you an idea of the corny phrases proven to produce the desired results. Here were the researchers' scripted lines for the ladies:\n\n\u2022They directed some women to approach men with a smile and say, \"When I first saw you, I thought about introducing you to my girlfriend, but I'm not that generous.\"\n\n\u2022Others followed their Quarry with a pen in their hands and asked, \"Did you drop this?\" They then laughed and confessed. \"That was a pretty lamebrain excuse for me to talk to you, wasn't it?\"\n\n\u2022A third group said, \"Can I say I met a hot guy tonight, or do I have to lie to my diary?\"\n\nDo these lines sound cheesy? Yes. Corny? Yes. Dumb? Yes. _D\u00e9class\u00e9?_ Yes. Do they work? A resounding _yes!_ I hear you thinking, \"Oh, I couldn't do that!\" But consider this: If you don't awaken his napping neurons with something shocking, you may never meet him. Which is worse?\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #20**\n\n**Huntresses, Plan Some Opening Lines!**\n\nSisters, think like a guy and plan phrases to meet your next Potential Love Partner, whom we'll call your PLP. There is no need to be quite as outrageous as the ladies in the study were directed, but write your own opening lines. Be creative and courageous. Raise the bar on your comfort level, and be a _little_ outrageous.\n\n#### _But Won't He Think I'm Being Aggressive?_\n\nThe short answer is no. Here is the longer one: It's not just the senile, the sleepless, and alcoholics who suffer memory loss. The male ego has an uncanny ability to rewrite history and conveniently disremember who approached whom. Remember, his prefrontal cortex is not the best egg in his basket when saturated with dopamine and testosterone. For the rest of your future life together, he will brag to your mutual friends that he, the successful Hunter, made the first move. Why? Because, as I said before, thanks to the male's more sluggish gray-matter transmissions, his \"instant\" is slower. When your blatant come-on finally dawns on him, it could be the first moment he thinks he's noticed you.\n\nAt a neighborhood gathering I ran into a friend, Melissa Richards, who had been married to her husband, Randy, for twelve years. I asked her how they'd met. \"Leil, I shamelessly stalked him,\" she laughed, and then revealed the details. When they were students at Stanford, Melissa spotted him studying at another table in the library. She instantly felt the Spark and kept sneaking peeks at Randy. When he noticed, she smiled. He returned the smile perfunctorily but went back to looking at his books. This scenario repeated itself the next day. Obviously Randy didn't feel the Spark for Melissa.\n\nOn evening three, Melissa decided to take action. She hid behind one of the shelves in the library at the usual time Randy came to study. Pretending to just enter, she came over to him and lied that she'd been sitting at that table earlier in the afternoon and had lost a contact lens. Randy crawled around the floor helping her look for it. But to no avail, of course, because Melissa never wore contacts. He then went back to his books.\n\nAlmost ready to give up, she decided to try one more ploy. She got a cup of coffee at the campus caf\u00e9, sat at his table, and started sipping it while studying. She reached for another book and\u2014oops\u2014the coffee just happened to spill. Randy, the perfect gentleman, raced into the men's room for towels to swab it up. When he finished she touched his arm and jokingly purred, \"Oh, you are my hero.\"\n\nFor the first time, it seemed, Randy looked her directly in the eyes. It was Melissa's physical touch that lit the Spark. \"Uh, let me get you another coffee,\" he stammered.\n\n\"Oh, thanks. I'll join you.\" Melissa replied. They walked side by side into the caf\u00e9. If it had been a movie, the music would crescendo as \"The End\" comes up on the big screen.\n\nSeveral weeks after the neighborhood get-together they invited me to dinner, and this time I thought it would be fun to ask Randy how they met. Here's his story:\n\n\"It was at the university library, and the first time I saw Melissa I knew she was the woman for me. I didn't even know if she drank coffee, but I'm glad she did because I asked her if she'd like one with me. And the rest,\" he grinned, \"is history.\" Melissa smiled demurely at him and kicked me under the table.\n\nSo sisters, secretly revel in your prowess and smile shamelessly into the eyes of your new Quarry. Go after him with barefaced abandon. He'll never remember how it happened.\n\nIf, despite all the evidence to the contrary, you still hesitate to deliver \"a line,\" there is the substitute testosterone tweaker that Melissa used\u2014the power of touch.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #21**\n\n**Trick Him into Touching You**\n\nFind an excuse for bodily contact\u2014any excuse! For example, wear a bracelet or necklace and, upon spotting your Quarry, surreptitiously click open the clasp. Then ask him, \"Oops, excuse me. Could I trouble you to help me put it back on?\" Another ploy is to ask him what time it is. When he tells you, pretend to be surprised and jokingly grab his arm to see his watch, as though you need proof that he's telling the truth.\n\nEven the most innocent physical contact gets his hormones hopping, _especially_ if he's rescuing a fair lady from a distressing situation.\n\n#### _The Physical Side of \"Hello_ \"\n\nHuntresses, you're in luck if you've met your Quarry in a somewhat professional setting because you can employ the power of bodily touch naturally. It's called shaking hands. People think, \"I can't read your mind,\" but cognitive science might take issue with that. Your thoughts produce physiological responses that are manifested in your auto-nomic, or involuntary, nervous system. Your every thought has a subtle influence on your heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and sweat glands. Lie detectors are built on that basis, and science has succeeded in implanting a device in the brain, enabling quadriplegics to control robots with just their thoughts.\n\nYou can secretly employ that cognitive power. While holding his hand, transmit a subliminal message by lightly placing your pointing finger on his pulse. In a sense, it is touching his heart, because his pulse is a wave traveling directly from the heart. Then press your whole hand against his so tightly that you couldn't shove a marble between your palms. After pumping the traditional few seconds, when he starts to pull his hand away, squeeze it and pull it slightly closer to you. Then harness the power of your mind to Spark him.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #22**\n\n**Think Hot Thoughts While Shaking His Hand**\n\nWhile holding his hand, gaze into his eyes and silently say, \"You are really hot and I want to have sex with you.\" Your soundless monologue\u2014some would call it \"dirty thoughts\"\u2014camouflaged by your professional demeanor, gives your face just the right expression to ignite a tiny Spark. To a certain extent, mind reading is possible\u2014especially if your mind is saying something he wants to hear.\n\nLadies, all of the above little Sparkers have a cumulative effect. He'll never guess that what he felt was due to your protracted handshake, pressing his pulse, silent salacious messaging, or surprise touch. He'll just tell your friends, \"I felt an instant Spark when I met her.\"\n\n### Spark Your Quarry During the First Conversation\n\nGentlemen, as you now know, the topic you discuss is way less crucial than what the casual chat reveals about you. Gentlemen age fifty-plus, you may remember the old eight-track music tapes in the 1970s. Your Quarry's brain is capable of listening to all tracks simultaneously. Track one: your appearance. Track two: how you move. Track three: your clothes. Track four: your voice. Track five: your intelligence. Track six: your socioeconomic level. Track seven: your personality. And track eight: how you treat her. Remember, her mind isn't one-track like most guys'.\n\n#### _The Rapid Transit System Called the Female Brain_\n\nHere is an only slightly exaggerated peek at the simultaneous tracks in the female brain. Let's say you're casually chatting with her about your health club. She's musing, _Great, he's a healthy guy_. But if you mention the gym again later in the conversation, it's, _He's a health freak_. Mention your church. _Nice. He has integrity_. Talk about your place of worship again, and it's, _This guy's a religious fanatic_. You tell her something nice about a buddy. _Good, he has male friends_. But bring up the same buddy later in the conversation? _Maybe he's gay_.\n\nScience buffs, you know a strip of blue litmus paper dunked in a vat of acid turns pink. And if you dip the tip in a single drop of acid on a glass slide, it turns just as pink. Well, the lady's mind is like litmus paper and can't help but make inferences from every drop of your conversation.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #23**\n\n**Don't Get Labeled by Repetition or Excessive Emphasis**\n\nHunters, be as careful as a hemophiliac in a razor blade factory during the first conversation. Beware of talking too much about the same thing, and don't return to a previous point unless really relevant. You don't need an undeserved \"fanatic\" label slapped on your forehead.\n\n#### _She Reads Between the Lines\u2014So Talk Between the Lines_\n\nYour goal in this first conversation is to show that you are boyfriend, maybe even husband material. If the woman is really gorgeous, Hunters, you might overlook a little thing like her prison record. Women don't. She secretly dons a Sherlock Holmes cap, packs a magnifying glass in her purse, and slinks stealthily through everything you say for clues to your character.\n\n\"But how can I show my good qualities without bragging?\" you ask. Here are a few ideas. Her silent reactions are in italics.\n\n\u2022Ask her favorite restaurants. Then drop the names of some of yours\u2014first-class ones, of course. Between the lines she's reading, _He's got good taste_.\n\n\u2022Compliment something she's wearing, say, her bracelet. Ask where she bought it because you want to buy your little sister a present. _How nice, he's good to his family_. But, darn, you couldn't find anything in the Tiffany's catalogue. _Maybe he's rich_.\n\n\u2022Whatever subject she brings up, say \"Tell me more.\" _He's interested in my mind, not just my body_.\n\n\u2022If at all relevant to the subject, quote something that you read about in the _Wall Street Journal_. If she's more the literary type, try the _New York Review of Books_. It will also impress her if you quote one of your favorite books. (But not this one!)\n\n\u2022If you know anyone in her field, be sure to say, \"You should meet . . .\" Now you get an A-plus for wanting to further her personal growth.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #24**\n\n**Talk Between the Lines, Saying, \"I Am Husband Material\"**\n\nIt makes sense that, if she's listening between the lines, you should talk between the lines. Never plan an \"opening line,\" but do stockpile ways to allude to your good-guy characteristics. Be subtle, however, very subtle! Don't worry\u2014her x-ray antennae will pick up on them.\n\n#### _A Pivotal Question_\n\nAs sure as a goose goes barefoot, your Quarry will soon ask, \"So what do you do?\" It is not necessarily _what_ your job is but _how you respond_ that could be the life or death sentence on your potential relationship. Prepare an answer that impresses her without seeming to.\n\nFrom what you now know about how Big Mama programmed the lovely, you might assume her query is solely for determining how much you make. In another era your assumption might be right. But for the most evolutionarily developed women, your vocation signifies something more important than money. It is a key to your character. For a growing number of twenty-first-century women, it doesn't matter whether you are a bigwig who owns half of the entire computer industry or work in the mailroom at Macy's. Women prefer a man of character who can get what he wants in life. If you are CEO of a global firm but despise your profession, you come off as a loser. Conversely, even if you cut cadavers or breed slugs for a living, you're a winner if you like your job because you've achieved what you want.\n\nWhen she asks, \"What do you do?\" here is the perfect answer:\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #25**\n\n**Give a Playful but Passionate Answer About Your Work**\n\nWhen she asks what you do, respond with a playful smile and these precise words: \"For pleasure or work?\" Follow that with, \"I'm just kidding, I love my job.\" Then enthusiastically tell her more.\n\nSentence number one displays your sense of humor. Sentence two shows you are a positive person. Sentence three says you are winner because you're not stuck doing a job you don't like.\n\nA note for Huntresses: I know I may be asking the impossible, but if you refrain from asking, \"What do you do?\" it demonstrates that you are different from nearly every other female on the planet. I know it's not easy, girl, but give it a shot.\n\nGentlemen, the following conversation tip is gleaned from a study in which men were directed to \"confess\" a little fault to a new Quarry, something like you always forget your keys or where you parked the car. Because a woman is so used to a Hunter trying to impress her, she finds it charming when you do the opposite.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #26**\n\n**Make a Tiny Personal Confession**\n\nTo increase the Chemistry between you, confess a little fault. She'll find your revelatory repartee rare, honest, and endearing. But keep it small. She doesn't want to hear about your bankruptcy declaration, bigamy charge, or bitter divorce.\n\n#### _Today the Who-Impresses-Whom Rules Are Reversed_\n\nBeware of trying to impress your Quarry overtly, especially in the money department. There's a good chance she has more money than you anyway. In fact, single women today earn more than single men. Put your effort into showing how much she impresses you. Here's a Sparker that shows you're interested in her job.\n\nContinue asking your Quarry questions about herself and adjust your antennae to tune in to her self-image. Is she proud of being extremely bright? Spiritual? What about an extensive knowledge in a particular field? \"How fascinating,\" you exclaim, \"that you've read the twelfth-century _Dialogues de Scaccario_ in the original Latin. I'd like to hear more. When would you be free for dinner with me so you can tell me all about it?\"\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #27**\n\n**Be Fascinated by Her Business Card and Ask Questions**\n\nWhen she hands you her business card, don't just peek at it and shove it in your back pocket. Hold it with two hands and gaze at respectfully. Glance at it several times while she tells you about her job. Occasionally nod admiringly and ask more questions about her job.\n\nHere's another question that is perfect for showing nonsexual interest. Ask her, \"What is your average day like?\"\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #28**\n\n**Show Growing Interest in Her Mind**\n\nMen who express their interest gradually are more successful with attractive women than those who show they are immediately impressed. Convince your Quarry you are far more interested in what's between her ears than what is between her thighs. Otherwise, she figures it's just her looks, and you become as important to her as a screen door on a submarine.\n\n### Huntress, Are You One in a Million, or One Among a Million?\n\nHuntresses, if you're a gorgeous ten, little short of picking your nose, putting him down, or\u2014for some\u2014lighting a cigarette will turn him off sexually, so your first words are not as crucial. However, males have a derogatory term for women who use lascivious lures and \"don't deliver\" (hint: initials \"C. T.\"). It's only fair to lay the groundwork during the first conversation that you are not going to hop into bed with him immediately. After you've lured him with sexual signals it's time to show him that you are serious-relationship material. You are one in a million, not one among a million.\n\n#### _Begin the Bait and Switch_\n\nDid I just use that awful phrase? Shame on me. But I'm a great believer in \"the end justifies the means\" as long as it's best for both parties, is not illegal, and doesn't hurt anyone. Your \"bait\" was tweaking his testosterone in anticipation of hot times to come with you. Your \"switch\" is flashing something more important\u2014your superior qualities. In the back of his mind (albeit way back at first) are the characteristics he wants in a future wife, like intelligence, compassion, integrity, and fidelity.\n\nThere are lots of ways to hint at these. You could bring up a current news story\u2014not one in which celebrities are sleeping together but perhaps something international (intelligence). If it's about a subjugated population, express your dismay (compassion). Tell him how much you respect a friend's honesty (integrity). If the subject of past relationships comes up, make sure you never hint at any extracurricular activities (fidelity).\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #29**\n\n**Reveal Your Substantial Qualities Early in the Conversation**\n\nAs soon as your sexy lure is successful, start showing the characteristics that quality Quarry considers long-term potential must-haves. Let nothing slip that could destroy that image. Make a conscious effort to plant the seeds that signal, \"I am a special woman of superior quality.\"\n\nHuntresses, this does not mean telling him _too_ much about yourself, however. If you read the previous advice for males, telling them to reveal a few tidbits of personal information to his Quarry in the first conversation, ignore it. It doesn't work the other way around. Instead, make your male Quarry wait for a date or two to discover more about you. Keep personal, psychologically revealing stuff to a minimum.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #30**\n\n**Stick to a Nondisclosure Policy**\n\nNo matter how much you're sure you're destined to be together, do not make the mistake of spilling your life story. (At this point he's not interested anyway.) Also, try to use the words \"I feel\" or \"I felt\" as few times as possible. Unlike you, at first a male is not fascinated by your feelings about anything\u2014except him.\n\n#### _Double Name Talk_\n\nCreating Chemistry, as you now know, means inciting neurons in your Quarry's brain to zap messages in all directions like a spreading wildfire. A recent National Institute of Health study showed excitation in several brain regions when hearing one's own name. Here's a way to double them to ignite the flicker into a little Spark.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #31**\n\n**Nudge Your Quarry's Neurons with a Double Name Whammy**\n\nJust saying his name is old hat. Double that power. Somewhere, further into the conversation, say your Quarry's first _and_ last name to give it a twofold punch. \"Palmer Smith, you are so funny.\" Or his first name twice in response to something he said: \"Oh, Palmer, Palmer.\"\n\n#### _So Far, So Good_\n\nHunters, 1) you've met the lady respectfully, 2) shown husband-material qualities, 3) made a charming tiny personal confession, and 4) proved that she fascinates you as a person.\n\nHuntresses, you 1) either lured him with sex or picked him up, 2) were upbeat, 3) a bit of a mystery woman, and, finally, 4) began the bait and switch by showing wife-worthy substantial qualities.\n\nOne or both of you decide it's time for a date.\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _6_\n\n## How to Spark Chemistry on Dates\n\nDating is the best of times and the worst of times. You feel like you are dancing on the clouds. Then he does something that hurts you to the core. She says something that means you might lose her. You are crushed, and serotonin drops like a cannonball in the lake. Confusion and chaos result.\n\nHow heartbreaking that dating has become a competitive sport\u2014or that it is any type of game at all. In an ideal world potential partners would see each other, smile, feel confident, and form a relationship without all the difficulty and drama. But from the instant human animals sniff potential romance, electrical signals in their brains start zapping around like pinballs and their heads spin. Moments later, it's \"Tally ho, let the games begin!\"\n\nEven if you try to avoid them, as most of us do, sooner or later you and your Quarry find yourselves guessing about each other's motives, gathering evidence, envisioning, estimating, considering, and finally deciding whether to stay together or split. If that doesn't involve difficulty and drama, I don't know what does! Meanwhile, Mother Nature is loving it. She's kicking you both in your privates, encouraging your anxiety because that makes you crave your Quarry all the more.\n\nBut back to the game's starting line. Whether you become hungrier for her or you feel you've had enough of him often happens on the first date. But first you've got to get that date. Here are some ways to ensure success.\n\n### Hunters, \"Sell\" Her on the Date Like a Pro\n\nWhatever else you think about a used car salesmen, he's no dummy in one respect. After his pitch and carefully planned close, he sticks a pen between the prospect's thumb and forefinger\u2014point facing down\u2014and he deftly slides the contract under the tip of the pen. Instead of questioning, \"Well, do you want to buy it or not?\" he asks the prospect, \"When do you want delivery?\" They call it the \"assumptive close.\" He takes for granted that of course the customer wants his product.\n\nTake a tip from the pitchman and do the same. The tired old \"How about Saturday night?\" riff could spell quick rejection. Don't ask your Quarry, _if_ she'd like to have dinner with you. Take it as a foregone conclusion that of course she would and just ask _when_.\n\nTry this: \"I want to check out the new El Romantico Restaurant. What night would you be free to come with me?\" That shows confidence. Worded this way, unless she's thinking, \"You dish pit, I would never sit across a table from you,\" she's at a loss for what to say. She can't tell you she's given up eating or booked up for the rest of her life, so her only refusal resort is a revelatory humming or hawing. Then at least you know the score and won't put yourself out on a limb for another rejection later.\n\nAnother twist is what sales professionals call the \"alternative close.\" The salesman once again \"assumes\" his prospect wants the car and asks, \"Will you be taking the black one or the green one?\" Here's how to employ that tactic. Tell your date you'd like to take her to either El Romantico or L'Eleganti Restaurant. Which would she prefer?\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #32**\n\n**Use the \"Assumptive\" or \"Alternative\" Close**\n\nWhen offering your Quarry the pleasure of spending a few hours with you, expand the window of opportunity. Simply ask, \"when?\" as though you're sure there's not a snowball's chance in a sauna that she'd say no. Another ploy is to ask her which of two places she'd prefer.\n\n### Crack the Old Hard-to-Get Chestnut\n\nHuntresses, you are talking to Mr. Magnificent Specimen and your white matter is making so many connections to every word that passes his lips that you can hardly concentrate on the order of them. But finally you hear the sequence you've been salivating for, \"Would you like to go . . .\"\n\nYou suppress shouting a jubilant \"Yes!\" before he finishes the sentence. Let's say he invites you to an excellent film you've been meaning to see. What should you do? Choose one.\n\n1.Look like you're pondering the question.\n\n2.Tell him that you're terribly sorry, but you're tied up that evening but perhaps another time.\n\n3.Give him a big smile and tell him you'd love to see that film.\n\nAnswer: None of the above! Instead, act pleased and exclaim, \"[his name], I'd love to go out with YOU!\" This lets your Quarry know your interest lies in spending time with _him_ , not in whatever he's suggesting.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #33**\n\n**Don't Say Yes to the Date. Say Yes to _Him_**\n\nLet your Quarry know it's not the activity you're interested in, it's the man. Your surprise answer gives him an immediate pleasure Spark. Whatever activity he suggests, here are your scripted words. Say his name and add, \"I'd love to go out with you.\"\n\n\"But,\" you may be wondering, \"what happens if he doesn't ask me out?\" Not to worry. Read on.\n\n### How to Get the Date without Asking\n\nReluctantly, you must admit that there is the rare possibility that asking you out didn't even cross his mind. The following tactic is rapidly gaining bigender and generational respect everywhere.\n\nSimply deliver a big smile and one of the following:\n\n\"Trevor, we should get together some evening.\"\n\n\"Patrick, let's go party one night.\"\n\n\"Lance, I'd love to go out with you sometime.\"\n\nThis one, followed by a wink, is my favorite: \"The next time you feel like asking somebody for a date, think of me.\"\n\nNow, that's female proceptivity at its finest!\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #34**\n\n**Say \"Yes\" Before He Asks**\n\nIf he's lily-livered about asking you for a date, a broad hint gives him the guts to ask. If he's dense, it plants the seeds. And if he didn't think to ask you out (foolish man!), you do the job for him. This way you haven't actually popped the question, but you've made it obvious that his invitation will definitely not be met with his greatest fear, rejection.\n\n### The Most Chemistry-Sparking First Date\n\nThe constant quandary: Where should we go on our first date? Hunters, what would you most enjoy? A football game? A skating rink? An action movie? Fast action gives guys a dopamine rush.\n\nHuntresses, what about you? A French restaurant? An Italian restaurant? A Chinese restaurant? Fine cuisine and bonding conversation give females a dopamine and oxytocin rush.\n\nHmm, what he'd like to do (an exciting activity) and what she'd like to do (relaxed dining) are very different destinations. The solution? The best first date is both: an activity followed by dinner.\n\n#### _The First Half of the Date_\n\nStart the evening off with something exciting. A thriller movie, a strenuous physical activity, or maybe even something a little scary. The study \"Evidence for Heightened Sexual Attraction Under Conditions of High Anxiety\" proved a strong link between love and fear. Lovers and wannabe lovers on screen, on stage, and in novels face frightening forces together. Prehistoric beasts, ruthless killers, intergalactic invaders, and a passel of other evil forces threaten to tear the couple asunder. Did it ever cross your mind that the lovers might not even be turned on by each other if it weren't for the immense adversity they had to tackle together? Shakespeare knew its power. What would be the big thrill for Romeo and Juliet if the Montagues didn't want to kill the Capulets?\n\nA stimulating activity Sparks the dopamine thrill, resulting in a phenomenon called \"excitation transfer\" or \"transference effect,\" in which your brain assumes the thrill came from being with that particular person, not necessarily the activity. A form of psychotherapy called neurolinguistic programming (NLP) calls this effect \"anchoring.\" When you feel excitement on a date, even though it's due to an outside force, you connect or \"anchor\" it to your Quarry. Just seeing her face again can bring on the exciting stimulation you felt. Hearing his voice reinvokes the neuronal animation you experienced on the first date.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #35**\n\n**Date Part One: Do Something Stirring**\n\nDo something that generates electrochemical activity in your Quarry's brain as the first part of the date. Perhaps a physical activity or sports events for Hunters or an emotionally stirring experience like a concert or heart-wrenching film for Huntresses. Whatever either of you feels on this first date will rub off on the other through excitation transfer.\n\n#### _The Second Half of the Date_\n\nHunters, you may have the best of intentions and think you're being gracious by asking your date where she'd like to dine. But you should choose. Otherwise you might come across as unknowledgeable or indecisive. Make a reservation and confirm it a few hours beforehand. You look bad if your table isn't ready just because some dude named Brad Pitt made a last-minute reservation.\n\nThe eatery need not be pricey, but it should reflect your personality. Do you want your Quarry to think of you as artistic? Take her to a restaurant where artists go. Want to come off as a successful businessman? Take her to a restaurant where successful business-people go. You want her to see you as a cool dude? Take her to a restaurant where cool dudes go. There is one exception. You'd like her to think you're a jock? Do _not_ take her to a sports bar\u2014unless that's where she's dying to go. In that case, she's pretty special and you might consider proposing on the spot.\n\nHuntresses, if he is charmingly naive enough to let you choose the dining venue, don't make the same mistake that Phil's date, Goldilocks, did in Chapter 2. Unless you're positive he's a high roller, play lowball. Choose a charming little eatery within his budget. A place with a nice ambiance and low lighting is a plus because both of you will seem more attractive.\n\nIn one study, \"Effects of Aesthetic Surroundings,\" people were shown pictures of opposite sex individuals in various venues, some superior, some shoddy. Researchers then asked, \"Pick out the best-looking people.\" The folks in rooms with beautiful chandeliers, grand pianos, fine art, and other opulent etceteras were almost invariably chosen over those in greasy spoons. Of course, the photos were of the same people in both settings.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #36**\n\n**Date Part Two: Do Something Relaxing (Preferably with Food)**\n\nAfter the emotionally or physically electrically charged activity, wind down the date with a quiet little dinner where you can chat and enhance the bonding Chemistry between you. This two-part date sequence should leave no uncomfortable silences because, of course, you'll discuss how much you both loved the activity.\n\n#### _Eating Sparkers_\n\nHunters, as a real guy-type guy, you probably equate etiquette with extending a pinkie when drinking from a cup and wonder why your Quarry cares about manners. It's because Mother Nature reminds the lovely that no man who picks his teeth with the edge of a sugar packet is going to be promoted to the top. When gravy dribbles from your open mouth, her dopamine level dips down like a thermometer dropped in the snow.\n\nHuntresses, you can make it a more exciting dining experience for him by a few gentle, subtle, but not too suggestive moves like sliding your glass up next to his or running your fingers seductively up and down the stem of your wine glass. Let his fantasies do the rest.\n\nOn this and the many subsequent dates, you are both contemplating whether you want to continue with this PLP (Potential Love Partner) or call it quits. Where you go and what you talk about on each date factors into whether there will be a next. Here are dating Sparkers to use on every date right on up to the altar or moving-in together day.\n\n### Play Games with Your Quarry\n\nNow we're talking different type of games\u2014sports, hobbies, interests. I'm sure you've heard that females bond by talking and males by doing things together. It's not a myth.\n\nHuntresses, think back to the early days of your relationship. Were you moved when you discovered he felt deeply about something you believed in? Perhaps it increased your sense of closeness to him when you learned of his shared passion for animal rights, respect for the elderly, or concern for the environment. Likewise, a Hunter's bonding sentiments bubble up when you tell him you too enjoy bowling, bungee jumping, watching boxing matches, or whatever his passion.\n\nGirl, if you truly do enjoy his sport, highlight the heck out of it and suggest you do it a lot. Just make sure you truly do like it or else you could sentence yourself to years in noisy bowling alleys, sweaty gyms, or on the wrong end of a scary elastic rope. My regular readers know I usually subscribe to the \"fake it 'til you make it\" philosophy of life. But when it comes to serious relationships, swear off pretending. Otherwise, when your ruse is revealed, it's over. The axiom here is \"Fake it and you'll break it.\"\n\nBethany, a good friend of mine since high school, met the man she wanted to set sail with on the Love Boat, but it sank because of her lie. One time I had talked Bethany into coming on a scuba dive with me. She did, but later, while tearing off her tank, told me she'd hated it. But she certainly didn't hate what happened at the beach bar afterward. Don, a fellow diver sitting with us, introduced us to his buddy, Baird. \"A big-time diver,\" as Don described him.\n\nBaird asked, \"How did you enjoy the dive, girls?\"\n\nBethany squealed and, smiling as wide a crescent moon, lied, \"Oh, I just loved it! I can't wait to do it again!\" Right on her clever cue, Baird asked her to join him for a dive the following week. She did, and the following week, and the following week\u2014and the following week. Baird adored the fact that she was becoming such an avid new diver. They started dating regularly.\n\nBethany was so busy with Baird that I didn't get a chance to see her very often. The next time I heard from her was six months later. She was in tears.\n\n\"What happened, Beth?\" Between sobs, she told me the story. It seemed Baird wanted to go diving every weekend. All he'd talk about at dinner was their last dive and his plans for the next. From what I could determine, Bethany's ruse about her passion for diving became a drag. Her laughter at Baird's diving jokes sounded less sincere. Her smile froze as she listened to his stories of great dives.\n\nFinally, one Thursday evening, Bethany told Baird that she wasn't going diving with him that weekend because she hadn't had her hair done in months and she needed a facial due to all the wind and sand. The next weekend she found another excuse.\n\nBethany didn't hear from him one week, and when she called, he said he'd begun diving with some other friends and had met someone new, \"a dedicated diver,\" he told her. She didn't have to finish the story. Baird loved diving and he also loved women. He wanted both, and Bethany only filled half that bill.\n\nActivities that you enjoy shoot dopamine levels up just like the chemical rush you felt on your first dates. If you truly love the activity, you continue to \"transfer\" those euphoric feelings to your PLP. If you quit, the dopamine quits along with it.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #37**\n\n**Play the Same Games**\n\nIf there is an activity that your Potential Love Partner enjoys that you like too, play it up big time. Although it's true for both of you, joint activity is a higher priority for Hunters. It's a guy's way of bonding and bringing you closer. But be real\u2014or be wretched.\n\n### Chemistry-Sparking Conversation on Every Date\n\nAs a shy teen, just talking with someone of the male gender made my heart beat like a repeater pistol and my face look like a sunburned lobster. Before a date I'd torture myself trying to think of topics to discuss that would make him like me more. I wish I'd known the following.\n\n#### _He Says\/She Says, What?_\n\nThe gender-preferred topics are pretty common knowledge these days. If you missed some of the popular books on the subject, here are the crib notes.\n\n\u2022Huntresses tend to talk about people. Men concentrate on things.\n\n\u2022Huntresses speculate on feelings. Hunters stick to facts.\n\n\u2022Huntresses fancy the abstract. Hunters favor the concrete.\n\n\u2022Huntresses share emotions. Hunters prefer the logical.\n\n\u2022Huntresses conjecture harmony with colleagues. Hunters consider competition and who's on top.\n\nOnce again, like everything we're talking about in this book, it all makes exquisite evolutionary sense. \"Fight or flight\" has been an instinctive male reaction ever since his gorilla ancestor strutted down Noah's gangplank. Once on dry land he had to fight for dominance over the other simians, which gives insight into a Hunter's conversation preferences. He likes to talk of his dominance over today's human baboons\u2014his achievements, adventures, concepts, politics, objects, and big toys.\n\nThe neurological female equivalent to \"fight or flight\" is \"tend and befriend.\" It's the instinctive female response ever since her gorilla ancestress followed him down the gangplank. Once on dry land, tending to her tiny ones and keeping them safe was a full-time job. That gives insight into a Huntress's conversational preferences. She enjoys exploring relationships, feelings, intuition, and perceptions of other people.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #38**\n\n**Speak in Your Quarry's Gender**\n\nHuntresses, catch yourself if you find yourself talking too much about people and your feelings. Ditto, Hunters, if you start expounding excessively on facts and competitive situations. In short: Huntresses, stick more to things, facts, and the concrete. Hunters, try exploring abstracts and both your feelings.\n\nOh, did I forget to mention that men like to talk about sports? Girl, it's great if you can too. But be careful. Clashing with him on the MLB's top pitching rotation last year could strike you out in the first inning of your relationship.\n\n#### _Hunters, Follow Your Quarry's Rhythm_\n\nEven if you had the above crib sheet on your lap, having great conversations on dates can be tough because you don't _think_ like the other sex. But you can learn to speak in the other's style. Here are a few hints.\n\nHunters, you may have noticed that females have a different conversational rhythm. After stating an opinion, they often throw the conversation back with a tag line like, \"What about you?\" or \"What do you think?\"\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #39**\n\n**Play Conversational Volleyball**\n\nGentlemen, after you've stated an opinion, ask hers. Once she picks her dropped jaw up off the table, she'll adore answering\u2014and you for asking. Make sure she is talking at least half the time, maybe more. As long as _she's_ talking, she'll think _you're_ a fascinating conversationalist.\n\nDon't let there be too many long silences. Those make females uncomfortable and fear you're not communicating.\n\n#### _Huntresses, Don't Fill in the Blanks_\n\nHuntresses, this may come as a surprise, but men don't need\u2014or even want\u2014to be communicating every minute the two of you are together. The male mind is quite comfortable with compatible silence. The lack of talking is not because he doesn't feel close to you. It is not because he has nothing to say. It's just that many smart men don't feel they need to fill up the air with words.\n\nAs we've discussed, your Quarry's neurotransmissions don't zap from one thing to the next as quickly. After you've said something, a male likes time to digest it and collect his thoughts before speaking. If you jump in trying to cover the uncomfortable (to you) silence, it could be jarring and destroy the closeness he's feeling during your mutual quiet time.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #40**\n\n**Don't Feel Obligated to Fill the Silences**\n\nWhen a lull comes in the conversation, simply enjoy it with him. A self-assured man is not the least bit uncomfortable with compatible silence. In fact, he'll appreciate it because you're probably his first date who doesn't talk just to make conversation.\n\n#### _Give a \"You Fit My LoveMap\" Feeling_\n\nYou can take a big step toward enhancing your relationship with a simple verbal tweak. Every word and tone has an emotional impact. Hearing a familiar or unfamiliar song creates a very different neurochemical reaction. A dancer named Svetlana whom I met at a neuroscience lecture told me about a brain scan she had volunteered for. During one scan, the researchers' played Stravinsky's _Firebird_ , a very exhilarating piece of music. They then played a piece from Tchaikovsky's _Swan Lake_. The _fMRI_ discovered that during the much calmer composition, the song from _Swan Lake_ , her brain was on fire with electrical reactions, but not during the more stimulating _Firebird_. Why? Because Svetlana had once danced in Swan Lake and felt closer to that composition. Every note evoked a familiar emotional, therefore neural, reaction. On a lesser scale, a familiar or less familiar word creates diverse neurotransmissions in your Quarry's brain.\n\nLet's say one Saturday afternoon you get a hunger pang, so you say to your honey, \"Hey, let's go out and get a hoagie.\" Or would you say \"submarine,\" \"grinder,\" or \"hero?\" It's all the same chock-full-of-stuff sandwich on a foot-long roll, but it has different names in different parts of the country. Ditto the regional words like \"cellar\" or \"basement,\" \"pavement\" or \"sidewalk,\" and \"sofa\" or \"couch.\"\n\nIt's not just different parts of the country. Kids learn language by listening to their parents, relatives, friends, and other familiar folks around whom they feel comfortable. Phoneticists observe that even people in different schools, groups, and parts of a city use ever-so-slightly different words.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #41**\n\n**Use Your Quarry's Words**\n\nTo make your Quarry feel like you're on the same \"wavelength,\" use the same words for anything or anyone. She might say, \"my mother,\" \"my mom,\" \"my mama,\" or \"my mommy.\" He might refer to \"Dad,\" \"Pop,\" \"Poppa,\" or \"my old man.\" Yet they can all live in the same neighborhood. Saying your Quarry's words for common things Sparks a subliminal LoveMap sense of familiarity and similarity.\n\n#### _So . . . How Should I Listen?_\n\nI've never actually been asked that question, but I thought I'd answer it anyway. A film of a man listening would, compared to that of a woman, look like a still life. A female's listening demeanor is closer to those toy-dunking ducks that kids balance on the side of a water glass. A man listens silently, but a woman nods to a soundtrack of trifling vocal interjections like \"uh huh,\" \"oh,\" \"umm,\" and a selection of other supportive cooing sounds.\n\nSometimes when speaking to a male, I exasperatingly assume he's not hearing a word I say because he's as silent as a dead cell phone. I mentioned it to one guy, and he had the nerve to tell me my little \"interruptions\" were annoying. (Imagine that!)\n\nWell, each gender is an expert on his own listening preferences, so to Spark similarity, go with your Quarry's flow.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #42**\n\n**Hunters, Listen with Nods and Supportive Sounds**\n\nGentlemen, signal you are listening by sprinkling short murmurs of understanding between your Quarry's sentences. \"Um, hum\" is okay but could get repetitive. Practice vocalizing a few supportive comments concentrating on _emotion_ words like: \"I know how you must have _felt,_ \" \"I would have _sensed_ the same thing,\" and \"I _sympathize_ with you.\"\n\nHuntresses, the reverse . . .\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #43**\n\n**Huntresses, Don't Interject Emotional Affirmations**\n\nShh, ladies. Squelch supportive cooing, which disturbs his concentration and also takes away from your seriousness. Give the guy time between sentences to think about his next. Only during obvious pauses should you interject a comment, perhaps a supportive statement. Try little kudos like, \"That was smart of you,\" \"Excellent,\" or \"You did the right thing.\"\n\n### I Want a Man Who Makes Me Laugh\n\nYou've heard women lovingly say about a man, \"He makes me laugh.\" But have you ever heard a man say, \"She makes me laugh?\" Not likely, unless he's putting her down. Look on any dating site and you'll see \"good sense of humor\" so often that it has merited an acronym, GSOH. The desirability of GSOH has been proven by herds of serious humor researchers (not an oxymoron). Hunters and Huntresses find very different things humorous.\n\nStanford researchers engaged ten males and ten females to lie down on a narrow examination table, individually, not as a group exercise. Each subject slid head first into a hole in a huge metal brain-scanning machine with a series of cartoons projected on the circular ceiling. The examiners then measured the subjects' internal giggle or guffaw by tracking what parts of their brains lit up\u2014and how bright\u2014at each cartoon.\n\n#### _What Makes Huntresses Laugh_\n\nThe females reacted more slowly. It wasn't that they were slower to \"get it.\" It's just that, after reading the caption, the women processed it through their stronger linguistic sense, then ran it by their prefrontal cortex to see if it really made sense. The more unexpected or incongruous the caption was, the funnier females found it.\n\nHuntresses don't enjoy canned humor. They prefer Hunters who can grasp the wit in an unexpected situation and play off it. It all goes back to the evolutionary female dictum to get the best partner. Any old guy can memorize jokes. But picking up on an immediate occurrence, seeing the humor in it, and expressing it shows flexibility, intelligence, and cognitive fitness.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #44**\n\n**Don't Tell Your Quarry Jokes**\n\nHunters, save them for your friends, your compadres, your amigos, and your old buddy-roos. They'll love 'em. But definitely use off-the-cuff unexpected humor with women. Look on the light side of life and see something immediate and funny. Your clever comment will demonstrate your obvious superiority over all those other dull-witted Hunters vying for the lady's favors.\n\n#### _What Makes Hunters Laugh_\n\nMales, in their typically more rational, linear way of thinking, found the cartoons funnier faster. Why? Well, because they were cartoons. They were _supposed_ to be funny. Guys love sitting around with a six-pack of beer telling jokes for competitive reasons too. May the best joke win! Some guys like sight gags. But women sense the truth: Even a gorilla laughs at another slipping on a banana peel.\n\nHunters and Huntresses, there are a multitude of ingenious ways to make your Quarry take the tumble on dates. I don't want to be repetitive, however, so for more tips, I'll refer you to my previous book, _How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You_. There you'll find eighty-five ways to do that based on sociological studies and subtle persuasion techniques. Just promise me you'll play fair and won't misuse any of the \"little tricks\" therein!\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _7_\n\n## How to Spark Chemistry for Sex\n\nEvery author comes to a stumbling block when writing a book. Mine wasn't \"writer's block.\" It was \"shall I put this chapter in front of that one or the reverse?\" block. When it came to Sex Sparkers and Love Sparkers, should I put sex before love, or love before sex?\n\nIf I wrote about sex before love, my mother would shake her fist and shout at me from heaven. In most of today's world, however, it is antiquated to say there has to be commitment before sex. Besides, for both Hunters and Huntresses the ideal Love Boat has the same final destination, lasting togetherness. Initial lust and falling in love are just two ports along the way. Depending on whether a Hunter or Huntress is at the helm, however, the boat takes a different route.\n\nA male wants sex first, then fondness, then love.\n\nA female wants fondness first, then love and sex together.\n\nHuntresses, being choosier, usually need to like a guy a lot before sharing a pillow. Hunters want undercover activities right away. Considering this disparity, I couldn't decide which section, Love Sparkers or Sex Sparkers, to put first. So I turned to my relationship seminar students to help with the decision.\n\nOne particular program I gave in Sioux City was perfect for the task. Not only was it in the politically early indicator state of Iowa, but there were also an almost equal number of male and female participants. I told the group about this upcoming book and begged their counsel.\n\nI asked the class, \"How many of you suggest I put the love section first?\" About half the hands went up. Ninety percent of those hands looked suspiciously female. Everyone looked around and laughed, seeing how gender specific the choice was.\n\nI continued, \"How many think the sex part should come first?\" Male hands shot up like fireworks, accompanied by a chorus of affirmatives. \"Yeah,\" \"Sure,\" \"Definitely.\"\n\nI got the point. We then dove into a discussion of lust and love. All of us wound up agreeing that the two are hard to separate, so we decided to toss a coin. Heads, Love. Tails, Sex. I flipped the coin high in the air and it came back . . . tails. The girls booed. The guys cheered.\n\nI never defile the sacredness of the coin toss, so I will talk about sex before falling in love.\n\n### Huntresses, How Soon Should You Have Sex?\n\nHere I go, sounding like Granny again, but having sex on one of the first few dates is not such a good idea for many reasons\u2014and as you'll see, it's not just the obvious ones like \"He'll think I'm cheap.\" The suggestion of holding off on sex for a while sounds retro to you, right? After all, this is the twenty-first century. We know the steps to (somewhat) prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancy. So what's wrong with it?\n\nGirl, when you and a guy hop into bed and go at it, his testosterone shoots up off the charts, and his pleasure center gets drunk with dopamine. Just as he's coming, the bonding chemical, oxytocin, goes up 500 percent. In fact, that's the moment a man might blurt out, \"I love you\" to a woman he doesn't actually love. But for those few seconds, he feels he really does.\n\nBut then, _poof_ , after ejaculation, testosterone plunges, along with the \"I love you\" chemical. His dopamine crashes after coming, and the blast knocks him out. Snoring soon follows. (I hear you, girlfriend. We'll talk about his devastating not-wanting-to-cuddle condition later.) Your man's postcoital flushed face on the pillow might mumble, \"Give me an hour or so, honey, and I'll be ready to go again.\" And he may well be able to do that. But of course, it won't be as exciting for him as the first time.\n\nBut here's what most Huntresses don't understand. _Unless he's already started to develop feelings for you_ , sex with you won't be as thrilling for him the next night\u2014or the next\u2014or the next\u2014or even a week later! You could be the most exciting woman he ever met. But that extraordinary dopamine surge, like anything else that feels good, becomes less sensitive to the identical stimulus the second time, third time, and so forth. If a Hunter is having a lot of sex with the same woman (unless he's already developed feelings for her), she has to keep raising the bar. And a Huntress can only go so far with new erotic contortions, creativity, and sex toys.\n\nOne particular experiment made this dismal fact exceedingly clear. Researchers put a particular species of male lab rat into a cage with a new female. The duo indulged in a round-the-clock, nonstop orgy until the poor male zonked out, drowning in sweat and gasping for breath. But no matter how much time passed, he wasn't in the least bit interested in going at it again with the same female.\n\nHowever, when the researchers introduced a new lady into the cage, the lucky rat became ravenous again and hopped all over her. The experiment was repeated, and sure enough, the little guy could always get it up for a new girl in the cage. But the previous night's one-night stand was ho-hum.\n\nTo quote one of the landmark studies, \"Sexually satiated males cease copulating after several ejaculations with the same female; and the presence of an unknown receptive female renews copulation including ejaculation.\" This became known throughout the science world as the \"Coolidge effect.\"\n\n\"Why Coolidge?\" you ask. Well, one fine day, while inspecting a government farm, the President and Mrs. Coolidge were on separate tours. When Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken pens, she spotted a rooster having sex. She inquired if the rooster copulates more than once each day. \"Dozens of times,\" replied the guide.\n\n\"Please tell that to the president,\" Mrs. Coolidge requested.\n\nWhen the president later passed the pens and was told about the rooster, he asked, \"Same hen every time?\"\n\n\"Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time.\"\n\nThe president nodded slowly, then said, \"Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.\"\n\nLaboratory rodents have a similar limbic system to human rats (and human nice guys as well), so they provide some pretty trustworthy evidence. Having sex with a man _before_ he starts to have feelings for you is not going to whet his appetite as much as wither it. Of course, _after_ he's starting to fall in love with you, it's an entirely different story. He can't get enough of you and would rather be in bed with you than any other woman in the world.\n\n### Why Sex Blows Your Mind\n\nIt makes sense that sex packs a pretty powerful punch because orgasm involves more areas of the brain than any other activity, short of an epileptic seizure. Your amygdala is in an emotional frenzy and commands your hippocampus, _Mr. Memory_ , to forget everything and just enjoy it. Your hypothalamus, _Mr. Action_ , kicks your whole body into a frenetic carnal dance. Meanwhile the various brain precincts are hollering at mission control, your prefrontal cortex, to chill and not think about anything.\n\nAll the sex chemicals are going bonkers. Testosterone swirls around with estrogen. Dopamine and his helpers have a wild party on _Pleasure Island_ (your caudate nucleus), which flashes like a strobe. Oxytocin and vasopressin light the fuse and explode at orgasm. No wonder sex is a BIG deal and blows your mind!\n\n#### _Huntresses, Sex Has an Even Bigger Effect on You!_\n\nBe careful, girl. Although men are more ravenous for sex as soon as possible, it has a stronger and longer-lasting impact on you. The powerful physiological effect from all those chemicals you release can persist for weeks, even months. If you don't feel a particular man is totally right for you, be careful, because the dopamine and oxytocin blast of sex can make you think you're in love with him. One of the most respected sex researchers in the world tells women in her lectures, \"Don't have sex with any man you're not prepared to fall in love with.\" Oxytocin has the phenomenal effect of creating trust and flushing out bad memories, closing your eyes to the fact that he's a creep.\n\nThe chemical's loving power was made very evident in one particular study in which subjects, half of whom were given oxytocin and half a placebo, were asked to recall their early childhood experiences with their mothers. The oxytocin sniffers talked much more highly of Mom. They described her being warmer and more loving than the placebo sniffers. Oxytocin even suppresses memories of bad experiences.\n\nNow I'm the one to say, \"It happened to me, dearie, it can happen to you.\" I once felt that Spark of instant Chemistry for a suave Spaniard named Santos. He had an electrifying air of mystery about him, and I fell into his bed much too quickly. I believed Santos was a man of morality and high standards. He went to church regularly and spoke often of his spirituality. Many of his stories underscored his commitment to truth and his honesty. He seemed ideal. Sex was wonderful, and I was smitten.\n\nThen one or two trivial matters sent up a tiny red flag. Santos had his caller ID blocked for outgoing calls, which I've never liked on anyone's phone. That was minor, though. Whenever I called from my cell, he'd pick up with a quick, \"Hi Babe.\" But the few times I called him from another phone with a number unrecognizable to him, he didn't even say \"hello\" until I spoke first. Apparently Santos didn't want to identify himself until he knew who was on the other end of the line. I was so in love with him, though, I didn't give it a second thought.\n\nI closed my eyes to other small indications that he might not be the honorable man I thought him to be. Whenever he got in his car, he assiduously turned on the radar detector and even attached it to my car when we rode in it. I found that a little strange because he never sped. Why was he so concerned about being stopped by the police?\n\nOnce we were going to have lunch at a diner, and driving into the parking lot, he saw several police cars parked in front of it. He made an abrupt U-turn. When I asked him why, he said he thought it was unethical that police are sometimes given free food and didn't want to witness such a disgrace. I assumed that was because he was so highly principled. But then a few drops of doubt began to splash on the cement.\n\nHis sister came to New York for a visit, and during dinner she told me there was \"a period of several years when nobody knew where Santos was.\" He just shrugged and said he'd had a falling out with his dad and didn't let the family know his whereabouts. I didn't like that, and my blinders started to slip.\n\nThen came the incident that ripped them off entirely. Santos was coming to my apartment for dinner at seven. While cooking, I looked out my kitchen window and saw someone on the fire escape across the courtyard jimmying up a neighbor's window. I had just hung up from 911 when Santos arrived. When I told him the police were on the way, he went ballistic. My beloved Dr. Jekyll suddenly turned into a vitriolic Mr. Hyde. Shouting at me that he didn't like \"snooping cops,\" he stormed out the door, leaving me devastated.\n\nIn my wounded state I started piecing together some of Santos's actions that, at the time, I had thought nothing of. First his refusal to say \"hi\" on the phone until he knew who was calling. Then his obsessive use of the radar detector for police cars. Later the avoidance of the diner where law enforcement officers were dining. Why hadn't I seen the evidence mounting that he was hiding something from the police? I subsequently discovered he was, and it was pretty serious.\n\nI wish I'd known at the time what researchers in the psychology of love have discovered. To quote one of the leading researchers in love, \"Newly smitten lovers often idealize their partner, magnifying their virtues and explaining away their flaws.\" That's what happened to me. The chemicals saturating my brain had clouded clear vision.\n\nSometimes, when I'd hear about people who'd had a bitter divorce, I used to wonder how good people who used to love each other could possibly wind up with such rancor. Now I understand. They thought it was love, but it was merely being \"in love,\" which is an entirely different neurochemical state. The couples tragically didn't wait to see if it was real love, the kind that generates different chemicals\u2014the ones we'll talk about in Chapter 10\u2014which last a lot longer and bring continued happiness. Don't let sex or the craving of it with one particular person make you think you're in love. Because love, until it's stood the test of time, really is blind.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #45**\n\n**Nix Sex on the First Couple of Dates**\n\nHuntresses, wait until your Quarry has feelings for you before having sex or else he can lose interest. A lot of old wives' tales are false, but this one is a neurochemical and biological fact.\n\nSex too early screws up your life in other ways too\u2014and not in ways that have anything to do with pregnancy, morality, or physical health. The sex chemicals in your brain could make you inadvertently do or say things that might mess up a potentially great relationship. Worse, it could make you think you're in love with a louse like it did me.\n\n#### _Hunters, Hints for You on First-Date Sex_\n\nGentlemen, I know this is going to fall on deaf ears, but sex on the first couple of dates is not such a good idea for you either. The oxytocin that momentarily streams through your brain at orgasm could make you say something you don't mean, like the \"L\" word. But please, Hunters, bite your tongue\u2014which is kind of hard to do just before coming\u2014and don't say anything untrue that could later hurt her. The lingering chemical could also trigger her trust circuits so much that she might not realize it if you're trying to edge out of the relationship. Men in my seminars have told me about girlfriends who, when they tried to move on, just didn't \"get it.\" Putting it more selfishly, gentlemen, you don't want a stalker on your hands! Play fair.\n\nHere's another strike against first-date sex: After a big slug of the testosterone\/dopamine cocktail, your brain can't possibly see the more subtle aspects of a woman's personality clearly. Having your mind blown by hot sex before you've even gotten to know her could blind you to a pretty terrific lady who could someday mean a lot more to you than one hot night.\n\n(Hmm, if the word got out that I was suggesting not trying for sex on the first date, no males would buy the book.) Don't hate me for saying this guys, but think about not pressuring her for sex too soon. In the long run it's better for both of you.\n\nLet's move on to subsequent dates, when sex is most likely in the picture. You probably know women want longer foreplay, but you have absolutely no idea how long! You may think it all starts when the two of you hit the sack, the couch, the floor, the wherever. Wrong. For her, foreplay began many hours, days, or even weeks before.\n\n### Foreplay Begins Way Long Before the Bedroom\n\nDear Hunters, I hope you don't take offense at the following. When it comes to giving women incredible orgasms, however, some men need a few insights and, well, a map. It's not your fault. Males are not as intuitive due to the natural neuroanatomical reasons mentioned before. Additionally, a woman often hesitates to give her man verbal or geographical directions for fear of hurting his feelings.\n\nGentlemen, during sex the lady has an infallible gauge on your ecstasy. Your sexual \"meter\" can't lie. Determining her real erotic gratification is, however, a bigger challenge for a guy-type brain. Maybe you've been keeping track of what makes her moan the most or scream the loudest. Among all of earth's miraculous creatures, a human being is the only one capable of being a conscious performer in bed. Your Quarry probably suffers from an untreatable female condition: the desire to please and make others feel good about themselves\u2014a quality that someday you will deeply appreciate.\n\nWhen a woman is falling in love with you, she's every bit as ravenous for sex as you, many times even more so. She thinks about it all the time and walks around in a state of sexual frenzy. However, when the big moment comes, it takes longer for her to push everything out of her mind and warm up. Her feelings and responses\u2014past, present, and fantasies of the future\u2014play a major role in her enjoyment of sex.\n\nWhen you meet her at the door, she may have no idea whether she'll want sex with you at the end of the evening. She waits to see if it \"feels right\" at the time. Everything depends on her memories and moment-to-moment reactions to you\u2014some momentous, some minor. Minutiae like the following can make the difference between major lovemaking and a quick \"G'nite.\" How respectful were you to her when you picked her up this evening? Did you take a long cell phone call at the table? Were you rude to the waiter? Did you leave a decent tip?\n\n\"What's _that_ got to do with sex?\" you ask. A lot, because if her hippocampus, which has a close relationship with her emotional amygdala, harbors any negative memories of the evening, sex is no-go. Unlike you, she can't box up her feelings in one brain region with no leakage. There is permanent seepage between relationship issues and sex. Whether your date with her ends horizontally or vertically can depend on what you'd call trivia. From the moment you meet at the rendezvous point, you must make her feel special throughout the whole evening.\n\nWith that in mind, let's skip to the end of the date that you hope will culminate in a lot more than a goodnight kiss.\n\n#### _Set the Stage for Sex_\n\nNeither gender can enjoy sex if preoccupied by other matters. However, you gentlemen have the enviable capability of turning your amygdala off like a single lamp on the night table and getting right into action. Your Quarry, conversely, has a slow dimmer on hers. It's up to you to bring it from its usual overactive brilliance down to dark romantic lighting, psychologically and physically. The key word is s-l-o-w-l-y.\n\nAn uncomfortable setting can also nix or fix her desire for sex. If you even suspect she might grace your pad with her presence at the end of the evening, fling any previously worn clothes on the closet floor. Then close the door\u2014tight. A woman is much more sensitive to the sense of smell. Tell your grungy socks to scurry under the bed, and figure out how to turn on the vacuum cleaner your mother gave you two birthdays ago.\n\nFinally, do an atmosphere check. Is the room too stuffy? Is it too hot, too cold? Did you know most women can't fully enjoy sex if their feet are cold? Seriously. Will your Quarry feel the lights are too bright? There are reasons she might fear this that you could never fathom\u2014like will you see her cellulite or smeared makeup? She can't let herself go and enjoy sex if she's freaking about things like that. What about the music? Does she like jazz, classical, country, heavy metal, or Nordic folk? When in doubt, ask her.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #46**\n\n**Hunters, Set the Stage for Sex Ahead of Time**\n\nTo a Huntress, the setting can mean the difference between \"yes\" and \"no.\" Do some preplanning before you arrive at your place with your Quarry. Your best bet is dim lighting, pleasant-smelling air, and a soft, previously made bed. Check the pillows for any long hairs, and turn off the spotlight by your bed. She's at your pad, not the gynecologist's.\n\n#### _When It's Time to Get Naked_\n\nOnce again, the key word is s-l-o-w-l-y. Instant stark nudity is not a turn-on for your Quarry. Some plucky researchers hooked females up to a vaginal photoplethysmograph to measure their vasoengorgement. (Don't ask what that is. Look it up if you're really interested.) It turns out that they were no more excited by videos of naked men than they were by naked women. In fact, women preferred panoramas of the snowcapped Himalayas to nude males.\n\nFor several years, while doing corporate consulting in Bermuda, I dated a brilliant executive there named Niles whenever I was on the island. Even though I really liked him, I had never agreed to sex. But holding hands with him across the table at lunch one day, I realized the foolishness of my ways. \"Niles,\" I purred, \"I have something for you.\" Reaching into my purse, I took an extra key card to my hotel room and placed it on the table in front of him. He took both my hands and told me how happy he was.\n\nNiles said he'd get there early, before I got back from an evening seminar, and would order room service for us. In the taxi on the way back to the hotel that night, I wondered what wine he had ordered for our predinner toast. Riding up in the elevator, I pondered what aroma would be rising through the little hole in the plate cover when I walked into the room. I'd had a hard time concentrating on my seminar during the day because I couldn't keep my mind off how wonderful sex was going to be with him that night. Excitedly, I slid my card into the lock and entered. The lights were out, but the full moon shining through the lace drapery gave a glow to the room. How exquisitely romantic!\n\nAs my eyes got used to the light though, instead of a room service table set for two, there was a naked Niles stretched on the bed with his arms behind his head. \"You can see that I've been waiting for you,\" he said huskily, referring to his excitement meter pointing straight up. I apologized profusely and feigned a splitting headache. After I practically pushed him out the door, I went down to the hotel pub, had a big hamburger, and swore never to see him again.\n\nUntil recently I feared my aversion to his no-foreplay nudity might be abnormal and that I was the perverse one, not he. I was relieved while reading the plethora of studies confirming it was a normal female reaction. Niles wasn't abnormal either. It's just that he wasn't in the know about a woman needing more time to get in the mood.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #47**\n\n**Let Her Start the Strip**\n\nHunters, don't you start peeling. After an appropriate length of time, if she hasn't, start gently with a button on her blouse or perhaps your shirt. But keep your hands away from your belt until it's obvious the feeling is mutual. Grabbing for your buckle can make her grab for her coat.\n\n#### _Oral Sex (It's Not What You're Thinking_ )\n\nIf the lady has extended the invitation to join her for a nightcap, do not pounce on her the moment she sits down. Start with a few caring moves, perhaps touching her cheek or brushing the hair out of her face. Now it's time to get \"oral,\" as in \"talking.\" It's tough because a guy's lack of ability to process emotions and say just right thing at the right time was formed in his mother's womb. It's hard for a guy's brain to wrap itself around the fact that words mean so much to his Quarry, so let me suggest a few phrases. Note, I did not say lines or lies! After all, if you didn't feel one of the following sentiments, you wouldn't be sitting next to the lady.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #48**\n\n**Don't Get Physical, Get Verbal**\n\nWords work wonders on your Quarry's need to calm down before heating up. Gaze deeply into her eyes and talk softly to the lady. Let her know how lovely she looks, how fascinating you find her, how happy you are that you are together tonight. Verbal foreplay is sexier to her than passionate pawing.\n\n#### _The Educational Value of Daytime Soaps_\n\nLikewise, Hunters, you'll get priceless insights into your Quarry's fantasies by watching a daytime TV soap opera gushing with strong, sensitive, respectful\u2014yet sometimes recklessly passionate\u2014males. One guy friend told me he learned \"the killer kiss\" from the _Young and the Restless_. He said, \"The dude cupped the woman's face in his hands and gave her a light kiss on the nose. Smiling, he pulled back and gently outlined her lips with his finger. Then he told her how beautiful she was and enveloped her in his arms.\"\n\n_Sigh_.\n\nJust to make it more complicated, no two women are alike in precisely what they want once the action begins.\n\n#### \" _Oh, Great, How Do I Find Out What She Really Wants?_ \"\n\nGentlemen, go with your strong suit, your gray matter. Simply ask her. Choose a tranquil time, preferably one when sex is not in the immediate picture. Say something like, \"You look especially beautiful when you're so relaxed.\" Lead the conversation around to the question, \"What physically relaxes you the most?\" She might say something like a warm bath, a back rub, a foot massage. Whatever it is, tell _Mr. Memory_ to store it away and remind you when it becomes pertinent. Then, when the time comes try to arrange her favorite atmosphere.\n\nI fell prey, blissfully, once to what might have called a ploy. But looking back, I don't care. It was lovely. Josh and I had been dating for a while, and at one point, while sitting on the couch, he took my hand tenderly and said, \"Leil, please forgive me if this is an improper question. But have you ever considered having sex with me?\" I didn't tell him that I'd thought about little else since we met. I managed a demure smile and a shy, tentative \"yes.\"\n\nJosh squeezed my hand and continued. \"If I should be so lucky, how would it happen?\" I melted like an ice cube under a blow torch. He teasingly asked me if I'd like music, what kind of wine, lighting. It seemed so sweet and silly that I started giggling. But on our next date everything was in place. And because of that, so was I.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #49**\n\n**Ask Her to Describe Her Secret Garden**\n\nHunters, I hesitate recommending this approach unless you feel confident you can carry it off, but I do want to give testimony to its efficacy. Lovingly\u2014and with perhaps a touch of humor\u2014ask her what she thinks is the perfect atmosphere for \"making love.\" (Forget you ever heard the word \"sex.\") Then have it all set up the next time you see her.\n\n### Why She Needs All That Stuff First\n\nWhen I was a kid, Mama gave me amazing birthday parties. The best one of all was a breakfast birthday with waffles and four different kinds of syrups\u2014strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, and maple. All the kids, about ten of us, were wide-eyed when Mama triumphantly carried in an almost two-foot-high stack of waffles. The girls clapped and the boys grabbed at the treat.\n\nOne of the oldest boys assiduously poured strawberry syrup in one of the squares. He then proceeded to spill blueberry in the next, raspberry in another, maple in a fourth. All the other guys thought it was cool and followed suit. We girls, however, mixed them together and made our own creative blends of several syrups. We then passed our plates around the table to share our concoctions with our friends. The boys weren't interested and continued to concentrate on dispensing syrups into the different squares.\n\n#### _Squares versus Swirls_\n\nA grownup guy does that with his life. His job goes in one little waffle square, sports in another, and sex in yet another. No problem. But here's the rub: In order to enjoy sex, _both_ Hunters and Huntresses alike need to make it an all-consuming experience and think of nothing else. Gentlemen, if you couldn't stop thinking about your boss hollering at you this morning, the SOB who got the promotion instead of you, or the power outage during your big PowerPoint presentation, how could you get it up for sex? The difference is that when sex is in the picture, you can instantly chuck garbage like that out of your mind and jump into a different waffle square.\n\nYour Quarry can't. It's neurologically impossible. Only when she suppresses memories and extinguishes her other thoughts can she thoroughly enjoy sex. Just as the girls at my birthday party had no dividing lines between their syrups and swirled them all together, we grownup girls blend all the elements in our adult lives.\n\nHunters, your Quarry needs time to clear out all that crappy real-life stuff. Otherwise, the mean boss and the bitch who beat her out at work are right there in bed with the two of you. The power outage during her presentation darkens her desire. Because a woman is more relationship oriented, everything you said to her today, yesterday, and last week swirls into her desire to have sex with you\u2014or not.\n\nThink of a Huntress's brain like a big dish of pasta. It's all interconnected. If the sex noodle is at the bottom of the bowl, she can't pull it out without several other gummy noodles sticking to it. And if you try to separate them too fast, you'll have more success playing pickup sticks with cooked spaghetti strings. If you really want your Quarry to forget everything and get into sex, you must clear her mind with caring words and caresses all over her body.\n\n\"But I don't have time to do that every time!\" you protest. I understand, Hunters. But stay tuned. All will become clear.\n\n#### _Women Don't Come with Pull-Down Menus and Online Help_\n\nYour caring words create the bonding chemical oxytocin, and your caresses create even more of that precious element, especially when you kiss her breasts. I don't expect you to find anything titillating about reading the _Gynecologic and Obstetric Investigation_ journal, so I'll translate. Studies on female sexual arousal stress the importance of fondling her breasts. It's not just because it feels good; they're a regular oxytocin factory because her breasts are the big deal in baby feeding.\n\nWhen it comes to love, oxytocin is huge for a female. Mother Nature doles out a major dose to her during pregnancy and then a whopping three hundred times more of it at childbirth. That attachment chemical just keeps on coming and coming during nursing and beyond. As a result, through thick and thin, Mom will forever bond with the little person who started in her womb. The togetherness chemical also makes her want to bond with you and have even more sex together.\n\nFemale skin is more sensitive and sensual all over than a man's. Hunters, comparatively, your body is a single-destination trip. She, however, has multiple sexual layover spots along the way. A different part of her brain lights up with each one. You exploring a much vaster territory stimulates her _Pleasure Island_ , and playing around on each part takes time.\n\nRutgers researchers\u2014rather cheeky ones I must say\u2014put women into an _fMRI_ machine with nothing but a dildo for company. The ladies wound up using it and their hands on four parts of their bodies\u2014nipples, cervix, vagina, and clitoris. Sometimes all four at once. But the clitoris was always involved.\n\n#### _Who Stole the G-Spot?_\n\nUnfortunately, a woman often feels it's her fault if she can't orgasm with no male attention to her clitoris, condescendingly referred to by Freud and Co. as the \"little penis.\" I was once discussing this distressing situation with a few of my girlfriends, and each confessed that she never gave her boyfriend a thorough geography lesson lest he feel his technique was being questioned.\n\n\"And while we're at it,\" my best friend, Stella, piped up, \"I've never been able to find that darn G-spot that every woman in the world has except me.\" I explained that Dr. Ernst Gr\u00e4fenberg was the person, male of course, who pushed it to stardom in the 1950s, claiming women had a vaginal climax separate from a clitoral. (Apparently Mrs. Gr\u00e4fenberg never spoke up.) For decades afterward medical examiners conducting autopsies scratched their heads wondering why the G-spot mysteriously disappeared posthumously.\n\nThey never found it because it never existed as the orgasmic gizmo it was reputed to be. So if coroners burrowing around in there with expensive equipment couldn't find it, don't depend on it giving her ultimate pleasure without equally attending to her hottest spot of all, the \"C-spot\"\u2014the clitoris.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #50**\n\n**Master Geography 101 for Hunters**\n\nWomen joke about how territorially challenged some men are when it comes to the female body. She is probably lying if she claims she can climax from vaginal entry alone without any contact with her clitoris. Ask your girlfriend for a geography lesson to her particular body because each female is slightly different. Once she's gratefully given you a personal tour of her unique favorite spots, be sure to give each lots of lengthy tender, loving care.\n\nSisters, a quick note for you: A softer way to guide him through the southern regions is simply to say, \"I especially love it when you touch me here, or there\u2014or both at the same time.\" It sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many women shy away from doing this.\n\n### Huntresses Are Naturals\n\nHuntresses, you are more romantically intuitive than males are, and you're natural pleasers. Not only that but you'll find scads of information everywhere you turn. Unfortunately, one of the most popular sources of information is _Cosmopolitan_ magazine, published in twenty-eight countries in sixteen languages. An issue I came across gives instructions for running her tongue around the rim of her boyfriend's penis while stroking his balls with her left hand and insinuating her right index finger up his anus. I am not making this up!\n\nAm I putting this invaluable font of knowledge down? Not really. My only regret is that although _Cosmo's_ published demographics start at eighteen, young girls now give a subscription to their girlfriends for their sweet sixteen parties. Ouch. The implication that all girls are having sex with their beau du jour and the lack of warnings about the psychological and physiological perils of promiscuity are pretty scary. My feminist side also fears the geisha mentality it imparts. That aside (and it's a pretty big aside), it is indeed informative in the gymnastics and erotic toys departments.\n\nOne _Cosmo_ feature was especially enlightening. The title was \"Thirty Things to Do with a Naked Man,\" and the subtitle touted, \"Sex Tips to Tease, Squeeze, and Totally Please Your Guy.\" The editorial advised young ladies to employ blindfolds in bed, frozen grapes in her mouth, Velcro restraints, gladiator heels, Gummi bears, sushi rolls, small mirrors, and a beaded necklace as a penis wrap.\n\nOf course, accoutrements are not always necessary. It informs the young reader that she can \"intensify his orgasm by placing two fingers an inch behind his balls and feeling for a dent\" or \"invite him to finish on your breasts.\" Another suggestion is to \"challenge\" him to have sex in five spots in your apartment before sundown.\n\nI have no problem with any of the above. (However, your male Quarry might with that last one.) In fact, sex toys and erotic contortions are fabulous fun during the period when Mother Nature is still plying the new lovers with drugs. Sex is a mind-blowing turn-on for a Huntress, and she can't get enough of her guy. The Sparks on _Pleasure Island_ spread like a brush fire on a windy day just knowing the thrills she's giving her Quarry and how much he'll love her for creative and strenuous gymnastics. It's action for a cause.\n\nIn the natural course of a relationship, however, a Huntress would tire of doing all that work. Additionally, if she's pushed the relationship too fast, it might dawn on her Quarry that he could get like favors from a less long-term, more munificent lady. He's thinking, \"I could get these benefits without her always asking me where our relationship is going or freaking if I even look at another girl.\"\n\n#### _Go Where Women Aren't Allowed_\n\nLasting Chemistry and true love don't come from doggy-style, convoluted Indian\u2013style, or even Viennese oyster\u2013style sex. It's not finding that dent or luxuriating in his essences all over your breasts. Fun stuff aside\u2014or included\u2014in order to get some long-term neural activity going, you need to go beyond the beaded necklaces and blindfolds. You must delve into the most erotic part of the body: his brain, of course.\n\nLet's discuss what his hundred billion neurons are up to while having sex. Until he's fallen deeply in love with you, a Hunter usually suspends relationship thoughts during the act. In fact, if he feels the \"situation\" softening a bit, he consciously switches gears, invoking hot memories of a previous encounter, perhaps a woman he spotted on the street today, a threesome, foursome, or more-some. Or perhaps just visions of isolated breasts, genitals, and other favored female body parts dance through his head.\n\nWhat kind of fantasies does he have? Well, let's see. How many stars are in the sky? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick? Sexual fantasies are as varied as the males who have them.\n\nOut of perverse curiosity, one time I asked an ex-boyfriend, who later became a buddy, if I could scrounge through the dusty stack of old porn magazines and videos he confessed he'd hidden under the bed. In the box that he'd labeled \"extra blanket\" I unearthed a gold mine of information about what men really find hot, and it's not frozen grapes and Gummi bears. One magazine was simply a selection of stories about sexy showgirls, naughty nurses, and warrior vixens. If you know the types of things your Quarry is fantasizing about during sex and embrace it, you're caressing his hottest organ by far\u2014his brain.\n\nTo get an authentic education on the male sexual psyche, start perusing mild men's mags like _Penthouse_ and _Playboy_. Then if you can stomach it, graduate (or sink to) reading _Gallery_ and _Swank_. After hitting rock bottom with _Hustler_ , you'll either be an expert on men's fantasies or decide to become a lesbian.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #51**\n\n**Read What _He_ Reads for Hot Hints**\n\nWhy read about what turns your Quarry on in magazines written by females? Forget _Cosmo_. Read the real story in the rags written by and for men. I'd also suggest visiting a few online porn sites, but the viruses, spyware, tracking cookies, Trojans, and other social-media transmitted diseases could be injurious to your computer's health.\n\n#### _Better Yet, Get It Straight from the Horse's Mouth_\n\nHuntresses, in order to excavate sexual buried treasure he's never shared with anyone, find a way to bring up the subject of erotic fantasies. Perhaps with a wink, let him know you find the topic titillating. Maybe tell him you were reading an article or book on them. (But not this one!) Better yet, reveal one of your own fantasies\u2014being taken by a handsome stranger, doing it in the airplane lavatory\u2014the usual stuff. The hotter, the better.\n\nAfter your \"big confession,\" casually ask if he has any fantasies. That's a rhetorical question, because of course he does. If he says, \"All I think about is you,\" that's sweet, but he's lying. Keep probing. Secretly, he'll love it. Let him know _nothing_ would shock you.\n\nAt that point your Quarry may surreptitiously look around, lean forward, and most likely confess a mundane fantasy\u2014which he feels is monstrous. The most common male fantasies are having sex with two women, watching them get it on with each other, or a little dab of dominance. Your playful smile and hearing, \"ooh, that's exciting\" floods his pleasure center with a tsunami of dopamine. That plus the torrent of testosterone create the perfect storm.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #52**\n\n**Conduct an Erotic Interview**\n\nAsk your Quarry what he fantasizes about during sex. After he recovers from the delicious shock of your question, he will be thrilled because you're probably the first female requesting entry into that tangled exotic erotic universe where anything goes. The neural pathways connecting you to his _Pleasure Island_ will open up like a superhighway.\n\n\"Does that mean I have to perform with another woman or wear a corset and crack a whip?\" you ask. Of course not. Most women have had \"rape fantasies.\" But that's the last thing they'd really want!\n\nIf his fantasy happens to be something you would enjoy doing, however, like wearing hot lingerie or stockings to bed, go for it. Just be prepared that his fantasy could be _him_ wearing the stockings and hot lingerie to bed! Unless you find it distasteful, letting him do his sex dream is the hottest sex Sparker in existence. It's the ultimate in sexy for him because _he_ wrote the script. Just keep in mind that doing his fantasy is usually not a one-night performance. If you're serious about the chap, you better decide if you'd like a lifetime of it. His tying you to the bedpost or wearing your panties as foreplay could go from big turn-on to turn-off.\n\n### Why Won't He Cuddle After Sex?\n\nRock stars, cinema heart throbs, or the Quarry we just met often pop into a female's sexual fantasies. But when we're in bed with a particular man, our erotica generally centers on him.After the lovemaking, we rerun the tape of what he did, what he didn't do, and what we wish he'd done\u2014and end by wishing he'd be more affectionate after sex.\n\nMy heart goes out to the many millions\u2014no, the majority\u2014of women like my friend Brandy who still thinks that if a man doesn't cuddle after sex it means he doesn't care for her. I now hope to dispel that myth once and for all with chemical evidence that it's not true.\n\nI tried to tell Brandy that a guy is neurologically cuddle-challenged, but she wouldn't listen. I wanted to explain that the big blast of oxytocin released during orgasm affects the male brain like a sleeping pill. It's a universal male condition called \"postcoital narcolepsy.\" When mixed with other sex chemicals, they produce an essence similar to melatonin, which plays a big role in a human's body clock. It's a tall order for a man to stay awake after sex and has nothing at all to do with how much he cares for you.\n\nIn one of my seminars I was talking about how women adored hearing loving words after sex and quoted a few romance novels.\n\n\"My darling girl, I want to hold you forever.\"\n\n\"I am in heaven when I'm holding you.\"\n\n\"I could die of happiness in your arms like this.\"\n\nThen, just for fun, I asked the men in the class if they had any favorite postcoital phrases for their girlfriends to suggest to the other guys. Blank faces stared back at me from all over the room.\n\n\"Uh, well, what you usually say?\" I queried.\n\nAfter a brief pause one guy raised his hand and said, \"Zzzzzzzz.\" The guys hooted and slapped their knees. The girls grimaced and nodded all too knowingly.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #53**\n\n**Let Him Have His Instantaneous Postsex Snooze**\n\nThe second a Hunter comes, it's like he's popped an Ambien. When he zonks out it does not mean he wouldn't like to hold and kiss you. He biologically practically can't! Complaining, accusing, or insisting on snuggle time is not going to help your relationship. Just cuddle up against your chemically challenged animal and get forty winks yourself.\n\nThe more evolutionarily curious among you might well ask why nature makes a male suffer this condition. (Although it's usually the girlfriend or wife who suffers the most.) Big Mama in the sky's reason for knocking him out after sex is because he can't kick Charlie into action for a second round right away. But if he has a rejuvinating little snooze, he might get it up for another shot at a tiny new earth dweller.\n\n### Do You Decide Who Turns You On\u2014or Does Mother Nature?\n\nHere's another little known fact about sex. Sometimes your relationship was just not meant to be, and Mother Nature lets you know in no uncertain terms during the first kiss.\n\n_Hunters_ , let's say the first date with her went beautifully. She was more alluring, affectionate, and fun than you could ever have hoped for. As you rowed the rented rowboat, she admired your muscles. In fact, you both were enjoying yourselves so much that you brought the boat back late. But you handled it beautifully. After the owner tied up the boat, you crossed his wet palm with some significant green. He thanked you profusely and she looked up at you admiringly. It was the perfect date. She shared your interests, was impressed by your subtle but intelligent humor, and even ordered the same pizza at the pub. You think maybe she is \"the one.\" By her warmth you can tell she probably feels the same.\n\nBack on her doorstep, she leans seductively toward you. You know she is cranked for your kiss. As your lips touch, she parts hers, inviting your tongue to enter. You oblige.\n\nSuddenly she stiffens and pushes you away. With a weak excuse, she races into her house. You're shell-shocked. What happened? Everything seemed so perfect. \"What did I do wrong?\" you ask yourself.\n\n_Huntresses_ , your date rings the bell. You take one last look in the mirror, splash a dab of perfume behind each ear, run down the stairs, and throw open the door. Wow, he's hotter than you remember him when you met him last week! You know you look awesome too. You see intelligence, warmth, and humor in his eyes. The evening is magic. You talk 'til dawn. You think you've found \"the one\" and suspect he feels it too.\n\nLater, just before sunrise, in the car he starts nibbling on your neck and you tenderly guide his head down to your cleavage. You arch your back and throw your head back. God, he feels good.\n\nBut suddenly he sits up, gives you a weak smile, a peck on the cheek, and revs up the car. You are flabbergasted. What happened? Everything seemed so perfect. \"What did I do wrong?\" you ask yourself.\n\nNeither of you did anything wrong! But Mother Nature was not happy. And when Big Mama's not happy, nobody's happy. So why didn't she want the two of you to be a couple? Because she figured your eventual kid might not live up to her survival standards.\n\n\"What? How in the world did she deduce that?\" you ask.\n\n#### _If the First Kiss Stinks, Forget About It_\n\nEveryone has a unique cluster of chromosomes that control the ability to fight off infections and disease. The tiny parasites in every human body reproduce faster than rabbits, and the germy little bastards are just waiting to attack your immune system. If you copulate with someone with similar bacteria, the stinky little slime balls join forces and will be victorious over your eventual baby's immune system. It's the reason brothers and sisters and other close relatives shouldn't mate. Twenty years later, if the little tyke with the feeble immune system lives that long, he or she won't be able to produce healthy babies either. Mother Nature doesn't like that one bit. So she uses her Chemistry set to make the smell or saliva of your date distasteful to you if your microbes are too much alike.\n\nI was once explaining this phenomenon, called your Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), in a relationship seminar. Feeling insulted, one student shot up his hand and said, \"Hey, I ain't got no complexes.\" I assured him that MHC is not a complex. It's a universal biological state.\n\nI hate to reference the following tasteless, overly publicized study because it's such an old coin that the buffalo has worn off. But it's sort of unforgettable. Researchers convinced women to sniff a selection of guys' grungy T-shirts they'd worn for a week.. It turns out the women actually liked the underarm aroma of guys with a _dissimilar_ smell, or MHC. ('Fess up, sisters, haven't you ever slept with some article of your boyfriend's clothing when he was away?) But the T-shirt stink of guys who had a fragrance too similar to their own, like a family member's, grossed them out. That's why the smell of opposite sex siblings doesn't turn most people on sexually.\n\nFar sweeter than any perfume is the natural odor of a sexual partner who has a different odor from yours. I'm not talking about flatulence, halitosis, or foot odor. I'm talking the hairy sweaty body parts, the fragrance of which is revealed through apocrine glands. Well, let's call a spade a spade and say it: It's your groin and armpits. These pits routinely spit out a lot of important internal social information.\n\nA woman perceives odors better than a man does, and it's not just so she can tell when her baby's diaper is full. Because she's the real mate chooser, she needs to be extra skilled at literally sniffing guys out. But watch out\u2014she can also get a whiff of your stinky feet a couple yards away.\n\nGentlemen, your Quarry might appreciate your favorite over-the-counter man scent when you first meet. It shows you are clean and take care of your appearance. But between the sheets she responds better to the aroma of raw (clean) male. A Hunter is less sensitive to this aromatic matter on the first kiss because he's thinking of what's to come with the rest of her body. \"Why let a little unsavory scent get in the way of a good thing?\" he figures.\n\nWhen searching for a sexually compatible partner, French kissing is a great test. White-fronted parrots have an ever better one. After the birds open their beaks and touch tongues, the male spews his lunch onto the female's chest.\n\nYou really needed to know that, didn't you?\n\nHuntresses, if your Quarry doesn't pass the taste test, no matter how much you adore him, he's not the right partner for you. Hunters, her fragrance may not be a big problem now, but sex with her in the long run could be odious. This is one time both of you should say, \"Thanks, Mother Nature, for letting us know it wouldn't be a marriage made in heaven.\"\n\nI hope the fragrance industry doesn't employ a slew of litigious attorneys, because the following Chemistry hint could ruin a good ROI on their annual advertising millions.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #54**\n\n**Don't Wear the Smell-Good Stuff During Sex**\n\nHuntresses, males get high on your natural smell. To a male, an ovulating female is subconsciously one of the sweetest smells in the world. The scent drives him crazy. (Lap dancers report they earn more on the big \"O\" days.) So wash off the perfume before slipping into bed with him.\n\nGentlemen, she will be more turned on by burying her nose in your (somewhat recently washed) armpits than by a coating of your favorite aftershave. Let your natural aroma sexually stimulate her.\n\n#### _Huntresses on the Pill, Read This Carefully_\n\nThe infamous stink study had opposite results for women on birth control pills. They were more attracted to guys who smelled _similar_ to them. Why? It's because the pill simulates the scent of pregnancy. Here's how Mother Nature sees it: \"If you're already pregnant, Miss, it's meaningless for you to be with a guy who turns you on. It's better for you to be around people who smell like you, your blood relatives, to help you raise Junior.\n\n\"Besides, if you still want sex with the father of your child all the time, it could keep him from going out and impregnating another woman to give me another earthling.\" Mother Nature stops at nothing!\n\nBottom line, girl, do not select the lucky man to be your permanent partner and father your children while on the pill. You don't want to wake up next to him someday when you're off it and think, \"Ugh, this guy stinks!\" Wait to see who smells right when you're off the pregnancy-simulating tablet.\n\nLet's say that, with your Quarry, it's \"So far, so good.\" So very, _very_ good. Each date leaves you breathlessly awaiting the next. Sex is spectacular, and you want to stay together under the covers ordering room service for three days straight. Mother Nature is ecstatic because her chemicals are working. Early in the game dopamine is the captain deliriously dancing on the bridge of the Love Boat. Testosterone and estrogen are euphorically singing at the helm. It seems you are right on course toward Happily-Ever-After Land. But if you don't keep a careful eye on the compass, the confused trio can steer you into stormy waters. With just a little more knowledge, however, you can control the deeper love Chemicals and keep the Love Boat afloat forever.\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _8_\n\n## How to Spark Chemistry for a Relationship\n\nYou've been dating for almost a year now. It's fabulous fun, and the sex is mind blowing. You feel miserable when you're apart, and it's magic when you're together. Maybe he's \"the one.\" Perhaps she's the woman you could love forever. You're starting to feel serious\u2014seriously wonderful!\n\nWell, most of the time. Huntresses, you worry because at times he closes off for no reason and won't even tell you what he's thinking. Hunters, you fell for her hard and fast and truly do love her\u2014but you begin to wonder because sometimes she gets overly emotional over \"absolutely nothing.\" He gets angry or she gets pissy, and you both begin to fear your potential permanent Love Partner might become just a brief affair.\n\nThe biggest reason dating couples break up is not big fights. It's not infidelity. It's not even mistrust. It's gradually growing disappointment and irritation with each other. That's a pity because you could be perfect for each other in the important things in life: your beliefs, values, goals, and interests. But too often one person starts to find the other aggravating and throws in the towel on a potentially near-perfect relationship.\n\nWhy is that so common? Because people don't understand that they're practically dealing with a chemically and neuroanatomically different species! Books have tried to teach us what to do and what to say as well as to speak the other's language. But that's not enough. You must learn how to _think_ in a different world\u2014the other sex's brain.\n\n### Mars and Venus Told You the _What_ , Now the _Why_\n\nMany if not most relationship problems have deep roots in differences between the sexes. But you've known about those for decades. About twenty years ago the author John Gray cleverly and charmingly introduced the world to the non-astrological sense of the planets, Mars and Venus. Back then, readers took copious notes on the challenges that Mr. Mars and Ms. Venus faced with each other:\n\nMars hides his feelings. | Venus wants to share them.\n\n---|---\n\nMars doesn't listen. | Venus talks more.\n\nMars quickly offers solutions. | Venus gives unsolicited advice.\n\nMars wants to feel needed. | Venus needs to feel loved.\n\nMars reacts with anger. | Venus reacts with emotion and tears.\n\nNothing has changed in the years since the book _Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus_ was published. Males still hide feelings, don't listen, quickly offer solutions, want to be needed, and react with anger. Females still share feelings, talk more, give unsolicited advice, need to feel cherished, and react with emotion and tears. It isn't going to change in our lifetime. We are born that way.\n\nFor those of you who find gender differences as fascinating as I do, here's more: In preschool a little guy played more competitive games, got angry quicker and more often, fought more, talked later and less, didn't enthusiastically welcome other kids into his games, used more play space, was less sensitive to his friends' feelings, was more interested in objects than people, averaged thirty-six seconds for family goodbyes, identified with the hero or robber in stories, and played with trucks and action toys. If someone did force him to play with dolls, he used them as dive bombers.\n\nConversely, female tots played fewer competitive games, got angry more slowly and less often, fought less, talked earlier and more, welcomed other kids into their games, were more sensitive to their friends' feelings, used less play space, were more interested in people than objects, averaged ninety-three seconds for family goodbyes, identified with the victim in stories, and played with dolls\u2014not as dive bombers.\n\nHave we changed that much? Neuroscientist Dr. Rhawn Joseph wrote,\n\n_Within the core of each of us is the child we once were. This child constitutes the foundation of what we have become, who we are, and what we will be._\n\nSo why, these many years after Mars and Venus enlightened our planet, do half of all marriages still end in divorce? John Gray did a great job telling us how to change our behavior, but unfortunately, at that time he didn't have access to the neurological research because it didn't yet exist.\n\nThere is a big difference between knowing something and _really_ knowing it. You know that a car stalls, but unless you understand the construction under the hood, you can't fix it. Unless you know what chemicals to put in the gas tank, it's not going to stay purring very long. Likewise, unless you know the neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and neuropsychology behind why Mars and Venus are so different, you won't remember what to say when she accuses you of \"what\" or he does \"that.\" Memorizing phrases isn't enough, and it makes avoiding the same mistakes almost impossible.\n\nWhen you were a kid you knew you shouldn't lick a frozen flagpole because your mother told you not to. But you don't really \"get it\" until you know why: The moisture on your tongue freezes instantly, forming an ice bond between your porous, now very painful body part and the pole. Of course you'll have plenty of time to ponder thermal conductivity while you await the rescue squad. But by then it's too late.\n\nIn many ways, in addition to technologically, a kid is smarter than his elders. Once he's felt like a thousand tweezers are ripping off his taste buds, he'll never lick the pole again\u2014no matter how much his big brother double-dog dares him.\n\nAdults, however, don't learn from their lessons. They marry and, not grasping the immense biological\/neurological difference\u2014and evolutionary influence\u2014of their mate's brain, get stuck. The ripping away is excruciatingly painful. And then they go out and get stuck all over again. Once again, with a new partner, they vow to stay together\u2014\"for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish until death do us part.\" For far too many couples, unfortunately, it's \"until misunderstanding, jealousy, or 'I just don't love you anymore' do us part.\"\n\nSome fortunate few have the ability to swim through the synapses, figuratively speaking, of their Love Partner's brain. The other 99 percent of us need a life preserver to avoid drowning in the foreign rivers.\n\n### The Ball of Yarn vs. the Stack of Boxes\n\nJust last week Giorgio and I were sitting on the couch looking at movie listings and had decided on the latest Tom Hanks film. As we were considering the earlier or later show, I asked, \"Giorgio, did you know that Tom Hanks is a grandfather?\"\n\nGiorgio looked at me quizzically and asked, \"What? What's that got to do with whether we go to the six or eight o'clock show?\"\n\n\"Nothing.\" I mumbled, \"I just thought I'd mention it.\"\n\nA year ago his response would have exasperated me. But this time, finishing up this book, I caught myself.\n\nI just kissed him on the cheek and said, \"Giorgio, you are being so . . . guy.\"\n\n\"Would you want me to be anything else?\" he chuckled.\n\nI picked his arm up off the back of the couch and put it around me. \"No,\" I purred.\n\nHe kissed my cheek, and we went back to looking at the listings.\n\nThen I asked, \"Giorgio, don't you think it's interesting that Hanks is still a big sex symbol and he's a grandfather? How many grandmothers do you think are sex symbols?\"\n\nAt that, he abruptly stood up to do something in the other room. Oops, I realized. Once again I'd slipped again into \"female brain\" type of thinking. If I'd been talking with a girlfriend, it would have been perfectly logical for us to go from the movie times . . . to Tom Hanks the actor . . . to Tom Hanks the grandfather . . . to a male sex symbol's age . . . to joking about sex symbol grandmothers. That could even lead to discussing how my grandmother used to cook with a pressure cooker. So you see, it makes perfect sense that we could be talking about movie times one minute and pressure cookers the next. Any woman would understand that. But not Giorgio, not your brother, not your father, not your Quarry, nor your male Love Partner.\n\n#### _His Box Brain_\n\nHuntresses, think of a big box with lots of little boxes inside it. That's your man's brain compared to yours. Those interior squares aren't stacked tightly together. In fact, the perimeter of one box doesn't even touch the next. Your man may not neatly fold all his socks and place them in his drawers, but he neatly tucks all his thoughts into separate boxes in his brain like the little boys at my birthday party did with the waffle syrups.\n\nIn order to think quickly about another subject that women call \"related,\" he must make the comparatively long voyage across his wide synaptic rivers between neurons. Then he needs time to choose which box the thought should jump into. So when you swim quickly and smoothly from one subject to the next, he thinks you're scattered. And you're infuriated that he can't just casually discuss anything with you.\n\nGirl, be grateful he can compartmentalize like this. Men have the ability to concentrate and focus intently on one problem at a time better because all his thoughts on that matter are squished into one little box. He wants to stay right there until he figures it out and resists if you try to drag him out of it. Giorgio's box brain was still debating the early versus the late show. And a \"totally irrational female\" was babbling about grandmothers not being sex symbols.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #55**\n\n**Tell Him If You're Switching Boxes**\n\nHuntresses, when you're talking with your PLP and you want to say something you think is related to the subject, he might not see the association. Remember, a male's neurons are more sparsely packed, and this slows down his neural connections. His six and a half times more unmyelinated gray matter further detracts from the speed. So explain the connection to him before saying anything he could possibly think is irrelevant. If he seems confused or exasperated, wind up your point quickly by saying, verbatim, \"The bottom line is . . .\"\n\n#### _Her Yarn-Ball Brain_\n\nConversely, Hunters, her brain is not a set of organized containers. Think of it as a ball of yarn. Any knitter knows that to form the yarn for storage, you start with a loop, and then wrap the next string around the center of that. As it begins forming a ball, you gradually rotate it until the pieces of yarn are in place. Each string goes in a slightly different direction, but they're much more interconnected than your boxes. Her more closely knit neurons means she can jump effortlessly from one subject to the next, and you might not understand the association. The sudden switch makes some men think it's \"screwy thinking.\"\n\nDon't let it drive you up the wall. Try to grasp the connection of the new topic to what you're discussing. If you can't, just have faith that, in her brain, it _is_ relevant. The lady's intricate maze of millions of closely connected neurons can tweet messages all over her brain a thousand times quicker than a lizard's tongue. Gentlemen, you'll find this an advantage for you in some cases!\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #56**\n\n**Understand Her Ball of Yarn**\n\nHunters, your lady love has ten times more of that speedy white matter, so of course her thoughts are on fast forward. To your more logical mind, her comment sounds like it's coming out of the blue. The next time she confuses you with something that seems irrelevant, either try to figure out the connection or just smile, shrug, and think, \"That's my girl.\"\n\n#### _P.S. for Huntresses_\n\nYou might want to try compartmentalizing some of your thoughts in boxes too. It not only helps you get along with your Love Partner better, but it can also keep you from being ticked off at a lot of things. A couple months ago understanding the Stacked Boxes vs. Yarn Ball Concept helped my life in two small ways. It not only saved me from being ticked at Giorgio, but it also got me some lovely lingerie I wouldn't have had.\n\nHe had foolishly made the mistake of going shopping with me and was waiting in the safety area near the lingerie department where embarrassed, bored, impatient husbands hang out. As I laid a bra I wanted to buy on the counter, I told the saleswoman I liked it so much that I was going to quickly grab the panties to match. When I returned seconds later, three ladies were in line. I stood on the side, naturally expecting the saleswoman to take me next because I'd been there first. In spite of my strident throat clearing, she continued to ignore me and wait on the others. I was furious and went storming over to Giorgio with a disgusted, \"Let's go!\"\n\n\"Why?\" he asked.\n\n\"Because I don't want to buy anything from that bitch!\" I sputtered, \"I was in line and just went away a few seconds to get something else. In the meantime she starts waiting on all those people who hadn't even been in line, without even a smile or apology to me!\"\n\n\"What's that got to do with the underwear. Do you want to buy it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes!\" I almost shouted. \"But . . .\"\n\n\"So?\" he interrupted. \"The other customers were ready to buy before you were.\" I started to blow up at him but, thanks to my new insights, I understood. For him, the lingerie was in one mental box, and my fury at the salesperson in another. He saw the two facts as separate, whereas I saw them all intertwined.\n\nI harrumphed, went back, scooped up my purchases and joined the line, realizing he was right. Thanks, Giorgio.\n\n### What Are You Thinking About?\n\nHuntresses, put your left hand on the Bible and raise your right in the air. Now try to tell me you've never had this conversation with your Quarry.\n\n_You_ : What are you thinking?\n\n_Him_ : Nothing.\n\n_You_ : Oh, come on. Tell me.\n\n_Him_ : Really, nothing.\n\n_You_ : What do you mean? You've got to be thinking about something.\n\n_Him_ : No, really!\n\nHe's telling the truth, Huntresses! Not thinking about something is inconceivable to us. We can never quit because our brain neighborhoods are constantly communicating\u2014on a ground line, no static. His, however, have long periods of silence. When there's nothing specific in one of his boxes to solve, his entire stock of thoughts drains out. His boxes can be completely empty. Nothing in them. Nada. Zip. Zilch.\n\nAs a relationship ripens, I've heard many women complain, \"He and I have nothing to talk about anymore.\" But have you ever heard a male groan, \"My wife and I can no longer find anything to talk about?\" He doesn't care because, for him, silence can spell togetherness.\n\nIt is said that one evening the poet William Wordsworth visited his good friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The two gentlemen sat silently by the fireside, contentedly smoking their pipes and saying nary a word. As the hours wore on, Mr. Wordsworth stood up, shook his friend's hand, and said, \"It has indeed been a delightful evening, Mr. Coleridge.\"\n\n\"The pleasure is all mine,\" Coleridge replied. And they both meant it!\n\nCan you imagine two girlfriends spending an evening together like that? Males enjoy sitting silently together and just chilling. Giorgio is one of those \"strong silent types,\" and I used to rack my brain for things for us to chat about when we were together. I felt we had to keep talking in order to be communicating.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #57**\n\n**Don't Bust into His Boxes**\n\nDon't ask your PLP what he's thinking about. When a Hunter is stressed out, retreating and curling up in his cozy \"nothing box\" is a very comforting place for him to be, and he gets exasperated if you try to yank him out. No matter how much he adores you, he sometimes prefers chilling out alone to chatting. It's crashing his private party to ask, \"What are you thinking?\" When he emerges, he'll feel closer than if you'd invaded.\n\nMy new neurological insight has been a real relationship booster for us. Now Giorgio and I sometimes go through an entire dinner with little casual chatting. I can tell that he's much happier in one of his boxes, and I am learning to enjoy my own yarn ball of thoughts sitting silently with him.\n\n### How Do You Feel About That?\n\nThat's the sequel to the perpetual male query, \"What does a woman really want?\" The stack of books in my basement oozes with ridiculous advice on \"how to get a man to share his feelings.\" Here are some of the worst suggestions I've read. (To avoid embarrassing the authors, some with recognizable names, I won't reference them.) They recommend telling him:\n\n1)\"Honey, I know the male role requires that you be tough, objective, and unemotional. But you'll be even more of a man in my eyes if you can open up to me.\"\n\n2)\"It's okay to have feelings. It's not a sign of weakness.\"\n\n3)\"I don't suspect you're hiding anything from me.\"\n\n4)\"I've always shared my feelings with you. Now all I'm asking is the same.\"\n\n5)Share your feelings with him honestly first. Then tell him, \"See, it wasn't so hard. Now it's your turn.\"\n\nThe ubiquitous, all-time worst advice in those books was \"Be sure to look him directly in the eyes when probing his feelings.\" Males definitely do _not_ communicate best gazing into another set of human eyeballs. They'd prefer to be staring down the barrel of a semiautomatic twelve-gauge shotgun. In fact, the deepest guy communication is done sitting side by side in a foxhole, pointing their guns at the same enemy.\n\nHuntresses, what if he insisted that you do something you were physically incapable of doing\u2014like picking him up and hoisting him over your head? Do you think you'd be able to do that if he told you any of the following?\n\n1)\"Honey, I know the female role requires that you be soft, feminine, and not muscular. But you'll be more of a woman in my eyes if you hoist me up over your head.\"\n\n2)\"It's okay lifting me up. It's not a sign of being too strong.\"\n\n3)\"I don't suspect you're hiding your physical strength from me.\"\n\n4)\"I've always lifted you up. Now all I'm asking is the same.\"\n\n5)Hoist her up. Then say, \"See, it wasn't so hard. Now it's your turn.\"\n\n#### _Why He's Tongue-Tied_\n\nAs I explained in the Introduction, language is housed in the left hemisphere of the brain, and emotions are in the right. Both male and female brains are divided right smack down the middle by a hedge of twenty million nerve fibers called the _corpus callosum_. But that division has a vastly different neuron density for you and your Quarry.\n\nA Hunter's barrier between language and emotions is the Wall of China compared to a Huntress's picket fence. While speaking from his language hemisphere, he has a heck of a time tapping into his emotions on the other side of the great wall. A Huntress hops back and forth over the barrier like a jump rope.\n\nSo don't ask your PLP to expound on how he feels. It's not that he doesn't want to talk about his feelings. He can't and, because the average guy doesn't like to admit he's incapable of anything, he gets annoyed. So sisters, if you decide to stay heterosexual, don't expect much discussion of feelings with your partner. If, however, getting your man's feelings on something is of life-and-death importance to you, here's a tip on how to do it.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #58**\n\n**Give Your Questions a Corporate Spin**\n\nChoose a time when he's not expected to do any deep gazing into your eyes. Then substitute more corporate phrases like, \"What is your take on that?\" \"Let me run a few questions past you,\" or \"What's your appraisal of the situation?\" (Never ever use the word _feel._ ) And, heaven forbid, don't ever, ever preface it with \"We need to talk.\"\n\nHunters, it's the opposite for a woman. Asking her feelings is a mammoth togetherness booster.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #59**\n\n**Ask Her \"How Do You Feel About That?\"**\n\nHunters, the next time you and your Quarry are chatting about anything, anytime, anywhere, that anyone could possibly have any emotions about\u2014good or bad\u2014gaze into her eyes and soulfully ask, \"How do you _feel_ about that?\" After you pick her up off the floor and revive her with smelling salts, she'll swoon with feelings of closeness.\n\n#### _Learn a Very Different Body Language_\n\nGentlemen, as tough as it is to express your feelings, it's tougher for you to recognize hers. If you put observation of your Love Partner's teary eyes in one box, her quivering lips in another, and her hanging head in another, how could you possibly be expected to connect the dots and determine she's upset? Besides, you've been brought up to believe that letting your emotions show is a sign of weakness. So you're probably assuming, \"I'm sure she wouldn't want me to notice.\"\n\nI'd like to help you change your thinking. Consider the usefulness of reading emotions. I'll put it in guy terms. There you are at the poker table. The lights are low and the smoke is thick. You stare over the mountain of chips at the guy across from you. It's just you and him now. You've got a sweet straight in your hand, but the dude just keeps raising the stakes. His expression is placid and his eyes are drilling a hole into your face. What's going on? Is he bluffing?\n\nYou take a chance. You call and lay down your cards.\n\nYES! The pot is yours.\n\nHow did you outsmart your opponent? You had developed the talent to read micro-expressions. It wasn't obvious. Your adversary hadn't sucked in his breath or glanced away even for a flash. But when he raised his eyebrows and pulled them together for a fraction of a second, you sensed it was sheer fear. You smelled it as clear as cow dung.\n\nThe biggest winners in business and sports are expert readers of emotions. A world-class chess player senses how firmly his opponent holds his piece and how quickly he places it. Your enemy's face and body telegraph his strategy, training, determination\u2014but only if you know how to read him. So get out there, dude, and master the skill of reading micro-expressions. You just need a little practice. How?\n\nGrit your teeth and hang in there with me on this next suggestion. Step one: Download a daytime soap opera and watch it with the sound off. You'll see the whole gamut of emotions\u2014anger, acceptance, anticipation, aversion, sadness, surprise, and hundreds in between. See how many you can name in the silent show.\n\nStep two: Now turn the sound on and suffer through it again. On average, a Huntress would recognize eighteen out of twenty emotions correctly. A guy's doing well if he can identify five.\n\nNow watch it yet again with the sound off and practice, practice, practice. You'll get the hang of reading emotions soon.\n\nFormer Army psychologist Paul Ekman, one of _Time_ magazine's world's one hundred most influential people in 2009, trains police interrogators and authorities in the art and science of face reading. Now he's developed a program to detect whether a couple is headed for the divorce court from just fifteen seconds of watching their interaction. Their flashes of indifference to each other's subtle feelings play a big role. To keep the Sparks flying, try to adjust your antennae to pick up her subtle expressions.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #60**\n\n**Detect Her Micro-Expressions**\n\nHunters, being sensitive to your Quarry's feelings is a biggie in making your Chemistry last. Practice the talent, and when you detect she's upset, ask her what's wrong. Then _listen_ , nod. _Listen_ , sympathize. _Listen_ , comfort her. But do not offer solutions\u2014until she asks.\n\nGuys, there's another reason to acknowledge her emotions: If you don't, she'll get angry and start arguing with you. And due to her brain's more direct connection between emotions and language, you'll probably lose!\n\n### Shall We Talk It Out, or Slug It Out?\n\nI'll never forget a totally confounding (at the time) experience I had in Seattle. A client who had booked me for a seminar picked me up at the airport. On the way to the hotel, Bernard briefed me about the group, the room setup, the AV arrangements, and he gave me my handouts he'd printed. Suddenly a Honda in front of us came to a screeching halt, just missing what could have been a major fender bender. I turned toward Bernard to tell him how lucky it was that he saw the car and stopped, but he was already shaking a furious fist at the other car. The other driver bellowed, \"I had to stop, you idiot, or I would have hit the car in front of me.\"\n\n\"You could have gotten us killed you sonnuva-bitch,\" Bernard bellowed. That was met with a hand darting out of the Honda's window, middle finger raised in the air\u2014the inner-city sign of war. Figuring the finger wasn't Hulk Hogan's or Mike Tyson's, Bernard leapt out of the car. All I saw was a flurry of flushed faces and flailing arms. Finally he stormed back, but not before banging his fist on the finger giver's car. Why did he react so physically? Because a male's limbic system is more wired to the physical than the linguistic.\n\n\"Asshole!\" he bellowed. I thought, but of course didn't say, \"Asshole\" had a point. He did have to stop suddenly to avoid hitting the next car. Grumbling, Bernard got back into the car, where I was pretending to go over the handouts.\n\nI lost something in his car that day: my respect for Bernard. If he had been my boyfriend, brother, or husband, I would have been furious and spent the rest of the ride trying to explain to him why the other guy was right. A.H. did indeed need to stop suddenly. If I'd known then what I know now, however, I would have considered Bernard's blowup just a rude male burp. His emotions, fueled by testosterone, shot straight to his biceps, bypassing any rational thought.\n\nThe rest of the time in Seattle, Bernard was an ideal client. Unfortunately, due to his irrational blowup, I was unable to give him the respect he deserved and the gratitude I wish I'd expressed.\n\nHuntresses, your man didn't exactly come out of the womb baring his toothlessness or clenching his tiny fists. But the anger and aggression circuits were already formed by the time he let out his first yelp. When the doctor held him upside-down by his tiny pink feet and spanked his bottom, the newborn dude probably wanted to kill him. While kindergarten guys were slugging it out in the playground over a dispute, we were talking out our differences in the sandbox.\n\nAnd of course, evolution gets into the act. If, instead of facing the small-fingered Honda driver, a Cro-Magnon Bernard found himself staring into the eyes of a livid lioness, what was he supposed to do? Say \"Down puddy cat,\" or \"Let's talk about this\"? No, he pulls out his homemade ax or hurls his hunga munga. The womenfolk back in the cave are delighted. And he is delighted when they don't scold him for his angry reaction.\n\nThere's more. Don't forget his childhood, the acculturated \"show 'em how tough you are, kid\" influence. Let's put this into Cognitive Science language: \"Limbic (emotional) activation in the female brain is linked to verbal response areas,\" and \"Limbic activation in the male brain is linked to motor\/physical response areas.\" In a sense, his anger chemicals go straight to his fists, hers to her tongue. When he's furious, his amygdala says \"Pull the trigger.\" Hers says, \"Tell one of your girlfriends.\"\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #61**\n\n**Don't Talk When He's Fuming**\n\nHuntresses, between his limbic system being wired to the physical rather than the linguistic, plus evolution, plus his upbringing, plus ten times more testosterone, what do you expect?\n\nIgnore and forgive your Quarry's outbursts. It's anatomy, evolution, and upbringing all rolled up into one \"anger ball,\" and it will pass.\n\nHunters, your advice is just the opposite. Ask her to tell you all about the problem, every minute detail. If you have the misfortune of being the one she's pissed at, just listen quietly and then repeat one or more of the following phrases:\n\n\"I'm sorry I [fill in what she's accusing of you of].\"\n\n\"You're absolutely right. I had no right to [fill in what she's accusing of you of].\"\n\n\"I can't believe I was so thoughtless to [fill in what she's accusing of you of].\"\n\n\"Can you ever forgive me for [fill in what she's accusing of you of]?\"\n\n\"I promise [fill in what she's accusing of you of] will never happen again.\"\n\nThen, as soon as she's calmed down, hug her and tell her you love her.\n\nSee how easy that was?\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #62**\n\n**Grill Her for the Details**\n\nWhen your Quarry is angry, Hunters, don't turn away. Soften your body language, look her directly in the eyes, and ask all the ins and outs of what's bothering her. Her emotions are more tied to the linguistic, so unlike you, she'll love talking it out. Nod often and toss in an occasional \"I understand.\" Then use a selection of the above phrases liberally and finish her off with a hug. Don't fight fire with fire. Snuff it out with the bonding chemical, oxytocin.\n\nCongratulations to both of you. The two of you have done everything right so far. Huntresses, you Sparked your Quarry with sexual bait and reeled him in with your fine qualities. Hunters, you Sparked hers by showing that you're husband material right up front. You both collaborated with Mother Nature to enhance the passion. You used neuroanatomical and chemical insights into your Quarry's box- or ball of yarn\u2013type brain to navigate the Love Boat away from the jagged rocks. You're ecstatically happy and tell everyone you are \"in love.\" But now let's learn how to Spark the Chemistry to make it the real thing, the kind of true love that makes your Quarry crave lasting togetherness with you.\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _9_\n\n## How to Spark Chemistry for Falling in Love\n\nYou're in love . . . life is superb . . . your heart explodes with joy and everybody notices. You're always laughing and smiling and sometimes you burst into song. The world is brighter and more beautiful than ever, even on rainy days. Things that used to bother you, like traffic, annoying colleagues, and toilet tissue rolling from underneath instead of over the top, just make you smile. Nothing matters except being with your loved one. This exhilarating and electrifying stage of love consumes you. Your _Pleasure Island_ is deluged by dopamine, and it is sheer ecstasy. Enjoy every euphoric moment of it!\n\nFortunately, you now realize that love, in the song and sonnet sense, is a chemical assault on your brain, albeit a fabulous one. This knowledge can help you make the best choice of your life\u2014or save yourself from making a grave mistake. Before taking the big step, I suggest you run a few final tests on your Potential Love Partner. Squint and search beyond the glittering stars in your eyes to ensure that your love will last and last and last. And prove to your Potential Love Partner that you have the lasting qualities too.\n\nClear vision is tough when dopamine is hacking the texts between your amygdala and your prefrontal cortex. It's not that the _Professor_ hasn't been trying to warn you if he happens to feel this particular partner isn't right for you. He's been frantically tweeting all the other brain regions that trouble could be lurking behind the altar. But Mother Nature shushes him by shooting you up with more dopamine to make you even crazier for your Quarry. But all this drama is exciting, like a frightening film, and you can mistake it for true love. Here's how to tell if it really is\u2014and to show your PLP that you have the character and the qualities that make you \"the one.\" To do this, employ what I call the \"Big Four.\" Each is based on the latest studies of what both sexes seek in a permanent partner.\n\n### Is This Quarry a Keeper?\n\nConcentrate on clearing the paths between the emotional and rational parts of your brain. I'm not just speaking figuratively. You now understand how the love druggies ambush the messages so you're literally \"crazy in love.\" If you still love, respect, and feel wonderful about him\u2014and yourself\u2014after about a year and a half, don't let this one get away. You've found a keeper! It's only when you feel \"sanely\" in love with her and not \"crazy\" in love that can you take back the controls of the Love Boat.\n\n#### _Why Is He Afraid to Commit?_\n\nHuntresses, how many times have you heard that? A hundred? Two hundred? But you may not have heard this answer. No offense insinuated, but it's probably because when a smart guy gets serious, he gets smarter\u2014 _almost_ as smart as you've been all along! I find it interesting that men fall in love more often than women. But then they're more apt to balk. Why? Because if the relationship gets serious, men too become sensitive, consciously or subconsciously, to substantial qualities in their Potential Love Partner. They just take longer to come around to it.\n\nDuring the electrifying initial dating stages he doesn't analyze stuff to death. A guy-type brain doesn't consciously conjecture, \"What is her relationship with her mother and what does it signify?\" He's not going to sit down with a beer and a buddy and ask, \"Hey, dude, how much do you think she's going to help me realize my aspirations?\" or \"Do you think she's still going to enjoy cave spelunking with me a year from now?\" However, when a male finds himself contemplating the long term, he gets a hazy sense of these things. That's why sometimes everything can be going great in your relationship. The two of you seem to be running full-speed ahead toward total togetherness, even the altar. Then, just before you get there, _screech!_ He slams on the brakes.\n\nMany women would say, \"He got cold feet,\" or \"He's commitment-phobic.\" It's more likely that it finally got through to his dopamine\/testosterone-marinated skull that he and his girlfriend were not a fit in some of the more important matters in life. To demonstrate that you are the one for him, you must find subtle ways to hint to your Quarry that you are a match for the \"Big Four.\"\n\n1)Do you and your Potential Love Partner have similar deep beliefs and values in life?\n\n2)Do your definitions of \"togetherness\" match?\n\n3)Can your Potential Love Partner be depended on if adversity strikes?\n\n4)Will you each encourage your partner's personal and professional growth?\n\nWhile manifesting (not misrepresenting!) certain attributes, also keep a checklist on your PLP. Without certain components and similarities between you, long-lasting Chemistry is almost impossible. Your differences will chomp away at your love, bite by bite, until your plate is empty\u2014and you're both starving for love with someone else.\n\nLet's talk about the Big Four in order.\n\n### I See Life That Way Too!\n\nWhich statement expresses what you want in a life partner?\n\nA. _I want someone different from me_. Someone exciting who has a fascinating lifestyle, exposes me to new ideas, gives me fresh insights, shares adventures, and helps me view the world in a different way.\n\nB. _I want someone similar to me_. Someone who is in accord with my deep beliefs and principles, makes me feel secure, enjoys similar activities, likes my lifestyle, and understands how I look at life.\n\nOf course, your answer is \"both.\" Everyone wants someone similar in some of life's most important ways and different in the fun frills. We crave excitement, ecstasy, thrills, and chills. We also long for serenity, commitment, contentment, and comfort.\n\nThink back to the days when you were in school. Remember how there were various cliques? The preppies? The tough gang? The brains? The athletes? The self-proclaimed cool kids? Chances are that there weren't too many cross-friendships because people feel comfortable with their own.\n\nWhile moving into a college dormitory, college students were interviewed about their beliefs, values, ethics, mores, and morals. Researchers hypothesized that, as the students got to know each other, the ones who looked at life in the same way would gravitate toward each other. Sure enough, they hardly missed a beat. Cliques of similar kids formed.\n\nYour prefrontal cortex, the wise brainy _Professor_ , knows that if a relationship is going to work, you need a mate who looks at life in the same way as you. Let's face it\u2014life is confusing and scary. TV, magazines, newspapers, millions of blogs, and social media\u2014and all other methods of communication now known or currently being developed\u2014can make your head spin. When you find another human being who has come to the same conclusions about life, you feel protected and out of harm's way. Your opinions, morals, beliefs, and values are vindicated by your Love Partner's agreement. This floods your brain with oxytocin, the attachment chemical.\n\nObviously your agreement is not necessary or even desired on everything. That would be boring. What matters is not the number of agreements on small things but rather harmony on the more weighty matters in life that causes \"coupling,\" as researchers call it.\n\nAgreement on certain subtleties in life is often more important to females. Hunters, if you've pretended to share her dedication to animal rights, care for the elderly, and protecting the environment, how do you think she'll feel when you kick her cat, ignore your grandmother, or refuse to recycle?\n\nMen don't need agreement as much as they need respect that their choices are good. I'll never forget an episode in the then-popular TV show, _House_. The characters were musing about how much they valued their parents' love. Dr. Gregory House groused, \"All I wanted was for my father to say I was _right._ \" It confused me at the time, but now, after gaining a better understanding of the neuropsychology of the male brain, it makes perfect sense.\n\nHuntresses, if he's a vegetarian or macrobiotic, it doesn't mean you have to slurp seawood soup with him every night. Just show your support for his preference. Tell him he's smart to make such a disciplined and wise choice.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #63**\n\n**Show You Share or Respect Your Quarry's Values**\n\nTo stoke the fire in your relationship, find ways to highlight your similarities whenever you can. Emphasize your admiration for your PLP's beliefs.\n\nHunters, when you feel the same way about things she deeply cares about, oxytocin floods her brain. Huntresses, confirming his commitments and supporting his principles has the same effect on him.\n\nBut express the similarity only if it's true! Otherwise you're steering the Love Boat in a deadly direction, and your relationship goes aground. If it is going to stay afloat beyond the crazy dopamine-drenched days of early love, similar principles and convictions are must haves.\n\nBut that's not the whole picture. Three other major pieces must fit in the successful relationship puzzle.\n\n### How Do You Define \"Togetherness\"?\n\nHow close do you want to be to your partner? Together every day, every night? Inseparable? Having the same friends and interests as he does? Doing the same activities with her? Or is \"togetherness\" cohabitation, companionship? Living under the same roof, in the same bed, but coming and going as you please? You spending time with your friends and he with his? You going wherever you like, pursuing your passions, and she hers? In short, how would you define \"togetherness?\"\n\nTogetherness can mean one or the other of the above\u2014or something in between. The definition must be the same for both of you, or else the sticky wicket can shatter the bonding Chemistry. Finding out your PLP's views can be a tricky task, especially for women. Asking outright could make him feel like he's being water-boarded, so listen between the lines. What does he say about his parent's relationship? His friends? Does he joke about a buddy \"getting hooked,\" \"biting the dust,\" \"putting on the ball and chain\"? Or does he use words more like his buddy \"is hearing the ol' wedding bells,\" \"decided to settle down,\" or \"found the right one\"?\n\nGuys, what about her? Does she ever talk about any of her past boyfriends \"suffocating her,\" \"being too possessive,\" or \"never letting her out of his sight\"? Conversely, perhaps she complains about a previous boyfriend \"not being with her enough\" or that he was \"always running around with his buddies.\" Does she bemoan the fact that her father was never home?\n\nWhat about family feelings? How often does he talk to his mom? His dad? Are they close? Does she spend holidays with her family? Does he speak with his siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other various and sundry relatives? If he hasn't been a bonder in his previous life, do you think he'll have a frontal lobotomy and start loving family life now? Psych it out and compare it to your togetherness quotient.\n\nResearchers call how you \"score\" on the togetherness chart your \"comparison level,\" and it plays a big part in keeping the love Chemistry between you. \"I thought he would change\" are some of the most foolish words I've ever heard.\n\nMy cousin Rory and his wife, Camilla, whom I knew way before they got married, have two beautiful young daughters, but they're going through a tough time this year. Rory has always had vast interests and continually finds new hobbies. He had a meditation phase, a bird-watching phase, and a bowling phase. Now he's into calligraphy and going to comic book conventions.\n\nA few months ago Camilla and I curled up on the couch with our coffee cups and had a poignant talk. She was lamenting that Rory was always off with his friends. I squeezed her hand and reminded her, \"Rory has a lot of diverse interests. Before you were married, I remember you telling me how fascinating he was because of it.\"\n\n\"I know, Leil, but I thought that when the girls came along, he would settle down.\"\n\n\"Camilla, what do you most enjoy doing?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Just being with my girls. I mean that's really my favorite thing to do. It's just that . . . well, I feel Rory should be here more. The family should be doing things together.\"\n\nHere's the tragedy. This very weekend Rory and Camilla are planning to tell their girls they are splitting. My eyes water as I write this. If only Rory and Camilla had discovered they had totally different definitions of \"togetherness.\" For Camilla, it is constant closeness. For Rory, it is loving cohabitation. Who will suffer the most from their not scoping it out before? Their girls, of course.\n\nThe so-called logical advice here would be to \"sit down now and talk about how you both define togetherness.\" Sounds good, but unfortunately that's not always realistic. Most Hunters are biologically challenged in illusive relationship discussions like that. It's like asking a mermaid to do the splits. And a Huntress's crystal ball is too chemically clouded during early passionate love to think straight.\n\nThe solution? Make an appointment for your wise _Professor_ and emotional amygdala to have a little non-dopamine-hacked neurotransmitting about what a relationship means to you.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #64**\n\n**Emphasize Your Similar Concept of Togetherness**\n\nMake it a point to define clearly and consciously what \"togetherness\" means to you. Then, to the best of your ability, determine what it means to your Potential Love Partner. If, hopefully, you discover that you and your PLP's are the same, find ways to underscore it in casual conversation.\n\nAnd remember (especially Huntresses), if you're thinking, \"I can change him,\" forget about it. If you succeed, call the _Guinness Book of World Records_.\n\n### \"In Sickness and in Health\"\n\nTo me, those words are the most moving most part of a wedding ceremony because I've seen how illness and adversity affects couples. After deep love has had time to take root, tragedy can draw a couple even closer together. Whether they have taken the actual marriage vows or not, taking care of a long-term Love Partner can intensify love and make it more enduring.\n\nInfirmity and adversity have the power to overshadow other problems that start to tear a couple apart. In many cases, when there are catastrophic challenges, major arguments vanish and money problems pale. \"You left the cap off the toothpaste\" and \"Take out the garbage\" are no longer declarations of war. In fact, those minor foibles can invoke smiles reminiscent of early posthoneymoon discoveries.\n\nI've seen it happen twice, once due to severe injury in a small plane crash and the other Parkinson's disease. Both my friends' marriages were tottering, but when tragedy struck, the other partner went instantly from being a quarreler to a loving caregiver. Life was harder, but their love became stronger.\n\nA few months into writing this book I learned firsthand the bonding effect of illness. I was glued to the keyboard morning to night and had put off a lot of \"should do\" things like having a mammogram. Giorgio bugged me incessantly about it. So despite my grumbling, he insisted and dragged me off to the hospital.\n\nA week later the hospital \"invited\" me back for a repeat visit. When I heard my gynecologist's sympathetic \"Hello\" on the phone a few days later, I realized there'd be a slight change of schedule during the next few months.\n\nChemo for breast cancer sucked, but I discovered a new closeness with Giorgio. He postponed taking command of the ship he was booked for in Italy, becoming my hospital chauffeur and staying with me during every depressing chemo session. Giorgio spent the months puffing up my pillows, rubbing my nauseous tummy, kissing my yucky red face, caressing my bald head, and lying to me, saying I looked beautiful.\n\nNow I'm completely okay. No, I'm better than okay because it showed me how vital togetherness is. Whether official vows have been exchanged or not, unspoken ones can be just as powerful. After that experience I have a deeper understanding of the distinction between \"being in love\" and loving. I'm sure the many millions of couples who have had experiences like mine understand what I'm talking about.\n\nSo here's a question you should ask yourself when considering exchanging togetherness promises: \"If tragedy struck, would my Potential Love Partner be able to take on the role of caregiver?\" When you're flat on your back, it's no fun lying there alone. And equally important, \"Would I do the same?\"\n\nI pray you will never need it, but think about it now because this is the person you plan to spend the rest of your life with in whatever shape either of you is in. Find ways to let your partner know you'll be there, for better or for worse. Here's how.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #65**\n\n**Show Your Quarry That You're a Caregiver**\n\nBe extra-attentive and loving when your Quarry isn't feeling well. Giving her flowers when she's sick is as meaningful as on her birthday, maybe more so. Taking him chicken soup when he's flat on his back gives him nurse fantasies of the nonsexual kind\u2014and those last a lot longer.\n\nAnd of course, check out your Quarry for care-giving qualities. It's bad enough to be sick. But to have no one to hold your hand when you're sick _really_ sucks.\n\n### The Magnificent Twenty-First-Century Mantra\u2014Personal Growth\n\nI don't need to tell you the twenty-first-century world is practically a different planet. We are inspired by different ideas, connected by diverse technologies, admired for distinct accomplishments, and desired for divergent qualities\u2014some old, some new. How lovely that we live in a land where free expression and diversity are encouraged and where poverty and plagues don't prohibit it as they often did in the past. In many parts of the world personal growth would be considered a luxury just for the rich. For those of us in more fortunate nations it is ubiquitous and adds a thrilling dimension to our lives.\n\nMarriage is no longer the economic and social institution it used to be. The expectations and psychological needs of the partners bear little resemblance to even a hundred years ago. Nora in Ibsen's late-nineteenth-century play _A Doll's House_ would be ecstatic knowing that, within a scant fifty years, a group of women calling themselves feminists would lay the cornerstone for the temple of personal growth at which both evolved men and women worship today. Sociologists call it \"self-expansion.\" The more a mate encourages your goals, the happier and more committed your togetherness will be.\n\nIn days gone by, happily in the past, it was primarily the woman who was expected to serve her partner. A \"dutiful wife\" brought hubby his slippers, didn't complain if he worked late, and entertained his colleagues whenever requested. Now it's a two-way street, and women who work just as hard expect and deserve the same deference. Both Hunters and Huntresses have their antennae out for a Love Partner who will be there for them both personally and professionally.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #66**\n\n**Show Signs That You Can Help Your Quarry Grow**\n\nToday you have the luxury of adding personal growth to your wish list and expecting it. Hunters, whenever the subject of her personal and professional goals comes up, tell her how supportive you are. Huntresses, when he speaks of his aspirations, share his enthusiasm and enhance his confidence that he can achieve them.\n\nBefore making the Big Decision, however, make sure it works the other way too. Chemistry can die quickly if your own creativity and growth are stifled.\n\n### \"Vet\" Your Quarry\n\nAs my regular readers know, I have a huge loft in New York City that, without rent control and a roommate, I could never afford. When I first found it, I was in the habit of having short-term roommates, students or professionals on short assignments in the city, for which I advertised in a then-popular weekly paper.\n\nOne of my ads came out on Thursday. On Friday, Keith, a thirty-six-year-old cellist with the Boston Symphony who was recently separated from his wife, called. He came over on Saturday and moved in on Sunday.\n\nKeith was a fabulous roommate, not like the previous one who left the toilet seat up with a vengeance. The only annoyance was the ghastly ringtone on his cell. Several times an evening, Manowar's _Dark Avenger_ blasted out on his phone. He'd answer it with an anguished expression and disappear into his room.\n\nI once joked about his ringtone. He shook his head, \"I hate it too.\"\n\n\"Well, um, Keith why do you have it?\"\n\n\"My wife\u2014soon to be EX-wife\u2014insisted.\"\n\n\"Oh, she was into heavy metal?\" I asked.\n\n\"No!\" he blurted out. \"She always liked classical. Then one day, right out of the blue, she starts listening to Slayer and Spinal Tap and turns the volume up as high as it will go.\"\n\n\"You mean it was all of a sudden?\" I queried.\n\n\"Well, not really; bizarre things started happening last year.\"\n\n\"Keith, please don't answer if I'm invading your privacy, but may I ask what?\"\n\nHe stared at me for a moment, took a deep breath, and said, \"Okay, here goes. The first thing I noticed was she'd start talking about something, and I couldn't follow her train of thought. At first I thought it was just me until one time at a dinner party, for no reason, she starts talking about Obi-Wan Kenobi, the _Star Wars_ character. The party's host asked who Obi-Wan Kenobi was. My wife breaks out laughing hysterically, and won't stop. Everybody looked at each other, wondering what the heck was going on.\n\n\"After that, there was all kinds of other weird stuff.\"\n\n\"Like?\"\n\nHe put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. \"Jeez, Leil, the whole gambit. First she'd garble about some new age mumbo jumbo. Then she'd babble about a fatal accident if we didn't believe in Biblical miracles. I mean, she took them literally.\" When he raised his head, I saw his eyes watering. Embarrassed, he stood up. \"I dunno. Maybe it runs in the family. Her mom was a bit of a kook too.\" Just then Manowar's \"Dark Avenger\" blasted out on his phone. He slammed on the silencer and disappeared into his room.\n\nKeith's story rang a bell. A few friends in the past had told me that they'd known someone who had \"suddenly gone sort of nuts.\" They often followed it by saying they had heard the person's mother or father was \"very eccentric\" too. Other times I'd hear, \"She was abused as a child,\" or \"He was raised by an alcoholic father.\"\n\nLovers seldom realize that their potential partner's childhood can have a direct impact on their future relationships and desire for a long-term one. During casual discussions with your PLP try to steer the subject around to his childhood. Did his parents love him? Was there any brutality in his family? Did his mother suffer severe stress while he was still in her womb? Even that could have a detrimental effect on his later psychological development. And yes, it's chemical. Growing up in a loving environment increases oxytocin in his body, meaning he'll be a better bonder.\n\nHunters, what about her? Did she have a stable upbringing? Did any of her close blood relatives suffer from mental illness? Was she a troubled child? As callous as it sounds, if you intend to raise a family with this lady, it's worth determining if there was any potentially transmittable mental illness or childhood challenge that could surface in adulthood. It's not likely but definitely worth keeping your eyes open for when you start thinking about being together for the rest of your life.\n\nAs we discussed, often an affliction can create closeness between loved ones. But tragically, there are some behavioral conditions due to childhood or inherited genetic abnormalities that don't. There's a very good chance it won't ever manifest itself, so don't freak out about this. But it pays to be extra vigilant when considering someone you'll be with for the rest of your life. Don't dismiss clues like Keith did.\n\nThis sounds like pretty depressing stuff, doesn't it? So I'm going to just drop it here and beg you to read a document you'll find on the web. Before saying \"I do\" or giving up your rent-controlled apartment, run a search for the \"Surgeon General's Report on the Risk Factors of Certain Mental Conditions, Chapter Three, Section Two.\" Don't skip the part on \"Family and Genetic Factors.\" The percentage of inheritable and upbringing-influenced conditions is staggering.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #67**\n\n**Probe Your Chosen PLP's Childhood (and Genes!)**\n\nThis is what the dating process is all about\u2014figuring whether your future togetherness will be happy or horrible. While having fun together and fantasizing about a beautiful life, don't forget to climb out on the branches of your PLP's family tree to look for nuts. (Sorry, bad pun.) Scamper through your loved one's childhood to sniff out possible future challenges. Also, avoid doing anything irrational that your PLP might mistake as having deeper roots.\n\nLook at it this way: You wouldn't buy an expensive purebred dog without seeing its papers and assuring yourself that it has no inheritable diseases. And you're going to live with your loved one a lot longer than your dog!\n\n### May I Have a Word with Young Lovers?\n\n\"Life without him would be a life without meaning.\"\n\n\"I'll die if she ever leaves me.\"\n\n\"I could never fall in love with anyone else.\"\n\n\"It is fate we should be together forever.\"\n\nHave you ever felt this way when you were very young? We all did once or twice. Some thrice. At age seventeen I thought I'd found the love of my life, the boy I just _knew_ was the one. He was older and what some would call a tough guy. But he could be oh-so tender! I was ecstatic when he started talking about a future with me. \"Our forever together time,\" he called it.\n\nButch and I had been dating for about three months, but my mother hadn't met him yet. Instead of coming to the door to pick me up, he would park in front of my house and honk the horn. It was to the tune of \"shave-and-a-haircut, two bits,\" the then-sweetest sound in the world to me. Upon hearing it I'd bounce out the door and breathlessly race to his car for a few hours of blissful togetherness and discussing \"our forever together time.\"\n\nOne day my mother asked me, \"Leilie, do you have a date with Butch tonight?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I crooned.\n\n\"He sounds so nice from what you've told me about him, dear. Why don't you invite him in for a few minutes? I'd love to meet him.\"\n\n\"But Mama . . .\"\n\n\"Just for a few minutes, dear. I promise.\"\n\nAt the anxiously awaited shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits, I ran out and begged him to come in to say \"hi\" to her.\n\nAfter a short, noticeably uncomfortable conversation, my mother asked, \"Leilie, can you come into my room for a second?\" She closed her door and literally lay down across the doorway. She pointed a furious finger up at me and gave notice: \"You will go out with that boy over my dead body!\" She stormed back to the living room, locking her door behind her with me inside. I never saw Butch again.\n\nThen, just several months ago, I got a letter written in a typeface I call \"nut font\" from, I kid you not, a return address of the Maryland Department of Corrections. Apparently, Butch's brother had found me on the web for him. Looking back, I shudder to think of what a nightmare my life would have been if we'd gone through with our \"forever together time.\"\n\nSo, Dear Reader, if you haven't reached the big two-oh, don't even think about the \"M\" word! It's practically impossible to make the right choice at your age. It's not because you're not smart. You could be the brightest crayon in the Crayola factory, but the biological structure of your brain is not prepared to make one of the most important decisions of your life. You don't have to believe Mom or Dad\u2014let neuroscience tell you why.\n\n#### _Don't Marry Until You're Myelinated (Parents, Don't Miss This!_ )\n\nUntil I'm what? No, it wasn't a typo. As you now know, the neurons in your brain are constantly communicating by electrical impulses. The tubular-shaped insulation I mentioned earlier, called a myelin sheath, protects them from hit-and-miss thinking. This sheath, a greased tube of sorts around the axons of your neurons, only develops gradually. When you were born, the myelin in your system was hardly detectable. That's why an as-yet myelinated baby sleeps in a crib. She might sense that falling out of bed would be a big \"ouch,\" but the message emanating from her little prefrontal cortex is too slow. Her tiny little _Professor_ doesn't have time to get the message to her central nervous system to stop her from rolling toward the cliff. In your early twenties, when your neurons become more fully myelinated, those greased tubes transmit clearer messages to the rest of your brain faster. (Sorry, young lovers, the full myelination process isn't complete until about age twenty-five.)\n\nI know it feels so intense. Your world revolves around your romance. But if it saves even one of you from ruining your life, I'm going to break my own commitment to not quote tedious excerpts from studies. This is from \"Defining the Brain Systems of Lust, Romantic Attraction, and Attachment,\" published in the _Archives of Sexual Behavior_ by five of the leading researchers in the field.\n\n_We were able to demonstrate that adolescents in early-stage intense romantic love did not differ from patients during a hippomanic stage . . . intense romantic love in teenagers is a \"psycho pathologically prominent stage._ \"\n\nPathological means \"evidencing a mentally disturbed condition.\" Okay, throw this book out the window or delete it. But I speak the truth.\n\n#### _Shall We Make a Federal Case Out of It?_\n\nIn my grandmother's day sex before marriage was a sin. Even in my mother's day, living together before marriage was a couple's guilty secret. In today's rapidly evolved society, however, I think premarital cohabitation should be a must, even a constitutional amendment! Permanent vows should come only after you have passed the test of togetherness, at least a year and a half to be safe. And don't even think about bringing another human being into our already-overpopulated world before then!\n\nIncidentally, if I should mysteriously get struck by lightning before this book is published, you know it was Mother Nature taking careful aim.\n\n|   \n---|---\n\n## CHAPTER | _10_\n\n## How to Spark Chemistry for a Lifetime of Love\n\n_Love is the most beautiful of dreams and the worst of nightmares_.\n\n\u2014William Shakespeare\n\nAt age eighteen this playwright married a lady of twenty-six, fathered a baby six months later, indulged in out-of wedlock sex, left his wife three years later, went on to multiple affairs with younger females, and wrote 126 love poems to a male known only as \"Young Lord\" or \"Fair Youth.\" Obviously the bard knew a thing or two about the nightmares part!\n\nI far prefer this quotation written by a man who had once been a motorcycle messenger and a mechanic. The insightful author, Louis de Berni\u00e8res, acknowledged the madness of romance yet understood that only those who wait until the frenzy passes will discover the magic of true love.\n\n_Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is_.\n\n_Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. . . . That is just being \"in love\" which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when \"being in love\" has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two_.\n\nAt the beginning of your relationship, the delirium of discovery and fantasies of the future make the chemicals in your brain gush like a new oil well. You're singing in the rain, dancing between the stars, frolicking on cloud nine. The frenzy is so fantastic that reality doesn't get through to the brighter part of your brain up front. You and your beloved close your eyes to all the signs: \"Warning!\" \"Danger Ahead!\" \"Proceed with caution!\" Early love is definitely not a drug-free zone.\n\n### Making Beautiful Beginnings Last Forever\n\nHuntresses, after you're engaged, girlfriends flock around you, oohing and aahing over your ring. Caterers call to tempt you with delicious finger foods that your wedding guests will devour. Bakers entice you with pictures of multitiered white castles with a miniature of you and your lucky man on top. On the big day you will wear the most exquisite dress you'll ever own, and he will look so dashing in his tux.\n\nHunters, you may be less involved in the preparations for the big day, but you're just as excited. Your buddies tease and slap you on the back. But under their joking put-downs, you know you've got one up on them because you've found the one. And besides, the guys throw you one helluva good bachelor party.\n\nYour family and friends will give you ridiculously costly crystal, kitchen gadgets, and _tchotchkes_. Then you'll cast off on the real Love Boat, a cruise to the Caribbean to drink Mai Tais on the beach, dance 'til dawn, and indulge in lovemaking that would make rabbits seem celibate.\n\nBut the bridal industry has a dirty little secret that wedding magazines and vendors don't tell you. When you come home from the honeymoon, no one makes a fuss over you anymore. No bakers begging, no caterers calling, no friends congratulating. You become just normal folks. At that point you look at each other and think, \"Where have all the hours gone? Is it really over? Where's all the excitement?\"\n\nIs either of you disappointed in your mate or wish you hadn't taken the big step? Of course not! You still love each other as much as ever and know in your heart you made the right choice. So what's happening? Why is it no longer as exhilarating?\n\nJournalists write about a phenomenon called \"postwedding blues.\" Sociologists say \"postnuptial depression.\" But only Cognitive Science can tell you precisely why you feel this way. Up until the honeymoon cruise ship sailed home, dopamine was gushing like a volcano. Your systems were swimming with serotonin, and both your pleasure centers were as bright as flashing cameras taking beautiful pictures of what was to come.\n\n\"Okay, no big deal,\" you shrug. Life is good, your mate is great, and your love is strong. The small discoveries about your loved one give you a chuckle. The way he scrunches the toothpaste and leaves the cap off is so cute. You smile at the way she \"gently hints\" you should take out the garbage. Dopamine and serotonin start dancing again.\n\nHowever, this time it's more of a waltz than a samba. _Pleasure Island_ lights up again, but now it's more like a night-light than a spotlight. You settle into a routine. Up at seven, off to work at eight, back home by six, dinner by seven, a few hours in front of a screen, and to bed by eleven.\n\nSex is still good, but she's put away the beaded penis wrap and mirrors. She doesn't scream as loud, and he's down from an hour of foreplay to ten minutes. And then there's her occasional headache. You no longer crave his company every minute or thrill to her tiniest touch. His phone calls, which you once awaited with fervor, become a familiar ring. Face it, we get used to things. Even the best experiences, when repeated, become ho-hum.\n\n### The Two-Year Itch\n\nTime continues to march on. You've been together for two years now. You're still happy together and think the other is terrific. But where's the sizzle? Where's the spice?\n\nStudies say the fizzle-on-the-sizzle effect inevitably takes place between eighteen months to two years of constant togetherness. His touch no longer ignites Sparks. Her body no longer incites animal hunger. But here's the real tragedy: Many couples feel that love is cooling along with the passion.\n\nLast Fourth of July, I was part of the oohing and aahing crowd straining their necks staring up at the fabulous Macy's fireworks show. A family with three little tots stood next to me. Unfortunately, Mommy and Daddy had only one pair of shoulders each. I hoisted one of the little boys up as high as I could. To me, his joyful squealing was far more exciting than the artistic explosions overhead. After the last incredible blast that lit up the sky as bright as midday, I put him down. \"NO!\" he howled. \"It's not over. It can't be.\"\n\nAs his little arms stretched up for me to lift him again, I said, \"I'm afraid it is over. But wasn't it beautiful?\"\n\n\"No, it can't be over,\" he screamed again. \"There's more. There's got to be.\" When I kneeled down and shook my head, tears flooded his eyes in disbelief.\n\nSadly, that's the way many couples feel when the fireworks in a relationship are over. When the deliciously passionate drugs of phase one diminish or disappear, they face a dilemma. They look at each other through tears and ask themselves, \"Is love really over?\"\n\n\"No! No! No!\" I want to shout at these people who once passionately loved each other. Robert Browning grasped the truth when he wrote, \"The last of love for which the first was made. . . . The best is yet to come.\"\n\nAnd neuroscience agrees.\n\nYou may have been devastated when you discovered the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus were myths. But because of what you're going to learn in the rest of this chapter, you don't need to fear that \"happily ever after\" will be next.\n\n### A Little Mouse in the Meadow Holds a Secret of Togetherness\n\nIf you've been buried in neuroscience night and day for the past few years as I have, you're probably sick to death of hearing about the prairie vole. I was too\u2014at first. Until I fell in love with the little creature. Everyone does, except farmers whose crops he chomps on. When you hear more about this cute critter's lifestyle, you'll love him too.\n\nMany people mistake this tiny animal that lives in the prairies and meadows for a mouse, but he's got stockier legs, a shorter tail, teensy eyes, and almost hidden ears. He is absolutely adorable and very admirable.\n\nThe loveliest thing about these little meadow mice is that when they fall in love and mate, they stay together forever. Upon meeting his future lifelong partner, the male has wild round-the-clock love-making with her for twenty-four hours. After that he's a goner. The couple sleeps cuddled together, grooms each other, and raises the kids together as loving parents.\n\nUnlike the nasty lab rat we discussed earlier, this faithful little meadow mouse won't even look at another female. The experiment proving this is amazing to watch. Researchers put the \"husband\" meadow mouse in a center cage sandwiched between two other cages. One adjoining cage contains his \"wife\" and on the opposite side \"the other woman.\" No matter how hot the other female may be\u2014for a meadow mouse, that is\u2014he won't even go sniff her out. He prefers the side of the cage closest to his \"wife.\"\n\nInfidelity is practically unheard of in his species. If his true love dies, it's a rare meadow mouse that will go on to \"marry\" again. The big question: Why is this faithful mouse so different from practically all other male mammals, birds, and fish in our world?\n\nYou may have guessed. It's Chemistry, of course. Just like humans falling in love and staying in love, his devotion comes from naturally produced substances. The first time the two furry little creatures have sex, a big dose of the bonding chemicals we've discussed, oxytocin and vasopressin, flood through their systems. In the prairie vole it sticks. And here's what's so amazing. Without these chemicals they would become sexually promiscuous rats. In fact, when lab scientists extracted the fidelity chemicals from the devoted little male, he started chasing tail just as much as other species. In addition, his true love's motherly instinct went right out the cage window.\n\nThere is another 99 percent genetically identical animal called the \"montane vole.\" (I'll give Cognitive Science students time to hiss.) He is a real bastard when it comes to family values. After having sex Pop runs off immediately to find a hotter new mouse. And it's not just Dad who drops the family. Mom also abandons her babies soon after birth. At least the kids don't have any deep psychological problems with it. They just shrug it off, grow up, and repeat the whole dysfunctional process. And to think that the only difference between the loving mice and the lousy mice is a few drops of oxytocin and vasopressin!\n\n\"Oh, no,\" you may be thinking. \"Are you trying to tell me all those beautiful heartfelt, lasting emotional bonds come down to chemicals?\" I suppose one could look at it that way (neuroscience does), but here's another. Like all emotions, sentiments of love, devotion, and commitment emanate from your brain. When your brain feels those sentiments, it manufactures chemicals\u2014chemicals that create and influence feelings. So it's the story of which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or in this case, the chemicals or the emotions? And does it really matter?\n\nThe good news is that there are methods to create the loving chemicals in your lasting Love Partner's brain. You don't need to drug her with pills, inhalers, or liquids. You don't need to slip secret substances into his beer. There are actual techniques, Chemistry Sparkers, to make the brain and body of your Love Partner naturally produce these exquisite chemicals.\n\nDo I sound like a hack hawking a hair-growing magic potion from a stagecoach bandstand?\n\nI would understand if you answered \"yes\" to my question. It does sound preposterous, doesn't it? But brain imaging doesn't lie.\n\n### How to Spark Long-Lasting Chemistry Anywhere, Anytime\n\nOne of the easiest methods of stimulating oxytocin is speaking the primal language\u2014touch. The human need for touch starts while enveloped in the close quarters of the womb for nine months. The fetus's more than five million skin sensory cells thrive on touch to prepare him for the large and intimidating planet he'll inhabit.\n\nThe need for human touch doesn't stop at birth. The moment you make your grand, squealing entrance into the world, you need it continually for healthy development. Something as simple as loving touch can make the difference between life and death for children in an orphanage, and its power remains throughout life until the very end. Nursing homes report its phenomenal effect on residents' health, happiness, and longevity. And we now know the difference that loving touching makes on the health, happiness, and longevity of a couple.\n\nAll kinds of touch puts oxytocin in people's tanks\u2014kissing, hugging, holding hands, an affectionate caress, even incidental toe touching the other's body while sleeping. Each touch, accidental or intended, fleeting or abiding, shoots the trust chemical into the touchee's brain and tweaks their memories for the better. Patients who were touched in casual conversation thought their doctor had stayed with them longer. Waitresses who touched got higher tips. Dentists who touched got more referrals. In one study, women entering a brain scanner were told they were going to be given a shock. But when their partners touched them, their fear circuits shut down.\n\nI experienced something similar. Last year, sliding into one of those scary tubes for an MRI, I was silently freaking out. My partner, Giorgio, who was allowed to stay in the room, sensed this. He softly caressed one of my bare feet sticking out of the machine, and I relaxed like a midday snooze. Almost.\n\n#### _Time Out, Sports Fans_\n\nIn case you think I'm getting too sentimental about touch, guys, you'll appreciate this. Teams who touch more, win more! Professors from the University of California, Berkeley filmed ninety NBA games. The basketball teams who touched each other the most won the most. The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers were the touchiest. No names here, but teams who touched the least lost the most. Even casual guy touching like high fives, fist bumps, and back slaps boost buddyship.\n\nGentlemen, you may think you're doing all that nonsexual touching just for her benefit. Well, your chances of getting same-night nookie are better if you affectionately touch her during the day. Don't forget, her foreplay began hours, days, and weeks before. Light touch now can mean heavy sex later.\n\nConversely, Huntresses, you should go overboard with touch of the sexy kind. Sitting on the couch, initiate a snuggle, massage his knee, rub his chest, plant a kiss on his cheek. Use your imagination like you used to do in your Gummi bear days.\n\n#### _What If I'm Ticked and Don't Feel Like Touching Right Now?_\n\nDo it anyway! Even when your long-term Love Partner (LP) is grumpy, you can boost the bonding chemicals through something called \"cognitive consistency,\" a natural phenomenon that means your brain and body struggle to be in agreement. It's like when you're feeling lousy, you grumble. When you grumble, you feel lousy. Well, when you feel love, you touch. When you touch, you feel love. Imagine your brain and body holding this conversation.\n\n_Brain_ : Hey there, Body, whatcha doin'? I notice you're touching him a lot. What are you trying to tell me?\n\n_Body_ : Yeah, I noticed that too, Brain. I guess I'm telling you that that I love him.\n\n_Brain_ : Well, there certainly is a lot of physical evidence. I guess you're right. You really do love him.\n\nHunters, on the street, if she's miffed, take her hand. She may yank it away, but she'll warm up faster. Huntresses, if he's grouchy, slide closer to him on the couch. If he stiffens, ignore it. Your attempted snuggle has done its job.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #68**\n\n**Find Any Excuse to Touch Your LP**\n\nHunters, give her daily light kisses, nonsexual caresses, hugs, and cheek brushings. Huntresses, initiate hand holding, putting your head on his shoulder, and making loving moves. Light touching all night long is a veritable oxytocin factory. Let your foot rest against his leg. Leave your hand on her shoulder. And of course, the ultimate is \"spooning,\"' sleeping like little spoons in a drawer.\n\nYou've heard that people have to work to keep a relationship together. Snore. Somehow I just don't picture \"working\" at a relationship being much fun. Let's talk about playing together to stay together. That works wonders\u2014just like enjoying the same activities sparked more Chemistry in dating.\n\n### Couples Who Play Together Stay Together\n\nAt the beginning of your love the two of you have a blast. Maybe movies, museums, and the beach. Perhaps bicycling, boating, bowling, or beachcombing. You think this high-dopamine life is pretty cool. You want it forever, so you move in together or marry.\n\nBut guess what? Real life happens! You no longer anxiously await the next moments when you do fun things together. He's there all the time. You're no longer wooing her, so the great dates diminish. No more picnics or discos. No more fancy restaurants or renting row-boats. Life is not as exciting, therefore you feel your Love Partner isn't.\n\nThis is due to the transference effect we talked about in Chapter 6. You're no longer connecting the concept of fun to your LP. Huntresses, you now subconsciously associate him with boring evenings in front of the TV, the computer, or the latest techno gizmo. Hunters, perhaps you feel neglected because she spends all her time with the kids.\n\nWhy did all the bicycling, boating, bowling, skateboarding, and snorkeling end? Many answer, \"There's not enough time, and besides, it's too expensive.\" Well, you made time when you were dating. And little do couples know how much more it's going to cost them in the future by not continuing to enjoy these things after they're married. You'll spend a lot more on divorce or marriage counseling later than you will for babysitters and movie tickets now.\n\nYou needn't be concerned about the relationship just because the sex doesn't give you the roller coaster thrills it once did. That's Mother Nature's plan. But having good shared experiences can keep you on a longer-lasting fun merry-go-round. The more you do, the more dopamine speeds up the carousel and makes it a more exciting ride.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #69**\n\n**Reinstate the Fun \"Excitation Transfer\" to Your LP**\n\nAh, if only all big problems could have such a simple solution. Think of all the cool things you used to do, and make a mutual bucket list. Now go out and enjoy those thrilling activities together to raise both your dopamine levels. You'll subconsciously connect the excitement to being with her. You'll think he's the reason you're having such a good time.\n\n### Laughing Is Just Another Way to Say \"I Love You\"\n\nYou have probably heard about the Asian laughing clubs, the endorphin-exploding health benefits of laughter, and how kids laugh six times more than adults do. I'll spare you repetition. Nor will I quote one of the unfunniest books I've ever read, Freud's _Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious_ , which tells you how laughter reinvokes the joys of childhood. I'll just give you the bottom line: Laughter is very good stuff indeed.\n\nPeople\u2014primarily of the male gender\u2014have asked me, \"But what if I'm not funny?\" It doesn't matter. You may think laughter is inextricably connected to humor. Not at all! It has more to do with social interaction than it does with anything funny. Those serious humor researchers I mentioned earlier recorded friends hooting, hollering, and having a great time together. They found that the majority of laughter had no relation whatsoever to anything funny. It erupted simply from the joy of being together. Laughing with\u2014not at\u2014each other expresses joy at being with your lasting Love Partner.\n\nLet me bring cognitive consistency and the transference effect back for a quick encore: When your body is laughing, your brain thinks you're happy and, of course, your mate thinks you're the reason for the joy.\n\n_Brain_ : Hey, Body, why are you laughing so much? You must be happy.\n\n_Body_ : Yeah, I noticed all that chuckling and stuff. I guess I am happy when I'm with my partner.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #70**\n\n**Laugh with Your Long-Term Love Partner**\n\nLaughter is contagious, a socially transmitted condition. When you laugh, your Love Partner laughs. When your Love Partner laughs, you laugh. It doesn't make any difference who started it or what it's about. Whoever is around at the time gets the credit. Find excuses to laugh, giggle, guffaw, and crack up together. It's like spraying both of you with a refreshing mist of dopamine and oxytocin.\n\n### What About Long-Term Sizzling Sex?\n\nThis is the question that always comes up. Millions of writers who are more interested in telling readers what they want to hear than revealing the truth say that you can keep the _same_ early kind of intense passion alive for decades. Many of them, both best-sellers and flops, promise to keep you humping until the day you meet your maker. I put those in the fiction pile in my basement.\n\nThe media don't know, repress, or conveniently ignore the fact that there is a chemical reason for this. A few years of sex with the same person just doesn't give the same kicks because, as we've learned, dopamine diminishes with any oft-repeated pleasurable experience.\n\nJoyously, there will always be interludes of that early sizzling sex in a marriage. Vacations and celebrations are great for that. So are those special moments when, for a multitude of reasons, you feel a tremendous rush of love. But are there ways to poke the embers in between to get them blazing constantly again?\n\nYes, but I don't think you'd want some of the proven \"gotta have your body\" hot-sex stimulators\u2014like constant periods of separation or frequent squabbles and then a dramatic makeup. Both are dopamine boosters, but dangerous ones. One unintentional derision during the dispute could be the final blow. It could hit him too hard, hurt her too much. Your emotional amygdala could turn the delicious fun-fighting-then-making-up kind of dopamine into the detesting kind. And during one too-long separation, your Love Partner might meet a tempting someone else.\n\n\"So without separations or slugging it out for excitement, can I ever put that magnificent mind-blowing kind of sex back in our relationship?\" As I said at the very beginning, you can create a more magnificent kind of passion\u2014which is really mind-blowing because only a minority of couples attain it. The most important thing to remember is: _Don't think just because sex is not as hot as it was at first that love is cooling_. It could be just the opposite!\n\n\"How could that be?\" you ask. Life is unfair sometimes. Oxytocin and vasopressin, the attachment chemicals that the brain produces as love grows, actually reduce a man's testosterone. Here's another of Big Mama's chemical tricks: She further diminishes it when his wife is pregnant. \"Why waste all that precious sperm in her when he's already got her knocked up?\" she asks. During pregnancy a wife often fears that her husband no longer finds her attractive because he doesn't want sex as much. She's wrong. She's just as beautiful as ever to him. It has little to do with the big tummy and a lot to do with his lower testosterone.\n\nThere are other reasons long-term sex doesn't give the same fireworks. Your caudate nucleus, or reward center, which has that nasty habit of living in the future, isn't looking forward to anything new with the same partner. A Hunter knows how his wife looks when she's hot. A Huntress knows how her husband sounds when he comes. No sexual surprises are around the corner, so the lights on _Pleasure Island_ dim a little.\n\nThen there is the simple aging process. Mother Nature doesn't give a flying toot about human humping later in the game. Because she's so obsessed with propagation, she has no vested interest in you staying together much beyond childbearing. In her opinion, \"Why even have sex after menopause?\"\n\nOkay, so that's the bad news.\n\n#### _Here's the Good News\u2014No, the Great News!_\n\nWith devotion, respect, support, and emotional intimacy, a different type of powerful desire for each other grows. Sure, he no longer ravishes her like a rabbit on Viagra, and her screams don't disturb the neighbors every night. But sex is more fulfilling because this time it grows out of deep oxytocin-filled love, not a raging testosterone rush. Your hot sex can develop into warm long-term lovemaking by using some of the other concoctions in MN's chemistry set\u2014the same ones she injects into new parents to bond them to the amazing baby they created together. By using the touch, laughter, and doing things together we discussed, you create the bonding chemical that encourages continued warm lovemaking. That kind is fulfilling not only physically but also emotionally.\n\nThroughout history, all around the world people have sought aphrodisiacs such as the highly touted Spanish Fly, the Jamaican cow cod soup, Taiwanese deer penis, Asian dried lizard, and even (yuck) sick sperm whale vomit. None are as effective, however, as the following. This aphrodisiac to extend sexual desire for each other is an unspoken trade deal based on the irrefutable time honored \"Give and ye shall receive\" doctrine.\n\nHunters, you're going to love the first. Huntresses, the second is for you.\n\n#### _Why \"Quickies\" Count_\n\nHuntresses, sweet lovemaking for us means luxuriating in deep kisses, slow caresses, loving words\u2014maybe even a foot massage if we \"get lucky\"\u2014then the hot sex. But for a male, as much as he loves you, his main interest is the big finale. Unfortunately, Mother Nature is on his side, because his caressing your body does nothing for her propagation goal. His orgasm does.\n\nLet's say you're now living together. It's a typical weeknight. You're both exhausted. The heartless alarm will blast you out of bed in six hours. But your testosterone-filled sweetie is all set to go and craves some high-speed mingling of limbs. For you to really enjoy it, however, you need some sensual stroking, licking, and loving. On average it takes eighteen minutes to bring us women to orgasm. He can do the job in eight to eighteen thrusts.\n\nHave mercy, Huntresses. It's a tall order for a tired male to slow down and start the quarter of an hour minimum process of warming you up by giving proper attention to the countless supersensitive areas all over your body. You're tired too, and because quickies aren't as fulfilling for you, perhaps you feign a headache. Now he feels unloved.\n\nThink about it, girl. It takes it more time for you to hem and haw about a headache than for him to be fully satisfied. Sure you might not be in the mood right now, but never forget that he interprets a quickie as your love for him.\n\nHere's the reason quickies can literally keep the Chemistry between you alive. With repetition, the bonding oxytocin and vasopressin that flood his brain at ejaculation have a cumulative effect on his feelings of togetherness with you. He associates, or in neurolinguistic programming terms, \"anchors\" his joy of sex with you.\n\nAn added benefit is oxytocin's talent for burying unpleasant memories. If he's flaming mad at you for any reason, his ejaculation acts as a fire extinguisher.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #71**\n\n**Give Him Lots of \"Quickie\" Bonding**\n\nGirl, look at it this way: Constant sex plays a bigger role for a male, and you wanting it with him demonstrates your love. The chemicals released in his brain accumulate over the long term. And just think: A quickie can take less than five minutes.\n\nSo you must decide if quickies are worth it. If you ask him to slow down every time, _he_ just may figure it's not worth it. Compromise.\n\nI was discussing this chapter with a friend of mine who has been married for eight years, and whenever I see her with her husband, it's obvious that he's still deeply in love with her. In one of those girltalk moments, she said quickies are part of their regular love life. She would never tell her husband, but she jokingly said, \"I think of it as 'taking one for the team.'\" In fact, she initiates the quickies every so often. It's part of keeping \"the team\" together.\n\nIncidentally, don't feel you need to compete with Meg Ryan's infamous fake deli orgasm in the movie _When Harry Met Sally_. In fact, don't fake it during a quickie because he may think his speedy style is all you want. Tell him you enjoy it too because you love him. But do tell him how you love it even more when it's long and slow. Save your \"Oh, oh, yes, yes, YESSSSS!\" for the incredible real ones he'll want to give you when there's more time.\n\n#### _Turnabout Is Fair Foreplay_\n\nHunters, now it's time for you to \"give one for the team.\" Whenever there's time, thrill her with the tender leisurely lovemaking she longs for\u2014and make time more often. She craves those as much as you crave quickies.\n\nGentlemen, to increase the sexual Chemistry between you and your Love Partner, I suggest you go back and reread the Sparkers in Chapter 7:\n\n\u2022Chemistry Sparker number 46: _Set the Stage for Sex_. Creating her desired erotic atmosphere is just as important now. What kind of music puts her in the mood? Does she prefer dim lighting? Does she like a back rub or a foot massage before the action begins?\n\n\u2022Chemistry Sparker 47: _Let Her Start the Strip_. You can start the strip now\u2014but of _her_ clothes, not yours. While tenderly unbuttoning her blouse, express how much you care for her. Kiss her shoulder as you gently slip the top of her nightgown to the side. No quickies now. This is her time. Think \"Slowies.\" Slow and sweet.\n\n\u2022Chemistry Sparker 48: _Don't Get Physical, Get Oral_. Your tender words mean more to her now than ever, and you can truthfully use the \"L\" word. Say it often\u2014and not just during sex.\n\n\u2022Chemistry Sparker 49: _Play in Her Secret Garden_. You no longer need to ask what she wants because you're already familiar with her erotic paradise. Visit it with her frequently.\n\n\u2022And, of course, give yourself a refresher on Sparker 50: _Geography 101 for Hunters_.\n\nEarlier I suggested that women read magazines that show the average man's attitude toward sex. Turnabout is only fair play here too. Pick up a copy of _Cosmopolitan_. One cursory page flipping suffices to see the setting for sex through your lady's eyes. You'll find beautiful bedding, an occasional candle, and the omnipresent admiring and loving expression on the face of the male she's having sex with.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #72**\n\n**Don't Think \"Sex.\" Think \"Seduction.\"**\n\nCourting doesn't end at the altar, and neither do seduction techniques. Now that you know all the hidden pathways in her secret sexual garden, explore each one unhurriedly. The chemicals created during foreplay have an especially endearing and enduring effect on a Huntress.\n\n### Everyone Has Something They Need to Hear\n\nEvery decade or so, a TV commercial comes along that makes you think, \"Wow, I gotta get one of those thingamajigs.\" This was not one of them, and I do not even recommend their product. But we can learn a lot from their advertising campaign.\n\nMadison Avenue types spend millions of dollars annually for focus groups to discover what consumers want to hear and then pay millions more for just the right actors to dramatize it. This particular commercial is on target and gives great insight into the sentiments that your long-term Love Partner hungers to hear from you.\n\nThe following individuals flashed on screen for three seconds and delivered one line each into the camera. Here are the numbered characters, and their one-liners are in the alphabetized list below it. Figure out what each person wanted to hear and fill in the letter next to the desired expressions.\n\n1)Frazzled woman in a suburban home, dishes piled in the background, trying to control her frisky infant\n\n2)Rushed thirtyish middle-management male straightening his tie getting ready for work\n\n3)Kindly old man sitting alone on a park bench\n\n4)Young woman looking into the camera flirtatiously\n\n5)Poignantly smiling bald woman who had lost her hair obviously due to chemotherapy\n\n6)Male teenager making a video of his face on his computer for his girlfriend\n\n7)Ten-year-old kid in a superman costume\n\nHere are their one-line scripts. See if you can match the people above to what they most wanted to hear.\n\n___a)\" _Tell me_ we'll stay together forever, in sickness and in health.\"\n\n___b)\" _Tell me_ we'll grow old together.\"\n\n___c)\" _Tell me_ I'm still beautiful.\"\n\n___d)\" _Tell me_ you need me.\"\n\n___e)\" _Tell me_ you miss me.\"\n\n___f)\" _Tell me_ that I'm your superhero.\"\n\n___g)\" _Tell me_ you love me.\"\n\nThe Answers: a) 5; b) 3; c) 1; d) 2; e) 6; f) 7; g) 4\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #73**\n\n**Say What Your Long-Term Love Partner Needs to Hear**\n\nGrow an extra antenna to pick up precisely what your Love Partner needs from you emotionally. Then find a hundred ways to repeat this truth over and over. She will never tire of hearing it. He will feel closer to you every time you say it.\n\nIn this case, you needn't feel hesitant about making gender-stereotyped generalizations. Hunters and Huntresses need to hear different things to get long-lasting love chemicals flowing through their brains.\n\nI'm embarrassed to reveal that it was a Hallmark Card Valentine's Day commercial. (Yes, sometimes a flower grows in dung, and this was such a blossom in a stench-filled field of TV ads.) The final line speaks the truth: \"Everyone has something they need to hear.\"\n\nIt is often said, \"Life is not a Hallmark card.\" That's true, but in long-lasting love it's beautiful to make it sound like one.\n\n### Hunters, _Why_ Her Feeling Loved Creates Lasting Chemistry\n\nEvolutionary psychologists once tucked all human behavior into an envelope neatly labeled \"Evolution\" and sealed the flap. They figured that, although we now reside in cities and suburbs rather than jungles and woods, we still needed precisely the same ancient toolbox between the ears. Then neuroscience and developmental evolution discovered that our brains are changing more quickly than expected. However, especially in the framework of love relationships, it's pretty clear that ancient influences continue to have a strong foothold in our thinking.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #74**\n\n**Give Her a Daily Dose of What She _Really_ Needs**\n\nHunters, at least once a day\u2014minimum\u2014tell your long-term Love Partner that you love her. And no matter what happens, bite your tongue before saying anything that she could, in the furthest stretch of her imagination, possibly interpret as \"I don't love you anymore.\" If you do, her Cro-Magnon grandmother will tell her, \"Girl, you're as good as dead.\"\n\nFemales know that if a man loves a woman, he stays with her. And up until recently, Mom needed a Hunter for both of them to survive. So she had a vested interest in being loved by her man for a very long time. In her mind, love equals survival. Thus, she _needs_ a man's love.\n\nA Hunter, of course, wants to be loved too. But a male doesn't need it as much because ancient voices are not echoing that he can't survive unless a woman protects him.\n\nOnce I was being interviewed as the guest expert on a show with four couples going through the two-year itch. The host asked the guys, \"When was the last time you told your wife you loved her?\" One responded, \"I told her I loved her when I married her. If anything changes, I'll let her know.\" Every woman in the audience wanted to hurl rotten tomatoes at him.\n\n### Huntresses, _Why_ His Feeling Needed Creates Lasting Chemistry\n\nI decided to web search the question: \"Why doesn't he tell me he loves me?\" At this writing, the question got 110 million hits from women asking precisely that. Yet I didn't get one hit from a man complaining, \"Why doesn't she tell me she needs me?\" In fact, a search on \"Why doesn't she tell me she needs me\" first brought up a woman asking about her toddler, \"Why doesn't she tell me she needs me . . . to take her to the potty?\"\n\nA man craves being needed by you as much as you hunger for his love. Buried deep in his brain, his brawny hirsute heroic club-carrying ancestor is alive and well. Because the womenfolk's lives depended on his wonderfulness, he got used to being dauntless and depended on.\n\nSisters, if you have ever dreamt about being swept up by the handsome prince, why can't he dream of being Prince Valiant? When you can't fix the electrical wire in a lamp, he wants to come riding into the living room on his white steed, shouting, \"Fear not, sweet damsel! I will rescue you from this dilemma.\" So, ladies, let him. And bite your tongue until it's bloody before giving him advice on how to go about doing it.\n\n  **Chemistry Sparker #75**\n\n**Find Ways to Say \"I Need You\"**\n\nIt's not just your guy. Practically all males have a neurological need to provide the solution to problems, especially his woman's. I've read dozens of books like _1000 Ways to Say I Love You_. Nice stuff. But there aren't any on _1000 Ways to Say I Need You to Your Man_. In fact, not even _One Way to Say I Need You to Your Man_. Start noodling on some now and express them often.\n\n### \"To What Do You Credit Your Lifelong Love?\"\n\nLooking out my window some winters in New York City, I expect to see polar bears strolling down my street. That's when I try to escape to Sarasota, Florida, for a mini-vacation. Even more beautiful than the sun and the sea there are the elder couples I see, some bicycling or kayaking together. Others strolling hand in hand or helping a partner in a walker navigate a grocery store aisle. I befriended several of the aging couples and learned a lot about the exquisite beauty and contentment that comes with long-term togetherness.\n\nRecently I saw a TV talk show host interviewing half a dozen happy couples who had passed their fiftieth anniversary. Some had canes, a few were in wheelchairs, and most were holding hands. Their kisses were for the camera, but their sincere smiles were for their lifelong mates. Yes, a couple can stay in love forever.\n\nNaturally the host asked, \"To what do you credit your lifelong love?\"\n\nOne septuagenarian answered, \"Because I didn't marry a woman I could live with. I married the woman I couldn't live without.\"\n\nThere was a resounding \"aww\" from the studio audience. Another octogenarian lady replied, \"Because my husband often buys two roses, saying, 'One is for the woman I love. The other for my best friend.' He gives them both to me.\"\n\nA crescendo of longer \"awws\" surged from the audience.\n\nFinally a feeble old man with a wavering voice said, \"From the moment I saw her at age eighteen, I knew life without her wouldn't be worth living.\" He then took her hand and kissed it. The audience reaction was something approaching a simultaneous group orgasm that lasted about five minutes.\n\nIf one of those octogenarians knew as much about neuroscience as you now do, his answer to the question would have been less romantic but more scientifically accurate. His frail voice would have murmured, \"It's because we knew about the chemicals affecting our brains and how to create the good ones. This wisdom and nurturing the valuable chemicals has kept us happily together.\"\n\nThe audience reaction would have been stunned silence, thinking the poor old goat had gone off his rocker.\n\nAnd yet the Chemistry they created together was one of the reasons they were still on earth to talk about their love. Long-term Love Partners live longer lives than people who reside alone. Oxytocin and vasopressin gently swim through the rivers in your brain during long-term love, making you astronomically healthier. It's not like early stage love, when dopamine and serotonin levels spike up and down like an electroencephalogram of a grasshopper in a frying pan. The attachment chemicals you create don't have the terrifying \"Side effects may include\" warning that TV ads spit out at the speed of light about hyperactivity, loss of appetite, compulsive acts, and symptoms associated with mental illness. There is no need to \"Ask your doctor if long-term togetherness is right for you.\" It has been proven that it is.\n\n### What to Expect When You're Expecting Lasting Love\n\nDuring the early crazy-in-love, passionate, gotta-have-you-round-the-clock days and nights, the sizzling chemicals swirl. Dopamine shoots through your brains like meteors. When he caresses your cheek, dopamine and estrogen party. When she brushes against your body, dopamine and testosterone do a dizzying dance. Serotonin swims through the synapses, and your caudate nucleus flashes like a neon sign.\n\nAfter a few years of living together dopamine levels dip, but there are magnificent spikes, especially when you do thrilling things with each other and laugh together. When you make love, a myriad of both the hot and the bonding chemicals intermingle. Sometimes sex is fast when time is tight. Sometimes lingering and loving, like on weekends and vacations.\n\nWhen kids come, an avalanche of chemicals consumes you. Testosterone and estrogen rise and fall like a roller coaster. Huntresses, you swim in an ocean of oxytocin while bonding with your baby. Hunters, big waves of vasopressin overcome you, especially when holding your newborn infant. There are problems, of course, and the frenetic fluctuating chemicals can cause frenzy and doubt. That is the time to cling together and not make foolish mistakes just because Mother Nature is making you antsy to move on.\n\nWhen you have similar beliefs and definitions of togetherness, when you enjoy doing things together, when you can depend on the other in adversity and help each other reach life goals, a fortress of oxytocin and vasopressin approaches like a gentle mist and engulfs you in contentment.\n\nAs you grow even older, naturally estrogen and testosterone levels go down, but without gushing testosterone fighting the bonding chemicals, you become closer, and Dad becomes a stronger bonder. That's when you reach the state Berni\u00e8res spoke of when he wrote that \"your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.\"\n\nI wish you the lasting love you so richly deserve.\nStay in touch! The only thing I _don't_ like about being a writer is not having the pleasure of meeting my readers. I'd love to hear from you, and you can contact me through my website, www.greatcommunicating.com. Ask a question or just let me know your thoughts.\n\nWhile you're visiting the site, sign up for my free, very short monthly hint to make you an even better communicator in your professional life, your social life, and your love life.\n\n## References\n\n### Prologue\n\n. Robert Sapolsky, _Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality_ , 2nd ed. (Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2005).\n\n. John Money, _Lovemaps: Clinical Concepts of Sexual\/Erotic Health and Pathology, Paraphilia, and Gender Transposition of Childhood, Adolescence, and Maturity_ (New York: Irvington, 1986).\n\n. D. J. Siegel, _The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience_ (New York: Guilford, 1999).\n\n. Money, _Lovemaps_.\n\n. Tamas Bereczkei, Petra Gyuris, and Glenn E. Weisfeld, \"Sexual Imprinting in Human Mate Choice,\" _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences_ 271, no. 1544 (2004): 1129\u20131134.\n\n. Sapolsky, _Biology and Human Behavior_.\n\n. Ingrid R. Olson and Christy Marshuetz, \"Facial Attractiveness Is Appraised in a Glance,\" _Emotion_ 5, no. 4 (December 2005): 498\u2013502.\n\n. Steven W. Gangestad, Christine E. Garver-Apgar, Jeffry A. Simpson, and Alita J. Cousins, \"Changes in Women's Mate Preferences Across the Ovulatory Cycle,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 92, no. 1 (January 2007): 151\u2013163.\n\n. Andreas Bartels and Semir Zeki, \"The Neural Basis of Romantic Love,\" _NeuroReport_ 2, no. 17 (2000): 12\u201315.\n\n. Helen Fisher, _Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love_ (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004).\n\n. Arthur Aron, Helen Fisher, Debra J. Mashek, Greg Strong, and Haifang Li, and Lucy L. Brown, \"Reward, Motivation, and Emotion Systems Associated with Early Stage Romantic Love,\" _Journal of Neurophysiology_ 94, no. 1 (July 2005): 327\u2013337.\n\n. Paula Tucker and Arthur Aron, \"Passionate Love and Marital Satisfaction at Key Transition Points in the Family Life Cycle,\" _Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology_ 12, no. 2 (1993): 135\u2013147.\n\n. Aldous Huxley, _The Doors of Perception_ (London: Chatto and Windus, 1954).\n\n. Zeenat F. Zaidi, \"Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review,\" _The Open Anatomy Journal_ 2, no. 1 (2010): 37\u201355.\n\n. Pierce J. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research_ , 3rd ed. (Austin, TX: Bard Press, 2006).\n\n. Douglas T. Kenrick, Edward K. Sadalla, Gary Groth, and Melanie R. Trost, \"Evolution, Traits, and the Stages of Human Courtship,\" _Journal of Personality_ 58, no. 1 (March 1990), 97\u2013116.\n\n. Steven W. Gangestad and Jeffry A. Simpson, \"The Evolution of Human Mating: Trade-Offs and Strategic Pluralism,\" _Behavioral and Brain Sciences_ , 23, no. 4 (2000) 573\u2013587.\n\n. Bianca P. Acevedo, Arthur Aron, Helen E. Fisher, and L. L. Brown, \"Neural Correlates of Long-Term Intense Romantic Love,\" _Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience_ 7, no. 2 (February 2012): 145\u2013159.\n\n. Fisher, _Why We Love_.\n\n. Sapolsky, _Biology and Human Behavior_.\n\n. Jeffry A. Simpson and Steven W. Gangestad, \"Individual Differences in Sociosexuality: Evidence for Convergent and Discriminant Validity,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 60, no. 6 (June 1991): 870\u2013883.\n\n. William G. Axinn and Arland Thornton, \"The Transformation in the Meaning of Marriage,\" in _The Ties That Bind: Perspectives on Marriage and Cohabitation_ , edited by Linda J. Waite, 147\u2013165 (New York: De Gruyter, 2000); Susan Sprecher, Amy Wenzel, and John H. Harvey, eds., _Handbook of Relationship Initiation_ (New York: Psychology Press, 2008).\n\n. Alan S.Gurman, ed., _Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy_ , 4th ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2008).\n\n### Chapter 1\n\n. Pierce J. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications for Mind-Brain Research_ , 3rd ed. (Austin, TX: Bard Press, 2006).\n\n. Robert J. Sternberg and Susan Grajek, \"The Nature of Love,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 47, no. (3) (1984): 12\u201329.\n\n. Anne Moir and David Jessel, _Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women_ (New York: Dell, 1991).\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain_.\n\n. Robert Sapolsky, _Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality_ , 2nd ed. (Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2005).\n\n. Sandra L. Murray and John G. Holmes, \"A Leap of Faith? Positive Illusions in Romantic Relationships,\" _Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin_ 23, no. 6 (1997): 586\u2013604.\n\n. Helen Fisher, _Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love_ (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004).\n\n. Helen Fisher and J. Anderson Thomson Jr., \"Lust, Romance, Attraction, Attachment: Do The Side-Effects Of Serotonin-Enhancing Antidepressants Jeopardize Romantic Love, Marriage and Fertility?\" in _Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience_ , edited by Steven M. Platek, Julian Paul Kennan, and Todd K. Shakleford, 245\u2013283 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).\n\n. Malcolm Caruthers, _The Testosterone Revolution: Rediscover Your Energy and Overcome the Symptoms of Male Menopause_ (London: Thorsons, 2001).\n\n. Thomas R. Insel, \"Oxytocin\u2014A Neuropeptide for Affiliation: Evidence from Behavioral, Receptor Autoradiographic, and Comparative Studies,\" _Psychoneuroendocrinology_ 17, no. 1 (1992): 3\u201335.\n\n. Ilanit Gordon, Orna Zagoory-Sharon, James F. Leckman, and Ruth Feldman, \"Prolactin, Oxytocin, and the Development of Paternal Behavior Across the First Six Months of Fatherhood,\" _Hormones and Behavior_ 58, no. 3 (August 2010): 513\u2013518.\n\n. Lee T. Gettler, Thomas W. McWade, C. W. Kuzawa, and A.B. Feranil, \"Longitudinal Evidence That Fatherhood Decreases Testosterone in Human Males,\" edited by A. E. Storey, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108, no. 39 (September 27, 2011): 16194\u201316199, <http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2011\/09\/02\/1105403108.full.pdf+html>.\n\n. Sandra J. Berg and Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards, \"Changes in Testosterone, Cortisol, and Estradiol Levels in Men Becoming Fathers,\" _Mayo Clinic Proceedings_ 76, no. 6 (2001): 582\u2013592.\n\n### Chapter 2\n\n. A. H. Veenema, and I. D. Neuman, \"Central Vasopressin and Oxytocin Release: Regulation of Complex Social Behaviors,\" _Progress in Brain Research_ 170 (2008): 261\u2013276.\n\n. C. L., Clark, P. R. Shaver, and M. F. Abrahams, \"Strategic Behaviors in Romantic Relationship Initiation,\" _Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin_ 25, no. 6 (1999): 709\u2013722.\n\n. William G. Axinn and Arland Thornton, \"The Transformation in the Meaning of Marriage\" in _The Ties That Bind: Perspectives on Marriage and Cohabitation_ , edited by Linda J. Waite, 147\u2013165 (New York: Aldine de Gruter, 2000).\n\n. Susan Sprecher, Amy Wenzel, and John H. Harvey, eds., _Handbook of Relationship Initiation_ (New York: Psychology Press, 2008).\n\n. Zeenat F. Zaidi, \"Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review,\" _The Open Anatomy Journal_ 2, no. 1 (2010): 37\u201355.\n\n. Louann Brizendine, _The Male Brain_ (New York: Broadway Books, 2010).\n\n. Samuel Vaknim, _Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited_. (Prague: Narcissus, 2007).\n\n. Russell D. Clark and Elaine Hatfield, \"Gender Differences in Receptivity to Sexual Offers,\" _Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality_ 2 (1989): 39\u201355.\n\n. Russell D. Clark, \"The Impact of AIDS on Gender Differences in Willingness to Engage in Casual Sex,\" _Journal of Applied Social Psychology_ 20, no. 9 (May 1990): 771\u2013782.\n\n. Charles W. Hobart, \"The Incidence of Romanticism During Courtship,\" _Social Forces_ 36, no 4 (1958): 362\u2013367, 364.\n\n. Louann Brizendine, _The Female Brain_ (New York: Broadway Books, 2006).\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. David M. Buss and Todd K. Shackelford, \"Attractive Women Want It All: Good Genes, Economic Investment, Parenting Proclivities, and Emotional Commitment,\" _Evolutionary Psychology_ 6, no. 1 (2008): 134\u2013246.\n\n. B. Pawlowski and L. G. Boothroyd, D. I. Perrett, S. Kluska, \"Is Female Attractiveness Related to Final Reproductive Success?\" _Collegium Antropologicum_ 32, no. 2 (June 2008): 457\u2013460.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. D. Scutt and J. T., Manning, \"Symmetry and Ovulation in Women,\" _Human Reproduction_ 11, no. 11 (1996): 2477\u20132480.\n\n. John Tierney, \"The Threatening Scent of Fertile Women,\" _New York Times_ , February 21, 2011, <http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/02\/22\/science\/22tier.html>.\n\n. Steven W. Gangestad, Christine E. Garver-Apgar, Jeffry A. Simpson, and Alita J. Cousins, \"Changes in Women's Mate Preferences Across the Ovu la tory Cycle,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 92, no. 1 (January 2007): 151\u2013163.\n\n. P. Sorokowski, \"Do Men Prefer Blondes? The Influence of Hair Color on the Perception of Age and Attractiveness of Women,\" _Studia Psychologiczne_ 44, no. 3. (2006): 77\u201378.\n\n. L. Van der Berghe and P. Frost, \"Skin Color Preference, Sexual Dimorphism and Sexual Selection: A Case of Gene Co-Evolution,\" _Ethnic and Racial Studies_ 9 (1986): 87\u2013113.\n\n. Verlin Hinsz, David Matz, and Rebecca Patience, \"Does Women's Hair Signal Reproductive Potential?\" _Journal of Experimental Social Psychology_ 37, no. e (2001): 166\u2013172.\n\n. Grazyna Jasienska, Anna Ziomkiewicz, Peter T. Ellison, Susan F. Lipson, and Inger Thune, \"Large Breasts and Narrow Waists Indicate High Reproductive Potential in Women,\" _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences_ 271, no. 1545 (2004) 1213\u20131217; Pierce J. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research_ , 3rd ed. (Austin, TX: Bard Press, 2006).\n\n. Bruno Laeng, Ronny Mathisen, and Jan-Are Johnsen, \"Why Do Blue-Eyed Men Prefer Women with the Same Eye Color?\" _Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology_ 61, no. 3 (2007): 371\u2013384.\n\n. Sprecher, Wenzel, and Harvey, _Handbook of Relationship Initiation_.\n\n. Helen Fisher, _Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love_ (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004).\n\n. Charles Darwin, _The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex_ (New York: Addison, 1871).\n\n. Robert Sapolsky, _Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality_ , 2nd ed. (Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2005).\n\n. P. M. La Cerra, \"Evolved Mate Preferences in Women: Psychological Adaptations for Assessing a Man's Willingness to Invest in Offspring,\" (doctoral dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1994).\n\n. Elaine Hatfield, \"What Do Women and Men Want from Love and Sex?\" In _Changing Boundaries: Gender Roles and Sexual Behavior_ , edited by Elizabeth R. Allgeir and Naomi B. McCormick, 106\u2013134 (Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield, 1982).\n\n. David M. Buss and Michael Barnes, \"Preferences in Human Mate Selection,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 50 (1989): 559\u2013570.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Randy Thornhill, \"The Biology of Beauty,\" _Newsweek_ ,June 2, 1996, <http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/newsweek\/1996\/06\/02\/the-biology-of-beauty.html>.\n\n. Steven W. Gangestad, and Randy Thornhill, \"Menstrual Cycle Variation in Women's Preferences for the Scent of Symmetrical Men.\" _Proceedings of the Royal Society of London_ 265, no. 1399 (1998): 927\u2013933.\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain_.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n### Chapter 3\n\n. Joan Kellerman, James Lewis, and James Laird, \"Looking and Loving: The Effects of Mutual Gaze on Feelings of Romantic Love,\" _Journal of Research in Personality_ 23, no. 2 (1989): 145\u20131361.\n\n. Mark Cook, \"Gaze and Mutual Gaze in Social Encounters,\" _American Scientist_ 65 (1977): 328\u201333.\n\n. Zick Rubin, \"Measurement of Romantic Love,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 16, no. 2 (1970): 265\u2013273.\n\n. Timothy Perper, _Sex Signals: The Biology of Love_ (Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985).\n\n. Pierce J. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research_ , 3rd ed. (Austin, TX: Bard Press, 2006).\n\n. William G. Iacono, \"Forensic 'Lie Detection': Procedures without Scientific Basis,\" _Journal of Forensic Psychology Practice_ 1, no. 1 (2001): 75\u201386.\n\n. E. H. Hess, \"Attitude and Pupil Size\" _American Scientist_ 212(1965): 46\u201354.\n\n. David M. Buss and Todd K. Shackelford, \"Attractive Women Want It All: Good Genes, Economic Investment, Parenting Proclivities, and Emotional Commitment,\" _Evolutionary Psychology_ 6, no. 1 (2006): 134\u2013146.\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain_.\n\n. Zeenat F. Zaidi, \"Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review,\" _The Open Anatomy Journal_ 2, no. 1 (2010): 37\u201355.\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain_.\n\n. Timothy Perper, _Sex Signals: The Biology of Love_ (Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985).\n\n. Hugo D. Critchley, Christopher J. Mathias, and Raymond J. Dolan, \"Neural Activity in The Human Brain Relating to Uncertainty and Arousal During Anticipation,\" _Neuron_ 29, no. 2 (February 2001): 537\u2013545.\n\n. Mark Cook and Robert McHenry, _Sexual Attraction_ (New York: Pergamon Press, 1978).\n\n. D. P. Schmidt, and D. M. Buss, \"Human Mate Poaching: Tactics and Temptations for Infiltrating Existing Mateships,\" _Personality and Social Psychology_ 80, no. 6 (June 2001): 894\u2013917.\n\n. Eric R. Bressler and Sigal Balshine, \"The Influence of Humor on Desirability,\" _Evolution and Human Behavior_ 27, no. 1 (2006): 29\u201339.\n\n. Schmidt and Buss, \"Human Mate Poaching.\"\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. P. N. Hamid, \"Changes in Person Perception as a Function of Dress,\" _Perceptual Motor Skills_ 29, no1 (1969): 191\u2013194.\n\n. Meredith L. Chivers, Michael C. Seto, and Ray Blanchard, \"Gender and Sexual Orientation Differences in Sexual Response to Sexual Activities Versus Gender of Actors in Sexual Films,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 93, no. 6 (2007): 1108\u20131121.\n\n. J. M. Townsend and G. D. Levy, \"Effect of Potential Partner's Costume and Physical Attractiveness on Sexuality and Partner Selection,\" _Journal of Psychology_ 124, no. 4 (1990): 371\u2013389.\n\n. Chivers, Seto, and Blanchard, \"Gender and Sexual Orientation Differences in Sexual Response to Sexual Activities Versus Gender of Actors in Sexual Films.\"\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain_.\n\n. Susan Sprecher, Amy Wenzel, and John H. Harvey, eds., _Handbook of Relationship Initiation_ (New York: Psychology Press, 2008).\n\n. Todd K. Shackelford, David Schmitt, and David Buss, \"Universal Dimensions Of Human Mate Preferences,\" _Personality and Individual Differences_ 39 (2005): 447\u2013458.\n\n. John M. Townsend and Gary D. Levy, \"Effects of Potential Partner's Physical Attractiveness and Socioeconomic Status on Sexuality and Partner Selection,\" _Archives of Sexual Behavior_ 19, no. 2 (1990): 149\u2013164.\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research_ , 3rd ed. (Austin, TX: Bard Press 2006).\n\n. R. K. Winkelmann, \"The Erogenous Zones: Their Nerve Supply and Its Significance,\" _Mayo Clinic Proceedings_ 34, no. 2 (1959): 39\u201347.\n\n. R. Ecochard and A. Gougeon \"Side of Ovulation and Cycle Characteristics in Normally Fertile Women,\" _Human Reproduction_ 15, no. 4 (2000): 752\u2013755.\n\n. Karl Grammer, LeeAnn Renninger, and Bettina Fischer, \"Disco Clothing, Female Sexual Motivation, and Relationship Status: Is She Dressed to Impress?\" _Journal of Sex Research_ 41, no. 1 (2004): 66\u201374; Meghan Provost, Vernon Quinsey, and Nikolaus Troje, \"Differences in Gait Across the Menstrual Cycle and Their Attractiveness to Men,\" _Archives of Sexual Behavior_ 37, no. 4 (2008): 598\u2013604.\n\n. M. M. Moore, \"Nonverbal Courtship Patterns in Women: Context and Consequences,\" _Ethnology and Sociobiology_ 6 (1985): 237\u2013247.\n\n### Chapter 4\n\n. James R. Roney, Katherine N. Hanson, Kristina M. Durante, and Dario Maestripieri, \"Reading Men's Faces: Women's Mate Attractiveness Judgments Track Men's Testosterone and Interest in Infants,\" _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences_ 273, no. 1598 (September 2006): 2169\u20132175.\n\n. Julie K. Hasart, Kevin L. Hutchinson, \"The Effects of Eyeglasses on Perceptions of Interpersonal Attraction,\" _Journal of Social Behavior and Personality_ 8, no. 3 (1993): 521\u2013528.\n\n. G\u00fcnter J. Hitsch, Ali Horta\u00e7su, and Dan Ariely, \"What Makes You Click? Mate Preferences and Mating Outcomes in Online Dating,\" University of Chicago (January 2010), <http:\/\/home.uchicago.edu\/~ghitsch\/Hitsch-Research\/Guenter_Hitsch_files\/Mate-Preferences.pdf>.\n\n. A. H. Maslow, and N. L. Mintz, \"Effects of Aesthetic Surroundings,\" _Journal of Psychology_ 41 (1956): 247\u2013254.\n\n. Harold Sigall and David Landy, \"Radiating Beauty: The Effects of Having a Physically Attractive Partner on Person Perception,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 28, no. 2 (1973): 218\u2013224.\n\n. Hitsch, Horta\u00e7su, and Ariely, \"What Makes You Click?\"\n\n. Andrew J. Elliot and Daniela Niesta, \"Romantic Red: Red Enhances Men's Attraction to Women,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 95 (2008): 1150\u20131164.\n\n. Douglas T. Kendrick and Sara E. Gutierres, \"Contrast Effects and Judgments of Physical Attractiveness: When Beauty Becomes a Social Problem,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 38, no. 1 (1980): 131\u2013140.\n\n. S. Gary Garwood, Lewis Cox, Valerie Kaplan, Neal Wasserman, and Jefferson L. Sulzer, \"Beauty Is Only 'Name' Deep: The Effect of First-Name on Rating Physical Attraction,\" _Journal of Applied Social Psychology_ 10, no. 5 (1980): 431\u2013435.\n\n. Amy Perfors, \"What's in a Name? The Effect of Sounds Symbolism on Perception of Facial Attractiveness,\" _Journal of Applied Social Psychology_ 10, no. 5 (1980): 431\u2013435.\n\n. John A. Bargh, Katelyn Y. A. McKenna, and Grainne M. Fitzsimons, \"Can You See the Real Me? Activation and Expression of the 'True Self' on the Internet.\" _Journal of Social Issues_ 58, no. 1 (2002): 34\u201380.\n\n. Edmond Rostad, _Cyrano de Bergerac_ , Act 3.\n\n### Chapter 5\n\n. N. B. McCormick, T. Perper, and A. J. Jones, \"Bar Hopping as Science: Results and Methodological Issues Related to Naturalistic Observational Research in Bars,\" Paper presented at the Eastern Region Conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, Philadelphia, April 1983.\n\n. Chris L. Kleinke, Frederick B. Meeker, and Richard A. Staneski, \"Preference for Opening Lines: Comparing Ratings by Men and Women,\" _Sex Roles_ 15, no. 11\u201312 (1986): 585\u2013600.\n\n. C. L. Apicella, D. R. Feinbert, and F. W. Marlowe, \"Voice Pitch Predicts Reproductive Success in Male Hunter-Gatherers,\" _Biology Letters_ 3, no. 6 (2007): 682\u2013684.\n\n. Jacquie D. Vorauer, Jessica J. Cameron, John G. Holmes, and Deanna G. Pearce, \"Invisible Overtures: Fears of Rejection and the Signal Amplification Bias,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 84, no. 4 (April 2003): 793\u2013812.\n\n. Timothy Perper, _Sex Signals: The Biology of Love_ (Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985).\n\n. Debra G. Walsh and Jay Hewitt, \"Giving Men the Come-On: Effect of Eye Contact and Smiling in a Bar Environment,\" _Perceptual and Motor Skills_ 61, no. 3, pt. 1 (1985): 873\u2013874.\n\n. Michael R. Cunningham, \"Reactions to Heterosexual Opening Gambits: Female Selectiveness and Male Responsiveness,\" _Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin_ 15, no.1 (March 1989): 27\u201341.\n\n. Susan Young, \"Brain Chip Helps Quadriplegics Move Robotic Arms with Their Thoughts,\" _Technology Review_ , May 16, 2002, <http:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/news\/427939\/brain-chip-helps-quadriplegics-move-robotic-arms\/>.\n\n. Morgan Worthy, Albert L. Gary, and Gay M. Kahn, \"Self-Disclosure as an Exchange Process,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 13, no. 1 (1969): 59\u201363.\n\n. Jean-Phillippe Laurenceau, Lisa Feldman Barrett, and Paula R. Pietromonaco, \"Intimacy as an Interpersonal Process. The Importance of Self Disclosure, Partner Disclosure, and Perceived Partner Responsiveness in Interpersonal Exchanges,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 74, no. 5 (1989): 1239\u20131251.\n\n. Conor Dougherty, \"Young Women's Pay Exceeds Male Peers',\" _Wall Street Journal_ , September 1, 2010, <http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052748704421104575463790770831192.html>.\n\n. Brenda Major, Patricia I. Carrington, and Peter J. D. Carnevale, \"Physical Attractiveness and Self Esteem: Attributions for Praise from an Other Sex Evaluator,\" _Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin_ 10, no. 1 (1984): 43\u201350.\n\n. David M. Buss and Michael Barnes, \"Preferences in Human Mate Selection,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 50 (1989): 559\u2013570.\n\n. David R. Shaffer and Linda J. Pegalis, \"Gender Role Orientation and Prospect of Future Interaction as Determinants of Self-Disclosure,\" _Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin_ 22, no. 5 (May 1996): 495\u2013506.\n\n. Dennis P. Carmody and Michael Lewis, \"Brain Activation When Hearing One's Own and Others' Names,\" _Brain Research_ 1116, no. 1 (October 20, 2006): 153\u2013158.\n\n### Chapter 6\n\n. D. G. Dutton, and A. P. Aron, \"Some Evidence for Heightened Sexual Attraction under Conditions of High Anxiety,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 30, no. 4 (1974): 510\u2013517.\n\n. Richard Driscoll, Keith E. Davis, and Milton E. Lipetz, \"Parental Interference and Romantic Love: The Romeo and Juliet Effect,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 24, no. 1 (1972): 1\u201310.\n\n. Dolf Zillmann, \"Transfer of Excitation in Emotional Behavior,\" in _Social Psychophysiology: A Sourcebook_ , edited by John T. Cacioppo and Richard E. Petty, 215\u2013240 (New York: Guilford Press, 1983).\n\n. Richard Bandler and John Grinder, _Frogs into Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming_ (Moab, UT: Real People Press, 1979).\n\n. A. H. Maslow and N. L. Mintz, \"Effects of Aesthetic Surroundings,\" _Journal of Psychology_ 41 (1956): 247\u2013254.\n\n. Shelly E. Taylor, Laura Cousino Klien, Brian P. Lewis, Tara L. Gruenewald, Regan A. R. Gurung, and John A Updegraff, \"Biobehavioral Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and-Befriend, Not Fight-or-Flight,\" _Psychological Review_ 107, no. 3 (2000): 411\u2013429.\n\n. Deborah Tannen, _You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation_ (New York: William Morrow, 1990).\n\n. Audrey Nelson, \"The Strong Silent Type: The Male Advantage,\" _Psychology Today_ , April 23, 2011, <http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/blog\/he-speaks-she-speaks\/201104\/the-strong-silent-type-the-male-advantage>.\n\n. Azim Eiman and Dean Mobbs, Booil Jo, Vinod Menon, Allan L. Reiss, \"Sex Differences in Brain Activation Elicited by Humor,\" _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_ 102, no. 45 (November 8, 2005): 16496\u201316501.\n\n. Willow Lawson, \"Humor's Sexual Side,\" _Psychology Today_ , September 1, 2005, <http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/articles\/200508\/humors-sexual-side>.\n\n. Eric R. Bressler and Sigal Balshine, \"The Influence of Humor on Desirability,\" _Evolution and Human Behavior_ 27, no. 1 (2006): 29\u201339.\n\n### Chapter 7\n\n. Daniel G. Amen, Daniel G., M.D., Sex on the Brain: 12 Lessons to Enhance Your Love Life. 2008. (New York: Crown Publishing, Harmony, 2008).\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Jos\u00e9 L. Tlachi-L\u00f3pez, Jos\u00e9 R. Eguibar, Alonso Fern\u00e1ndez-Guasti, Rosa Ang\u00e9lica Lucio, \"Copulation and Ejaculation in Male Rats Under Sexual Satiety and the Coolidge Effect,\" _Physiology and Behavior_ 106, no. 5 (July 2012): 626\u2013630.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Gordon Bermant and Juan M. Davidson, _Biological Bases of Sexual Behavior_ (New York: Harper and Row, 1974).\n\n. Gary Stix, \"Only Epilepsy Brings More Activity to Women's Brains Than Does 'Self-Stimulation' to Orgasm,\" _Scientific American_ , November 15, 2011, <http:\/\/blogs.scientificamerican.com\/observations\/2011\/11\/15\/only-epilepsy-brings-more-activity-to-womens-brains-than-does-self-stimulation-to-orgasm\/>.\n\n. Helen Fisher, _Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love_ (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004).\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. M. Kosfeld, M. Heinrichs, P. J. Zak, U. Fischbacher, and others. Fehr, \"Oxytocin Increases Trust in Humans,\" _Nature_ 435, no. 7042 (June 2, 2005): 673\u2013676.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Pamela C. Regan and Ellen Berscheid, _Love and Lust: What We Know about Human Sexual Desire_ (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1999).\n\n. Deborah Blum, _Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences Between Men and Women_ (New York: Penguin Books, 1998).\n\n. Anne Moir and David Jessel, _Brain Sex: The Real Difference Between Men and Women_ (New York: Dell Publishing, 1991)\n\n. Louann Brizendine, _The Female Brain_ (New York: Broadway Books, 2006).\n\n. Pierce J. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research_ , 3rd ed. (Austin, TX: Bard Press, 2006).\n\n. R. L. Doty, S. Applebaum, H. Zusho and R. G. Settle, \"Sex Differences in Odor Identification Ability,\" _Neuropsychologia_ 23, no. 5 (1985): 667\u2013672.\n\n. G. Holstege, J. R. Georgiadis, A. M Paans, L. C. Meiners and F. H. van der Graaf, \"Brain Activation During Human Male Ejaculation,\" _Journal of Neuroscience_ 23, no. 27 (October 8, 2003): 9158\u20139193.\n\n. Meredith L. Chivers, Michael C. Seto, and Ray Blanchard, \"Gender and Sexual Orientation Differences in Sexual Response to Sexual Activities Versus Gender of Actors in Sexual Films,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 93, no. 6 (2007): 1108\u20131121.\n\n. B. A. Shaywitz, Sally E. Shaywitz, Kenneth R. Pugh, R. T. Constanble, and P. Skudlarski, \"Sex Differences in the Functional Organization of the Brain for Language,\" _Nature_ 373, no. 6515 (February 16, 1995): 607\u2013609.\n\n. Brizendine, _The Female Brain_.\n\n. Roy Levin, and Cindy Meston, \"Nipple\/Breast Stimulation and Sexual Arousal in Young Men and Women,\" _Journal of Sexual Medicine_ 3, no. 3 (2006): 450\u2013454.\n\n. Barry R. Komisaruk and Nan Wise, \"Women's Clitoris, Vagina, and Cervix Mapped on the Sensory Cortex: fMRI Evidence,\" _Journal of Sexual Medicine_ 8, no. 10 (2011): 2822\u20132830.\n\n. A. Kilchevsky, Y. Vardi, L. Lowenstein, and I. Gruenwald, \"Is the Female G-Spot Truly a Distinct Anatomic Entity?\" _Journal of Sex Medicine_ 9, no. 3 (2012): 719\u2013726.\n\n. \"30 Things To Do With a Naked Man,\" _Cosmopolitan_ , <http:\/\/www.cosmopolitan.com\/sex-love\/tips-moves\/how-to-turn-him-on?click=main_sr#slide-1>.\n\n. Bruce J. Ellis and Donald Symons, \"Sex Differences in Sexual Fantasy: An Evolutionary Psychological Approach,\" _The Journal of Sex Research_ 27, no. 4 (1990): 527\u2013555.\n\n. Harold Leitenberg and Kris Henning, \"Sexual Fantasy,\" _Psychological Bulletin_ 117, no. 3 (May 1995): 469\u2013496.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ellis and Symons, \"Sex Differences in Sexual Fantasy.\"\n\n. Brizendine, _The Female Brain_.\n\n. V. Apanius, D. Penn, P. R. Slev, L. R. Ruff, and W. K. Potts, \"The Nature of Selection on the Major Histocompatibility Complex,\" _Critical Reviews in Immunology_ 17, no. 2 (1997): 179\u2013224.\n\n. M. Milinski, \"The Major Histocompatibility Complex: Sexual Selection and Mate Choice,\" _Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics_ 37 (2006): 159\u2013186.\n\n. Claus Wedekind, Thomas Seebeck, Florence Bettens, and Alexander J. Paepke, \"MHC-Dependent Mate Preferences in Humans,\" _Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences_ 260, no. 1359 (June 22, 1995): 245\u2013249.\n\n. Helen E. Fisher, \"The Biology of Attraction,\" _Psychology Today_ , April 1, 1993, <http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/articles\/199303\/the-biology-attraction>.\n\n. \"Bizarre Animal Mating Rituals,\" Virgin Media, <http:\/\/www.virgin media.com\/digital\/features\/bizarre-animal-mating-rituals.php?ssid=9>.\n\n. John Tierney, \"The Threatening Scent of Fertile Women,\" _New York Times_ , February 21, 2011, <http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/02\/22\/science\/22tier.html>.\n\n. G. Miller, J. M. Tybur, B. D. Jordan, \"Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?\" _Evolution and Human Behavior_ 28, no. 6 (2007): 375\u2013381.\n\n. S. C. Roberts, L. M. Gosling, V. Carter, and M. Petrie, \"MHC-Correlated Odor Preferences in Humans and the Use of Oral Contraceptives,\" _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences_ 275, no. 1652 (December 7, 2008): 2715\u20132722.\n\n### Chapter 8\n\n. John Gray, _Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships_ (New York: Harper Collins, 1993).\n\n. Pierce J. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research_ , 3rd ed. (Austin, TX: Bard Press, 2006).\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Joseph Rhawn, _NeuroTheology: Brain, Science, Spirituality, Religious Experience_ (San Jose, CA: University Press, 2003). Italics added.\n\n. Zeenat F. Zaidi, \"Gender Differences in Human Brain: A Review,\" _The Open Anatomy Journal_ 2 (2010): 37\u201355.\n\n. Deborah Tannen, _You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation_ (New York: William Morrow, 1990).\n\n. Zaidi, \"Gender Differences in Human Brain.\"\n\n. Paul Ekman, _Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life_ , 2nd ed. (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2007).\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain_.\n\n. Louann Brizendine, _The Male Brain_ (New York: Broadway Books, 2010).\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain_.\n\n### Chapter 9\n\n. Susan S. Hendrick and Clyde Hendrick, \"Gender Differences and Similarities in Sex and Love,\" _Personal Relationships_ 2 (1995): 55\u201365.\n\n. Donn Byrne, \"Interpersonal Attraction and Attitude Similarity,\" _Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology_ 62 (May 1961): 713\u2013715.\n\n. Theodore M. Newcomb, _The Acquaintance Process_ (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wilson, 1961).\n\n. Byrne, \"Interpersonal Attraction and Attitude Similarity.\n\n. John Mordechai Gottman and Nan Silver, _Why Marriages Succeed or Fail_ (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).\n\n. G. J. Fletcher, J. A. Simpson, G. Thomas, and L. Giles, \"Ideals in Intimate Relationships,\" _Journal of Personality and Social Psychology_ 76, no. 1 (1999): 72\u201389.\n\n. John W. Thibaut and Harold H. Kellel, _The Social Psychology of Groups_ (New York: Wiley, 1959).\n\n. Mario Mikulincer and Gail S. Goodman, eds., _Dynamics of Romantic Love: Attachment, Caregiving, and Sex_ (New York: Guilford Press, 2006).\n\n. A. Aron, E. N. Aron, and C. Norman, \"The Self Expansion Model of Motivation and Cognition in Close Relationships and Beyond,\" In _Blackwell Handbook in Social Psychology, vol. 2: Interpersonal Processes_ , edited by M. Clark and G. Fletcher, 478\u2013501 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001).\n\n. Tara Parker-Pope, \"The Happy Marriage Is the 'Me' Marriage,\" _New York Times_ , December 31, 2010, <http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/01\/02\/week inreview\/02parkerpope.html>.\n\n. Jay Belsky, Laurence Steinberg, and Patricia Draper, \"Childhood Experience, Interpersonal Development, and Reproductive Strategy: An Evolutionary Theory of Socialization,\" _Child Development_ 62, no. 4 (1991): 647\u2013670.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Pedro M. Pereyra, Weixian Zhang, and Matthias Schmidt, and Laurence E. Becker, \"Development of Myelinated and Unmyelinated Fibers of Human Vagus Nerve During the First Year of Life,\" _Journal of the Neurological Sciences_ 110, no. 1\u20132 (July 1992): 107\u2013113.\n\n. J. N. Giedd, \"Structural Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Adolescent Brain,\" _Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences_ 1021 (June 2004): 77\u201385.\n\n. H. E. Fisher, A. Aron, D. Mashek, H. Li, and L. L. Brown, \"Defining the Brain Systems of Lust, Romantic Attraction, and Attachment,\" _Archives of Sexual Behavior_ 31, no. 5 (2002): 413\u2013419. Italics added.\n\n### Chapter 10\n\n. \"The Fair Youth of the Shakespeare Sonnets,\" The Monument: Shakespeare's Sonnets, <http:\/\/www.shakespearesmonument.com\/page10.html>.\n\n. Louis de Berni\u00e8res, _Corelli's Mandolin_ (New York: Vintage Books, 1994).\n\n. Sadie Leder, \"From Bride to Blues: Examining the Prevalence of Post-Nuptial Depression,\" Science of Relationships, <http:\/\/www.scienceofrelationships.com\/home\/2012\/7\/16\/from-bride-to-blues-examining-the-prevalence-of-post-nuptial.html>.\n\n. D. Marazziti and D. Canale, \"Hormonal Changes When Falling in Love,\" _Psychoneuroendocrinology_ 29, no. 7 (August 2004): 931\u2013936.\n\n. Robert Browning, \"Grow Old Along with Me.\"\n\n. Thomas T. Insel and C. Sue Carter, \"The Monogamous Brain,\" _Natural History_ 104, no. 8 (1995): 12\u201314; Mary M. Cho, A. Courtney DeVries, Jessie R. Williams, and C. Sue Carter, \"The Effects of Oxytocin and Vasopressin on Partner Preferences in Male and Female Prairie Voles,\" _Behavioral Neuroscience_ 113, no. 5 (1999): 1071\u20131079.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. Ibid.\n\n. James T. Winslow, Nick Hastings, C. Sue Carter, Carroll R. Harbaugh, and Thomas R. Insel, \"A Role for Central Vasopressin in Pair Bonding in Monogamous Prairie Voles,\" _Letters to Nature_ , <http:\/\/research.yerkes.emory.edu\/Young\/Getz\/1993%20Winslow%20N.pdf>.\n\n. Thomas R. Insel, and Lawrence E. Shapiroirie, \"Oxytocin Receptor Distribution Reflects Social Organization in Monogamous and Polygamous Voles,\" _Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences_ 89, no. 13 (1992): 5981\u20135985.\n\n. Phyllis K. Davis, _The Power of Touch: The Basis for Survival, Health, Intimacy, and Emotional Well-Being_ (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 1999).\n\n. Allan Pease and Barbara Pease, _The Definitive Book of Body Language_ (New York: Bantam Books, 2006); James. E. Sheridan, \"Marriage Advice: Touch Is a Key to a Truly Good Marriage,\" _News Sentinel_ , October 25, 2011, <http:\/\/www.news-sentinel.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20111025\/NEWS01\/310269994>.\n\n. Diane Ackerman, \"The Brain on Love,\" _New York Times_ , March 24, 2012, <http:\/\/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com\/2012\/03\/24\/the-brain-on-love\/>.\n\n. Michael W. Kraus, Cassy Huang, and Dacher Keltner, \"Tactile Communication, Cooperation, and Performance: An Ethological Study of the NBA,\" <http:\/\/socrates.berkeley.edu\/~keltner\/publications\/kraus.huang.keltner.2010.pdf>.\n\n. G. Strong and A. Aron, \"The Effect of Shared Participation in Novel and Challenging Activities on Experienced Relationship Quality: Is It Mediated by High Positive Affect?\" In _Self and Relationships: Connecting Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Processes_ , edited by Kathleen D. Vohs and Eli J. Finkel, 342\u2013359 (New York: Guilford Press, 2006).\n\n. Robert R. Provine, \"Laughter,\" _American Scientist_ 84, no. 1 (January\u2013February 1996): 38\u201347.\n\n. Rod A. Martin, _The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach_ (Waltham, MA: Elsevier Academic Press, 2006).\n\n. Elaine Walster and Ellen Berscheid, \"Adrenaline Makes the Heart Grow Fonder,\" _Psychology Today_ , June 1971, 47\u201362; David M. Buss, _The Dangerous Passion: Why Jealousy Is as Necessary as Love and Sex_ (New York: Free Press, 2000).\n\n. Lee T. Gettler, Thomas W. McDade, Alan B. Feranil and Christopher W. Kuzawa, \"Longitudinal Evidence That Fatherhood Decreases Testosterone in Human Males,\" P _roceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America_ , <http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2011\/09\/02\/1105403108.full.pdf+html>.\n\n. Sandra J. Berg and Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards, \"Changes in Testosterone, Cortisol, and Estradiol Levels in Men Becoming Fathers,\" _Mayo Clinic Proceedings_ 76, no. 6 (2001): 582\u2013592.\n\n. Helen Fisher, _Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love_ (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004).\n\n. G. S. Berns, S. M. McClure, G. Pagnoni, and P. R. Montague, \"Predictability Modulates Human Brain Response to Reward,\" _Journal of Neuroscience_ 21, no. 8 (April 2001): 2793\u20132798.\n\n. Bianca P. Acevedo and Arthur Aron, \"Does a Long-Term Relationship Kill Romantic Love?\" _Review of General Psychology_ 13, no. 1 (2009): 59\u201365.\n\n. Wibke Blaicher, Doris Gruber, Christian Bieglmayer, Alex M. Blaicher, and Wolfgang Knogler, \"The Role of Oxytocin in Relation to Female Sexual Arousal,\" _Gynecologic and Obstetric Investigation_ 47, no. 2 (1999): 125\u2013126.\n\n. \"Ambergris, aka Floating Gold,\" squidoo, <http:\/\/www.squidoo.com\/ambergrease>.\n\n. Louann Brizendine, _The Male Brain_ (New York: Broadway Books, 2010).\n\n. Simon LeVay, _The Sexual Brain_ (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994).\n\n. M. Kosfeld, M. Heinrichs, P. J. Zak, U. Fischbacher, and others. Fehr, \"Oxytocin Increases Trust in Humans,\" _Nature_ 435, no. 7042 (June 2, 2005): 673\u2013676.\n\n. Paula Tucker and Arthur Aron, \"Passionate Love and Marital Satisfaction at Key Transition Points in the Family Life Cycle,\" _Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology_ 12, no. 2 (1993): 135\u2013147.\n\n. Howard, _The Owner's Manual for the Brain_.\n\n. Fisher, _Why We Love_.\n\n## About the Author\n\nLeil Lowndes is an internationally recognized communications expert who specializes in the subconscious interactions and subliminal approaches that unknowingly take place in all interpersonal communications. She conducts seminars for major corporations, associations, universities, and the public.\n\nShe is the author of ten books, including the top-selling _How to Talk to Anyone, How to Instantly Connect with Anyone, How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You, Undercover Sex Signals, How to be a People Magnet_ , and _Good-bye to Shy_.\n\nPrior to her work in communications, Ms. Lowndes was founder and director of _The Project_ , a New York City\u2013based not-for-profit organization, which conducted personal relationship research and counseling. She is a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists.\n\nBased in New York City, Ms. Lowndes has been the guest communications expert on hundreds of television and radio programs.\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.\n\nText copyright \u00a9 2018 by Wonderline Productions LLC\n\nCover art copyright \u00a9 2018 by Victor Tongdee\n\nAll rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.\n\nDelacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.\n\nVisit us on the Web\n\nEducators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com\n\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\n\nName: Pessl, Marisha, author.\n\nTitle: Neverworld wake \/ Marisha Pessl.\n\nDescription: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2018] | Summary: \"A group of teens who all attended the same elite prep school reunite a year after graduation. After a night on the town, the teens are faced with an impossible choice\u2014only one of them can live and the decision must be unanimous\" \u2014 Provided by publisher.\n\nIdentifiers: LCCN 2017038509 (print) | LCCN 2017052001 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-399-55395-0 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-399-55392-9 (trade hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-399-55393-6 (library binding) | ISBN 978-0-525-64445-3 (intl. tr. pbk.)\n\nSubjects: | CYAC: Death\u2014Fiction. | Friendship\u2014Fiction. | Secrets\u2014Fiction. | Science fiction.\n\nClassification: LCC PZ7.1.P4479 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.1.P4479 Nev 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]\u2014dc23\n\nEbook ISBN 9780399553950\n\nRandom House Children's Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.\n\nv5.2\n\nep\n\n# Contents\n\nCover\n\nTitle Page\n\nCopyright\n\nDedication\n\nEpigraph\n\nPart 1\n\nChapter 1\n\nChapter 2\n\nChapter 3\n\nChapter 4\n\nChapter 5\n\nChapter 6\n\nChapter 7\n\nChapter 8\n\nChapter 9\n\nPart 2\n\nChapter 10\n\nChapter 11\n\nChapter 12\n\nChapter 13\n\nChapter 14\n\nChapter 15\n\nChapter 16\n\nChapter 17\n\nChapter 18\n\nPart 3\n\nChapter 19\n\nChapter 20\n\nChapter 21\n\nChapter 22\n\nChapter 23\n\nChapter 24\n\nChapter 25\n\nChapter 26\n\nChapter 27\n\nAcknowledgments\n\nAbout the Author\nFor David\n> Sometimes there are no answers,\n> \n> Sometimes you find love,\n> \n> Sometimes the dark has teeth,\n> \n> Sometimes it hides doves.\n> \n> The one thing you can expect in life,\n> \n> As you step down its twisted road,\n> \n> Is that you will be speechless.\n> \n> Then? Ask someone who knows.\n> \n> \u2014J. C. Gossamer Madwick, \n> \n> The Dark House at Elsewhere Bend\n\nI hadn't spoken to Whitley Lansing\u2014or any of them\u2014in over a year.\n\nWhen her text arrived after my last final, it felt inevitable, like a comet tearing through the night sky, hinting of fate.\n\n> Too long. WTF. #notcool. Sorry. My Tourette's again. How was your freshman year? Amazing? Awful?\n> \n> Seriously. We miss you.\n> \n> Breaking the silence bc the gang is heading to Wincroft for my bday. The Linda will be in Mallorca & ESS Burt is getting married in St. Bart's for the 3rd time. (Vegan yogi.) So it's ours for the weekend. Like yesteryear.\n> \n> Can you come? What do you say Bumblebee?\n> \n> Carpe noctem.\n\nSeize the night.\n\nShe was the only girl I knew who surveyed everybody like a leather-clad Dior model and rattled off Latin like it was her native language.\n\n\"How was your exam?\" my mom asked when she picked me up.\n\n\"I confused Socrates with Plato and ran out of time during the essay,\" I said, pulling on my seat belt.\n\n\"I'm sure you did great.\" She smiled, a careful look. \"Anything else we need to do?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\nMy dad and I had already cleared out my dorm room. I'd returned my textbooks to the student union to get the 30 percent off for next year. My roommate had been a girl from New Haven named Casey who'd gone home to see her boyfriend every weekend. I'd barely seen her since orientation.\n\nThe end of my freshman year at Emerson College had just come and gone with the indifferent silence usually reserved for a going-out-of-business sale at a mini-mall.\n\n\"Something dark's a-brewin',\" Jim would have told me.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nI had no plans all summer, except to work alongside my parents at the Captain's Crow.\n\nThe Captain's Crow\u2014the Crow, it's called by locals\u2014is the seaside caf\u00e9 and ice cream parlor my family owns in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, the tiny coastal village where I grew up.\n\nWatch Hill, Rhode Island. Population: You Know Everyone.\n\nMy great-grandfather Burn Hartley opened the parlor in 1885, when Watch Hill was little more than a craggy hamlet where whaling captains came to shake off their sea legs and hold their children for the first time before taking off again for the Atlantic's Great Unknowns. Burn's framed pencil portrait hangs over the entrance, revealing him to have the mad glare of some dead genius writer, or a world explorer who never came home from the Arctic. The truth is, though, he could barely read, preferred familiar faces to strange ones and dry land to the sea. All he ever did was run our little dockside restaurant his whole life, and perfect the recipe for the best clam chowder in the world.\n\nAll summer I scooped ice cream for tan teenagers in flip-flops and pastel sweaters. They came and went in big skittish groups like schools of fish. I made cheeseburgers and tuna melts, coleslaw and milk shakes. I swept away sand dusting the black-and-white-checkered floor. I threw out napkins, ketchup packets, salt packets, over-21 wristbands, Del's Frozen Lemonade cups, deep-sea fishing party boat brochures. I put lost cell phones beside the register so they could be easily found when the panic-stricken owners came barging inside: \"I lost my...Oh...thank you, you're the best!\" I cleaned up the torn blue tickets from the 1893 saltwater carousel, located just a few doors down by the beach, which featured faded faceless mermaids to ride, not horses. Watch Hill's greatest claim to fame was that Eleanor Roosevelt had been photographed riding a redhead with a turquoise tail sidesaddle. (It was a town joke how put out she looked in the shot, how uncomfortable and buried alive under her plate-tectonic layers of ruffled skirt.)\n\nI cleaned the barbecue sauce off the garbage cans, the melted Wreck Rummage off the tables (Wreck Rummage was every kid's favorite ice cream flavor, a mash-up of cookie dough, walnuts, cake batter, and dark chocolate nuggets). I Cloroxed and Fantasticked and Mr. Cleaned the windows and counters and doorknobs. I dusted the brine off the mussels and the clams, polishing every one like a gemstone dealer obsessively inspecting emeralds. Most days I rose at five and went with my dad to pick out the day's seafood when the fishing boats came in, inspecting crab legs and fluke, oysters and bass, running my hands over their tapping legs and claws, barnacles and iridescent bellies. I composed song lyrics for a soundtrack to a made-up movie called _Lola Anderson's Highway Robbery,_ drawing words, rhymes, faces, and hands on napkins and take-out menus, tossing them in the trash before anyone saw them. I attended grief support group for adolescents at the North Stonington Community Center. There was only one other kid in attendance, a silent boy named Turks whose dad had died from ALS. After two meetings he never returned, leaving me alone with the counselor, a jittery woman named Deb who wore pantsuits and wielded a three-inch-thick book called _Grief Management for Young People._\n\n\" 'The purpose of this exercise is to construct a positive meaning around the lost relationship,' \" she read from chapter seven, handing me a Goodbye Letter worksheet. \" 'On this page, write a note to your lost loved one, detailing fond memories, hopes, and any final questions.' \"\n\nSlapping a chewed pen that read TABEEGO ISLAND RESORTS on my desk, she left. I could hear her on the phone out in the hall, arguing with someone named Barry, asking him why he didn't come home last night.\n\nI drew a screeching hawk on the Goodbye Letter, with lyrics to a made-up Japanese animated film about a forgotten thought called _Lost in a Head._\n\nThen I slipped out the fire exit and never went back.\n\nI taught Sleepy Sam (giant yawn of a teenager from England visiting his American dad) how to make clam cakes and the perfect grilled cheese. _Grill on medium, butter, four minutes a side, six slices of Vermont sharp cheddar, two of fontina._ For July Fourth, he invited me to a party at a friend of a friend's. To his shock, I actually showed. I stood by a floor lamp with a warm beer, listening to talk about guitar lessons and Zach Galifianakis, trying to find the right moment to escape.\n\n\" _That,_ by the way, is Bee,\" said Sleepy Sam. \"She does actually speak, I swear.\"\n\nI didn't mention Whitley's text to anyone, though it was always in the back of my mind.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nIt was the brand-new way-too-extravagant dress I'd bought but never taken out of the bag. I just left it there in the back of my closet, folded in tissue paper with the receipt, the tags still on, with intention of returning it.\n\nYet there was still the remote possibility I'd find the courage to put it on.\n\nI knew the weekend of her birthday like I knew my own: August 30.\n\nIt was a Friday. The big event of the day had been the appearance of a stray dog wandering Main Street. It had no tags and the haunted look of a prisoner of war. He was gray, shaggy, and startled with every attempt to pet him. A honk sent him skidding into the garbage cans behind the Captain's Crow.\n\n\"See that yellow salt-bed mud on his back paws? That's from the west side of Nickybogg Creek,\" announced Officer Locke, thrilled to have a mystery on his hands, his first of the year.\n\nThat stray dog had been the talk all that day\u2014what to do with him, where he'd been\u2014and it was only much later that I found my mind going back to that dog drifting into town out of the blue. I wondered if he was some kind of sign, a warning that something terrible was coming, that I should not take the much-exalted and mysterious Road Less Traveled, but the one well trod, wide-open, and brightly lit, the road I knew.\n\nBy then it was too late. The sun had set. Sleepy Sam was gone. I'd overturned the caf\u00e9 chairs and put them on the tables. I'd hauled out the trash. And anyway, that flew in the face of human nature. No one ever heeded a warning sign when it came.\n\nMy mom and dad assumed I was joining them at the Dreamland Theater in Westerly for the screwball comedy classics marathon, like I did every Friday.\n\n\"Actually, I made plans tonight,\" I said.\n\nMy dad was thrilled. \"Really, Bumble? That's great.\"\n\n\"I'm driving up to Wincroft.\"\n\nThey fell silent. My mom had just flipped the Closed sign in the window, and she turned, wrapping her cardigan around herself, shivering even though it was seventy-five degrees out.\n\n\"How long have you known about this?\" she asked.\n\n\"Not long. I'll be careful. I'll be back by midnight. They're up there for Whitley's birthday. I think it'll be good for me to see them.\"\n\n\"That's a long way to drive in the dark,\" said my dad.\n\nMy mom looked like I'd been given a prognosis of six weeks left to live. Sometimes when she got really upset, she chewed an imaginary piece of gum. She was doing that now.\n\n\"Part of the grieving process is confronting the past,\" I said.\n\n\"That's not the point. I\u2014\"\n\n\"It's all right, Victoria.\" My dad put a hand on her shoulder.\n\n\"But Dr. Quentin said not to put yourself in stressful situations that\u2014\"\n\n\"We've established that Dr. Quentin is an idiot,\" I said.\n\n\"Dr. Quentin is indeed an idiot,\" said my dad with a regretful nod. \"The fact that his name is one-half of a state prison should have been a red flag.\"\n\n\"You know I don't like it when you two gang up on me,\" said my mom.\n\nAt that moment, someone\u2014some red-faced weekender in seersucker shorts who'd had too many stouts at O'Malligan's\u2014tried to open the door.\n\n\"We're closed,\" my mom snapped.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThat was how I came to be driving my dad's ancient green Dodge RAM with the emphysema muffler fifty miles up the Rhode Island coastline.\n\n_Wincroft._\n\nThe name sounded like something out of a windswept novel filled with ghosts and madmen. The mansion was a sprawling collection of red brick, turrets, gardens, and crow gargoyles, built in the 1930s by a Great White Hunter who'd supposedly called Hemingway and Lawrence of Arabia his friends. He had traveled the world killing beautiful creatures, and thus Wincroft, his seaside estate, had never been lived in more than a few weeks in sixty years. When Whitley's weird ex-second-stepdad, Burt\u2014commonly called E.S.S. Burt\u2014bought it in foreclosure in the 1980s, he gut renovated the interiors in an unfortunate style Whitley called \"if Madonna threw up all over Cyndi Lauper.\"\n\nStill, it wasn't unusual to open a chest of drawers in the attic, or a musty steamer trunk, and find photographs of strangers gripping rifles and wearing fox furs or some weird piece of taxidermy\u2014a ferret, red frog, or rodent of unknown species. This gave every visit to Wincroft the mysterious feel of being on an archaeological expedition, as if all around us, inside the floors, walls, and ceiling, some lost civilization was waiting to be unearthed.\n\n\"We are our junk,\" said Jim once, pulling a taxidermy lizard out of a shoe box.\n\nLeaving the interstate, the road to get there turned corkscrewed and dizzying, as if trying to shake you. The coast of Rhode Island\u2014not the infamously uptight Newport part, with the stiff cliffs and colossal mansions smugly staring down at the tiny sailboats salting the harbor, but the rest of it\u2014was rough and tumbledown, laid-back and sunburnt. It was an old homeless beachcomber in a washed-out T-shirt who couldn't remember where he'd slept the night before. The grasses were wiry and wasted, the roads salty and cracked, sprouting faded signs and faulty traffic lights. Bridges elbowed their way out of the marshes before collapsing, exhausted, on the other side of the road.\n\nI still had their phone numbers, but I didn't want to call. I didn't even know if they'd be there. All these months later their plans could have changed. Maybe I'd knock and Whitley wouldn't answer, but her ex-second-stepdad, Burt, would, E.S.S. Burt with his too-long, curly gray hair; Burt, who a million years ago had written an Oscar-nominated song for a tragic love story starring Ryan O'Neill. Or maybe they would all be there. Maybe I wanted to see the looks on their faces when they first saw me, looks they hadn't rehearsed.\n\nThen again, if they didn't know I was coming, I could still turn around. I could still go join my parents at the Dreamland for _His Girl Friday,_ afterward head to the Shakedown for crab cakes and oysters, saying hi to the owner, Artie, pretending I didn't hear him whisper to my dad when I went to the bathroom, \"Bee's really come around,\" like I was a wounded racehorse they'd decided not to euthanize. Not that it was Artie's fault. It was the natural reaction when people found out what had happened: my boyfriend, Jim, had died senior year.\n\nSudden Death of the Love of Your Life wasn't supposed to happen to you as a teenager. If it did, though, it was helpful if it was due to one of the Top Three Understandable Reasons for Dying as a Kid: A. Car accident. B. Cancer. C. Suicide. That way, after you selected the applicable choice, the nearest adult could promptly steer your attention to the range of movies (many starring Timothy Hutton) and self-help books to help you Deal.\n\nBut when your boyfriend's death remains unsolved, and you're left staring into a black hole of guilt and the unknown?\n\nThere's no movie or self-help book in the world to help you with that.\n\nExcept maybe _The Exorcist._\n\nIf I was a no-show tonight, my old friends would come and go from Wincroft, and that would be that. Not showing up would be the final push of that old toy sailboat from my childhood, the one shove that would really send it drifting out toward the middle of the lake, far from the shoreline, forever out of reach.\n\nThen I'd never find out what happened to Jim.\n\nI kept driving.\n\nThe twisting road seemed to urge me onward, yellowed beech trees streaking past; a bridge; the sudden, startling view of a harbor where tall white sailboats crowded like a herd of feasting unicorns before vanishing. I couldn't believe how easily I remembered the way: left at the Exxon, right on Elm, right at the stop sign where you diced with Death, run-down trailers with strung-up laundry and flat tires in the yard. Then the trees fell away in deference to the most beautiful kiss of sky and sea, always streaked orange and pink at dusk.\n\nAnd there it was. The wrought-iron gate emblazoned with the _W._\n\nIt was open. The lamps were lit.\n\nI made the turn and floored it, oak branches flying past like ribbons come loose from a ponytail, wind howling through the open windows. Another curve and I saw the mansion, the windows golden and alive, all hulking red brick and slate, crow gargoyles perched forever on the roof.\n\nAs I pulled up I almost laughed aloud at the four cars parked there, side by side. I didn't recognize any of them\u2014except for Martha's Honda Accord with the bumper sticker HONK FOR GENERAL RELATIVITY. If pressed I could, with little trouble, match the other cars with their respective owners.\n\nI had changed so much. From the look of these cars, they had not.\n\nI checked my appearance in the rearview mirror, feeling immediate horror: messy ponytail, chapped lips, shiny forehead. I looked like I'd just run a marathon and come in last. I blotted my face on the roll of paper towels my dad kept in the door, pinched my cheeks, tucked the loose strands of dark brown hair behind my ears. Then I was sprinting up the stone steps and rapping the brass lion knocker.\n\nNothing happened.\n\nI rang the doorbell, once, twice, three times, all in one crazy, deranged movement, because I knew if I hesitated at all I'd lose my nerve. I'd sink, like some lost boot caught inside a lobster trap, straight back to the bottom of the sea.\n\nThe door opened.\n\nKipling stood there. He was wearing a chin-length pink wig, blue polo shirt, Bermuda shorts, flip-flops. He was extremely tan and chewing a red drink stirrer, though it fell out of his mouth when he saw me.\n\n\"Good Lord, strike me down dead,\" he said in his cotton-plantation drawl.\n\nGrand entrances don't happen in real life. Not the way you want.\n\nWhat you want is something between a Colombian telenovela (screaming, faces agog, running mascara) and a Meryl Streep Oscar\u2122 Moment (crackling dialogue, hugs, the whole world coming together to sing in harmony).\n\nInstead, they're awkward.\n\nMy sudden appearance at Wincroft was a poorly aimed torpedo. I had misfired, and now I was drifting aimlessly, explosive, but without a target. Standing in the foyer under the chandelier in my jean cutoffs, sneakers, Wreck Rummage\u2013stained T-shirt, faced with their freshly showered, glam selves, I felt ridiculous. I shouldn't have come.\n\nThey were heading to a sold-out punk rock concert at the Able Seaman in Newport, the beachfront dive bar where we'd spent many a weekend senior year with fake IDs and weekend passes, so they were greeting me, but also getting ready to go. So there was an awful feeling of distraction and poorly dubbed conversation.\n\nFirst Kip hugged me. Then he surveyed me politely, as if he were on an art museum tour and I were the tiny, underwhelming painting some guide was blathering on and on about.\n\nWhitley came running over.\n\n\"Oh, my God, Beatrice.\" She air-kissed me. \"You actually came. Wow.\"\n\nShe was even more jarringly beautiful than I remembered: thigh-high stiletto jean boots, oversized sweatshirt with a sequin mouth on the front, black fringe cutoffs, perfume of gardenia and leather. I was at once hit with the magazine ad that was her presence and also finding it impossible to believe she used to be my best friend. Countless nights at Darrow-Harker School in Warwick, Rhode Island\u2014home of the Crusaders\u2014we sat up illegally after curfew, cheeks polka-dotted with zit cream, wool socks on our feet. I had told her things I hadn't told anyone. Now that seemed like an out-of-place scene cut from some other movie.\n\n\"How are you, Bee?\" she asked, squeezing my hands.\n\n\"Good.\"\n\n\"This is the _best_ surprise. I mean, I could\u2014I'm\u2014 Oh, _shoot._ The patio cushions need to be brought in. It's supposed to rain, right?\"\n\nAnd then she was racing away, long blond hair carouseling her back. \"Kip was right,\" she called out as she vanished into the kitchen. \"He said you'd show up out of the blue like some presumed-dead character in a movie starring, like, Jake Gyllenhaal, but we told him he was nuts. I thought you'd rather die than see any of us again. Now I owe him, like, fifty dollars\u2014\"\n\n\"One hundred dollars,\" interrupted Kip, holding up a finger. \"Do not try to renege. Ghosting on debts is one of your worst qualities, Lansing.\"\n\n\"What? Oh, wait. We have to give Gandalf his Prozac or he'll pee everywhere.\"\n\n\"Gandalf is depressed,\" Kip explained to me with a prim nod. \"He also suffers from multiple personalities. He's a Great Dane who thinks he's a lapdog.\"\n\n\"I know Gandalf,\" I reminded him weakly.\n\n_\"Beatrice.\"_\n\nCannon was jogging barefoot down the staircase, Puma sneakers in hand. At the bottom he stopped, surveying me with a warm smile.\n\n\"I can't believe it. Sister Bee in the flesh. How's God?\"\n\n\"Funny.\"\n\nHe looked different too. He was still sporting his signature gray hacker's hoodie, but it was no longer misshapen and dusted with orange Cheez-Its powder after wearing it two weeks straight in the arctic subterranean computer room at Darrow. It was cashmere. Cannon had become semifamous when, sophomore year, he discovered a bug in Apple's OS X operating system: when you accidentally tapped certain keys, your screen froze, and your desktop turned into the surreal winter scene of Apple's Blue Pond wallpaper. He christened the bug Cannon's Birdcage, and it landed him on the front page of a million Silicon Valley blogs. Last I'd heard, he was attending Stanford for computer science.\n\nHe jumped off the stairs and hugged me. He smelled like expensive wood flooring.\n\n\"How's college? How's your mom and dad? They still run that little ice cream parlor?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHe stared at me, his expression intense and unreadable. \"I love that place.\"\n\n\"Hello, Bee,\" called a solemn voice.\n\nTurning, I saw Martha. She was blinking at me from behind her thick, mad-scientist glasses, which gave her the all-seeing, telephoto-lens stare for which she was famous. She'd given up her khakis and boxy Oxford shirts for ripped black jeans and an oversized T-shirt proclaiming something in German: TORSCHLUSSPANIK. She'd also dyed her thin brown hair neon blue.\n\n\"Hi,\" I said.\n\n\"It's absurd how you haven't changed,\" drawled Kip, his smile like a tiny button on formal living room upholstery. \"You freeze-dry yourself in some cryogenic experiment? 'Cause it isn't fair, child. I got crow's-feet and gout.\"\n\nWhitley was back, avoiding eye contact, grabbing her flesh-colored Chanel purse.\n\n\"You're coming with us, right?\"\n\nShe seemed less than thrilled by the idea, now shoving her manicured feet into Lanvin flats.\n\n\"Actually, I\u2014\"\n\n\"Of course you are,\" said Cannon, throwing his arm around my shoulder. \"I'll scalp you a ticket. Or I'll scalp someone for a ticket. Either way, we'll figure it out.\"\n\n_\"Laissez les bon temps roulez,\"_ said Kip, raising his glass.\n\nThere was a Texas-sized stretch of silence as we filed outside, the only sounds our footsteps on the pavement and the wind ransacking the trees. My heart was pounding, my face red. I wanted nothing more than to sprint to my pickup and take off down the drive at a hundred miles an hour, pretend none of this had happened.\n\n\"We taking two cars?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"We're five,\" said Whitley. \"We'll squeeze into mine.\"\n\n\"Promise you'll glance in that rearview mirror at least once, child?\" asked Kip.\n\n\"You're hilarious.\"\n\nWe piled into her hunter-green convertible Jaguar. Whitley, with a severe look\u2014which I remembered meant she felt nervous\u2014pressed a series of buttons on the console screen. The engine did an elegant throat clear, and the top half of the car began to peel away like a hatching egg. Then we were speeding down the drive, Whitley accelerating like a veteran NASCAR driver, swerving into the grass, mowing through rhododendrons. I was in the backseat between Kip and Martha, trying not to lean too hard on either of them.\n\nKip tossed his pink wig into the air.\n\n\"Ahhhhh!\" he screamed, head back, as the wig landed in the driveway behind us. \"After a long absence, the band is back together! Let's never break up again! Let's go on a world tour!\"\n\n_What about the lead singer?_ I couldn't help wondering as I looked up at him.\n\n_Aren't you forgetting Jim?_\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThe opening band had already started when we arrived. There wasn't time to talk. There was only this anxious pushing through the packed crowd outside while Whitley approached the bouncer. Martha went in to secure the table, and Cannon went around asking guys with buzz cuts and Budweiser breath if they had an extra ticket, all of which left me crammed pointlessly against the side railing.\n\n\"You guys go in without me!\" I shouted at Kip, who'd materialized beside me.\n\n\"Hush.\" He linked his arm through mine. \"Now that we found you again, we're never going to let you go. I'm your barnacle, child. Deal with it.\"\n\nI laughed. It seemed like the start of the first true conversation that night.\n\nKipling and I had always been close. Tall and lanky, with rust-red hair and \"an ancient gentleman face\"\u2014as he described himself\u2014he was the most fun stuffed into a single person I'd ever met. He was eccentric and strange, like some half-broken talisman you'd find on a dusty shelf at the back of an antiques store, hinting at a harrowing history and good luck. He was gay, though claimed to be more interested in a story well told than in sex, and saw Darrow more as a country club than as any institution in which he was meant to learn something. A study date in the library with Kipling meant constant interruption for his anecdotes and observations about life, friends, and the host of colorful characters populating his tiny hometown of Moss Bluff, Louisiana\u2014like we weren't holed up in muggy cubicles stressed about SATs, but relaxing on a porch shooing flies. While he was as rich as the others (\"defunct department store money\"), he had had what he called a \"busted childhood,\" thanks to his scary mom, Momma Greer.\n\nLittle was _actually_ known about Momma Greer, apart from the details Kipling let slip like a handful of confetti he loved to toss into the air without warning. When he was a toddler she locked him alone for days in Room 2 of the Royal Sonata Motel (\"ground floor by the vendin' machines so she could sneak out without payin' \"), nothing to eat but a stash of Moon Pies, no company but Delta Burke selling bangles on QVC. Her negligence had led to a pit bull, chained up in a backyard, attacking Kipling when he was five, biting off three fingers on his left hand, and leaving him with a \"mini shark bite\" on his chin\u2014disfigurations he paraded like a Purple Heart.\n\n\"Just call me Phantom of the Opera,\" he'd say, gleefully fanning his severed hand in front of your face. When the court finally removed Kip from his mom's custody, sending him to live with an infirm aunt, he kept running away to try to get back to Momma Greer.\n\nLast I'd heard she was in a mental institution in Baton Rouge.\n\nI wanted to ask how his year had been, but at that moment, Whitley, in true Whitley fashion, came over and without a word grabbed my wrist, pulling me through the crowd. She'd come to some understanding with the doorman. He let me in without a ticket, stamping my hand, and then we were all at a reserved table in the front watching a girl with stringy hair pretend she was Kurt Cobain.\n\nIt was strange. The drummer looked like Jim. I wasn't sure anyone else noticed, but he looked like Jim's younger brother, all milk-chocolate eyes and bedhead, the rueful air of a banished prince. It was deafening inside, too loud to talk, so all of us just stared at the band, lost in the swamps of our thoughts.\n\nMaybe I was the only one lost. Maybe they'd all had amazing experiences in college, which had shrunk what had happened to us in high school, turned even Jim's death into a faded T-shirt washed ten thousand times.\n\nOnce upon a time at Darrow, they'd been my family. They were the first real friends I'd ever had, a collection of people so vibrant and loyal that, like some child born into a grand dynasty, I couldn't help but be awed at my luck. We'd been a club, a secret society all the other students at Darrow eyed with envy\u2014not that we even paid attention. Friendship, when it runs deep, blinds you to the outside world. It's your exclusive country with sealed borders, unfair distribution of green cards, rich culture no foreigner could understand. To be cut off from them, exiled by my own volition as I had been for the past year, felt cheap and unsettled, a temporary existence of suitcases, rented rooms, and roads I didn't know.\n\nJim's death had been the earthquake that swallowed cities. Although I had spent the past year certain my friends knew much more about it than they'd let on, I also knew with every passing day the truth was drifting farther out of reach. I'd checked Whitley's Snapchat and every now and then I saw the four of them together. They looked so happy, so nonchalant.\n\n_Like nothing had happened._\n\nYet now, I could see that the dynamic between them had changed.\n\nKip kept drumming his disfigured hand on the table. Whitley kept checking her phone. Martha seemed to be in an unusually bad mood, throwing back shots the bartender kept sending to our table\u2014something called the Sinking of the _General Grant,_ which tasted like crude oil. I caught her staring at me once, her expression faintly accusatory. I smiled back, but she turned away like one of those jungle plants that shrivel at the faintest touch, refusing to look at me again. Once, as Cannon leaned forward to whisper something to Whitley, he tucked her hair behind her ear, which made me wonder if they were back together. Then it seemed more habit than anything else.\n\nWhen the opening band finished, I wanted to disappear. I wanted to take a taxi back to Wincroft, climb into my dad's truck, drive off, and never look back. What had I expected\u2014for the truth to be right there, obvious as a giant weed growing among tulips, waiting for me to yank it out?\n\nBut I stayed. I stayed for the next band, the band after that. I drank the Moscow Mules Whitley put in front of me. I let Kipling pull me to my feet, and I danced the Charleston with him, and the fox-trot, letting him spin me into the beach bums, and the prepsters, and the Harley-heads under the shaking paper lanterns and posters of sunken ships.\n\n_Just a little while longer,_ I kept thinking, _and I'll bring up Jim._\n\nWhen the next band finished, Whitley wanted to go back to Wincroft, only no one could find Cannon. As it turned out, he was in the bar's back alley, helping a girl who'd had too much to drink and was passed out by the fire exit.\n\n\"Here comes Lancelot,\" said Whitley.\n\nPerched along the railing, we watched while Cannon tracked down\u2014with the efficiency of a lobbyist working Capitol Hill\u2014the girl's missing friends, purse, sandals, and iPhone. He even located her hair clip, which he used to gently pin back her hair so she'd stop throwing up on it, which led the girl's newly located, equally drunk friends to stare up at him in wonder.\n\n\"Are you human, dude?\"\n\n\"Do you have a girlfriend?\"\n\n\"Who _are_ you?\"\n\nCannon ran a hand through his hair. \"I'm Batman.\"\n\n\"Here we go again,\" sighed Whitley.\n\nCannon was not handsome. He was slight, with dirty blond hair and pale, out-of-focus features. But he had atomic intensity, which never failed to shock and awe when unleashed upon the world. Moving like a highly charged ion, capable as a machine gun, the first week of freshman year Cannon hacked Darrow's intranet to display its flaws (becoming the school's de facto tech guru). He revamped the decrepit sculpture garden and the wrestling gym. He was class president, and organized marches, marathons, and fund-raisers for endangered species and girls' rights. Cannon was the first to admit that his outgoing, sociable nature and activism was compensation for being a tongue-tied computer geek as a child, worshipping Spielberg movies, eighties pop songs by the Cure, and Ray Kurzweil, no friends to speak of but an imaginary fly named Pete who lived inside his computer. He was adopted, raised by a single mother, a judge in the superior court of California. And while at first glance having Whitley Morrow as his girlfriend\u2014besting Darrow's country club boys who were IIIs and had middle names like Chesterton\u2014seemed like a mistaken case of the princess accidentally ending up with the sidekick, the more you knew Cannon, the more you realized the role of prince was far too trivial for him. He was the king\u2014at least, that was what he was aiming for. He was the most silently ambitious person I'd ever met.\n\n\"Any more distressed damsels you need to save?\" Whitley asked as Cannon strode back over, having helped the girl and her stumbling friends into an Uber.\n\nHe held out his arms in mock triumph. \"The bartender looks like he's coming down with a head cold. But no. My work here is done.\"\n\n\"Thank the Lord, 'cause I need my beauty sleep,\" said Kip with a yawn.\n\nWe piled into the Jaguar.\n\nThe problem was, no matter how many times Whitley pressed the buttons on the console screen, the convertible top wouldn't go up. It wouldn't go up manually either.\n\nCannon volunteered to drive, but Whitley insisted. It began to pour, so hard there was more rain in the air than air. The thirty-five-minute ride home was this terrible ordeal, all of us in the backseat hunched together, drunk and freezing. At one point Martha threw up all over her feet, all of us shivering under E.S.S. Burt's creepy London Fog trench coat, which Whitley had found in the trunk. Whitley began to cry that she couldn't see the road. Tearing around a curve, we nearly collided with a tow truck.\n\nThe driver blared his horn. Whitley jerked the wheel, tires screeching. Everyone screamed as we barreled off the road, bouncing to a halt in a ditch, Kip hitting his head on the seat. Killing the engine, Whitley started to sob, screaming at Cannon that it was all his fault, that as always he'd needed to impress a bunch of girls just to massage his screaming insecurity for five minutes and now we'd almost died. She snatched his baseball cap off his head and threw it into the dark. Then she scrambled out, shouting that she was finding her own ride home, running into the woods. I sensed her tantrum had to do with the rain and almost ending up in a car accident\u2014but also with me, how I'd shown up out of the blue.\n\nCannon went after her. A few minutes later, he brought her back. She was crying and wearing his hoodie. He tucked her carefully, like some wild bird with a broken wing, into the front seat, whispering, \"It's gonna be all right, Shrieks.\"\n\nIt was Cannon who got us home.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nAs the five of us went clambering into Wincroft, dripping wet and drunk, it felt normal for the first time. It felt like the old days. Thank goodness for the defunct top on that convertible. Our brush with death had thawed the ice. We were giddy, teeth chattering as we pulled off our wet clothes, leaving them in a soggy pile on the floor, which Gandalf kept circling while whining. Whitley disappeared upstairs. Martha was on her hands and knees in front of the fireplace, moaning, \"I can't feel my legs.\" Cannon went down to the wine cellar, returning with four bottles of Chivas Regal Royal Salute, and poured shots in pink champagne glasses. Whitley dumped a giant mound of white terry-cloth bathrobes on the couch like a pile of dead bodies.\n\n\"I've never been so scared in my whole life,\" she said, giggling.\n\nThat was when the doorbell rang.\n\nWe all sat up, staring at each other, bewildered. Mentally counting. We were all here.\n\n\"Someone call Ghostbusters?\" slurred Martha.\n\n\"I'll go,\" volunteered Cannon. A sloppy salute, and he disappeared into the foyer. None of us said a word, listening, the only sound the rain drumming on the roof.\n\nA minute later, he was back.\n\n\"It's some old geezer. He's two hundred years old.\"\n\n\"It's Alastair Totters,\" said Martha.\n\n\"Who?\" Cannon snapped.\n\n\"Time-traveling villain in _The Bend,_ \" mumbled Martha.\n\n\"No, no,\" whispered Kip, gleeful. \"It's the proverbial kook with Alzheimer's who wandered away from his nursing home during Elvis Social Hour. _Without_ his medication. They're always without their medications.\"\n\n\"I'll invite him in for a nightcap?\" asked Cannon, sighing, a mischievous wink.\n\n\"No,\" hissed Whitley. \"That's how horror movies start.\"\n\n\"Chapter three,\" Martha muttered.\n\n\"Hey,\" said Cannon, pointing at Wit. \"That's not very nice. _I'm_ inviting him in\u2014\"\n\n_\"NO!\"_\n\nThen we were all racing, giggling, tripping over each other as we bumbled to the foyer to see for ourselves, tying up our bathrobes, taking turns to check the peephole, bumping heads. I assumed Cannon was somehow playing a trick on us, that no one would actually be there.\n\nBut there he was. An old man.\n\nHe was tall, with thick silver hair. Though I couldn't make out his face in the shadows, I could see that he was dressed in a dark suit and tie. He leaned in, smiling, as if he could see me peering out.\n\nCannon opened the door with a bow.\n\n\"Good evening, sir. How may we help you?\"\n\nThe man didn't immediately speak. Something about the way he surveyed us\u2014methodically inspecting each of our faces\u2014made me think he knew us from somewhere.\n\n\"Good evening,\" he said. His voice was surprisingly rich. \"May I enter the premises?\"\n\nNo one answered, the question being too presumptuous and strange. I gathered he was not senile. His eyes\u2014deep green, gleaming in the porch light\u2014were lucid.\n\n\"Oh, you live next door,\" said Whitley, stepping beside Cannon. \"Because if this is about Burt's sailboat, the _Andiamo,_ being marooned in front of your dock, he told me to tell you he had problems with the anchor and he's working on getting a tow next week.\"\n\n\"I do not live next door.\"\n\nHe stared at us another beat, his face expectant.\n\n\"It's really best if I come inside to explain.\"\n\n\"Tell us what you want right there,\" said Cannon.\n\nThe man nodded, unsurprised. It was then that I noticed two bizarre things.\n\nOne: he looked like Darrow's musical director, Mr. Joshua. For a moment my drunken mind believed that it _was_ Mr. Joshua, that something terrible had happened to him in the year since I'd last seen him. He'd suffered some tragedy and aged twenty-five years, his hair going silver, his face growing tattered. But it wasn't Mr. Joshua. Mr. Joshua was slight and rosy, quick to laugh. This man was bony, with a hawkish face, one that would look at home on foreign currency or atop a monument in a town square. It was as if he were the identical twin brother of Mr. Joshua, as if they'd been separated at birth and had totally different life experiences, Mr. Joshua's nurturing and this man's harrowing, bringing him to look the way he did.\n\nTwo: there was no car in the driveway, so the question of how he'd come here without an umbrella yet remained perfectly dry hung in the air, vaguely alarming, like a faint odor of gas.\n\n\"You're all dead,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, dear. You'll have to excuse me. That's not accurate.\"\n\nThe old man placed a hand over his eyes, shaking his head. \"I overshot it. Went for the dramatic, _Masterpiece Theater_ effect. I apologize. Let's try that again, shall we?\"\n\nHe cleared his throat, smiling.\n\n\"You're all nearly dead. Wedged between life and death. Time for you has become snagged on a splinter, forming a closed-circuited potentiality called a Neverworld Wake.\"\n\nQuite pleased now, he nodded and took a deep breath.\n\n\"This phenomenon is not specific to you. There are such moments occurring simultaneously in the past, present, and future all around the world and across the universe, known and unknown, crumpled and unfolded. Time does not travel in a straight line. It bends and barrels across tunnels and bridges. It speeds up. Slows down. It even derails. Well then. This hitch, as we might call it, is where each of you exists at the moment. And it is where, until further notice, you will remain.\"\n\nHe bowed like the longtime ringmaster of a down-at-heel traveling circus, with gracious ease and a hint of exhaustion.\n\n\"I am the Keeper,\" he said. \"I have no other name. The way I look, act, the tone of my voice, my walk, face, everything I say and think is the sum total of your five lives as they were lived. Think of an equation. This moment equals your souls plus the circumstances of reality. Another example? Imagine if each of your minds was placed inside a blender. That blender is turned on high. The resulting smoothie is this moment. If there were someone else with you? It would be a slightly _different_ moment. I'd be saying something else. I'd have different hair. Different hands. Different shoes. Docksiders rather than Steve Maddens.\n\n\"I digress. The circumstances of reality. You're doubtlessly wondering what I meant by that. _Well._ \"\n\nHe sniffed, smiling.\n\n\"Each of you is, at present, lying kinda sorta dead on the side of a coastal road. This is due to a recent head-on collision with one Mr. Howard Heyward, age fifty-eight, of two hundred eighty-one Admiral Road, South Kingstown, who was driving a Chevrolet Kodiak tow truck. Time is standing still. It has become trapped inside an eighth of a second like a luna moth inside a mason jar. There is a way out, of course. There is one means by which the moth can escape and time can fly irrevocably free. Each of you must vote during the last three minutes of every wake. You must choose the single person among you who will survive. This person will return to life. The remainder of you will move on to true death, a state permanent yet wholly unknown. The decision must be unanimous, save one dissenter. There can be only one who lives. There are no exceptions. Do you have questions?\"\n\nNo one said a word.\n\nAll I could think was that he was senile after all. He also seemed to have once been an actor, because he had intoned his speech like the baritone narrator of some old 1950s TV Western starring John Wayne, his voice lilting, old-fashioned, and grand. There was an effortlessness to his every word, as if he'd given this memorized speech dozens of times before.\n\nHe was waiting for one of us to say something.\n\nKipling started to clap. \"Bravo.\"\n\n\"Hold on,\" said Martha, scowling. \"Is he selling Bibles?\"\n\n\"What do you want?\" demanded Cannon.\n\nThe man shrugged. \"I am a simple resource. I desire no compensation, monetary or otherwise. Nonetheless, I wish for you to succeed.\"\n\n\"Succeed at what?\" asked Whitley.\n\n\"The vote.\"\n\n\"Listen,\" said Cannon. \"It's been a long night. Tell us what you want.\"\n\n\"It appears my delivery was a bit rushed for your comprehension. Would you like the news a different way? Dramatic reenactment? Flash cards? A second language? Italian tends to soften the blow of even the most ominous prognosis, which was why Dante used it for the _Inferno._ \" He cleared his throat. _\"Buonasera. Tra la vita e la morte, il tempo \u00e8 diventato congelato\u2014\"_\n\n\"That's enough,\" snapped Cannon. \"Get the hell off this porch.\"\n\nThe man was unfazed. He smiled, revealing small gray teeth.\n\n\"Very well. Good luck to you all. Godspeed.\"\n\nHe hopped nimbly down the steps, striding out to the driveway. Within seconds he was drenched and vanishing into the yard beyond the lights. We listened to his footsteps sloshing through the grass.\n\n\"My brain just exploded,\" said Martha.\n\n\"Worst door-to-door salesman _ever,_ \" said Kip, shaking his head. \"I think he learned his sales techniques from Monty Python. What did he call us?\"\n\n\"Dead,\" I whispered.\n\n\"Right. I've been called many things. Deadhead. Dead _beat._ Never just plain old dead. Has a sort of bleak ring to it.\"\n\n\"He's a Jesus freak,\" said Whitley, nibbling her fingernail. \"Right? In some cult? Should I call the police? There may be others out there. They might be waiting to break in here and slaughter us or something.\"\n\n\"He's harmless,\" mumbled Cannon. Yet he seemed unnerved. Scowling out at the empty driveway, he suddenly seized an umbrella and barreled outside just as another monstrous clap of thunder exploded and the rain fell harder. He stomped into the yard, looking around, disappearing in the same spot as the old man.\n\nWe waited in silence, apprehensive.\n\nA minute later, Cannon reappeared.\n\n\"Must have headed back to the road. No sign of him.\"\n\n\"Let's check the security cameras,\" said Whitley.\n\nThey headed downstairs to the surveillance room, and Kip and Martha\u2014muttering about needing \"a stiff drink before the ensuing elderly zombie apocalypse\"\u2014shuffled back into the living room.\n\nI remained where I was, staring outside.\n\nThere had been something legitimately upsetting about the old man. All the eloquence, the formal speech, the accent\u2014at once like a cable newscaster's and someone who'd spent a year abroad in England\u2014seemed only to conceal a deep calculation. As if what he had told us were only one small piece of a grand plan.\n\nI watched the woods, searching for movement, trying to steady my drunken head.\n\nSuddenly, music erupted from inside, overlaying the storm with a soundtrack, softening the night's edge. With a deep breath, I shut the door and bolted it. Whitley was right. He was probably just looking to recruit people for his church.\n\nStill, I walked past Kip and Martha, curled up stroking Gandalf on the couch, and took out my phone, stepping into the hall. My mom answered on the first ring.\n\n\"Bee? Is everything all right?\"\n\nI could tell from her anxious tone that she and my dad were both still awake, doubtlessly reading in bed: Dad, one of his thirty-pound presidential biographies, Mom _trying_ to read a thriller by James Patterson, though she'd probably been skimming the same paragraph four, five times before blurting \"I don't understand why she had to go see them. They still have some mysterious hold on her.\" Then Dad, with the patient, knowing stare over his glasses: \"If she wants to see them she can, Victoria. She's an adult. She's stronger than you give her credit for.\"\n\nI realized I had no idea why I was calling, except to hear her voice.\n\n\"It's too late to drive back, so I'm spending the night,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, your father needs you at the Crow for opening. Sleepy Sam called to say he's having a tooth pulled.\"\n\n\"I'll be there.\"\n\nShe lowered her voice: \"How's it going with them? Can you talk? You sound upset.\"\n\n\"Everything's fine. I love you.\"\n\n\"We love you too, Bumble. We're here if you need us.\"\n\nI hung up, just as Whitley and Cannon were returning from the surveillance room.\n\n\"No sign of him on the cameras,\" said Cannon.\n\n\"He's gone,\" she said.\n\n\"This night gets an A-plus in weird,\" slurred Martha.\n\n\"Wasn't it hilarious how he asked to be called the Keeper?\" said Kip, shaking his head. \"The man looked like more of an Eastern European Santa Claus.\"\n\nWhitley wrinkled her nose. \"That was my Internet password for everything for _years._ I'm not even kidding. The keeper one-two-three.\"\n\nIn the end, the consensus was he was Just One of Those Things, one of life's untied shoelaces. As the thunderstorm raged on, however, lightning cracking and thunder yowling, at one point a giant oak branch crashed onto the back deck, demolishing the entire railing.\n\nWe jumped, staring at each other, doubtlessly imagining the same thing: here it was, the beginning of the horror to which that funny old man had been the creepy prelude.\n\nOnly nothing happened.\n\nAnother hour passed. Whitley talked about being sexually harassed by her boss at the San Francisco law firm where she'd had an internship all summer. Cannon couldn't tell if he was in love with his girlfriend, an international fencing champion.\n\n\"Love is this elusive bird,\" he said. \"You're the lifelong bird-watcher, looking for this rare red-plumed quail people spend entire lives trying to see for three seconds in a cherry tree on a mountaintop in Japan.\"\n\n\"You're mistaking love for perfection,\" I said. \"Real love when it's there? It's just _there._ It's a metal folding chair.\"\n\nWhen no one said anything, I realized, embarrassed, I'd blurted this as a clumsy way to bring up Jim. And I was about to. Then Whitley got up to get more Royal Salute, and Kipling muttered that he hadn't been this wasted since he was nine, and the moment was gone.\n\n\"I'll tell you what love is,\" said Martha, gazing at the ceiling. \"It's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Once you think it's there and give voice to it? It's not there anymore. It's over here. Then way over _here._ Then here. You can't trap it or contain it no matter how hard you try.\"\n\nIt was the first time I'd ever heard Martha speak in such a way\u2014the first time for the others too, if their surprised glances were any indication. Being allergic to romance was her shtick. If ever you asked her whom she had a crush on, she'd blink at you like you had three heads: \"Why would I waste _time_ \u2014a highly precious, constantly diminishing resource\u2014on transitory neurological fluctuations of adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin?\" When she saw couples holding hands in the halls, she gave them a cartoonishly wide berth.\n\n\"In case they're contagious,\" she said. And she wasn't joking.\n\nThe conversation meandered on as rain peppered the windows.\n\nAt one point Kip started calling me Sister Bee again, which made Cannon blurt that I was the one person at school no one, not a teacher or student, a parent, a maintenance worker, or even an _ant,_ could ever say anything bad about.\n\n\"And your nice isn't even irritating,\" said Cannon.\n\n\"Remember how in biology,\" said Kip, smirking, \"Bee didn't even tell Mr. Jetty that Chad Burman had just thrown up his entire lunch all over the back of her blouse? She just sat there heroically answering his question about osmosis and then excused herself.\"\n\n\"And the field trip to D.C. when Mr. Miller had to go home to his pregnant wife, and rather than summon another teacher from campus to chaperone, Ms. Guild just asked _Bee._ \"\n\nThey cackled with laughter.\n\n\"It wasn't that big a deal,\" I said.\n\nDuring this conversation, Whitley remained tellingly silent, a smug expression on her face as she stared at the floor, as if she begged to differ, as if she wanted to laugh.\n\n_When is it coming?_ I wondered with a shiver. _The conversation about Jim?_\n\nThe absent leader. The sixth member. The killed one.\n\nWeren't they dying to talk about him? Jim, whose shadow stretched behind him long and dark, as captivating dead as he was when he was alive. Jim the poet. Jim the prince.\n\nOf course they were thinking about him. How could they not?\n\nYet it seemed he was the locked shed on the forsaken property everyone was too scared to approach, much less peer inside all the filthy windows.\n\nNot long after, I passed out. When I woke up, peeling my cheek from the couch cushions, Whitley and Cannon were asleep under a blanket in front of the fireplace. Kip was snoring on the love seat. Only Martha was awake. She appeared to have sobered up and was sitting across the room in a club chair, reading with her chin in her hand.\n\n\"Hey,\" I croaked, rubbing my eyes. \"What time is it?\"\n\n\"Four-fifteen.\"\n\nIt was still dark out, and still raining.\n\n\"Can't sleep,\" Martha said with a wan smile. \"It's that old man. I feel like he's still out there.\"\n\nHer remark made me glance out the windows, shivering.\n\nWhitley had turned on every light, and I could see the giant fallen branch, the gardens and pool, the stone path leading down to the dock.\n\n\"I'm sure it's fine,\" I whispered.\n\nWe went on talking, though eventually the silences between our words stretched out farther and farther, like the distance between a final chain of tiny islands before the open sea.\n\nMartha and I had never been close, though by rights we should have been. As the only scholarship kids at Darrow, we were two rescue mutts of humble bloodlines and skittish temperaments thrown into a kennel of world-class purebreds.\n\nShe'd attended Darrow on a physics scholarship established by a genius alumnus who'd worked on the God Particle. She'd been the first winner in twenty-eight years. Valedictorian of our class, she went to MIT on a full ride for mathematical engineering.\n\nShe'd been raised in South Philadelphia by a single dad, and her family was even poorer than mine. I never met her dad, though Cannon once said he owned a gas station and went by the nickname Mickey Peanuts. Jim told me Martha had had a considerably older sister who'd died of a drug overdose, and that death was the reason Martha's mother left. But Martha never mentioned a sister, and any talk of her mom was in connection with a single trip to Alaska she'd taken when she was ten.\n\nI'd spent hours in her company, yet I couldn't tell you who or what Martha ever loved beyond this weird underground fantasy novel called _The Bend._ The book was why she wallpapered her dorm room with mysterious posters of steam trains and scoured Reddit forums for other megafans, known as Benders. She even dressed up\u2014with a surprising lack of embarrassment\u2014once in a top hat and spectacles, or a gray barrister's wig\u2014to celebrate the apparent birthdays of the characters. She always kept a copy of the book at the bottom of her backpack, pulling out the doorstop of a thousand torn-up pages\u2014crudely Xeroxed, bound with frayed twine\u2014at the start of class, reading, it seemed, to avoid talking to anyone.\n\nAt heart she was Jim's friend. They'd met when they were kids at some invitation-only camp for the gifted, housed in a nineteenth-century mansion in upstate New York called Da Vinci's Daughters and Sons. Jim was there because he'd composed an entire musical about Napoleon, which had been staged at his Manhattan private school and gotten him profiled in _New York_ magazine. Martha was there because she'd built a working airplane engine in her garage.\n\nIt was Jim who urged Martha to apply to Darrow, Jim who sought to have her around. Over the years she'd become an integral part of our group, giving every situation its deadpan punctuation or making some awkward reference to a chapter in _The Bend_ that no one understood. And yet I always suspected Jim had been her only true champion, that Cannon, Wit, and Kip accepted her the way one accepts a lifelong inconvenience, like asthma or a spouse's beloved cat. He never stopped insisting she was amazing, that one day when we were sixty we'd look back and think with disbelief, _I was friends with Martha Ziegler._\n\n\"Which will be like saying you were friends with Steve Hawking. That's how big she's gonna be.\"\n\nThe two of them had a shabby shorthand, laughing at things only they found funny, arms slung around each other's necks like old cardigans. While it didn't make me jealous per se, it could lead me to notice something Martha did\u2014heavy glance, weird remark\u2014that would set off alarm bells, and I'd entertain my long-standing suspicion that she was harboring a burning secret: she was in love with Jim. It was why she'd never liked me.\n\nI could only assume she'd been heartbroken by his death. In the aftermath\u2014the ten or so days before summer break\u2014she was glum and taciturn, scuttling out of Final Chapel ahead of the entire school like some startled attic bat. She was agitated. Dimly I recalled how she'd left school suddenly the day before I did, vanishing without saying goodbye. Whitley, ever attentive to the embarrassing things people wished to hide, couldn't stop saying, \"Something's up with Martha.\"\n\nNow here she was, staring at me with that stark telephoto stare I'd always found nerve-wracking. Whatever she had felt about Jim's death, whatever had been uprooted, was hidden now, like a pod of blue whales thundering through the depths of an ocean with a still surface.\n\nI realized that she'd just asked me a question.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I was wondering if you still made those dream soundtracks.\"\n\nShe was referring to my hobby of creating albums for movies I made up. It was just something I did. I didn't know why. As a child I'd always been painfully shy, so terrified of speaking in class, my teachers often thought I had a stutter or a hearing problem. I began crafting pocket-sized books with lyrics and hand-drawn art for movies I wished existed, like the soundtrack to a hit teen vampire movie called _Blood Academy._ Or _Dove Nova,_ the biopic of a Swedish teen pop star who vanished into thin air, her disappearance forever unsolved. There was no point to these albums. I couldn't even explain why I made them, except that I liked to imagine they were artifacts of some other world that existed beyond the one we could see, a world where I wasn't timid, and unsaid words didn't collect in my mouth like marbles, and I was brave. They were my what-ifs, my _glass menagerie,_ as Jim said.\n\nOne night freshman year during a snowstorm, the whole school was in the auditorium for Holiday Dance when the power went out. I had accidentally ripped the back of my dress, so I left Jim to run back to my dorm to change. To my surprise, I encountered Martha in the dark of the common room, reading _Pride and Prejudice_ with a flashlight, so absorbed she hadn't realized one of the windows was wide open and snow was collecting in the corner three inches thick. We ended up hanging out for two hours, just the two of us. It was the only time we ever did. For some reason, probably in the hopes of making things less uncomfortable between us, I'd shown Martha my collection of dream albums. Ever since then, when we were alone, she tended to ask about them, like they were some one-size-fits-all subject she could rely on to get me to talk. It could be a little unnerving.\n\n\"No,\" I said, feigning a yawn. \"Not really. I think I'll go find a bed upstairs.\"\n\nShe nodded, her face solemn. \"Good night, Beatrice.\"\n\nI slipped out\u2014Martha returning to her book\u2014and trudged upstairs, finding my favorite guest room at the end of the hall. I pulled back the comforter and slung myself into bed.\n\nAny other night I would have been kept awake by the memories inside that room. I was curled up under the heavy covers, same as always. The only thing missing was Jim snuggled beside me, composing lyrics by the light of his cell phone.\n\nI set my alarm for six and closed my eyes. I'd sneak out before any of them were awake.\n\nAnd that, for better or worse, would close my final chapter on Wincroft.\n\nWhen I awoke it was light out.\n\nI was freezing and covered in sweat. No, not sweat, I realized after a moment, blinking. It was rain. I was soaked because I was sitting in the backseat of the Jaguar convertible, the top still down. It had been parked, seemingly by someone very drunk, in a flower bed in the front yard of Wincroft.\n\nIt was still pouring rain. Kip and Martha were beside me, wearing confused expressions.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" Kip asked me. He was soaking wet, his eyes bloodshot. A raindrop dangled off the end of his nose. \"Where are you taking us?\"\n\nI had no clue what he was talking about. I scrambled out of the car, raced across the driveway to the mansion, and threw open the front door. I nearly collided with Whitley. She was frozen in the foyer, wearing the same outfit she'd had on last night. She surveyed me with a look so stunned, I understood immediately that something terrible had happened.\n\n\"What? What is it?\"\n\nShe only stepped past me, staring out the door, speechless.\n\nI hurried past her into kitchen. Shivering, I took inventory of my body. I felt fine. My head was clear. Yet somehow I'd overslept. I wasn't going to make it to the Crow by opening. My parents would be scrambling to keep up with the morning crowd, then lunch, and my dad would be so strapped he'd forget to tell people about the specials, and my mom would use this as an excuse to say they didn't need specials anymore, they were too expensive, which was sometimes enough of a spark to make them start arguing, which they rarely did.\n\nCannon was standing at the kitchen island typing on his open laptop.\n\n\"See, look!\" he shouted over his shoulder, seemingly believing I was Whitley. \" _New York Times._ It's the exact same thing.\"\n\nI stepped beside him. He was amped, like he'd had about six cups of coffee.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"What is it?\" he mocked, turning to me. He grabbed my head, directing it at the screen.\n\n\" 'Senate Pushes for New Immigration Initiative,' \" I read.\n\n\"The _date,_ \" he snapped.\n\n\"Friday, August thirtieth. So?\"\n\n\"So? _So?_ It's yesterday.\"\n\nScowling, he was tapping the keyboard, loading CNN.\n\n\"CNN. _The Post. Time._ All of them say the same thing.\"\n\nHe shoved his iPhone into my hands. I blinked stupidly down at the date overlaying a photo of what had to be his fencing-champion girlfriend.\n\nHe was right. _August 30. 5:34 p.m._\n\nThere had to be an error with the International Date Line. Terrorists had hacked the network. As if reading my mind, he held up his wristwatch, the hour and minute hands set to 5:35, the date turned to 30.\n\n\"How could hackers get into my TAG Heuer?\"\n\nI could only stare.\n\nAt that moment, his phone rang. Someone named Alexandra. He snatched the phone.\n\n\"Alex. Hold on. Now, wait a\u2014wait a\u2014 Tell me what day and time it is. The date and time. I'll explain in a sec\u2014would you tell me the goddamn _date_? I'm not asking you to recite the Declaration of\u2014 WOULD YOU PLEASE JUST SHUT UP AND TELL ME\u2014\"\n\nWhatever Alex's confused response was, Cannon furiously hurled the phone at the sliding glass doors. He collapsed on the couch, staring wild-eyed at the floor. I hurried to my purse and dug out my phone, which was actually pretty strange because the last time I'd seen it, it'd been upstairs.\n\nMy phone read the same thing. _August 30._ With a shiver of panic, I dialed my mom.\n\n\"Hi, Bumble\u2014\"\n\n\"Mom. _Mom?_ Where are you?\"\n\n\"On our way to the Dreamland to see _His Girl Friday._ What's the matter?\"\n\n\"You didn't see the movie yesterday?\"\n\n\"Yesterday?\"\n\n\"Mom, what day is it?\"\n\n\"What? Why are you shouting?\"\n\n\"What's the date?\"\n\n\"It's\u2014it's Friday, August thirtieth.\"\n\n\"Are you positive?\"\n\n\"I'm looking at the dashboard right now.\"\n\n\"It's the thirtieth,\" I heard my dad chime in.\n\n\"Mom, I called you last night, remember?\"\n\n\"Last night? What?\"\n\n\"Last night I called, and said I was spending the night at Wincroft, and you asked me to be in for opening because Sleepy Sam was getting a tooth pulled.\"\n\n\"Sam is out tomorrow? He called _you_? Sam is out tomorrow,\" she told my dad.\n\n\"He called Bee, after we've made sure he has our number about nineteen times?\"\n\n\"Bee, what's going on up there? Is it awful? Why don't we come get you?\"\n\nI hung up, blood rushing in my ears.\n\nMy mom called back, but I was too shaken to answer.\n\nI sat on the couch, trying to calm down. This had to be some kind of lucid dream. I willed myself to wake up. _Wake up._ After a moment, I realized Kip and Martha had drifted inside. They were standing stiffly with stricken expressions, like they'd just woken up from sleepwalking. Whitley had stepped back into the kitchen, her every gesture slow, as if pretending to walk on the moon.\n\n\"Y'all?\" whispered Kip, his voice scarcely audible. \"Was there an earthquake? Or some end-of-days world event we're just finding out about?\"\n\nThat was when the doorbell rang.\n\nI didn't wait for the others. I jumped off the couch, sprinting past Kip and Martha, and yanked open the front door.\n\n\"Perhaps this time I'll be invited in for tea,\" said the old man.\n\n\"The first thing you must do is stay calm,\" said the Keeper. \"Panic will get you nowhere.\"\n\nHe was making tea.\n\nHe had asked for tea when he'd strolled inside, and as we were all too alarmed to react to what he was saying, he had, incredibly, started making it for himself. He filled the kettle, turned on the gas stove, and grabbed a mug from the cabinet, as if he had visited this house many times before.\n\n\"If it's any reassurance, remember one thing,\" he continued, his fingers nimbly straightening his dark blue silk tie. It caught the overhead light, and I saw it had a discernable pattern of stags identical to the stag presiding over the entrance to Darrow.\n\n\"Others have gone through the Neverworld before you. Many more will after. Hundreds of millions of others will expire never having had the opportunity that each of you has. So you must look at this as a gift. A chance to change history, for your choice of who will live will affect billions of moments barreling into the future for infinity. In other words, there is a precedent, and you aren't alone. You must rely on each other. Each of you is a key, the others your locks. This isn't a nightmare, and it isn't a dream. It's a crack you will continue to fall through until you vote. The sooner you accept where you are, the sooner you will all escape.\"\n\nThe old man here, _again,_ wearing the same dark suit, speaking in the same grand voice, was so incongruous and strange, none of us could really pay attention to anything he was saying. Whitley and Kip were standing by the kitchen island, staring openmouthed at him, as if he were a poltergeist. Martha was on the couch, stone-faced, her feet planted like she felt faint. I was doing my best to follow what he said, in case there was some clue that might reveal who he actually was. Yet all the while my mind was screaming, _It's a prank. It's a prank._ It had to be. Somebody\u2014international terrorists, hackers from Anonymous or some other group\u2014was playing a cruelly ingenious trick.\n\nI noticed Cannon had disappeared upstairs. Now he reappeared, hauling his duffel.\n\n\"I'm out,\" he announced.\n\n\"What?\" asked Whitley, alarmed. \"Where are you going?\"\n\n\"Airport.\"\n\n\"But it's yesterday,\" said Kip.\n\n\"No, it's not. Of course it's not. Yeah, we can't explain it, but there is an explanation. I'm sure the physics department at Harvard is working on this as we speak.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid the physics department at Harvard is ignorant of your plight,\" interjected the Keeper, wringing out the tea bag on a spoon. \"They've got their hands quite full trying to solve quantum gravity. Specifically, the vacuum catastrophe.\"\n\nCannon surveyed him coldly. \"I'm going home.\"\n\n\"To do what?\" asked Kip. \"Complain? 'Ma? Uh, today's kinda yesterday'?\"\n\nCannon shrugged. \"I'll be damned if I'm staying here with him.\"\n\nHe left. We listened to the front door slam. Then, suddenly, Whitley was scrambling after him. And Kipling. Martha too. They were all moving, running away as if they'd just learned the old man was wearing explosives. They grabbed car keys, handbags, sweatshirts, phones. I didn't want to be left alone with him, so I grabbed my bag and ran out into the downpour too. They were sprinting to their cars, engines roaring to life, windshield wipers flying. By the time I'd started the Dodge truck and reversed, all four cars were gone.\n\nThe Keeper had walked out onto the front steps. He took a sip of his tea.\n\nThe reality of the situation, that we were just leaving him there in the house, a complete stranger, was too wild to fathom.\n\n\"Don't worry!\" he shouted cheerfully at me over the rain. \"I promise not to steal the silver.\"\n\nI floored the gas. As I roared down the driveway, I had the acute feeling of being chased. Yet, rounding another bend, I saw no one behind me. When I took a final glance back at Wincroft, the red brick mansion sinking behind the hill, even the Keeper appeared to be gone.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nIt began to get dark. The rain was relentless, the sky black and blue. As soon as I'd gone a few miles, peering in at every driver to make sure they were alive and not ghosts, aliens, or zombies (most doing double takes, wondering what my problem was), I began to relax. All the drivers looked human, alive, and ordinary, chewing gum, fiddling with the radio, utterly at ease with what day it was, what time it was.\n\nEverything was normal.\n\nI called my mom again.\n\n\"Bee?\"\n\n\"Where are you?\"\n\n\"In the movie. What's going on? You scared us, the way you sounded before\u2014\"\n\nI drove straight to the Dreamland in Westerly. My parents were waiting outside, ashen. I parked in the fire lane, leaving the engine running. I wrenched the door and ran, throwing my arms around them.\n\nThey were real. I wasn't dreaming. It was going to be all right.\n\nMy mom was distraught. \"You're never speaking to any of those people again\u2014\"\n\n\"Victoria,\" admonished my dad.\n\n\"What? _Look_ at her. She's completely undone. We're not going through this again. No. Those kids are rotten. Spoiled. They'll live their entire lives without ever turning around to see the mess they've made, Mommy and Daddy always running after them with a maid and a checkbook.\"\n\n\"They're just kids.\"\n\n\" _Just kids_ left our daughter barely able to eat or sleep for two months, if you remember.\"\n\n\"That was shock. And grief.\"\n\nI was crying, but of course they couldn't understand the real reason, that it was relief. The day that had already happened\u2014whatever it was\u2014hadn't been real.\n\n_This was real._\n\nI managed to calm my parents down, and we went to dinner at the Shakedown. We talked with Artie, who gave us free apple pie. We strolled along the boardwalk and talked about the umpteenth offer from developers who told my dad he had to sell the Captain's Crow so they could build condos. Though my parents were alarmed, not just by my abrupt appearance, but by the uncharacteristic gusto with which I was approaching spending an evening with them\u2014something I had done with relative apathy all summer\u2014they said nothing. They pretended they believed my excuse for abruptly leaving Wincroft: \"I had to get out of there. We've all outgrown each other, you know?\"\n\nThey also humored my manic need to keep the night going, to walk a little farther down the boardwalk, to stare in at every sailboat painting in every window of every art gallery, to walk out to the old swings on the beach where someone had spray-painted on the wall LIFE IS BUT A DREAM, thereby postponing the inevitability of driving home and going to bed.\n\nI was afraid to sleep, because the glaring fact that _I had already lived this day_ nagged like a bad pop song that wouldn't leave my head.\n\nWe got home just after midnight. Dad drove the Dodge RAM as I said I was too tired, though the real reason was I was scared to be alone in the car. We filed into the house, my dad yawning. My mom loaded the dishwasher.\n\n\"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?\" I asked her.\n\n\"Of course.\" She smiled, though I could tell the question worried her. The last time I'd asked her to do that, it was just after Jim died.\n\nShe sat on my bed as we talked about changing the menu at the Crow, the community vote to tear down a drawbridge. I knew she wanted to ask me about them, my old friends, what had happened tonight, but thought better of it.\n\nAt one point she stood up to inspect the white daisy wallpaper of my room.\n\n\"I can't believe it. Your dad said he fixed this.\"\n\nShe scratched at a seam in the corner, tugging the edge. A large chunk immediately peeled from the wall.\n\n\"Are you _kidding_ me? There's actually mold here.\"\n\n\"It's a sign you and Dad should sell the Crow and retire to Florida.\"\n\nShe crossed her arms. \"Do I look like someone who wears a visor?\"\n\nI began to feel heavy sleep falling over me. She said something about my dad's bad back, how it was hurting him more than he let on. I held her hand as I passed out.\n\nMy mom's hand was real. What had come before was not. So a day had decided to repeat itself. _Is it really that big a deal?_\n\nWhat lies the mind will tell to keep you safe.\n\nThe mind does its best to lessen the impact of any catastrophe. It really tries its best. But then the distance between reality and woven fantasy becomes too great for even the mind to bear. All those words of calm and relief, the hope that everything will be all right in the end, can't help stretching and tearing and fading to nothing.\n\nThen you wake up screaming.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nI woke up in the downpour in the backseat of the Jaguar, Martha and Kipling beside me again. When I sprinted away from them into the house, I was shaking so badly I had to sit on the couch, feet apart, hands on my knees, trying not to hyperventilate.\n\nI was here again. I was back at Wincroft. At least I was alive.\n\nBut was this life?\n\nGandalf was running in circles around the living room, barking.\n\n\"No. No. No!\" shouted Cannon.\n\nHe was at the kitchen island typing on his laptop again, though\u2014undoubtedly after seeing that the date was the same\u2014he slammed it closed and threw it across the room.\n\nI realized dazedly, glancing up, that Whitley was outside, in the throes of one of her rages. Completely soaked, she was pulling the white umbrellas out of the patio tables and launching them over the railing.\n\nHer temper had been legendary at Darrow.\n\n\"Psychotic fits,\" the cattier girls used to hiss.\n\nI'd always found it enviable\u2014that Whitley could be so beautiful and smart, and on top of that so unconcerned about causing a scene or curbing her biblical emotions. It seemed unfairly glamorous, like she was the untamable heroine of a Victorian novel. (Even the oft-gossiped-about phrase around school\u2014 _Lansing's temper_ \u2014sounded gorgeously bygone, like the name of an exotic illness with no cure.) To be so wild\u2014it was how I longed to be. Wit surged into battle. I froze. Whitley threw her head back and screamed. I was mute. Her rages were Olympian, five-star, multiplatinum. They came from some boiling place inside her not even she could explain. Face flushed, eyes flashing, she'd demolish her dorm room, rip pages from every textbook, punch walls, overturn tables, tell off a teacher with zero care for tact, mercy, or an aftermath. It always seemed to me in those moments that Whitley was witnessing some alternative world invisible to the rest of us, something ugly and so vast it couldn't be fit into the English language.\n\nHer rages got her sent to the infirmary. They would have gotten her kicked out if it weren't for her mom, the Linda, CEO of the pharmaceutical group Lansing Drugs, flying in from St. Louis in her fat mink to smooth everything over, which meant funding another wing for the library. It was the reason Whitley got special permission to leave school to go see a psychologist up in Newport. Whenever a fit happened, I'd always run to her side and hold on to her, like some astronaut trying to make sure my colleague didn't float out into space.\n\nNow, as I watched her seize a deck chair and throw it over the railing screaming, I could only observe her blankly, unable to move. I couldn't help her. I couldn't help myself.\n\nKipling and Martha had wandered in and were looking around the kitchen like people visiting their property after a tornado.\n\n\"We have to call someone,\" Kipling said, his voice shaking. \"The FBI. The CIA?\"\n\n\"And say what?\" asked Martha, turning to him. \"Time has become a broken record?\"\n\n\"There've got to be others going through this. It's a national emergency.\"\n\n\"I'm sure Anderson Cooper's all over it,\" muttered Cannon. He was on the floor, hands linked around his neck like he was in a bomb shelter. \" 'Today. A new kind of breaking news. Yesterday is today. _Again._ More on this story as it never develops. Tweet us your experiences with hashtag Groundhog Day is real.' \"\n\nKipling grabbed the remote and turned on the TV, flipping through channels, every one yelping something normal. _Coming up, we'll show you how to make a three-minute omelet. Keeps whites white and colors brand-new._\n\nThe doorbell rang.\n\nNo one moved.\n\nWithin seconds the Keeper had strolled inside, a sympathetic, even grandfatherly look on his face. There was something insidious about him now: same suit, same tie. I felt like I was going to be sick.\n\n\"This will be the worst of it,\" he said. \"It's the second wake that feels the most catastrophic.\"\n\n\"Tell us what to do,\" said Martha.\n\n\"I did. Take the vote.\"\n\n_Take the vote._ As if it were just a matter of making a left turn rather than a right.\n\nWhitley must have spotted the old man from outside, because suddenly she heaved the sliding door open and stood in the doorway, panting and scowling at him, gusts of rain blasting around her like a storm scene in an old movie. Before anyone could stop her, she was sprinting inside. She grabbed a Chinese vase off a table and slung it at the old man's head.\n\nHe crumpled to the floor. Cannon ran to Whitley, but she brutally elbowed him off, grabbing the Keeper by his necktie and forcing him into a chair. Then she was barreling into the kitchen, pulling open drawers, tossing pots, ladles, cooking spoons to the floor.\n\n\"The cycle of violence is actually a pointless denial of reality,\" said the Keeper, holding his head.\n\nWhitley was back in front of him with cooking twine, brutally tying up his wrists, brandishing a fourteen-inch carving knife inches from his jaw as she sliced the string. Crouching, teeth gritted, she moved to his ankles. The Keeper didn't protest, only watching her, bemused, like a father when his four-year-old decides to bury him alive at the beach.\n\nShe dragged a stool over and sat in front of him, brushing her hair out of her eyes.\n\n\"Start talking.\"\n\n\"About what?\" asked the Keeper.\n\nShe smacked him hard across the cheek.\n\n\"Whitley,\" reproached Cannon.\n\n\"Tell us who did this and how we get out of here.\"\n\nThe Keeper closed his eyes. \"I've already told you. The vote. As for _who_? There is an infinite number of possibilities. The universe, God, the Absolute, the Supreme Being, He Who Actually Is, Adonai, Ahura Mazda\u2014\"\n\nShe slapped him again.\n\n\"Wit,\" whispered Kipling. \"You think it's wise to go all Tarantino on this poor man?\"\n\n\"He's not poor. He's toying with us.\"\n\nShe slapped him again. The Keeper remained unperturbed, blood trickling from his nose. I started to cry. And yet I made no attempt to stop her. None of us did. We stood there, frozen, all doubtlessly wondering\u2014terrible as it was to admit\u2014if hurting the Keeper might reveal something, something that would end this. He'd confess it was an elaborate game; the curtain would fall, scenery crashing. We'd laugh. _How hilarious. You really had me going there._ I also couldn't help hoping that, as with so many nightmares I'd had as a child, if things became sufficiently strange, the dream would at last puncture and I'd wake up.\n\nWhitley hit him again.\n\n\"The final three minutes of every wake you will each vote for the single person among you who will survive\u2014\"\n\n\"Why only one?\" asked Martha sharply, stepping beside Whitley.\n\n\"I can't explain the whys and hows of the Neverworld. They were determined by you.\"\n\n\"But if time has stopped,\" asked Cannon, \"why can we return to our normal lives?\"\n\n\"Only for eleven point two hours. Six hundred and seventy-two minutes. The length of your wake. For Cannon and Whitley it's six hundred and seventy-five. At the end of that time, you will all wake up in the Neverworld again, as surely as Cinderella's stagecoach turns back into a pumpkin. Even though your accident produced a snag in the space-time fabric, a crinkle in the cloth, the present world hasn't disappeared. It remains alive all around you, a bullet left in the gun chamber.\"\n\n\"What is the significance of our arrival time in the wake?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"The beginning and end of a wake are based on an infinite number of factors, including violent impact, strength of connection, and random chance.\"\n\nWhitley, seemingly unable to hear another word, flung down the knife. She seized her phone off the kitchen island and had a curt, unintelligible conversation before hanging up, shoving her feet into her Converse sneakers.\n\n\"What are you doing now?\" asked Cannon.\n\n\"Driving to T. F. Green.\"\n\nIt was the airport for private jets outside Providence.\n\n\"I booked the jet to Hawaii. We're leaving in an hour. Let's go.\"\n\n\"Won't change a thing, I'm afraid,\" said the Keeper.\n\nShe glared at him. \"We will be in a plane thirty-six thousand feet over the Pacific Ocean at the end of the\u2014what did you call it, the _wake_? What's going to happen? We just vanish out of our seats like some Willy Wonka magic trick?\"\n\n\"You'll see,\" said the Keeper.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nEveryone went with Whitley except me.\n\nI couldn't. I was too devastated, too scared to move so far away from my parents, to be trapped in a box in the sky with them.\n\n_Them._\n\nThey were _them_ to me too now. I wasn't one of them, not anymore. If this situation had made anything clear, it was that: that the very people I'd once loved and trusted most in the world had become total strangers.\n\nWhat had I done to deserve this? To end up in hell with _them_?\n\nI couldn't think about it. No, I couldn't let my mind move ahead. It had to stay on a tight leash tied to this moment. It was all I could handle.\n\nI watched them pile with varying degrees of conviction into Cannon's Jeep. It was obvious that they suspected Whitley's plan, an impetuous flight westward to a tropical island, was futile. Yet they went ahead. For a show of solidarity? Some last, vain hope that it might actually work, that the Linda's Gulfstream V tearing through the pink cotton-candy clouds with its beige calfskin seats and trays of fanned-out mango slices would be the loophole, the wormhole, the Get Out of Jail Free card to puncture this nightmare?\n\nI stumbled down the steps, barely aware of the rain drenching me as I climbed into the truck. As I backed out, I saw that the Keeper had managed to free himself from Whitley's knots. Once again he was at the entrance, his face bloody and red, Gandalf at his side, as if the dog had always belonged to him.\n\nThis time the old man didn't utter a word. He didn't have to. His smile at me as I drove past him said it all.\n\n_See you later._\n\nYou can't stay awake.\n\nWe tried that. No matter how many cups of coffee or how many cans of Red Bull or Monster energy drinks you down, no matter how many caffeine pills or how much ginseng you take, your body gets pulled into the heaviest hollow of sleep you've ever felt in your life. The next thing you know, you're right back where you started.\n\nBack at the wake.\n\nYou can't kill yourself either.\n\nKip tried that. He hanged himself with one of E.S.S. Burt's belts in an upstairs bedroom. I didn't see him. Martha told me. The next wake, as usual, he was right beside me in the backseat of the Jaguar, a healthy color, no black-and-blue marks around his neck, no swollen face.\n\nLike nothing had happened.\n\n\"We're immortal,\" said Cannon. \"We should take over the White House.\"\n\n\"In eleven point two hours?\" said Martha. \"That's not enough time to drive to Chicago, much less rule the free world.\"\n\nTell your parents. Call the police. Have the Keeper arrested. Call a shrink. Check into the psych ward of Butler Hospital and ask the attending physician to make tomorrow arrive, please. Confess to a priest. Tell a bus driver, a cabdriver, the tired waitress at the twenty-four-hour diner who's seen it all, the bent-over elderly woman in the frozen foods section of Price Rite buying a shocking number of pepperoni Hot Pockets, the man in the leather jacket browsing engagement rings at Kmart. Read the two hundred and fifty-two books in the science section of the Warwick public library, and a zillion textbooks on Google Books, trying to determine if ever in the history of the world some sage like Copernicus, Aristotle, Darwin, or Hawking has ever written or even hinted about such a thing as errors in time, cosmic waiting rooms, lethal lotteries in limbo, human terrariums in hell.\n\n\"What's the subject you're searching for again?\" the librarian asked me.\n\n\"It's called a Neverworld.\"\n\nShe typed on the keyboard, shaking her head.\n\n\"Nothing comes up in the Library of Congress.\"\n\nWe tried every one of these things in the beginning.\n\nEvery time, we woke up in the exact same place, exact same time. We were songs on repeat, flies in a mason jar, echoing screams in a canyon that could not fade.\n\nThe ongoing experience of Recurring goes against the very heart of being human, and it is\u2014I will tell you this without flinching\u2014unbearable. The mind rages trying to disprove it. When it can't, the brain breaks down with shocking ease. The psyche is fragile. It is a child's sand castle in an incoming tide. Never before had I understood how little control we had over our world, or really anything except our own actions, and now my little life didn't even belong to me. We were helpless passengers strapped inside a spaceship circling Mars. The sun, the sky, the stars\u2014how long did I stare at them, lying on the deck chair by the pool in the pouring rain, wishing I could just be them, a collection of gas and fire? I'd even take a beetle, a blade of grass, anything, so long as it was outside the Neverworld.\n\n\"Take the vote,\" urged the Keeper. \"Just take the vote.\"\n\nWe took the vote. Of course we did.\n\nWe voted for the first time early in our arrival in the Neverworld. Twilight Zone. Purgatory. Doomed-Fate- _Survivor_ -Homeroom- _Freaky-Friday_ Bullshit. We called it all kinds of names, as if insulting the unknown forces keeping us here would make them change their minds.\n\nWe assembled in Wincroft's library like colorful characters in the final pages of a murder mystery waiting for the genius detective to unmask the killer. We sat in club chairs. Whitley served champagne. We wrote the name of our chosen survivor on a scrap piece of paper, the Keeper collecting them.\n\n\"There is no consensus,\" he announced.\n\nThe second time we voted, we each gave a speech beforehand in an attempt to persuade the others why we deserved life and not the others. We were defense attorneys in a courtroom speaking to a jury of the prosecutors, a circular setup of justice that would never work. The speeches ranged from altruistic (Cannon) to woodenly scientific (Martha) to childish and tone-deaf (Whitley, revealing a charitable streak she'd never had before, announcing she'd supply the entire continent of Africa with clean water). Kipling, when he stood up to speak, fell over, he was so drunk.\n\n\"You should vote for me because you _shouldn't_ vote for me,\" he said. \"I'm a mediocre, fucked-up shithead.\"\n\nI spoke last.\n\nAll I said was that I was an ordinary girl destined for an ordinary life, but they could vote for me because I'd make it my aim to do small acts of kindness every day.\n\nAs I said it, I was acutely aware that I sounded as disingenuous and desperate as they all did. Even worse, none of them were listening. They watched me, sure, but their attention was buried under the weight of their fates, fastidiously, hungrily inspecting it like Gollum inspecting the Ring, wondering if the Neverworld was real.\n\nI couldn't blame them. I was a blubbering mess too. Rarely had I passed the eleven point two hours without bawling as I drove to Westerly to see my parents at the Dreamland, usually just observing them without their knowledge, because to actually spend time with them made me sob uncontrollably the next wake. I'd tried explaining to them what was happening.\n\n\"I've been in a car accident, and I might die, and this limbo is called the Neverworld Wake according to this weird old man who won't leave us alone.\"\n\nThey always listened. Yet I could see that the only real feeling they had was devastation, believing that Jim's death had messed me up even more than they'd realized and I needed twenty-four-hour psychiatric care. So I'd gotten in the habit of sitting in the theater, unseen, a few rows behind them, beside this massively fat guy in a Brooklyn Book Drop T-shirt. I always smiled at him, thinking: _Do you realize how lucky you are? You have a tomorrow._ I ate popcorn, watched _His Girl Friday,_ and snuck out before the lights came on.\n\nThe result of that vote was no different.\n\n\"There is no consensus,\" said the Keeper.\n\nWe all voted for ourselves. I couldn't foresee a time when we wouldn't. It was all we had to keep us going: the possibility, however remote, of getting out of here, of getting back to life.\n\nAnd all the while the Keeper watched us.\n\nHe was still there, appearing when least expected. Sometimes he came inside and made tea. Sometimes he worked on the Wincroft grounds as a gardener, wearing a black hooded slicker. In spite of the rain\u2014which would, during some wakes, turn impossibly to snow, temperature dropping, swirls of snowflakes spinning like miniature tornadoes through the air\u2014the Keeper trimmed vines, rosebushes, ivy, and privet, the wisteria and lilac knotting the trellis. He swept the stone paths and hoed flowerbeds. He stood atop a green ladder and cleared dead leaves from the gutters, wiped the glass panes clean on lanterns and lamps. He removed lichen from the wings of the crow gargoyles silently cawing.\n\nOther times he could be spotted from a distance, a faceless silhouetted trespasser hurrying across the lawn and into the woods, as if taking a shortcut through Wincroft on his way somewhere else, somewhere unknown.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nI don't know how long we'd been in the Neverworld when we had the fight.\n\nTime was vague here. It miraged and optical-illusioned the more you tried to look back on it, or fit it into a traditional monthly calendar. On close inspection, the hours were real. But if we tried to add them up into some larger understanding of the passage of time\u2014how long we'd been here\u2014they evaporated and grew unclear.\n\nThe passing of four wakes felt the same as four hundred.\n\nThe more wakes that passed, the more terrified I became. I could feel the others growing listless and distant, as if disinterested in ever actually leaving.\n\n\"I vote for Kanye!\" shouted Cannon, raising his glass. \"Kanye is my choice for who lives.\"\n\n\"There is no consensus,\" announced the Keeper.\n\nWhitley began to drink all day. So did Cannon and Kipling. Then all three started helping themselves to the pills E.S.S. Burt kept in his master suite, hundreds of orange bottles of uppers and downers lining the medicine cabinets like candy in a sweet shop. It wasn't uncommon for them all to be either manically hyper or unresponsive and lethargic. Kipling paced outside, having conversations with the rain, wearing nothing but that pink wig and a green silk peacock-patterned bathrobe belonging to one of Burt's girlfriends.\n\nOnce, while gathering everyone for the vote, I couldn't find him. Searching the mansion, I finally spotted him floating in the pool on a swan raft in the torrential rain.\n\n\"Kipling!\" I grabbed the leaf net and used it to haul him to the side.\n\nHe could barely open his eyes. \"Hello? You there, God? It's me. Judy.\"\n\n\"Kipling. Can you hear me?\"\n\n\"I'd like to order room service, please. I'd like the spaghetti Bolognese.\"\n\nHe rolled off the raft into the pool, sinking. I pulled off my shoes and raincoat and dove in after him, finding him drifting motionless along the bottom. Madly I kicked him back to the surface.\n\n\"Kipling! Can you hear me?\"\n\n\" 'It's the final countdown,' \" he sang, his eyes slits.\n\nI was the lone nurse working in a madhouse.\n\nWhile Martha had remained sane, she had also decided to remove herself, washing her hands of the situation, it seemed, ducking out without word at the beginning of every wake. She spent the day outside. A few times at dusk I caught sight of her wandering the woods fringing the far lawns, hauling her black bag, studying the treetops with a pair of binoculars like some professional bird-watcher, or an environmentalist recording evidence of acid rain. She'd fumble in her bag, which looked so heavy I wondered if inside was a copy of the same underground book, _The Bend,_ she'd lugged around Darrow. Instead, she'd remove a thin black notebook and scribble in it for a minute before trudging on. Once, I ran after her.\n\n\"Martha!\"\n\nShe kept walking, pretending she hadn't heard me.\n\n_\"Martha! Wait!\"_\n\nShe stopped and turned. I could see she didn't want to be bothered\u2014certainly not by me.\n\n\"I'm worried about them,\" I said.\n\nShe nodded. \"So?\"\n\n_So?_ I could only stare at her, rain coursing down my head and arms. Hadn't she witnessed what was going on? Didn't she care?\n\n\"They're going crazy. They're not taking it seriously anymore. I don't know what to do.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"It's all part of the acceptance.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"When criminals are sentenced to life in prison, there's a ninety-four-percent chance of mental collapse within the first year.\" She shrugged. \"Just leave them alone.\"\n\n\"No way. We have to stick together.\"\n\nTo my shock, with another awkward shrug, she began to walk away.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" I shouted.\n\nShe didn't answer.\n\n\"I need your help! _Please!_ Don't you want to get out of here?\"\n\nShe held up a hand\u2014a mild gesture of acknowledgment to a child having a tantrum\u2014and kept walking.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWe were shipwreck survivors in a raging sea. Now they were forcing me to let go of their hands so they could sink into the waves and drown.\n\nI was going to be stuck here forever.\n\nHere, in the Neverworld, where I'd never grow old.\n\nNever have a family.\n\nNever fall in love.\n\nI was an immortal vampire without any perks. No bewitching beauty, no golden eyes or shimmering skin, no ability to run three hundred miles an hour and flip cars over.\n\nI was a ghost with no haunt. I couldn't turn TVs to static or swivel porcelain doll heads 360 degrees, causing normal humans to have nervous breakdowns. I couldn't make toddlers stand in zombie trances in living rooms, captured in shaky found footage in the dead of night.\n\nI was a ticking clock in a timeless world.\n\nWithout time, nothing had meaning. Never before had I understood how crucial the passage of time was to caring about something. It gave it an expiry date, a wick, a rush, a burn. Without it, everything sat in place, dumbly waiting.\n\nIn my darkest moments I thought of Jim.\n\nI'd come to Wincroft to find out what happened to him. Now even that question, the one I'd spent the past year turning over and over in my mind, shriveled and flattened in the face of the Neverworld, like a little worm on the driveway in the beating sun.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThe night of the fight, I'd just returned from the Dreamland. Letting myself into Wincroft, I heard screaming coming from upstairs. I sprinted up the staircase, realizing they'd locked themselves in E.S.S. Burt's bathroom in the master suite.\n\nI knocked. \"Is everything okay?\"\n\nThere was no answer but snickering.\n\n\"It's almost time for the vote.\"\n\nThis was met with more laughter.\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\nThe door was flung open. Whitley stood there wearing an oversized red-sequined evening gown. Her eyes were bloodshot and smudged with eyeliner. Kipling was draped like an exhausted panther over the edge of the tub. Cannon was sitting on the counter, bandana tied marine-style around his forehead. It was obvious from their flushed faces\u2014and the array of empty Dom P\u00e9rignon bottles scattered across the tiles\u2014that they were wasted.\n\n\"Sister Bee, charmed to see you,\" Whitley said primly. \"We won't be joining you. _Ever._ \"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"We aren't voting. We're staying at Wincroft until the end of time. So there.\"\n\nShe rolled her eyes at the look on my face.\n\n\"Oh, God, Bee. Stop mothering everyone. Your good-girl nun act is never getting you chosen. In fact, it'll be over my maggot-infested body that I ever allow some Mother Teresa type to triumph on to life. No way. It goes against my very life philosophy that one must get filthy to live. You must get down in the dirt or you've done nothing.\"\n\n\"I'm not Mother Teresa. I'm not a nun. I'm not even that good.\"\n\nShe waved her hand as if shooing a fly and turned, idly surveying her reflection in the mirror.\n\n\"It's not about the vote,\" I went on. \"It's about staying together. We could lose ourselves forever in this place. Remember what Jim used to say about friendship? About _us_? What we have is a loyalty that can see us through anything.\"\n\nWhitley bit her bottom lip, trying not to laugh.\n\n\"You still love him. _Wow._ He was the only person you ever saw in a room. And it's still true, even though he's dead. By the way. Did you ever wonder why he chose you? Out of all the girls at school?\"\n\nShe rubbed some lipstick off her chin. I braced myself, because I knew what was coming. Her tantrums always began this way: she made some grand opening statement like a veteran prosecutor holding a jury rapt, the perfect set of words to slice her target in two.\n\n\"He chose you because a plain setting makes the diamond sparkle brighter.\"\n\nI said nothing, willfully reminding myself to ignore whatever Wit said when she was angry. Yet I felt my face flush, a nervous voice in my head chattering _It's not true._\n\n\"I disagree,\" said Cannon, frowning. \"The problem always was that _you_ loved Jim.\"\n\n\"He's right,\" muttered Kipling. \"It was obvious, child. Like a wart on a lifeguard's big toe at a public pool.\"\n\n\"Oh, please.\" Whitley glared at him. \"You were obsessed with him. Admit it. Don't think we didn't see you ogling him, your Southern accent going all syrupy around him, like you thought you could seduce him with some third-rate community-theater impression of Truman Capote. And _you._ \" She turned to Cannon. \"You were happy when he died.\"\n\n\"I was gutted,\" he answered in a clipped tone.\n\n\"Gutted with _glee,_ maybe.\"\n\nCannon glared at her, his face implacable. \"You hate the Linda? Well, too bad. You're her to a tee. All that's missing are the face-lifts, the cankles, and the army of men who have fled you like a storm warning for a Category Five hurricane. But don't worry, angel. That will come in time.\"\n\n\"There is no time,\" noted Kipling, holding up a finger, half asleep. \"Not anymore.\"\n\nWhitley stared at Cannon, mouth open, shoulders trembling.\n\n\"Cannon didn't mean that,\" I whispered, touching her arm.\n\nShe threw off my hand, seizing a bottle from the floor. Cannon ducked as it exploded against the mirror behind his head.\n\n\"You're all monsters! _Get out of my house!_ \"\n\nShe elbowed me out of the way as she fled. Seconds later, she reappeared at the end of the hall brandishing a shotgun, aiming for my head. I took off down the staircase as a shot blasted the ceiling, chandelier swinging, bits of plaster and molding crashing to the ground.\n\n_\"Get out! Termites! Leeches! Rats!\"_\n\nMore shots rang out as I reached the front door and pulled it open, colliding with Martha.\n\nShe was wearing a green poncho, soaking wet from the rain.\n\n\"Beatrice? What's the matter?\"\n\n_\"Worms! Maggots! Those disgusting fish at the bottom of the ocean with switchblade teeth! GET OUT! ALL OF YOU!\"_\n\nI didn't answer. I sprinted outside to my truck and took off, blasting across flowerbeds, mud puddles, broken branches, swerving back onto the driveway as I tried to catch my breath.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nI had to get away from them. I had to clear my head.\n\nEverything they said, I kept reminding myself, was just the Neverworld talking. Being stuck here, day after day, made you think and feel the darkest things, as if daring the universe, God, whatever was out there, to prove that they weren't true.\n\n_A plain setting makes the diamond sparkle brighter. You loved Jim. You were happy when he died._\n\nI didn't want to think about it. I drove straight to the Captain's Crow, letting myself in with the spare key my dad kept stashed behind the outside wall thermometer. I'd make a grilled cheese, eat some Wreck Rummage, and fall asleep. I'd figure out what to do tomorrow, yesterday, today, whatever it was.\n\nThe moment I entered the restaurant, however, slipping through the tiger-stripe shadows, I realized something was very wrong.\n\nThe caf\u00e9 chairs, normally overturned on the tables, had been tossed all over the floor. The glass on the display of ice cream was cracked. Within the smells of toast and sunscreen was something else\u2014something rancid. I'd just slipped into the kitchen, wondering if Sleepy Sam had forgotten to take out the trash, when my sneaker kicked shards of glass. Bending down, I saw I'd stepped on my great-grandfather Burn's pencil portrait. It had moved from its usual place over the door. Somehow it had ended up by the stove, facedown, the frame broken.\n\n_There was a robbery._ That was my first thought.\n\nThen I felt the wake descending, the blackest of sleeps pulling over me like a coffin lid, and I realized something else was going on, something strange.\n\nI heard a faint tapping. Looking up, I screamed. In the window overlooking the alley by the sink, a face stared in at me.\n\nThe Keeper.\n\nHis gaze was neither hostile nor friendly, only stark, his jaw slashed by shadow. I realized that he was cutting away the ivy and vines of honeysuckle that had overtaken the wall, which my mom had never gotten around to pruning.\n\nWhen I stumbled outside to confront him, he was striding down the alleyway.\n\n\"Hey!\" I shouted after him. \"What do you want?\"\n\nHe ignored me, splashing through puddles, the clippings in a bag tossed over his shoulder, rounding the corner.\n\n\"Leave me alone!\"\n\nIt was then that it occurred to me what he was.\n\nThe Keeper was a reminder.\n\nThe vote. The vote. _The vote._\n\nAfter the fight, they went their separate ways. The moment they sprang back to the wake, Kip, Martha, Cannon, and Wit dispersed like seeds off a dead dandelion. They left without a word, sometimes without even looking at each other.\n\nI let them go. I had no choice.\n\nWas it depression? Probably. Fury over their fate? That too. Or maybe they just wanted to see what it felt like to climb beyond the Danger signs and Keep Out barricades, the barbed wire protecting the edges of the lookout atop the skyscraper, and jump.\n\nWhat happened to us didn't matter. Peril didn't exist. If the Neverworld Wake had one asset, it was that we could remain forever young, like the Alphaville song. We could live and die and live again, without consequence.\n\nKipling began hitchhiking.\n\nThe moment he appeared in the back of the Jaguar, he took off down the drive. After he did this countless times, his expression an enigmatic mixture of resolve and expectation\u2014as if he were actually looking forward to something\u2014I followed him. I tailed him out to the main road, where, just before the stone bridge, he began walking backward, sticking out his thumb.\n\nIt was always the sixth car that stopped for him. A brown Pontiac with a dented fender.\n\nI watched him disappear into that Pontiac so many times, I just had to know what was so captivating that he couldn't miss out on it, not even for one wake. So I caught up to him.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" I asked him.\n\nHe turned, startled to see me, then annoyed. _\"What?\"_\n\n\"Who picks you up in the Pontiac?\"\n\nHe kept walking. \"It doesn't matter.\"\n\n\"Where do you go?\"\n\n\"Leave me alone, Bee.\"\n\n\"Just tell me.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"None a your goddamn business.\"\n\n\"Then I'm coming with you.\"\n\n_\"No.\"_\n\nHe was furious. He actually looked like he was considering hitting me, or tying me to a tree so he could get away.\n\n\"Tell me and I'll go back,\" I said.\n\nHe scowled, wiping the streaming rain off his face. \"Her name's Shirley.\"\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"And she takes me with her to her chemotherapy treatment in Providence. Then we go back to her crappy apartment by a Stop and Shop and watch _Night of the Living Dead._ I cook her shrimp jambalaya and make a tuna salad for her cat named Canary. She thinks I'm a runaway from Mississippi. Sometimes my name is James. Sometimes it's Jesus. She undresses in front of me and asks me to touch her. She's religious. Thinks I'm some kind of savior from a different planet because I know so much about her. We talk all night. Now would you please go find your own disturbin' experience to get lost in? This one is mine.\"\n\nAt that moment, the brown Pontiac rounded the bend. Probably because I was there, or because Kip had a fake smile on his face, quite different from his usual laid-back, lounging-porch-cat demeanor, the car slowed for a second\u2014revealing a plain-faced woman, brown hair, white T-shirt, radio blaring the Cure's \"Close to Me\"\u2014then accelerated away.\n\nKip ran after her, waving. \"Hold on! Wait for me! _Shirley!_ \"\n\nThe car tore around the bend, vanishing.\n\n\"Look what you did!\" he wailed.\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\nShaking his head, he took off over the bridge. He tried flagging down the next car, a red pickup truck, then a van, but no one stopped.\n\n\"Leave me alone!\" he shouted as he took off jogging down the road.\n\nI let him go. I understood. He looked forward to Shirley because for some reason she made him forget he was in the Neverworld. It was probably only for a minute. But that was a priceless minute in a century of worthless ones.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nAfter I'd learned where Kip went, I followed the others.\n\nI had to. If I had any hope of ever making it out of here alive, I had to make sure I didn't lose them completely, that they didn't fall into some psychological rabbit hole from which they'd never be able to emerge.\n\nI also needed a mission. I couldn't sit through _His Girl Friday_ one more time. I couldn't watch my mom tell my dad with only a look that she didn't like the seats he'd chosen because they were too near the screen. Then, two seconds later: the bearded homeless man dropped the can of Old Milwaukee on the floor, muttering, \"Shit, man,\" and the old woman behind him left to go report him as the man in the Brooklyn Book Drop T-shirt stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth (dropping three kernels in his lap). This symphony of normality played the same way every time. I knew every word, stutter, quip, throat clear, sniff, cough, scratch, and burp, like the stage manager who'd watched the same performance a million times from the wings.\n\nThen there was the fact that my parents seemed so happy together it made me feel even more alone.\n\nI followed Whitley and Cannon next.\n\nThey snapped back to the wake three minutes before the rest of us.\n\nWhen I sprinted into Wincroft, they were already gone. They left no note. The only evidence was red brake lights retreating down the drive. Yet their cars remained in front of the house. This meant that they left in some other car, and together, which suggested that whatever wounds their words had left from the fight, they'd already healed, like the skin of superheroes.\n\nThat didn't surprise me. They never stayed angry at each other for long.\n\nChecking E.S.S. Burt's classic car garage, I noticed wet tire marks on the floor. I went into his office, read through his insurance forms, and was able to figure out that the missing vehicle was a maroon 1982 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur.\n\nFor the next few wakes, I tried to catch up to them.\n\nIt seemed impossible. They hadn't driven to the highway or any of the obvious coastal roads, so where did they disappear to, and so swiftly? Only countless wakes later, when I turned down an unmarked, narrow dirt drive, did I see the black wood sign painted in elegant Victorian script.\n\nDAVY JONES'S LOCKER. Another mile and there was a second sign: MEMBERS ONLY.\n\nI pulled into the parking lot. Davy Jones's appeared to be some kind of exclusive marina crowded with yachts. There was a white clubhouse and an outdoor tiki bar. Tanned crewmen in blue polo shirts strode purposefully along the docks, wielding umbrellas and iPads.\n\nParked directly in front of me was one maroon 1982 Rolls-Royce Silver Spur.\n\nAlmost immediately I spotted Whitley and Cannon.\n\nThey were speaking to a group of retirees, three couples in their sixties or seventies, the women with short dyed hair and lean bodies like little bits of punctuation. The men were fat and bald. They were laughing. In fact, Wit and Cannon were laughing _so much_ as I slipped out of my truck, keeping the umbrella low so they wouldn't spot me, I couldn't help gaping, incredulous at their all-too-convincing impression of being totally normal\u2014like two people with tomorrows.\n\nThey seemed to be waiting for something.\n\nApparently it was an invitation to board the super-yacht the _Last Hurrah,_ docked beside them. Because not a minute later, they were stepping with phony wonder up the teak steps, past the helicopter landing pad, and vanishing inside.\n\nBewildered, I strolled up to the boat. The uniformed crew were preparing for departure.\n\n\"Where you headed?\"\n\n\"Bermuda.\"\n\nMinutes later, the yacht cast off. That night, like all other recent nights, Wit and Cannon never returned to Wincroft to vote. By the next wake they were already gone.\n\nSo what were they up to? And why did the question fill me with such dread?\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nI had thirty-three minutes.\n\nThere were forty-seven minutes between the time I woke up in the Jaguar and the time the _Last Hurrah_ cast off for Bermuda. By minute thirty-three it was too late. There were too many crew members buzzing around not to be spotted. I was caught a million times.\n\n\"Excuse me? _Who_ are you?\"\n\n\"Hey!\"\n\n\"You're not authorized to be here.\"\n\n\"Is this the _Dream Weaver_?\"\n\n\"Is this _Cleopatra III_?\"\n\n\"I'm looking for Captain Martin. I'm his niece.\"\n\nI'd leave, stuttering apologies, ignoring the looks of suspicion as I snuck back to my truck. I'd watch as Wit and Cannon boarded that same yacht and took off into the open sea.\n\nMy only hope lay in immediately, the instant I woke, grabbing Cannon's car keys and sprinting to his Mercedes\u2014twice as fast as my truck\u2014taking a shortcut along a dirt service road, and barreling ninety miles an hour through marshes and sand into the Davy Jones's Locker marina.\n\nI'd park behind a tree and speed-walk to the small cruiser beside _Last Hurrah,_ where, pretending to be boarding that boat, I'd wait for the teenage deckhand to check his cell phone, at which point I had twenty seconds to dash up the steps and duck into the first door I came to. It led into an ornate game room with a jukebox and pinball machines. I then had fifteen seconds to slip up three flights to the staterooms and vanish into the bedroom at the end of the hall.\n\nIt overlooked the marina. It was there that, by cracking the window, I was able to eavesdrop on the outrageous scene\u2014or, rather, con job. Whitley and Cannon, posing as newly married college sweethearts from Columbus, Ohio, had just been informed of a critical problem with their rented yacht, thereby leaving their honeymoon in tatters. Loudly they lamented their plight, which happened to be overheard by the owner of _Last Hurrah,_ Ted Daisy of Cincinnati, who invited the poor young couple aboard.\n\n\"Why don't you spend the week with us? Plenty of room here for everybody.\"\n\n\"That's very kind, sir,\" said Cannon. \"But we couldn't.\"\n\n\"Nonsense. The downside is you'll spend your honeymoon with a bunch of old geezers. But we promise to stay out of your way. You'll have a chef, an activities director, and a range of toys at your disposal.\"\n\n\"What do you say, sugar?\" Cannon asked Whitley.\n\nShe nibbled a fingernail. \"I'm not sure, honeybun.\"\n\nI marveled at the way they had their act down, like a couple of seasoned Broadway tap dancers. How many wakes had it taken them to figure out the perfect formula for eliciting the invitation to board the yacht? Ten? Ten thousand?\n\n\"You kids are coming with us. I insist on it. Ted Daisy. This is my wife, Patty.\"\n\n\"Artwell Calvin the third,\" said Cannon.\n\n\"Anastasia Calvin,\" said Whitley, shaking her head. \"I really don't know what I did in a previous life to deserve such kindness. I think I'm going to cry.\"\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWhat had I expected aboard the _Last Hurrah_? A relaxed vacation cruise? A beautiful, distracting dream where Whitley and Cannon could forget the Neverworld?\n\nThat wasn't it. Not at all.\n\nI should have known. Their relationship at Darrow had always been incendiary. They had sex in closets and classrooms, on rooftops, in the woods, on the balcony of the chapel, never once getting caught. They stalked hallways with their arms around each other like boa constrictors, students and teachers alike eyeing them nervously, though no one complained. They were in the top five of our class, after all. Whitley talked about their love as an insatiable need. I saw it as a lethal bullet speeding toward a target. Whether that target was one of them or some unsuspecting third party, I had no idea. They fought, made up, hated each other, couldn't live without the other for even one second.\n\nThey called each other Sid and Nancy. They stole things for fun. Anything on campus, no matter how big or small, could be targeted, like Mrs. Ferguson's AP Physics exams; a $12,000 seascape from an art gallery; Rector Trask's XXL tartan vest, which he notoriously donned for Darrow's Holiday Feast; even a John Deere excavator from the library construction site. They'd help themselves to whatever it was, resulting in a weeklong uproar of faculty announcements and threats of expulsion, a few unsuspecting students being summoned into a dean's office to detail what they knew\u2014until, with equal quiet and swiftness, the object reappeared. Their knack for burglary was not due to the usual reasons for acting out, like anger or some perverse craving for attention. It was a simple love for the art of deceit\u2014being a step ahead of everyone\u2014not to mention their ongoing need to outdo each other.\n\nEveryone whispered they'd be legendary if they stayed together. I secretly thought their connection was _too_ close, like twins. Cannon didn't have Whitley's temper, but he had her intensity and knack for manipulation, dropping a word here, an inference there, that would be the gram of uranium to turn a benign situation nuclear. They broke up couples, made teachers cry. When they finally called it quits senior year, their breakup was eerily silent, a biological weapon that had abruptly dispelled with hardly any smoke, defying all scientific explanation.\n\n\"Everyone knows adolescent love has a short shelf life,\" Whitley explained with shrug.\n\nNow it was clear that Whitley and Cannon boarded the _Last Hurrah_ for no reason other than that they'd decided that boat was their mad, twisted playground to tear into, as if they were two wild monkeys locked in a cage.\n\nIt was their padded cell. The soundproof room where they could scream their heads off.\n\nThe first night, I watched Wit get so drunk she vomited all over the dinner table on the platters of lobster and sirloin steak.\n\n\"Whoops,\" she said, wiping her mouth.\n\nThe second night, she danced provocatively with Ted Daisy. When his wife, Patty, saw what was happening, she called out in a drunken voice, \"Ted! Ted?\" like their fifty-year marriage had suddenly turned into a phone call with poor reception.\n\nOn another occasion, Cannon and Wit stripped down to their underwear and, climbing up onto the ship's railing, screamed, _\"Carpe noctem!\"_ Holding hands, they jumped, falling the fifty feet into the sea. Alarms sounded. Women screamed. Engines gasped to a halt. The crew members swarmed, shouting orders, two diving in with life vests.\n\n\"Find them!\" shouted Ted Daisy, desperately peering over the railing. He looked like he was having a heart attack. \"I'll be damned if I'm going to jail because of those wackos!\"\n\n\"We're going to lose everything,\" wailed Patty.\n\n\"We should have tied them up the moment we realized something was mentally off with them. We should have called the coast guard.\"\n\n\"It's _your_ fault!\" screamed Patty, her stiff blond hair standing up like pieces of potato chips. \"You invited them aboard because you wanted to impress that little blond piece of ass. You thought you had a chance with her. Ha! Hope you're happy now!\"\n\nHysteria. Panic. Fury. Despair. Fear. Alarm.\n\nIt all happened aboard the _Last Hurrah_ on a day that would not stop happening.\n\nI watched from back rooms, spare bedrooms, an electrical supply closet. I put on the extra crew uniform I'd found, and no one looked at me twice. I kept waiting for the right moment to appear, to try to talk down Cannon and Wit, bring them back from the razor's edge. I couldn't find it. I knew them too well. When they were like this, there was no stopping them.\n\nI remained where I was, peering out at the nightmarish scene through a crack in the door, terrified, sick, sometimes crying, wondering when it would stop.\n\nThen one night Cannon smashed a decanter over Ted Daisy's head. Ted shoved him into a display case stacked with crystal goblets. They began wrestling, overturning coffee tables and the dining room table. Then Cannon was sitting on the man's chest, strangling him.\n\nI'd had enough. I ran out of the closet and knelt beside Cannon, trying to pry off his hands. The old man was spitting and blubbering.\n\n\"Stop it!\" I cried.\n\nIt took Cannon another minute to let go. I tried CPR, compressing the man's chest, counting the way my dad had taught me. I checked his pulse. He was alive, but barely.\n\n\"You have to stop,\" I whispered.\n\nCannon surveyed me like I was a distant relative whose name he couldn't recall.\n\n\"You're making it worse. Because _we_ remember. These people don't. But you do. And the destruction will eat away at you.\"\n\n\"Oh, shut up, Bee,\" said Wit.\n\nShe'd risen from the sofa, where she'd been passed out cold.\n\n\"What are you even doing here? Spying? When will you realize we want nothing to do with you? We're not your friends anymore. You blew that when you went MIA after Jim. You think you can just ditch your friends like that and get away with it?\"\n\nShe shuffled toward me, her eyes red and threatening. I turned and ran, barging past the other guests, who'd been woken by the noise and were now, in their white terry-cloth robes and matching slippers, gaping in shock at the scene. I ran to the third-floor deck and spent the rest of the wake in one of the rescue boats, sobbing, hoping no one would find me.\n\nI never returned to the _Last Hurrah._\n\nCannon and Wit went the very next wake. Wit left me a message scrawled in high-drama red lipstick across the kitchen counter.\n\n> STAY AWAY.\n\nThe threat was unnecessary. I could never go back there.\n\nWould repetition eventually render even the _Last Hurrah_ boring, whereupon they'd return to Wincroft? Would one of them decide they wanted to live, to escape the Neverworld, to vote? Or would they simply move on to devouring something or someone else? The Neverworld held an infinite number of playgrounds, so it was possible, horrifying as it was to consider, that I'd never see them again.\n\nI couldn't think about that. Not yet.\n\nInstead, I turned my attention to Martha.\n\nIt was funny how I'd almost forgotten her. And I suspected it was just what she wanted.\n\nMartha no longer spent the day hiking Wincroft. Now she would hurriedly enter the mansion, retrieve a raincoat, and drive off, never returning.\n\n\"Where do you go?\" I asked her.\n\nShe whipped around in surprise. She hadn't seen me sitting in the rocking chair on the porch. Recovering, she pulled out her car keys, then opened an umbrella.\n\n\"I visit this silly Baptist church buffet up in Newport.\" She shrugged, her face turning red. \"I've turned it into my personal biosphere. Like I find a guy and see if I can get him to say 'I love you' by the end of the night. Or I approach a woman and see if I can get her to leave her husband. I'm trying to prove a theory about human nature. That anyone is capable of anything at any time, given a certain set of conditions.\"\n\nShe was lying. I could tell.\n\n\"Can I come with you?\" I asked.\n\n\"I prefer to be alone, actually.\"\n\n\"What about when you were hiking around with binoculars? What were you doing?\"\n\n\"Bird-watching.\"\n\nShe was lying about that too. She seemed fully aware I didn't believe her, yet she stared back at me, undaunted.\n\n\"Aren't you worried?\" I asked, trying to ignore the anger in the pit of my stomach. \"Upset? Scared? We've lost them all now.\"\n\nShe smiled thinly. \"I suggest you resolve yourself to your fate, Bee.\"\n\nAnd with that she turned and hurried down the steps to her car.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThe next wake, I headed straight to my truck. While Martha was inside getting the raincoat, I hid in a driveway down the street, and when she pulled out, I followed her.\n\nUnfortunately, my confrontation appeared to have tipped her off, because as soon as I pulled up behind her on the interstate, though I was three cars back, she took the first exit and drove in meandering circles around deserted office parks before pulling into Birchwood Plaza. She spent the next four hours wandering Urban Outfitters and Barnes & Noble and eating a calzone in the food court.\n\nShe knew I was there, watching her. Yet she was unconcerned. The next wake, she did the same thing at a different mall. The third time, another.\n\nThere was no way Martha spent her Neverworld wandering malls. She was doing that because she knew I was following her. She seemed to be banking on my eventually growing bored and moving on.\n\nSo I did. I stopped. Instead, I devoted the next few wakes\u2014or was it a few thousand?\u2014to figuring out how to follow her unseen.\n\nAnd so began my illustrious career in grand theft auto.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nI was a panicky and apologetic thief.\n\nHundreds of times I was caught red-handed.\n\n\"Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my garage?\"\n\n\" _Hi._ Sorry.\"\n\nThankfully\u2014probably because there was something intrinsically sad about me, which could only be blamed on the Neverworld\u2014everyone let me off the hook.\n\nThe only car I could steal without getting caught was a rusted white van emblazoned with the words MCKENDRICK PEST CONTROL.\n\nIt belonged to the McKendricks, a hyper militia-family of seven living in a modest ranch house four doors down from Wincroft. All seven McKendricks were always home, so to get my hands on the keys was the closing act of Cirque du Soleil.\n\nIt took me forever to get it right.\n\nOne: hide in rhododendrons outside the kitchen, waiting for Bud McKendrick to wander into the living room for his Camel Lights. Two: dart into the kitchen pantry, trying not to trip on the bags of Healthy Weight cat food or the Macaroni and Cheese Storage Bucket with Gamma Lid from Target. Three: wait for Pete McKendrick to grab a Kit-Kat and head to the basement to watch _The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron,_ Bud to go upstairs for a nap, and Gerry and Paul, the twins, to go play soccer in the front yard in the rain. Four: slip into the den, scaring Tupac, the cat, who jumps six feet into the air and climbs the curtains. Five: snatch the car keys off the table and duck behind the sofa as Laurel McKendrick takes forty dollars from her husband's wallet. \"Heading to the store!\" Six: run back into kitchen and try to avoid four-year-old Kendall McKendrick.\n\n\"Who are you?\" she asked me, eyes wide in surprise.\n\nThere was no avoiding Kendall. No matter what, she always caught me.\n\nIt was the most incendiary moment of all: finding the perfect recipe of words that would stop her from wailing like a smoke alarm. I had tried everything. Nothing worked.\n\n\"I'm an angel.\"\n\n\"I work for the tooth fairy.\"\n\n\"I'm the Elf on the Shelf, and I need to borrow your daddy's truck.\"\n\nHow many times had I expertly trapezed my way through the McKendricks', only to crash to the ground, thanks to Kendall yelling her head off, prompting every McKendrick to descend on me.\n\n\"Dad! _Dad!_ \"\n\nI'd run for my life as the McKendricks\u2014all with variations on the same bulldog marine face\u2014swarmed their front yard.\n\n\"Stop! Burglar!\" they shouted through the rain.\n\n\"Dad, you're letting her get away!\"\n\nGood old Bud McKendrick never called the police. Probably because after five kids, it took more than some teenage housebreaker to rattle him. Frowning quizzically after me from the porch, more than a little blas\u00e9, he always let me go.\n\nFinally there came the wake when I told Kendall the truth.\n\n\"My name is Beatrice Hartley. I'm trapped between life and death in a place called a Neverworld. I'm trying to make it out of here, and to make a long story short, I need you to be quiet and go watch cartoons with your brothers. _Now._ \"\n\nShe nodded mutely and padded downstairs.\n\nLight-headed with amazement, I snatched Bud's Rams baseball cap off a chair, grabbed his Oakley sunglasses, unlatched the door to the detached garage, and ran out. I pulled on Bud's coveralls, hat, sunglasses, climbed behind the wheel of the van. Starting the engine, I was just wondering how in the world I was going to drive past the twins playing soccer, when Paul punted the ball into a neighbor's yard. I inched down the drive, turned right, pulled into another drive a few houses down, my heart hammering.\n\nA minute later Martha drove past me.\n\nI followed her Honda Accord all the way to Providence, to Brown University, to the third floor of a redbrick building on Thayer Street, to a corner office.\n\nARNOLD BELORODA, PH.D. read the brass plaque on the door.\n\nI watched Martha knock. A male voice answered \"Yes?\" and she entered. I heard her say hi as the door closed, and though I slipped closer in the crowded hallway, straining to hear the muffled voices inside, I couldn't make out any more.\n\nI Googled the name. Arnold Winwood Beloroda. He was an award-winning psychiatrist and professor emeritus specializing in group dynamic theory. He taught a host of classes at Brown. Making Ethical Decisions: The Good, Bad, and the Ugly. The Psychology of Manipulation and Consent. The Fantasy of Free Will. A senior seminar, Laboratory for Experiments in Social Persuasion. He had published thirteen nonfiction books, winning a slew of awards for one from the nineties, _Heroes and Villains._ According to the _Wall Street Journal,_ it was about \"the master-slave dynamics of concentration camps\" and other situations in which \"a large populace allows themselves to be controlled by a select few.\"\n\nI scanned Beloroda's articles in the _Harvard Review,_ the _Economist,_ and _Scientific American._ What was so compelling about him? What was so critical that Martha had gone to such lengths to hide him?\n\nThen it hit me. It felt like a pair of hands had begun to squeeze my neck.\n\nWhile the rest of us had been wasting time warring against the reality of our circumstances, Martha had been using the Neverworld's infinity to study.\n\nBeloroda had been teaching her how to manipulate the group so we would choose her.\n\nShe was figuring out how to win.\n\nI tailed Martha over and over again. Every time, she drove to Brown's Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences building. Every time, she visited Beloroda. They remained holed up in his office for three, four hours. Clearly she'd figured out a way to hook him, captivate him with some high-level question about group dynamics or a detail mined from his own papers that served as the magic key to Open Sesame the close connection, the meeting of like minds. When they finally emerged, Beloroda\u2014an elfin man with a turned-up nose and an overmanicured inky beard like a Rorschach test\u2014was beaming at Martha (now hauling a pile of textbooks he'd given her, as well as a legal pad covered with notes), bewitched by the sudden appearance of such an engaging new student.\n\nSharing an umbrella, they always strolled outside, deep in conversation, and chatted for another twenty minutes on the sidewalk. Once I crept behind them, hiding in an alcove where a few students were smoking under the awning.\n\n\"You're absolutely correct,\" said Beloroda. \"But here I would cite the philosophy of M. Scott Peck. In all groups there are four stages. Pseudocommunity. Chaos. Emptiness. And true community.\"\n\n\"Could you tell me more about the Milgram experiment?\"\n\n\"Ah. The blind obedience to authority figures.\" Beloroda chuckled. \"There's nothing I'd like more, but I'm afraid I'm due to join my wife at a party. How about we resume this conversation tomorrow after my Group Cohesion lecture?\"\n\nHe was unlocking his car, climbing in.\n\n\"It was a delight to meet you, Miss Peters. Until tomorrow?\"\n\nHe drove off. Martha stared after him, her affable smile abruptly falling from her face as she pulled up her hood and took off. She sat for the next few hours in a window booth at Greek Taverna, poring over the books, taking notes. When the diner closed, she moved to her Honda and read in there, seat reclined, overhead light on.\n\nThe longer I watched from the darkness of the park across the street, the more I felt a choking anxiousness and fear, as if the Neverworld were closing in on me.\n\nMartha was brilliant. Martha understood. She was light-years ahead of the rest of us. She had summarily accepted the crushing reality of the Neverworld, and rather than fighting it, she had dedicated her time to figuring out how to master it.\n\nI wanted to live, didn't I? I wanted to be chosen. Yet, staring at the pale light inside Martha's car, fighting back tears, I sensed I was too late, that I'd already lost.\n\nMy gaze suddenly fell on a dark figure pushing a wheelbarrow toward me down the path through the park. It was heaped with black compost.\n\nI should have been used to the Keeper's presence by now. I should have ignored how no matter where I went, however near or far, when I least expected it, he would come to me like a terrifying thought, the Neverworld's omnipresent alarm, its memento, its tolling bell.\n\nThe vote. The vote. _The vote._\n\nThe temperature had dropped. The rain was turning to snow again.\n\nI sprinted to the McKendrick van, climbed in, and took off, swerving into the road so wildly I almost hit a streetlamp. The Keeper paused to watch me go, a shovel balanced on his shoulder.\n\nI caught a glimpse of his face through the swirling snowflakes, the chilling smile.\n\nI couldn't imagine what Martha was planning. Whatever it was, I suspected it'd be so well considered and masterful, none of us would ever see her coming.\n\nHow right I was.\n\nHow did I pass the next few wakes?\n\nWas it months? Or was it years?\n\nI was the only one left. Wincroft was my castle to rule, my tiny home planet. The solitude was infinite. Gandalf was there, but he backed away and barked whenever I tried to pet him, as if aware I wasn't quite real. I wandered the creaking hallways and musty rooms, had conversations with stuffed deer and grizzly bears. I read every book in E.S.S. Burt's library, sprawled across daybeds, love seats, and carpets; dining room tables, window seats, and grand pianos. I watched every show on every cable channel at every time. I ate chocolate. I played Scrabble by myself, and chess by myself, and sang pop songs. I drew everything I could think of\u2014eyes, faces, landscapes, shadows. I made a dream soundtrack, song lyrics to a fake four-hour movie about the end of the world called _Ned Gromby's Last Day Alive Ever,_ scribbling the mad rhymes about life and death, war and peace, all over the wallpaper and floors and ceilings of Wincroft. Wincroft was my bridge underpass spangled with my graffiti. I squeezed my eyes closed to beat back the silence, and sifted through memories of my old life as if inside them I'd find a key to a door that would lead me somewhere.\n\nI visited the elderly. They were my favorite. Because they were locked inside their own Neverworlds too, impenetrable rooms of repetition and loneliness. I made a habit of ringing their doorbells with an excuse about selling early Christmas calendars for my church. I ate their fruitcake and petted their old dogs with bad breath before they scampered away with twitching backs. I sipped the weird tea and watched TV, inhaled the curdled house odors the owner was oblivious to. Most of all, I listened to the stories. I untangled the gnarled pileups of anecdotes and convoluted tales of dead husbands, failing health, childhoods of taffeta and milk that cost ten cents.\n\nI figured if I remained in the Neverworld, alone, until the end of time, I would be like an ancient traveler wandering the side of the road with a calloused heart and hands, weighted with the world's tales and secrets.\n\nAt least then, if nothing else, I would be wise.\n\nIt was inevitable that I'd be sitting there, listening to the story about the broken engagement, the dead child, the cat, when suddenly I'd see the decay. It always came out of nowhere and made me jump. Every windowpane in every single window around me would be silently cracking. Or a family photo would suddenly drop down the wall with a thump, revealing a garish rectangle of wallpaper that hadn't seen daylight in forty years.\n\n\" _What_ in the name of Jesus is going on...?\"\n\nIn Mrs. Kahn's case, it began with a faint popping noise.\n\n\"Damn raccoon's got in again,\" she muttered, tightening her robe. When she started shrieking in the den, I ran to her, astonished, to find her prized collection of snow globes\u2014gifts from Paul, a lost suitor\u2014detonating like grenades, water and snow and glass, plastic Santas, Eiffel Towers, St. Peter's Basilicas, exploding around the room.\n\nMrs. Kahn shielded her face. \"It's the Day of Judgment!\"\n\nOf course, I'd noticed the deterioration before, back at my house with my mom. Again that night at the Crow. I didn't know why, or what it meant, but whenever I was away from Wincroft, the world began to decay and disintegrate around me.\n\nIt always made me scared. I ran away, muttering some excuse and that I'd be back tomorrow, leaving Mrs. Kahn, Mr. Appleton, Mrs. Janowitz, Miss Bellossi, bent over, disconcerted, as they inspected the rot, the mold, the cracks traveling like lengthening skeletal fingers along the windows. I'd sprint back to Wincroft to search the gardens and grounds for the Keeper. I wanted to confront him, demand to know what was happening.\n\nYet, bafflingly, whenever I willed him to appear, he stayed away.\n\nThe corrosion appeared to be getting stronger. What did it mean? Was the Neverworld going to swallow itself like a black hole? Were we running out of time to vote? Was it all because of what happened to Jim?\n\nThe answer jolted me like an electric shock.\n\nJim. It had to be because of Jim.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThen came the day Wit didn't leave.\n\nI discovered her upstairs, buried under an avalanche of duvet, her face swollen with tears as she watched _Heathers_ on her laptop. I stared at her, dumbfounded. I felt like some shipwreck survivor finding another person who'd washed up alive on my island.\n\nShe glared at me. \"Leave me alone, Bee.\"\n\nI was worried I'd frighten her away, so I did just what she said. I made her tea, left the mug on her bedside table, and ducked out.\n\nThe next wake, to my relief, she was there again, watching _The Breakfast Club;_ the wake after that, _Goonies._ I always left her tea. Then, one wake, as I did, she threw off the comforter and surveyed me with a sad smile.\n\n\"Want to watch _Ferris Bueller_ with me?\"\n\nCannon reappeared a few wakes later. Mayhem, as it turned out, wasn't as much fun without an accomplice. He was as exhausted as Whitley, holed up in the library with his laptop in DOS mode, typing some mysterious hacker's command as the screen belched code. I printed out an obscure article written by a Stanford doctorate student about the future of Internet security and left it next to his laptop for him. The next wake, it was an essay about Steven Spielberg and brain cloning written by a freshman scientist at Harvard, then a blog posting by some genius sixteen-year-old Cambridge student about the future of robotics.\n\n\"How are you finding these articles?\" Cannon asked once before I darted out. \"I mean, they're so obscure.\"\n\n_With all my free time in the Neverworld, I've read the entire Internet. Twice._\n\n\"I just stumbled upon them.\"\n\nHe smiled. \"They're really cool. Thanks, Bee.\"\n\nShortly after that, Kip stopped going hitchhiking. The moment he strolled into Wincroft, I couldn't help it. I threw my arms around him, hugging him.\n\n\"Sister Bee, you're breakin' my neck. I'm not Elvis back from the dead, child.\"\n\nHe pulled away, said nothing more, headed upstairs. Yet I could tell from his faint smile that he was happy to see me. That night I made him Boudreaux's Stomp Shrimp Gumbo, the recipe served in his favorite hole-in-the-wall caf\u00e9 in Moss Bluff. I left him a bowl in the bedroom where he was holed up watching _Hoarding: Buried Alive_ on TLC.\n\n\"How'd you get Auntie Mo's secret recipe?\" he blurted, incredulous.\n\n_I had a million wakes to make her believe I was her long-lost niece._\n\n\"Just whipped it up,\" I said with a shrug.\n\nSo there they were, three wild animals I was doing my best to cajole into remaining at the zoo in captivity, rather than roaming the wild.\n\nThen, one night, as the four of us sat reading in the library, I realized from the way Kip kept glancing curiously at the clock on the mantel that he was waiting for something. Martha must have said something to him about a group meeting, because when she appeared a few minutes after midnight, entering without a word, hauling her heavy black bag and taking a seat on the couch, he didn't look the least bit surprised.\n\n\"It's time,\" Martha announced.\n\nWhitley and Cannon surveyed her in shock.\n\n\"Nice to see you too,\" said Cannon.\n\nMartha gave him an official smile, clasping her hands like a judge.\n\n\"We've come back to where we started,\" she said. \"It's as if the Neverworld's walls are slippery and slanted, always sending us back to where we began. I suspect, like me, you were each pursued by the Keeper, often when you least expected it?\"\n\nI nodded. So did the others.\n\n\"He's our caretaker. He tends us, keeping us alive and thriving, making sure we have the sustenance we need but also keeping us in check. This means he's capable of anything, being at once a guide and a taskmaster, a custodian and a thorn. Maybe he leaves you alone, or offers you a sprinkling of advice. Or else he hounds you, reminding you of the one thing you wish to forget. He will become anything to make you grow in a certain direction. Most of all, he is the chairman of a grand design we can't see.\"\n\nNo one said a word, all of us listening in wonder, in shock. The way Martha sat there\u2014squared shoulders, steady stare. She was no longer the mute nerd who blurted unfunny comments at weird moments, the girl more comfortable buried in the pages of an underground fantasy novel than living in the real world. This was a new Martha, one who had studied with Beloroda. She was a confident presence now. I had no idea where she was going with this speech, but she'd given it considerable thought, her every word as carefully selected as stones in an ornate necklace, each one meticulously polished and gleaming.\n\n\"The Neverworld is real,\" she said. \"To understand and conquer it, we must first understand and conquer each other. I've thought it over. We must set aside the question of who should live. We're not prepared for that. Not yet. Because there's another mystery we have to solve. It's dogged each of us in different ways since it happened.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" asked Cannon, frowning.\n\n\"Jim.\"\n\nHis name was like a gleaming sword pitching through the air, landing hard at our feet.\n\n\"It was suicide,\" whispered Whitley.\n\nMartha stared at her, stony. \"You don't _actually_ believe that.\"\n\nWit seemed too uncomfortable to answer.\n\n\"I've been studying the Neverworld,\" Martha went on. \"This place, among many things, makes us the most powerful detectives in the world. We can go back to the scene of the crime an infinite number of times. We can interview bystanders. Witnesses. The police. Every teacher, janitor, and student. We can polish our questions, manipulate, intimidate, blackmail. There are no penalties and no rules. We can find out what happened to Jim once and for all.\"\n\nMartha's dark eyes found mine as she said this, sending a shiver through me.\n\n\"But the case was unsolvable,\" said Cannon.\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Kipling in a low voice. \"The cops didn't get very far.\"\n\n\"They were pressured by the school board to wrap it up quickly. The sooner everyone believed suicide, the sooner Darrow could repaint the bloody walls. That's what our parents wanted. They wanted to sweep the scandal under the rug, for everyone to chalk the whole thing up to another doomed dream boy. The Legend of Jim Mason would be just another ghost story echoing through the halls.\"\n\n\"So we're Sherlocks for the foreseeable future,\" said Whitley.\n\nKipling raised an eyebrow. \"I've always had a thing for herringbone and bloodhounds.\"\n\n\"I'm in,\" said Cannon.\n\n\"Me too,\" whispered Whitley.\n\n\"Beatrice?\" asked Martha.\n\nThey all looked at me. I stared back, my heart pounding.\n\nIt was happening, after all this time: We were freeing the lion. Dredging the _Titanic_ up from the bottom of the sea. We were unburying the man who'd been sealed inside the walls that night we went searching for the cask of the Amontillado.\n\nWe were going to find out what happened to Jim.\n\n_My Jim._\n\nThe cat-and-mouse game had begun.\n\nThe strange circumstances of Jim Livingston Mason's death had always seemed unreal to me, even though I experienced them firsthand.\n\nAs I thought back on it now, holed up in that library with my four former best friends, returning to each detail felt like trying to recall the rules of an imaginary game I'd played as a child.\n\nSenior year, spring semester before finals week, my boyfriend, Jim, went missing.\n\nTwo days later, he was found dead, floating in the lake at Vulcan Quarry.\n\nHe was my first love, though those words don't begin to describe what he actually was. Moon. Voice in my head. Blood. Even though everyone and their grandmother will tell you young love never lasts, that its burn is much more fragile than it ever appears to the naked eye, I swore what Jim and I had was different.\n\nHe was beautiful in the unlikely way of some eighteenth-century hero galloping across moors on horseback: six foot three, honey-brown stare, uncombed black hair, cockeyed smile. But there was something else too. He was alive. If life force is a river's current, Jim's was so strong it could take off your fingers. He charged through an ordinary Monday as if he had been tasked with imparting a crucial secret about existence before Tuesday. He was a goofball, grandmaster of the Catchy Tune, the Double Entendre, the Shock Romantic Gesture, like giving me a vintage diamond Cartier pin in the shape of a bumblebee after he'd known me just a week. He wrote me a theme song called \"The Queen's Neck.\" The worst thing about Jim was that his intensity attracted everyone. He was the light on a porch at night. Men and women, young and old, swirled around him, as if mistaking the attention of Jim Mason for a miracle dip in Lourdes. I couldn't fault them. He made them feel important and less alone.\n\nHe called me Amish, and Cahoots, and Hedy Lamarr. He said I had some quality of the past that he could never put his finger on, that I was meant for some long-forgotten, more innocent time.\n\n\"You're a Dusky Flying Fox,\" he told me.\n\n\"A _what_?\"\n\n\"An extinct species of mammal known only by a single specimen. You were spotted once in 1874 on Percy Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia. No other examples of you were ever found. Yet here you are again, tucked away in an antiquated, not especially impressive boarding school in the wilds of Rhode Island. And no one knows about you but me.\"\n\nHe was analytical, agonizing, easily wounded, unable to let much go. The summer before senior year, he and a childhood friend were drinking and driving a speedboat off Long Island when they collided with a sandbar, hitting a fisherman's skiff. The fisherman and Jim's friend were fine, thank goodness, but Jim suffered a skull fracture and ended up unconscious for two days. As a result of his injury, he wrote six songs, four poems, and a rap song called \"Bang-Up\" about the incident. He vowed to give up alcohol. Once a month after the accident, he wrote letters to the fisherman, as if confessing to a priest.\n\nThat was just how Jim was. He saturated. He overflowed. He drowned.\n\n\"You have to design your life like it's a fresh America,\" he used to say, pulling his guitar onto his lap, his calloused fingertips dancing along the strings. \"An unseen brave new world sits before you. Every. Single. Day. What are you going to do about it?\"\n\nNow Whitley, Cannon, Kipling, and Martha were watching me, uneasy. We'd never done this before. We'd never talked together about Jim's death. This had had to do with timing as much as the devastation of it. When every fact had been released by police and the administration had made their statement, finals week was finished. In a state of shock, unable to leave my bed, barely able to speak, I allowed my stricken parents to whisk me away from the treacherous kingdom of Darrow, back to the calming shelter of Watch Hill. It was days before I could stop sobbing, months before I felt anything remotely resembling fine.\n\n\"The body shuts down when it's too sad,\" said my dad.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n\"Where do we begin?\" I asked now.\n\n\"Excellent question,\" said Martha. She looked at me, her dark eyes glinting behind her glasses. \"What do _you_ think happened to Jim? I always wanted to ask you.\"\n\nThere it was, the question I asked myself every day. So much so, it had turned me into a secret freak of nature, like a man who wanders around for years with a bullet lodged in his brain, normal on the outside, a gruesome marvel on the inside.\n\nI was dying to spill my theories, what I knew but they didn't know I knew. It had been my whole reason for coming to Wincroft. But in this dizzying life-and-death dynamic in which we found ourselves, sharing them wouldn't necessarily be a wise idea. Not if I wanted to live. Martha asking this so pointedly sent a fresh wave of chills up my spine.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said.\n\n\"It was an accident,\" interjected Kipling. \"Had to have been, right? Say Jim was out at the quarry. Maybe he decided to get wasted. Sure, he'd sworn off booze after that boat crash, but maybe he was depressed. He was stressed about his musical. Didn't think he could pull it off. Maybe he slipped. The swim team kept those Pabst Blue Ribbons stashed all over. So maybe he was wanderin' the tall grass, which on a windy night could be like gettin' caught in a car wash's Deluxe Wax Special, and, I don't know, he stepped too close to the edge and tripped?\"\n\n\"When did Jim Mason ever trip?\" asked Cannon.\n\nKipling shrugged, tipping back his head to squint at the ceiling.\n\n\"Freak possible,\" he said in a low voice. \"That's what Momma Greer calls it when worst-case scenarios on steroids actually happen. She says all the big mysteries of history, like Marilyn's death, JFK, the Black Dahlia, the Lost Colony? They all came down to the freak possible.\" He nodded as if trying to convince himself, giving a lazy wave of his hand. \"It's wild flukes. One-in-a-billion chances. Wrong places at the wrong time with a serious helping of bad luck. It's some crazy, gnarled tangle of destiny that can never be undone by any outside detective 'cause it'd sound too damn absurd.\" He looked at me, his face solemn. \"The freak possible's what happened to Jim. I'd bet my life on it.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" said Whitley, shrugging. \"I mean, none of us knew he was heading to the quarry that night.\"\n\nEveryone nodded, glancing tentatively at the others.\n\nI suspected at least one of them was lying. I certainly was.\n\nAfter all, on the night of Jim's death, none of them had been where they'd claimed.\n\nI knew this because I'd gone looking for each of them, one by one.\n\nI'd found nothing and no one.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nVulcan Quarry\u2014or Vulcanation, as Darrow's students called it\u2014was the abandoned quarry a mile from the center of campus.\n\nIf Darrow had one enduring legend, it was that quarry. Given its tantalizing proximity to school\u2014the seventeen-acre property bordered Darrow's southeast woods\u2014it was the off-limits no-man's-land kids whispered about and obsessed over, a far-off world to visit for pranks, hazing, hookups, and all other adolescent rites of passage, you name it.\n\nRumors about the quarry\u2014how to find it, what happened to students who went there (most of whom were long gone from Darrow, so events could never be verified)\u2014were part of the weekly goings-on at Darrow and served as a foundation to its lore. The quarry was as tightly woven into the fabric of the school as its official song, \"Oh, Lord, Unbind My Heart\"; its motto, \"Truth, Compassion, Enterprise\"; and even Marksman Library, the Gothic fortress of weather-beaten gray stones that stared out like a menacing stepfather from every brochure.\n\nAfter World War I, Vulcan Sandberg Corporation created the quarry for mining granite. By the 1950s, they were bankrupt, the quarry forsaken. In the ensuing years, the crater filled with water, creating a lake two hundred feet deep. The grounds overgrew, with grass that reached your neck. The Foreman's Lookout\u2014a wooden box like a pioneer-era saloon hoisted fifty feet into the sky, accessible only by scaling a narrow ladder\u2014began to lean northward. Then there was the quarry itself, a hole in the earth the size of a small town. It sat there, gaping and ominous, impossible to look away from. It seemed to reveal some terrifying truth about the world the grown-ups wanted to keep hidden from us.\n\nDarrow's football team used the quarry for Streak Night, the annual tradition of new recruits racing naked to the quarry and back. The crew team went swimming in the lake before state championships for good luck. Couples went there to lose their virginity, daredevils to brood. It was whispered that Vulcan Sandberg was actually a government cover-up, that the quarry had actually been the landing spot for an alien spaceship.\n\nFor Darrow's administration, Vulcan Quarry was a lawsuit waiting to happen, the enchanted wood they wanted to clear-cut to put an end to the dark fairy tales wafting off it like some toxic mist. There was always some board member protesting, collecting signatures to declare it a safety hazard, lobbying state representatives for it to be turned into a cultural center, a YMCA, a housing complex. In the meantime, it required new fencing and a twenty-four-hour police patrol. The town of Warwick\u2014partly out of resentment over being told what to do by uppity out-of-towners, partly out of ineptitude\u2014dragged their feet doing anything about it, though, and as long as I attended Darrow, the fencing around the quarry\u2014rusted, riddled with holes, its faded signs halfheartedly declaring KEEP OUT\u2014remained little more than a suggestion at best.\n\nAfter Jim was found dead, however, he became the poster boy for the board's cause. Last I'd heard, the quarry was going to be turned into a reservoir and there was brand-new, state-of-the-art fencing around it.\n\nNot that that would keep Darrow's students out.\n\nIf the administration knew the lengths to which the student body went to sneak out at night, to the quarry and everywhere else\u2014dorm rooms, basement gymnasiums, boiler rooms\u2014they wouldn't have believed it. There was a secret forum\u2014AlbanzHax.biz\u2014where students past and present anonymously revealed how to get in and out of every dorm without being caught.\n\n_All dark clothing. Porch ledge. Sneak past the window where Mr. Robertson is zonked out with an issue of_ Poets & Writers _over his chest. Get past him ur golden._\n\nThe six of us snuck out to Vulcan Quarry all the time. We were already in the habit of stealing away to each other's rooms after curfew, clambering across ledges and landings to hash over boys, teachers, sharing a cigarette in the dark before hightailing it home, stealing back into bed. Sophomore year, Cannon found the crude map and pointers for the quarry etched into the tiles of the forsaken gym in the old athletic center. At midnight we escaped our dorms, meeting at the entry to the Philosopher's Walk. Barely able to suppress our laughter, we took off running down the tangle of dirt paths to get there.\n\nThose were the best nights of my life.\n\nI couldn't say why, exactly, this was so\u2014only that I knew that as an old woman, when I thought back to my youth, I'd remember these nights, sitting with these five people along the harrowing window ledge of the Foreman's Lookout, gazing into that clear blue lake hundreds of feet below.\n\nOur friendship was born there. There we were bound together. Something about seeing each other against that spare, alien backdrop of rock, water, and sky\u2014not to mention the prohibited, dangerous thing we were doing\u2014it X-rayed us, revealed the unspoken questions we each were asking. You could feel life burning us, our scars as real as the wind whipping our faces. We knew that nothing would ever be the same, that youth was here and nearly gone already, that love was fragile and death was real.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n\"What about the White Rabbit?\" asked Martha now. \"It never sat right with me. It was just too easy. The White Rabbit suddenly revealed to be Jim the _exact_ moment he turns up dead?\" She shook her head. \"It went against everything I knew about him.\"\n\n\"You think it was a cover-up?\" asked Whitley. \"Some grand conspiracy concocted by the administration and Jim was the fall guy?\"\n\n\"I don't know.\"\n\n\"You're right,\" I said to Martha. \"There's no way he was the White Rabbit.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\" Cannon asked me.\n\n_I just know._\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThe White Rabbit.\n\nIt was what everyone called the drug dealer at Darrow, someone who circulated the student body, invisible and invasive as a virus.\n\nFor most of my time at the school he was a bogeyman. No one had actually ever seen him\u2014no one who would admit to it, at least. He did his deals in creative scavenger-hunt dead drops all around Darrow, like behind the frame of _Landscape #14_ in the art gallery, or inside the ripped seat cushion of seat 104, row E, Orchestra Hall.\n\nBy the time I was a senior, the name had garnered such cult status, whenever anything weird happened, it was said to be the work of the White Rabbit. Even teachers knew the name. They'd doubtlessly held emergency meetings about him, trying to determine whether he was real or it was just kids dreaming up some Keyser S\u00f6ze.\n\nThe biggest scandal concerned a freshman named Veronica Beers. She took some pills and went out of her mind during Winter Dance, fell down a flight of stairs, and got taken to the ER. She admitted the White Rabbit had sold her the pills. Tracing the phone number led to only a defunct prepaid phone.\n\nWas he a lone wolf or a gang of hoodlums? A student or someone from the outside?\n\nWhen the police found Jim, he'd been dead for two days. The cause of death was asphyxiation due to drowning, but he also had signs of a concussion and leg and spinal fractures, which the coroner believed were sustained when he hit the water.\n\nPolice searched Jim's room at Packer Hall, and they found hidden inside his Gibson guitar stashes of pot, Adderall, Ritalin, and cocaine. They concluded that Jim had been the infamous supplier, his death most likely suicide, though foul play in conjunction with some local criminal couldn't be ruled out.\n\nThe revelation spread like wildfire.\n\nFirst Jim Mason's disappearance and death, then the shocking reveal of his secret life. It was the perfect one-two punch to leave us all breathless at the end of a teen slasher flick.\n\n_Of course the White Rabbit was Jim,_ everyone whispered. _Totally._\n\nIt's always the one we worship the most we know the least.\n\nHe was, after all, Darrow's rock star, its heartthrob-musical-genius-Shakespeare, the boy who made spontaneous rapping, poetry, and wearing tweed caps cool (all small miracles unto themselves)\u2014the kid everyone loved, longed for, yet simultaneously wished dead.\n\nHe had _it._ An energy force field.\n\nHe was the giant lit-up window with no curtains at night. You couldn't help stopping to look closer on your silent walk past him.\n\nI never believed it.\n\nThere was no way Jim was the White Rabbit. Someone had set him up, I was sure. He never touched drugs or alcohol after his speedboat accident. And he wouldn't have sold it. He was a rescuer of broken-winged birds and lunchtime social outcasts. Nor did he need the money. His dad, Edgar Mason, was the inventor of the Van Gogh sneaker and the Poe hoodie, the man behind Starving Artist, a global leisurewear company he'd started in the back of his Jeep at nineteen. Jim's family was worth five billion, according to _Forbes._\n\nI'd spent the past year doubting my belief in Jim's innocence. I road-tested my theory obsessively, kicking the tires, trying to make the doors fall off. I wondered about all the occasions when Jim said he couldn't meet me in the canteen during Evening Spells, how he was on a tear and had to stay sequestered in his dorm room writing. I wondered if he'd been lying to me every time he said he was at work on _Nowhere Man,_ his musical about John Lennon.\n\nMy heart insisted no. He couldn't have been. He'd lied to me about other things.\n\nNot about that.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n\"I know where to start,\" I announced.\n\nThe others had lapsed into thoughtful silence. Now they looked up at me, apprehensive.\n\n\"Vida Joshua.\"\n\n\"Kitten?\" yelped Kipling in surprise.\n\n\"She knows something about Jim's death. I'm positive.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\" asked Whitley sharply.\n\n\"Remember how Jim was acting that final week?\"\n\nKipling arched an eyebrow. \"Like I remember a hot summer with a water shortage, backed-up sewage, and zero air-conditionin'.\"\n\n\"He wasn't himself,\" I went on. \"He was moody. A short fuse.\"\n\n\"All because of his musical,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"Oh, _Lord Almighty,_ his musical,\" drawled Kipling, grimacing. \"It was eatin' him alive.\"\n\n\"He was stressed about his musical, definitely,\" I said. \"But there was something else going on too. Something I found out about.\"\n\nThey were watching me, rapt, waiting for me to go on.\n\n\"I'm pretty sure he was hooking up with Vida Joshua.\"\n\nNo one said a word. They just stared at me in shock.\n\n\"The day before he disappeared was the first night of Spring Vespers, remember?\"\n\nThey nodded.\n\nSpring Vespers\u2014it was a two-night performance of skits, speeches, and original songs commemorating the end of the year and preceding finals week.\n\nAround five, Jim texted me. He said he had a fever and chills, and was heading to the infirmary. I was shocked. After all, a medley of original songs from _Nowhere Man_ was being performed that night. It was the cornerstone of Spring Vespers, the first time anyone had heard it, so for Jim to abandon his own production on the eve of its debut was very strange. Even if he was nervous about it, he'd never quit. Later that night, after eight, I was running late for Vespers, having stayed longer than I realized in the library. I veered behind the cafeteria on my way to the auditorium. It was the shortcut Jim and I sometimes took. That was when I saw him. Sitting by the loading dock. _Not_ sick. At all. He was fine. Just sitting there in a black T-shirt and jeans, as if waiting for someone. Alone. I stood behind a tree and texted him.\n\n_How's the infirmary?_\n\n_One hundred and two fever,_ he wrote back, plus a sick emoji. I _watched_ him write this, completely nonchalant.\n\n_I'll come visit you,_ I wrote.\n\n_No. No. Don't. I'm going to sleep._\n\nI couldn't believe it. I was about to confront him right then and there. Only that was when a car slinked up. Slow. No headlights. Taking care not to be noticed. Jim hopped off the ledge and climbed right in. Vida Joshua was driving.\n\n\"You saw her?\" asked Cannon.\n\nI nodded. \"It was Mr. Joshua's beat-up red Nissan. The one he kept behind the music school with the keys in the ignition and the For Sale sign in the back window. The one the administration was always asking him to get towed.\"\n\n\"Poor Mr. Joshua,\" said Whitley. \"If his head wasn't attached, he'd lose it.\"\n\n\"Did you ever confront Jim, child?\" Kipling asked.\n\nI nodded. \"The next day. He didn't admit anything. But he was furious.\"\n\n\"Furious at you?\" asked Martha, squinting skeptically.\n\nI nodded.\n\n_Leave me alone, Beatrice. Stop spying on me. What are you, my father?_\n\nJim's reaction had scared me. I'd never seen him like that before: trembling hands, tears in his eyes, anger like a sudden venom in his veins, making him scowl and spit and contort his face so he was unrecognizable. He'd been on edge for weeks, a mood I'd attributed to the pressure of getting his musical ready for Spring Vespers and recording the producer's demo Mr. Joshua had set up. _I want it to be glorious, Bee. I'm going for glory._ He had turned inside out with anxiety, self-doubt, despair. _The notes have lost their velvet,_ he whined. What had once sounded like a haunting theme song had suddenly become shrill to him. His lyrics were clich\u00e9d. No amount of insistence on my part that they were good could convince him otherwise. Our relationship had become brittle, a series of botched conversations about stanzas and syncopated rhythms, finding a better rhyme for _dissipate._\n\n_Figure eight? Exonerate?_ I'd try.\n\n_Just forget it,_ Jim would snap.\n\nThat afternoon, I'd given Jim every chance to explain what I'd seen, tell me the innocent reason he'd climbed into Very Flexible Vida's Nissan that night and lied to me about it.\n\nBut he didn't.\n\n_You want to break up with me over this?_ he screamed. _Good. I've had enough of your insecurities and childishness and your totally annoying inability to see the bad in people. Sometimes there's evil in the world, okay? Sometimes the sickness is right in front of you._\n\nHis words had made me turn and sprint down the hill, hot tears blinding me. When I stopped and looked back, I saw in surprise that Jim wasn't following me as I'd expected. Instead, he was striding across the hill, a dark and consumed expression on his face, out of sight.\n\nLike he was over me. Like we really were done.\n\nThat was the last time I ever spoke to Jim.\n\nTwo days later he was dead.\n\n\"The day after Rector Trask announced that Jim had been found dead,\" I went on, \"it was all over the newspapers. That same day, Vida disappeared.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Cannon.\n\n\"She immediately left town, remember? They made the announcement.\"\n\n\"That's _right,_ \" said Whitley slowly, wrinkling her nose. \"At Final Assembly. 'And in further news, Miss Joshua is taking a job in stem cell research at the University of Chicago.' \"\n\nKipling nodded, dubious. \"It was like hearin' a chimpanzee got employed at the State Department.\"\n\n\"You thought she was fleeing the scene of the crime?\" Martha asked me.\n\n\"The timing was strange,\" I said with a nod. \"Like she was afraid of something. Anyway, I checked Facebook, and she's working as an assistant chef at Angelo's Italian Palace, living at home again. I always wished I'd had the guts to confront her. Now I do.\"\n\nI took a deep breath and stood up.\n\n\"Who's coming with me?\"\n\nOne by one, with uneasy expressions, they raised their hands.\n\nVida Loretta Joshua was seven years older than all of us.\n\nShe was Mr. Joshua's only child. She'd graduated from Darrow and gone off to college in North Carolina, only she'd had some kind of mental breakdown\u2014the exact nature of which remained vague\u2014dropped out, and moved home.\n\nWhen you visited the Joshuas' modest Tudor cottage on Darrow's campus, it was like visiting two ordinary people housing a pet leopard. This was because: (1) Vida Joshua was stunningly beautiful, with black hair, far-apart blue eyes, alien cheekbones, a face so symmetrical and arresting when she finally looked at you (which she only did after a prolonged delay) that it was like finding a wildcat lazily regarding you from a mountaintop as you squinted through binoculars; and (2) Mr. and Mrs. Joshua seemed to be afraid of their daughter. They addressed her in soft tones. They tiptoed around (with no sudden movements) the spot where she could be found sunning herself on the living room couch with unwashed hair and baggy sweats, eating a bag of kale chips, watching _Real Housewives of Atlanta._ They seemed too scared to arrange her reentry to the wild (college) or get her into a rehabilitation sanctuary (therapy). So they just left her alone, bored and depressed, or whatever Vida was.\n\nNo one was really sure.\n\nSophomore year, Mr. Joshua twisted someone's arm to get her a job at Darrow. Vida started appearing in admissions, yawning as she shuffled unconvincingly between the copy machine and a computer; later she turned up in the Spanish department; then as assistant coach for JV field hockey, though when that didn't work out (apparently few were comfortable working alongside a big cat), they stuck her in the remote outpost of the art gallery. Most of the time she left the front desk unattended, and could be found outside in the back by the dumpsters, chatting with a random student, always a boy. Rumors swirled that her nickname at Darrow had been Very Flexible Vida, that she'd had sex with the entire wrestling team, that she'd fallen in love with a professor in college and stalked his wife, which had resulted in a restraining order that led to Vida's mysterious breakdown.\n\nThat was all I knew about her before I saw her with Jim. Once I saw them leave campus together, though, Mr. Joshua's nickname for his daughter, Kitten, seemed so fitting, because what had once been a cute little fluffball had suddenly morphed into a dangerous predator with a diet of horse carcasses and the capacity to kill without warning.\n\nI hadn't even known she and Jim were friends. He'd never mentioned her. She had surveyed Jim from her spot on the living room couch with only marginally less indifference than she'd regarded me and everyone else. After he was found dead, though, she suddenly vanished from her job at the art gallery. Her ergonomic swivel chair, her mug of pens, the gallery printouts of price sheets and artists' statements of purpose mixed in with a welcome pack for a gym membership at the Jam, and Thai take-out menus\u2014all sat there like nagging questions in the days following his death.\n\nI found myself calling into question my every private moment with Jim, as if I were a miser locking myself in my room to stare down at the stacks of cash I'd stashed under my mattress, counting the money for the millionth time to make sure it was all there, checking that it wasn't counterfeit. In the intervening year, I kept tabs on Vida. I stared at her Instagram photos of camping trips in Wisconsin with some friend named Jenni who wore Bermudas; her loud move into a new apartment in Wicker Park ( _Anyone know a good mover in the Chicago area????_ ), followed by a mute return home not three months later; her registration in a fashion design course; her interest in reflexology and a heavy-metal band called Eisenhower. I pored over these artifacts, looking for clues to her relationship with Jim. Occasionally I found them. She posted lyrics to a song Jim wrote\u2014\"Carpe\"\u2014to accompany a blurry photo she'd taken of a frog. _Once we had days when we ripped up the skies. Swore it was real, no deception, no lies._ On the one-year anniversary of his death, she posted a message on his Facebook page, which had become a living memorial. _Miss you Mason._\n\nIn some of my darker moments, I considered sending her a series of anonymous messages, a sort of _I Know What You Did Last Year,_ to see if I could smoke her out, get her to reveal what she knew, what she'd done.\n\nI never did.\n\nNever would I have believed Jim capable of betraying me by fooling around with Vida. Then again, we'd never had sex. We came close. At the last minute I always said no. Jim would roll onto his back, prop up his head, stare at the ceiling.\n\n\"What are you afraid of?\" he'd ask with genuine curiosity.\n\nI deferred with various versions of \"I'm not ready,\" never having the guts to tell him the truth: that I was scared of losing the last piece of dry land I was standing on. I loved Jim, but our relationship could feel like a blackout sometimes. I'd get swept up in him, then days, weeks later suddenly look around, unnerved, wondering where I was, what time it was.\n\n\"You want to wait for our wedding night? Fine,\" he'd tease.\n\n_No wonder he never broke up with me,_ I thought later. _He wasn't missing out on anything at all._\n\nHe had Kitten.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nNone of us had been back to Darrow, not even inside the Neverworld.\n\nArriving felt the way it always did, as if we were traveling back in time to a lost past of driving goggles, candlestick telephones, and people wearing tweed sprinkling their sentences with _grand_ and calling good times a _gas._ Darrow had always been willfully old-fashioned, a quality the school went out of its way to proudly maintain, as if the place were not a school, but a sanctuary for some endangered bird. Classrooms had the same wooden tables as fifty years before, the chapel the same pews. Most of the teachers looked like walking daguerreotypes, with stiff necks and expressions suggesting great depressions.\n\nI peered out the window, trying to ignore the nervousness in the pit of my stomach. Throughout the past year I'd wondered what I'd say to Vida if I ever had the chance to confront her, but now every scenario I had considered sounded pathetic and insecure. _What were you doing with Jim that night? Why did you suddenly vanish when he died? Did you love him? Did he love you?_\n\nAhead I could see the old white wood sign swinging in the torrential rain.\n\nDARROW-HARKER SCHOOL. The bronze stag stood beside it. As we tore past I caught a fleeting glimpse of the antlers and eyes, FOUNDED IN 1887 flashing in the bloodred taillights before both sign and stage were swallowed by the dark.\n\n\"Don't worry, Bee,\" whispered Whitley, leaning her head on my shoulder. \"I'll take care of everything.\"\n\n\"Every time you say that, child, someone loses an eye,\" said Kipling from the front seat.\n\nShe smiled primly. \"I cannot vouch for the continued existence of anyone who messes with my best friends. They hurt Bee? They have to deal with unleashing the vengeful forces of the known universe.\"\n\n\"Well, Zeus, I'd pipe down if I were you,\" muttered Cannon, slowing the car.\n\nDarrow's security gatehouse was ahead.\n\n\"What are we going to say?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"Oh, the usual. We're former students. Kinda sorta dead? Stuck in a cosmic catacomb?\"\n\n\"That sounds _so tedious,_ \" whispered Whitley with a giggle, squeezing my hand.\n\nCannon pulled to a stop in front of the gate, unrolling the window. We watched in uneasy silence as Moses\u2014Darrow's notorious security guard\u2014took his time zipping his jacket, fixing his shirt collar, and opening a golf umbrella before ambling out. Grumpy, bent over like a question mark, he was whispered to have arrived on campus the same year the school was founded. He was a die-hard Christian, shoehorning God into most conversations, and a recovering alcoholic. Every Wednesday at midnight he secretly abandoned his post to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the gym at St. Peter's, which meant there was a reliable two-hour window when you could stroll brazenly past the gatehouse, absconding from campus without getting caught, so long as you made it back before he returned.\n\n\"Evening,\" Moses shouted officially through the rain. \"How may I help you?\"\n\n\"You don't recognize us?\" asked Cannon.\n\nMoses peered closer, his bushy white eyebrows bunching together in surprise. \"Well, I'll be. Cannon Beecham. Kipling St. John. Whitley. Beatrice. And little Martha. What on earth are you kids doing here on a soggy night like this?\"\n\n\"We were in the neighborhood and wanted to take a quick drive around,\" said Cannon. \"We won't be long.\"\n\nMoses scowled in apparent consternation and checked his watch. When he glanced back at Cannon, he seemed uneasy.\n\n\"A quick look,\" he said, pointing at Cannon. \"But no mischief, you understand me?\"\n\nCannon nodded, waving as he rolled up the window, and we took off down the road.\n\n\"No mischief you'll remember tomorrow, old friend,\" he muttered.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n\"My goodness. This _is_ a surprise.\"\n\nStanding in the doorway, Mr. Joshua looked exactly the same. He was still trim, with sparkling blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and a flagpole posture, plus a penchant for sweater vests.\n\n\"To what do I owe such a treat? Come in. Out of this tempest.\"\n\nHe beamed with genuine warmth, causing me to feel a pang of guilt as the five of us filed inside, dripping wet.\n\n\"We're here to visit Vida,\" said Whitley, smiling. \"Is dear Kitten at home?\"\n\nWe'd already seen her car in the driveway, the red Nissan, the many lit-up windows, so we pretty much knew the answer to that question.\n\nMr. Joshua blinked, puzzled.\n\n\" _Vida?_ Certainly. We're\u2014uh\u2014just having dinner. Come in. Come in. Please.\"\n\nWe moved after him through a quiet living room into the dining room, where we found Vida and Mrs. Joshua. Mrs. Joshua, wearing a yellow apron, was forking corn on the cob onto the three plates as Vida, seated idly at the head of the table, scrolled through her cell.\n\nIt seemed captivity had taken a toll on her, because she looked less intimidating than I remembered. She was stockier, with thinner, rattier hair. Though the five of us wordlessly assembled around her chair, she was totally oblivious, glancing up in apparent disinterest before returning to her phone. She was used to her father's students visits at all hours for guitar lessons and rehearsals.\n\n\"Peggy? Kitten? These are friends of Jim Mason's. You remember, Jim, my student? The, uh, wunderkind? One of the very best young lyricists I've ever come across.\" Mr. Joshua held up a finger, a soft smile. \"He was going to go far. His musical about Lennon was one of the most gorgeous\u2014 A veritable tapestry of music and words...\" He seemed to forget himself for a moment, blurting this with unabashed sadness. His face reddened. \" _Well._ What brings you to our neck of the woods?\"\n\nIt had never occurred to me to consider how Mr. Joshua had taken Jim's death\u2014not until now, standing in the shabby taupe modesty of his house, the deafening rain pounding the roof, the faint smell of mothballs, acoustic guitars mounted on the walls hinting at some unplayed song. It had been Mr. Joshua, after all, who'd been Jim's biggest champion, coaching him about out-of-town tryouts and a Broadway run. It was Mr. Joshua who had taken Jim's dozens of demos, recorded on Logic Pro, and transcribed them into sheet music, Mr. Joshua who had pushed him to dream up cleverer lyrics, sharper characters, _more variety for the ear,_ analyzing with him the ingenious phrasings and renegade words of Stephen Sondheim and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Tennessee Williams. It was Mr. Joshua who had arranged for a major New York producer to listen to Jim's demo of songs from _Nowhere Man._ The producer had loved what he'd heard, and a meeting, a lunch in New York, was being set up around the time Jim had died.\n\nI found myself wondering if Mr. Joshua had been in love with Jim. Or was it something else? Had he seen himself attached to Jim's rising star\u2014Jim, his one-way bus ticket out of town; Jim, his partner, pet student, meal ticket\u2014all those hopes and prospects null and void now that Jim was dead?\n\n\"Vida definitely remembers Jim,\" said Whitley, grinning. She tilted her head, arching an eyebrow. \"Kitten, dear? Now would be the optimal time to ask your parents to leave the room, unless you want them privy to all the gory details.\" She plopped easily into a chair at the head of the table, hitching one leg over the armrest, and helped herself to a green bean. \"We want to know everything,\" she went on, nibbling the end. \"Who started it? Who ended it? Where did the two of you sneak off to off campus? And why did you leave town the nanosecond Jim turned up dead?\"\n\nVida only stared, her mouth open, incredulous.\n\n\"Please don't insult our intelligence denyin' it, child,\" drawled Kipling, waving his hand in the air. \"For one? Beatrice doesn't lie. She's the kindest, most honest person you'll ever meet. Her middle name's Good Witch a the North. And two, we don't have a lot of patience. We've been livin' this same day, known as a wake, over and over again? And it's made us all a little tense.\"\n\n\"A little impossible to deal with,\" added Cannon.\n\n\"Excuse me?\" asked Mrs. Joshua. \"What on earth is happening here? Paul? _Paul!_ \"\n\nMr. Joshua, standing beside her, seemed unable to move or speak, sort of like a wren hovering nervously around a park bench where a few breadcrumbs have just fallen.\n\n\"You people are nuts,\" said Vida in a hoarse voice. \"I have no idea what you're talking about.\"\n\nSmiling, Whitley grabbed a plate of food and launched it into the air like a Frisbee. It sailed across the room, chicken, corn, rice flying, crashing against the windows.\n\nFor a moment, everyone was too stunned to move. Then Mrs. Joshua dashed to the side table and grabbed a phone. She dialed 911.\n\n\"I'd like to report a home invasion.\"\n\n\"Tell her to hang up,\" Cannon told Vida, scratching his nose.\n\n\"We need the police. _Now._ There are children\u2014teenagers\u2014trespassing in our house\u2014\"\n\n\"Tell her to hang up if you don't like orange jumpsuits,\" said Whitley.\n\nVida glanced at her, startled.\n\n\"Or public showers,\" said Cannon, plopping easily into a chair.\n\n\"They're terrorizing us. My husband's former students. Please come at once.\"\n\n\"Hang up the phone, Mom,\" said Vida.\n\n\"One of my pet peeves is when girls don't support other girls,\" said Whitley. \"When they just help themselves to someone's boyfriend like he's some free smoked gouda sample speared with a toothpick at Whole Foods. It's _so_ unforgivable. And out-of-date.\"\n\n\"The Darrow School\u2014\"\n\n\"I'd call off your pit bull of a mom,\" said Cannon.\n\n\"Mom,\" said Vida sharply.\n\nMrs. Joshua didn't hear her. \"Five forty-five Entrance Drive. Please hurry.\"\n\nVida leapt to her feet. She ran to her mother, shoving the woman aside as she wrenched the phone away and threw it across the room. It hit a small painting of a fox playing a violin, which immediately fell off the wall, revealing a bright rectangle of wallpaper spangled with black mold.\n\nEveryone fell silent in total bewilderment.\n\nVida stood there gaping at us, wild-eyed, trying to catch her breath.\n\n\"What did you do this time?\" Mr. Joshua asked her.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n\"I don't know how many times I have to say it,\" growled Vida. \"We were _friends._ That's all. All he did was ask me for a ride. He wanted my help getting off campus. He hid under a blanket in the backseat of my car as I drove past Moses. And that was it, okay? I really don't know what the big deal is. You people are seriously insane.\"\n\n\"We don't believe you,\" said Cannon.\n\n\"That's your problem.\"\n\n\"Where did you take Jim?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"I already _said._ \"\n\n\"Tell us again,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"I don't know. Some shopping center?\"\n\n\"In Newport?\"\n\n\"Yeah.\"\n\n\"Do you remember where it was? Or what it was called?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What _can_ you tell us?\" asked Cannon.\n\nVida shrugged. \"It was some dingy section of town. Dollar stores. A pet store. The parking lot had some man in a chicken costume handing out heart balloons.\"\n\n\"And why did Jim want to go there?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"Maybe he wanted to eat fried chicken and buy a pet iguana? I have no fucking clue.\"\n\n\"You must have drawn _some_ conclusion,\" said Wit.\n\nVida shrugged, irritated. \"I thought maybe he was trying to score some weed. There were these dime baggers loitering around the parking lot.\"\n\n\"What time was this?\"\n\n\"Eight? Nine at night?\" Vida sighed. \"I offered to stay, give him a ride back to school, but he said he'd make his own way. And that was _it,_ all right? I don't see what the big deal is, and I had nothing to do with his death. I mean, _please._ \"\n\nFor the past twenty minutes, contemptuous and huffy, Vida had been relating the same story over and over again: Jim had only asked her for a ride that night. That was all. There was nothing more to it. They had not been hooking up. They'd been accidental friends. She had not wavered in this explanation. And though I was inclined to believe her, listening to her was still like a knife through my heart, because even if it was true that there was nothing romantic about their relationship, it still meant Jim hadn't chosen to confide in me, that whatever he had been up to, whatever had upset him, he'd chosen to deal with it behind my back. And if he had lied to me about that, I couldn't help wondering what else he'd lied about.\n\n\"I find it pretty far-fetched that he'd ask you for a ride if you weren't more than friends,\" said Whitley.\n\nVida glared at her. \"Like I said. We _talked._ Occasionally. He visited me at the art gallery and gave me advice sometimes. Jim was a card-carrying genius. He understood stuff. I talked to him about my issues, you know, and he gave me better advice in ten minutes than six years of Dr. Milton Yeskowitz with the goatee, the too-long thumbnails, and the bookshelf full of seventies self-help manuals called _Learning to Love Yourself._ \"\n\nShe said this with a scathing glance at her father, who stared back blankly. Both Mr. and Mrs. Joshua had been listening to their daughter as if she were speaking a strange dialect in which only every third word was comprehensible.\n\n\"Jim reminded me again and again that my life was alive and I had to tame it. That was why I decided to move to Chicago. I told him I had the opportunity to intern at the lab, and he said I had to go. I had to seize the day. Even if I was afraid. Jim said when there's a break in the path in front of you and you're freaked out, you take a running leap and trust that you'll reach the other side. He inspired me. And I helped him, you know. He was really stressed about his musical. He wanted it to be great. He wanted it to be up there with _Oklahoma!_ and _Rent._ He aspired to greatness. More than anything, he wanted to go down in history. And he was going to. He showed me his notebook, and he'd written the most _insane_ rhymes. He was a genius.\" She shook her head. \"It's horrible what happened to him. But that's life, right? All the amazing people die too soon.\"\n\n\"When was the last time you saw him?\" I asked.\n\n\"Don't you people _listen_? I _told_ you. When I dropped him off at that mall.\"\n\n\"You didn't talk to him the night he died? He didn't tell you to meet him at Vulcan Quarry?\"\n\nShe scowled. \"What are you _talking_ about? I haven't been out to that quarry in forever.\" She sniffed, shaking her head. \"Soon as I heard what had happened, though, that he was not only dead but had been a major drug dealer or whatever? I went straight to the police and told them they were completely insane.\" She rolled her eyes. \"Whatever drugs they found in his dorm? They definitely weren't Jim's.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\" I asked.\n\n\"He told me who they belonged to.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\" asked Martha sharply, with a surprised glance at me. \"What?\"\n\n\"Oh, yeah.\" Vida nodded. \"A couple of weeks before he died. It was all he could talk about. How he'd found out one of his best friends had been selling serious drugs to students for years.\"\n\n\"Did he say who it was?\" asked Kipling.\n\n\"He didn't have to. As he was telling me, the friend called. 'Speak of the devil,' he said. I saw the name right there on his phone.\" Vida wrinkled her nose. \"It was kind of weird. It was just one word.\"\n\n\"What was the word?\" asked Cannon.\n\n\"Shrieks.\"\n\nInstantly, a chorus of voices began to scream in my head: _No. No. Impossible._\n\nNo one moved.\n\nWhitley was gazing at the carpet, a blank look on her face.\n\n\"I gave the name to the police,\" Vida went on. \"Told them everything. I said this person had something to do with Jim's murder. I was sure. Knowing their secret was about to come out? They had to get rid of him. Shut him up, you know?\" She widened her eyes. \"But the police didn't care. Or they'd eaten too many Krispy Kremes to peel their asses off their swivel chairs and _do_ something, because I never heard anything about it. I wasn't surprised. No one does anything anymore. The only one who did, who went above and beyond for everyone, was Jim. And now he's gone.\"\n\nShe fell silent. There was a moment of uneasy stillness.\n\nThen Whitley leapt to her feet and ran out of the house.\n\nWe took off after her.\n\nAt the front door, as Cannon and the others barged into a downpour, I paused, taking a final glance back at the Joshuas, who were regarding each other sullenly, like three strangers held in a jail cell before charges were filed. Then I turned and sprinted out.\n\nWhitley was already disappearing down Entrance Drive.\n\n\"Whitley!\" shouted Kip.\n\n\"Come on!\" yelled Cannon. \"Where are you going?\"\n\nShe ignored them, veering off the road and vanishing over the hill. When I caught up, they were far below, Whitley a dark figure flying past the tennis courts and soccer fields, Martha, Cannon, and Kip fanning out behind her.\n\n\"Hold on!\" screamed Martha.\n\n\"Let's talk about this!\"\n\n\"Whitley Lansing! Stop!\"\n\nI raced after them as fast as I could, faint police sirens erupting somewhere behind me. _Whitley? The White Rabbit?_ How was it possible?\n\nThe rain was torrential now. Like ammunition blasting from the sky, it riddled my head and arms. It was hard to see where I was going. Tree branches cracked and thrashed overhead, thunder rumbling. I slipped and tripped my way to the bottom of the hill, where there was a swamp of thick, tarlike mud. My sneakers sank inches into the ground. I could see Wit and the others farther ahead, rounding the front of the girls' dormitories: Slate Hall, Stonington Manor, the Gothic arches hulking and dark, misshapen shadows stretching long and fingerlike under the yellowed lamps. I veered through the garden behind Morley House and nearly ran over Martha. Apparently she'd slipped and fallen facedown in the mud.\n\n\"Are you okay?\" I shouted.\n\n\"Go,\" she gasped, waving me on.\n\nI kept running. As I swerved around the front of the aquatic center, a hulking glass-and-slate building, I saw that one of the glass doors had been smashed with a brick. I opened the door and scrambled inside, disembodied shouts and footsteps echoing through the darkness in front of me. I hurried through the dark lobby, past the many display cases of trophies and first-place ribbons, black-and-white photographs of the swim team. I sprinted down the checkered corridor, my muddy sneakers slipping and sliding on the linoleum, and thrust open the double doors to the Olympic-sized pool.\n\nKipling and Cannon were inside. Whitley had dived into the water, and they were tracking her dark figure along the edge as she glided into the deep end.\n\nAfter a minute, she surfaced, panting.\n\n\"What are you doing?\" said Cannon. \"We just want to talk to you.\"\n\n\"You can't outrun us, child,\" said Kipling.\n\nGlaring at them, she only sank back underwater.\n\n\"She's going for the door again,\" said Cannon, running toward me. Sure enough, Whitley leapt up the ladder, shoving me aside so hard I tripped against a chair as she heaved the doors open, only to come face to face with Martha, who was covered head to toe in mud. Startled, Wit tried pushing past, but Martha was gripping one of the swimming trophies from the cases. She wheeled back and hit Whitley in the side of the head with it. Yowling in pain, Whitley fell to the ground.\n\n\"Behold the White Rabbit,\" said Martha, panting.\n\nShe slammed the doors and wedged the trophy between the handles to lock them.\n\n\"So it was you!\" shouted Cannon, staring down at Whitley. \"All along. How could you never say anything? How could you deceive me, day after day after\u2014 Unbelievable.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean to do it more than a few times,\" she muttered. She rolled upright, rubbing the side of her head. \"My number started getting passed around, and the myth of the White Rabbit was born. It was impossible to stop.\"\n\n\"How could you?\" I whispered in a low voice.\n\nWhitley glared at me. \"Yes, Bee, we all know that you'd never do something like that in a million years. That you're the good one. With a moral compass perfectly set toward sainthood. The rest of us aren't so lucky.\" She sniffed, staring gloomily at the ground.\n\nWe said nothing, reflections of the blued water of the pool trembling across our faces.\n\nI couldn't believe how she'd lied. For years. I'd never suspected her. Neither had Cannon, given the enraged look on his face.\n\nYet it made a sort of twisted sense, considering that Whitley's mother, the Linda, ruled a pharmaceutical empire. It wasn't rare to hear Whitley talk about her mother's business acumen with awe\u2014how she, armed with her mink coat, high school dropout's education, and Missouri-farm-girl common sense, could command New York City boardrooms and shareholder meetings, put macho bankers in their place with one of her perfectly timed ten-cent-gumball put-downs. _If stupid could fly, you'd be an Airbus A Three-Fifty._ The truth was\u2014and it used to make me cry thinking about it, though I was always careful never to say anything to Wit\u2014the Linda didn't love her daughter, not the way Whitley needed. Ever since Wit was a baby, she'd been shuffled between nannies and nurses and au pairs, summer camps and boarding schools and educational groups, like some lost suitcase. I somehow understood. Whitley had become the White Rabbit to prove to herself, or maybe even to her mother, that she was worthy.\n\nI hadn't forgotten Vida's comment that unmasking the White Rabbit had possibly played a role in Jim's death. _I said this person had something to do with Jim's murder. Knowing their secret was about to come out? They had to get rid of him._ The comment nagged at me, glimmering with the unmistakable sheen of truth, though I didn't want to admit it.\n\n\"How did Jim find out about you?\" I asked her.\n\nWit glanced up at me, sullen. \"He caught me.\"\n\n\"When?\"\n\n\"A week before finals. I always snuck out at three in the morning to do a drop. He was coming back from Vulcan Quarry and saw me entering the observatory. He followed me into one of the domes, watched what I was doing. And he went nuts on me. Made it into a bigger deal than it was. I mean, we were about to graduate. The White Rabbit was done. Jim started screaming about civic responsibility. Doing the right thing. He insisted that I confess to the administration.\"\n\n\"So you decided to frame him,\" said Martha. \"You put your drugs in his guitar so he'd take the fall for you.\"\n\n\"No.\" Whitley adamantly shook her head. \"That was an accident. I always kept my supply buried behind the old maintenance shed at the edge of Drury Field. You know that place everyone says is haunted? Well, it's not. It's just cruddy, with a lot of old athletic signs and banners. One day, I saw this general contractor inspecting it. I found out they were going to demolish the thing and build a greenhouse. That night at supper I excused myself and dug up my stash. I meant to keep it in my room, only they were painting the hallways that night. The place was crawling with maintenance. I was desperate. This huge stash in my bag? If I was stopped...\" She shuddered. \"I ducked next door into Packer, to Jim's room. I knew he kept his key under the carpet. I shoved the stash in his guitar. I meant to go back and move it the next day. _Obviously._ But that was when they announced Jim was missing. By the time I had a chance to go back, the cops had already searched his room and found everything.\"\n\nMartha stared at her. \"Jim was reported missing Thursday morning. The police found him dead late Friday night. So when exactly did you hide the drugs in his guitar?\"\n\nWhitley glanced up, uneasy. \"Maybe Wednesday?\"\n\n\"Stop lying,\" said Martha.\n\n\"I'm not.\"\n\n\"Your story would have worked, if not for one little problem.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I had Jim's guitar.\"\n\nWe stared at her.\n\n\"He lent it to me so I could practice my song for Spring Vespers. I had it in my room for two weeks. They made the announcement Jim was missing Thursday morning. Late Thursday night, I returned the guitar to his room. That means only one thing. You knew Jim was missing when you put the drugs in his guitar.\" Martha looked at Wit, her face implacable. \"You saw his disappearance as an opportunity to get out of the mess you'd made. You set him up.\"\n\nWhitley glared at her.\n\n\"The night he died?\" I asked, my voice breaking. \"Were you with him at the quarry?\"\n\n_\"No.\"_ Whitley shook her head. \"I swear. I swear, Bee. I loved him as much as anybody.\" As she said this, she began to cry. \"Okay, fine. I set him up. I put the stash in his room. I was scared. I thought he'd already gone to the administration and told them I was the White Rabbit. I did it to save myself. It was awful. But I had nothing to do with his death, I swear to God.\" She stared at me, her eyes red. \"You have to believe me.\"\n\nAbruptly, there was loud pounding on the door.\n\n_\"Cannon Beecham, you in there?\"_\n\nIt was Moses.\n\n\"Please,\" Wit whimpered. \"I didn't know anything about Jim's death. I _still_ don't, I swear on\u2014\"\n\n\"Open up now. I got police with me.\"\n\n\"This is Warwick Police! You're trespassing on private grounds.\"\n\nThe door rattled but didn't budge.\n\n\"Let's get out of here,\" said Martha.\n\nAs the pounding continued, we sprinted to the opposite side of the pool, Whitley struggling to her feet and heading after us. There were bleachers. Girls' and boys' locker rooms.\n\nNo way out.\n\nI was about to suggest we surrender and spend the rest of the wake at the police station, when Cannon grabbed the lifeguard chair and, spinning, launched it at the wall of windows. The glass only cracked.\n\n\"Open this door!\"\n\nCannon picked up the chair again, hitting the wall a second time. I could see officers swarming outside. They were wielding flood flashlights. Another smash of the chair. Suddenly the glass shattered all at once. The five of us took off running, whooping and shouting at the top of our lungs, out into the night, exploding past the officers, their flashlights blinding us.\n\n\"Police! We command you to freeze!\"\n\n\"Warriors!\" whooped Kipling.\n\n\"Go to hell and back again!\"\n\nSomewhere behind me, Kip was howling. Whitley too. Cannon was singing. I ran blindly, weird, strung-out laughter hiccupping out of me as I willed the dark to swallow me. I could see one of the officers drawing his gun. I half expected him to shoot me out of sheer terror, thinking this was the beginning of some zombie apocalypse. I headed for the darkest part of the field, forcing my legs to go faster and faster, lungs tightening in pain, rain pummeling me. When I glanced back, I could see flashing red and blue police lights, figures swarming the aquatic center.\n\nNo one had followed me. I was alone.\n\nI slowed to a jog, then a walk, rain needling my face. I realized I'd reached the edge of the woods. I crossed onto a hiking trail and headed down it. Soon my mind quieted and I was aware only of my footsteps and the mud. It was everywhere, gelatinous and black as tar.\n\n_Jim._\n\nIt was so dark, I could almost feel him here, strolling beside me.\n\nI wanted so badly to scream at him, to demand the truth. _Why so many secrets?_ Jim was the painting I'd always thought was a one-of-a-kind masterpiece. As it turned out, there were countless versions of the same work floating around, smaller watercolors and rudimentary pencil sketches, cheap poster reprints selling for ninety-nine cents in an airport gift shop. True, none of them had the beauty and detail of my painting, but they still depicted the same scene and thus rendered it a little less special. Vida had her version. Mr. Joshua his. Whitley hers. Even Martha\u2014there had been something disconcerting about the way she'd announced it: _I had Jim's guitar._ Her feelings for Jim seemed to rise to the surface strong and strange, barely controlled, before sinking back into the depths.\n\nThe rain fell harder, thunder growling.\n\nI walked on. Now and then, with a wave of revulsion, I swore I caught a glimpse of the Keeper, dressed in his gardener's slicker, hiking between the trees, but every time I stopped, my heart pounding, staring into the woods to be sure, there was no one.\n\nSoon I could feel the leaden pull of the Neverworld taking hold, the now-familiar tingling grip starting at my feet, crawling up my shins.\n\nThe path had taken me to a clearing where there was strong wind and giant fallen trees all over the ground. Squinting, I saw a hulking oak teetering a few yards in front of me. Suddenly it fell with a deafening crack, the entire forest echoing with the sound.\n\nI froze in alarm.\n\nAnother crack rang out right beside me. Turning, I realized it was another oak coming loose. I tried to move out of the way, only to realize my feet were stuck in the cementlike mud. I managed to wrench them free, blindly throwing myself forward as the tree thundered to the ground, missing me by inches, branches shaking and snapping, whipping my head.\n\n_What was happening?_\n\nI lifted my head and crawled away, tried to take another step but fell facedown in the mud.\n\nThe Neverworld blackout was descending. The end of the eleven point two hours had come. I managed to roll onto my back, gasping as I blinked up at the sky, the rain. It felt like being buried alive under the weight of a million poured coins, my body sinking deeper and deeper into mud. Soon I would feel my limbs breaking apart and dissolving.\n\nAnother tree began to tear loose a few feet away.\n\nMy final thought was panic: panic that I was going to die here with no solution to the mystery. The confessions of Vida Joshua and Whitley had solved nothing. Would I ever know what really had happened to Jim? How could I win the vote and get back to life?\n\nAt that moment, I realized a dark figure was standing over me with a cruel expression.\n\nThe Keeper.\n\n\"In the dark there grows a tree. A castle tower shelters thee. When will I stop, when will I see? There is no poison but for me.\"\n\nI screamed as the oak tree fell on top of me and everything went black.\n\nI woke up, gasping, in the backseat of the Jaguar, Martha and Kip beside me.\n\nMy heart was still pounding from the massive tree collapsing on me, the swamplike mud, the sudden appearance of the Keeper, the insidious rhyme he'd recited.\n\nI felt nauseous, but there was no time to think. Martha and Kipling were scrambling out of the car, running toward the house. I took off after them. Like me, they seemed worried that Whitley wouldn't be there anymore; that, humiliated by the revelation that she had long been the White Rabbit, maybe even scared that we'd hold her accountable for Jim's death, she'd fled.\n\nInstead, we found her sitting with Cannon in the kitchen. I could see from their mutually subdued demeanors that they'd been having an intense conversation, perhaps even arguing.\n\nWhitley looked red-faced and sullen. There was a hint of relief on her face.\n\n\"Whitley has something to tell you,\" announced Cannon.\n\nShe glanced up with a feeble smile. \"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did to Jim. To the other students. For lying to all of you. It was disgusting. And stupid. It could have ruined my life. It almost did. But I swear with every fiber of my being I had nothing to do with Jim's death. I understand you might not believe me now. But we will find out what happened to him that night, and you'll know I'm innocent.\"\n\nKipling and Martha, studying her, seemed to accept this. They nodded. I nodded too.\n\nAnd yet, considering she'd lied to us for so long, I had to remind myself Wit was still capable of lying. Though I couldn't imagine her plotting to harm Jim, I also couldn't ignore what she was capable of in a rage, or the fact that she now had a motive. If Whitley had believed that Jim was going to expose her secret\u2014that the administration and, most seriously of all, the Linda, were going to find out the terrible thing she'd been doing\u2014it wasn't outrageous to think she would have done anything to prevent that from happening.\n\nAbruptly, I was aware of everyone staring at me.\n\n\"What?\" I blurted.\n\n\"We were wondering what you thought of Vida's confession,\" said Martha.\n\nI shrugged. \"I think I believe her.\"\n\n\"Me too,\" said Kipling with a wry smile. \"A girl like Vida can't lie very well. How many times did she call Jim a genius? I'm surprised she didn't suggest he'd risen from the dead, like Jesus.\" He looked at me. \"You know I loved Jim to pieces. But the way he collected admirers could get a little old. His ego, bless his soul, could be an insatiable baby.\"\n\n\"He didn't do it on purpose,\" I said. \"People were drawn to him.\"\n\n\" 'Didn't do it on purpose,' \" said Kipling. \" _Sure._ That's like me holdin' up an iron rod in a football field during a storm and sayin' it's not my fault I got struck by lightning.\"\n\n\"She was especially impressed by Jim's lyrics for his musical,\" said Martha.\n\n\"Right. The sudden blast of brilliance. That _was_ somethin'. 'Member how he had nothin' written for weeks 'cept a few bad rhymes straight out of MC Hammer? He kept complainin' that he was finished, dried up\u2014torturin' us all, pretty much. Then, out of the blue, a masterpiece.\" Kipling waved his hand in the air, a drowsy gesture. \"Strands of lyrics like pearls. One after the other. All about the immense pain of being young and alive.\"\n\n\"Those lyrics were amazing,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"The performance at Spring Vespers was a hit,\" said Cannon thoughtfully, interlacing his fingers. \"The New York producer Mr. Joshua arranged loved the demo. Jim's destiny was teed up, on the brink, like he always wanted. So what happened?\"\n\n\"Life,\" said Kipling dryly.\n\n\"Or,\" said Martha, \"it had something to do with that ride from Vida Joshua.\" She gnawed a thumbnail. \"I'm wondering if we can track down that shopping center.\"\n\n\"All Vida gave us to go on was a pet store and a fast-food restaurant,\" said Wit.\n\n\"When was the last time you talked to Jim?\" Martha asked me suddenly, squinting.\n\n\"Tuesday afternoon.\" I cleared my throat. \"The second night of Vespers. I confronted him about lying to me about the infirmary.\"\n\n\"So you didn't speak to Jim at all the next day? The day he died?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\nNo one said anything, all of them doubtlessly thinking how tragic it must have been for me, for that argument about Vida Joshua to be our last conversation.\n\nThe truth was, Wednesday I'd exiled myself to Marksman Library, hiding out in the fourth-floor attic stacks in the History of South America section, which was seldom visited by students. It reeked of mildew and served as a shadowy breeding ground for a range of freakishly large moths. All day I sat hunched over my European history and English literature textbooks in front of the lone window with the dirty glass, Beats headphones blasting the soundtrack to _Suicide Squad_ in my ears, forcing myself to focus on the French Revolution and World War II and _For Whom the Bell Tolls._ I kept my cell phone off all day because I didn't want to deal with Jim. The only time I exposed myself to the rest of campus was during my four-minute walk between the library and my room in Creston Hall around eleven o'clock.\n\nI waited until I'd put on my pajamas and climbed into bed at midnight before turning on my cell, whereupon I was hit by the torrent of texts. A few were from Kipling, Cannon, and Wit. Twenty-seven others were from Jim. They'd started at eight that morning, messages ranging from _?_ to _come on_ to _why are u bein like this_ to desperate voice mails, his mood ranging from teasing to despair to anger, all of which sounded crazy and heartbreaking the more I replayed them.\n\n> Call me.\n> \n> Call me Bumblebee.\n> \n> We need to talk.\n> \n> If you have any love left in your heart, call me.\n> \n> Why are you doing this?\n> \n> I need you. You know how I need you to survive.\n> \n> I hate you. I hate you so much. Because I love you.\n> \n> Don't do this.\n> \n> I'm going to the quarry. Meet me.\n\nThat was the last text I ever got from him. Received at 11:29 p.m.\n\nI deleted it. I deleted all of them.\n\nWhen they found Jim dead, two days later, I expected the police to ask me about his texts. I'd tell them I'd remained in my room all night.\n\nBut they never did ask. No one ever even questioned me.\n\nI was tempted to tell them that I knew Jim was going to Vulcan Quarry. But what if they didn't believe I'd stayed in my dorm all night?\n\nI'd be damned to the Neverworld forever. I'd have no chance\u2014 _none_ \u2014of ever making it out of here alive.\n\n\"What if we went to the police now?\" whispered Cannon.\n\n\"What?\" asked Whitley.\n\n\"What if we went to speak to the Warwick police about Jim? We could get our hands on his case file. They have to have pulled his cell phone records. We get our hands on those reports. We'll know a lot about his final days\u2014where he went and who he was with.\"\n\n\"The police never came up with anything substantial to make them think Jim's death was anything but suicide,\" said Martha.\n\n\"Unless the school forced them to cover up what they found,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"Or his family,\" added Kipling. \"If Edgar Mason thought somethin' damnin' was about to come out about his beloved dead son? The apple of his eye? He'd do anythin' to stop it from gettin' out. Remember the safe house?\"\n\nWe said nothing, all of us thinking back.\n\nChristmas break, senior year, Jim invited us to his family home in Water Mill, and we were shocked by the extreme security measures his family had adopted as totally routine.\n\nEdgar Mason had always been paranoid. Hoover, Jim called his dad, a not-exactly-joking reference to J. Edgar Hoover, the fanatical wiretapping founder of the FBI. For years, Edgar Mason had employed a private security firm called Torchlight to safeguard his family, which meant for the entirely of Jim's life, two armed ex\u2013Navy SEALs silently tailed him and every other member of his family when they left the house.\n\nThe Christmas visit revealed a new level of Edgar's obsession. Every inch of the Masons' many houses around the world was being recorded in HD, the feeds playing in a basement control room called the Eye. There was a cybersecurity team on staff in Washington, D.C., who monitored the family's servers twenty-four hours a day.\n\nThen there was the safe house.\n\n\"For home invasions, terrorist attacks, and Zero Days,\" Jim said, pointing out the black bunker peering out, crocodile-like, over the hill on the edge of the property. \"It has power generators, independent water supplies, a secure phone line that can call the director of Homeland Security in three seconds. When the end of the world happens, let's meet here.\"\n\nThe smile fell from his face, the lonely implications of such a structure hardly lost on him. He seemed reluctant to say more. After all, his dad's obsession with safety had everything to do with him. Edgar Mason had always been careful, but it was apparently Jim's boating accident the summer before senior year that had triggered this new level of mania.\n\n\"I say we go over there,\" said Cannon. \"Ask around. See what the police know.\"\n\n\"Or are trying to forget,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"Bee?\" prompted Martha.\n\nEveryone turned, waiting for me to weigh in.\n\nI stared back.\n\nTaking a look inside Jim's police file could mean his final texts to me would come to light. I'd have a lot to explain. But what else was in that file?\n\nThe decision was really no decision at all.\n\n\"Can I help you?\" asked the police officer. POLK read his name tag.\n\n\"We'd like to speak to Detective Calhoun,\" Whitley said sweetly.\n\nCalhoun had been the lead investigator on Jim's case. He'd given the few public statements and briefings. We had decided it was easy enough to start with him, with his thick gray beard and rodent eyes, his wan blinks at the news cameras as a gaudy rash of embarrassment seeped across his neck. One sensed he wanted nothing more than to get away from the glare of such a high-profile case and go back to working petty crimes like public bench vandalism.\n\n\"What do you want with Calhoun?\" demanded another officer, now approaching. His name tag read MCANDRESS.\n\n\"We wanted to ask him about a case he worked on,\" said Martha.\n\n\"Which one?\"\n\n\"The death of Jim Mason,\" I said.\n\n\"That case is closed,\" said a third officer.\n\nAfter ten more minutes of hostile questioning\u2014they seemed wary of outsiders\u2014we made it to Calhoun's office, finding the man in question marooned behind a desk piled high with papers, like a giant bullfrog hiding in a bog.\n\nI wasn't sure what I expected\u2014maybe that movie scene where the grizzled old detective, asked about the cold case still haunting him after All These Years, begins to talk and talk.\n\nInstead, Detective Calhoun was a concrete wall.\n\n\"Mason case was solved. Suicide,\" he belched.\n\n\"What made you rule suicide?\" Martha asked, frowning. \"Usually with suicides there's a ritual or preparation before the act. A note left behind. Glasses removed, as well as shoes and socks. Was there any sign of that with Jim?\"\n\nCalhoun flashed a grin that was really more of a sneer.\n\n\"That case is closed.\"\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n_That case is closed._\n\nThe Warwick police station, located just off the highway, was a quaint banana-yellow bungalow with white shutters and a sign on the bulletin board that read LIFE IS BETTER WITH COFFEE. The place seemed ill-suited for solving crimes, better for selling homemade muffins.\n\nLittle did we know how terrifying it would be\u2014that our time with the Warwick police would be pandemonium.\n\nThere was no other way to put it.\n\nWe tried different tactics: warm, curt, nervous, sexy (Wit, wearing a low-cut red dress, perched on a desk). We tried surprising them. We tried a brazen arrival at Calhoun's private residence after his wife went to bed and Calhoun stayed up late drinking Harpoon IPA, eating gummy worms, and watching _Better Call Saul._ No matter what we said, and where, how, or what time we said it, Calhoun refused to tell us anything about Jim's case.\n\n\"Can't help you.\"\n\n\"You Nancy Drews get out of here.\"\n\n\"How dare you accost me at my home!\"\n\n\"You kids get out of here, or I'll make sure every one of you spends the rest of your life flipping byproduct burgers at the local Mickey D's, because a fryolator and an automatic mixer to make a few watery milk shakes are all you'll be fit for after I get through with you. UNDERSTAND ME?\"\n\nWe decided to give up on Calhoun and bribe the office manager, Frederica.\n\nWe waited for her to leave the station in workout clothes, watched her getting drenched in the downpour as her umbrella went inside out. As she fumbled for the keys to her Kia, Cannon ran to her, armed with a golf umbrella and a grin.\n\nWe watched from the Mercedes as he made his pitch: ten thousand dollars cash to go back inside and steal the Jim Mason file. Frederica blushed, nodded, and power-walked back inside.\n\nCannon turned, grinning, giving us the thumbs-up. Then Frederica emerged with the entire Warwick police force in tow, eight officers hightailing it for Cannon.\n\n\"Get on your knees! Police!\"\n\nWith a yelp, Whitley backed the car out, tearing through the lot to pick up Cannon, who, sprinting for his life, hurled himself into the backseat. We barreled through the grass, over a curb, and through a red light into a twelve-lane intersection, tires squealing, and nearly collided with a cement truck.\n\n\"Move!\" Cannon screamed. _\"Move!\"_\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWe spent the next few wakes at Roscoe gun range learning how to shoot as we formulated our new plan. We would raid the Warwick police. We paid the owner of Last Resort Twenty-Four-Hour Pawn Shop fifty dollars for the name of a guy who sold guns without a license out of the back of his RV, called Big Bobby. Out of Big Bobby, we bought three guns: two Ruger LC9 strikers, and a Heckler & Koch HK45.\n\nOur siege would take place at eleven-fifteen, when we believed all officers, apart from Polk and McAndress, had gone home for the night. We'd take them by surprise and lock them in the supply closet. Then we'd have the station to ourselves and we could find Jim's file.\n\nThe first time we attempted it, Officer McAndress\u2014displaying moves apparently learned from a fruitful career moonlighting in mixed martial arts\u2014struck Kip with an uppercut to the face, elbowed Wit in the ribs, then, spinning, back-kicked Cannon's stomach, sending him gasping to the floor. Meanwhile, Officer Polk had me pinned to the ground, his left foot gouging my back as he zip-tied Martha to a desk chair.\n\n\"The Warwick police aren't _actually_ police,\" said Kipling with unabashed wonder the next wake. \"They're the spawn of Satan.\"\n\nHe wasn't kidding.\n\nHow many times at midnight, at one, two, three o'clock in the morning, did the five of us storm that station? Was it a hundred times? Was it ten thousand?\n\nHow many different entry SWAT formations did we attempt, after finding on the Internet the _Ground Reconnaissance Operations Handbook,_ a training manual for marines?\n\nSingle file, double file, double file advancement with variation, through front doors, back doors, barred windows, fire escapes, drainpipes, adjacent-building rooftops. We downloaded something called _The Criminal's Guide to Revelry_ off the Deepnet, a hand-typed, poorly photocopied manual written by Anonymous Doe that detailed strategies for nullifying people who were aggressive, hysterical, or empowered by Superman fantasies, during any raid, heist, or robbery. How many terrifying masks did we try (clown, pig, _Clockwork Orange_ droogs)? How many bullets did we shoot into the ceiling? How many threats and warnings did we scream?\n\nIt should have been easy to get our hands on one case file.\n\nAs the wakes went on, we transformed from disorganized teenagers acting out a makeshift version of _Mission: Impossible_ into a real five-person platoon. We were able to advance without noise, reading each other's thoughts and movements with nothing but a look.\n\nWake after wake, we were thwarted.\n\nThis was due not to Officers Polk and McAndress, but to their wild card, Officer Victoria Channing, assigned to Traffic Safety. She was always in the women's bathroom, and she advanced on us out of nowhere, displaying an eagerness to kill that was psychotic.\n\n\"Take that, you little shitheads!\" she screamed.\n\nShe was terrifying, even if we were immortal.\n\nThough Cannon and Whitley had learned to nullify Polk and McAndress, Channing eluded them every time. She was able to slip like vapor through the back stairwell, the front stairwell, a panel in the ceiling, firing her Glock without warning into Cannon's chest.\n\nOr Kip's stomach.\n\nOr Whitley's forehead.\n\nThe time she shot Martha in the temple\u2014as if blithely turning the knob on a gumball machine\u2014I froze, stunned, staring down at her and the rest of my friends lying on the police station carpet, blood gurgling out of their foreheads and necks like water trickling from a hose.\n\n\"Hands up or you'll be joining them in hell!\" screeched Officer Channing, aiming at me.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n\"Death feels like floating in a warm bath,\" said Martha, the next wake.\n\nI was always the only one left alive. This was because I wasn't a natural warrior. I tended to freeze when I needed to act. As a result, Cannon had decided my job was to locate Jim's case file.\n\n_Find Jim's file._ It was all I had to do.\n\nThe closed homicide cases were kept in the basement. It was an unnerving, neglected fish tank of a room: humming green fluorescent light, smells of mildew, pipes yowling with steam. Row after row of metal shelves extended, dreamlike, in every direction, floor to ceiling, packed with cardboard boxes. Each box was scribbled with a victim's name.\n\nAppleton, Janice\n\nAvery, Jennifer\n\nAzella, Robert P.\n\nAt every break-in, no matter the hell being unleashed upstairs, I headed straight to the back stairwell and raced to the basement. I'd fling open the wooden doors marked STORAGE and sprint into the labyrinth of shelves, madly looking for the _M_ s, my footsteps squeaking on the orange linoleum. Every time, Channing caught me and I spent the rest of the wake sitting in a jail cell hearing her tell the other officers a phony story about having to kill everyone else in self-defense.\n\nAnd yet, each wake, while my friends were dealing with the mayhem upstairs, I was dealing with my own torment in that droning green basement, a trial that had nothing to do with Officer Channing.\n\nIt began when I accidentally kicked a box off a bottom shelf.\n\nHendrews, Holly\n\nThe box tipped over, sending a plastic bag marked _Evidence_ spinning across the floor. Inside, there was a blood-encrusted Christmas scarf decorated with snowmen and reindeer, but what struck me\u2014I stopped dead, blinking in alarm\u2014was that the bag was spangled with black mildew.\n\nThe box was also leaking.\n\nI kicked it closer, peering inside. An oil-like liquid had pooled in the corners, as if one of the evidence bags had leaked. Glancing up, I saw, stunned, that it wasn't just this box. There were others. At least four or five boxes had that same black liquid seeping through the bottom.\n\nThen there were the shelves.\n\nThey were hulking and metal. Yet sometimes as I raced past them, madly searching for MASON, JIM, the slightest brush of my shoulder would send the giant shelf toppling over as if it were nothing but cardboard. It would land with a deafening clang, sending the one beside it over, the one beside that too, until all the shelves in the basement were falling around me like massive dominos, hundreds of boxes thundering to the ground. All I could do was scramble out of the way, press my back against the nearest wall, pray I didn't get hit until it was over.\n\nAfterward I'd try to sift through the rubble for Jim's box before Officer Channing caught me red-handed, as she always did.\n\nI never mentioned to the others what was happening. I was too scared.\n\n\"How's it going in the basement?\" Cannon asked me. \"Are you close to finding Jim's file? I heard a lot of banging downstairs this last time.\"\n\n\"There's a lot to sift through,\" I said. \"I'm close.\"\n\nThe key, I'd found, was to sprint through the shelves as fast as I could, allowing them to fall after me as I kept running and running toward the row of _M_ s at the very back of the basement. I had just perfected the optimal path through the maze when, once, barreling too fast, I missed the correct row and was forced to backtrack. I was careful not to graze the shelf as I made the turn and slowed to a walk, panting. Usually there was the sound of havoc upstairs, banging and screaming. This time it was quiet.\n\nToo quiet.\n\nMachinsky, Tina D.\n\nMahmoodi, Wafaa\n\nMalvo, Jed\n\nI spotted Jim's box on the top shelf at the very end. In a rush of disbelief, I sprinted to it, reached on my tiptoes, tried to jostle it down without sending the entire shelf clattering over.\n\nMason, Jim Livingston\n\n\"Gotcha, you little shit,\" a woman hissed. \"Put your hands up and turn real slow.\"\n\nChanning had stepped out from behind the shelves and was striding toward me, Glock aimed right at my head.\n\n\"Don't shoot. Please.\"\n\nHer face was flushed. Her lips twitched. She pulled the trigger.\n\nShe never had before.\n\nA giant match lit the wick of my brain. I hit the ground, rolling onto my back, accidentally throwing out my arms, which hit the shelf, sending it flying backward.\n\n\"What the...?\" Channing screamed in shock.\n\nAs the shelves fell, I blinked up at the fluorescent lights, green filaments flickering in mysterious Morse code. There was so much pain it spilled everywhere, then drifted away.\n\nDying was not as cataclysmic as I'd thought it'd be. Because even though I was in the Neverworld, my body and mind still reacted as if it were the real thing.\n\nThere was no white light. There was no tunnel.\n\nInstead, as the shelves tumbled around me, there was a warm feeling of awe, as if, with the tearing away of my life from its attachment to earth, fragile as the connection of a leaf to a twig, everything permanent, factual, real\u2014everything I swore was true\u2014became the opposite of what I'd always thought.\n\nMy last feeling wasn't regret or pain. It was joy.\n\nThat was the most terrifying thing of all.\n\n_I get to see Jim now._ That was all I was thinking before my life went out.\n\n_If I'm dead, I'll get to see Jim._\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n\"Really don't feel like getting shot in the head today,\" sang Kipling merrily as we filed into Wincroft at the start of the next wake. \"How 'bout we take a page from Momma Greer's Guide to the Good Life?\"\n\n\"What's that?\" asked Cannon.\n\n\"Can't beat your mortal enemy to a pulp?\" He shrugged. \"Throw him a party.\"\n\nThat was how we came to arrive at the Warwick police station armed not with our usual guns, but with identical Barry the Clown costumes rented from Gobbledygook Halloween World.\n\n\"May I help you?\" asked Frederica at the front desk.\n\n\"We're from Big Apple Balloon-a-Gram,\" I said, smiling. \"Where would you like us to set up for the surprise party?\"\n\n\"What surprise party?\"\n\n\"Detective Art Calhoun's surprise seventieth.\"\n\nFrederica was astonished. So were Officers Polk, McAndress, Cunningham, Leech, Ives, and Mapleton, as well as Art Calhoun himself, who emerged from his office with a distrustful scowl. But we had moved fast. The wireless speaker was already playing \"Margaritaville.\" Wit had already unveiled three dozen cupcakes, baskets of gummy worms, and party favors of gun Christmas tree ornaments. Cannon and Kip were standing on folding chairs, taping up the tinsel Happy Birthday sign. Martha tossed bottles of Harpoon IPA into a cooler.\n\n\"Hold up. Just wait one...\" Calhoun fell silent, eyeing the beer.\n\n\"What's happening here?\" demanded Officer Polk.\n\nI made an elaborate show of examining the phony invoice, which was really the receipt for our costume rentals.\n\n\"Elizabeth Calhoun hired us,\" I said with a frown.\n\n\"Lizzy did this?\" whispered Calhoun, wide-eyed.\n\nLiz Calhoun was his estranged daughter who lived in San Diego. She hadn't spoken to her father in three years, which meant there was little chance she'd take his call now, when he phoned to thank her for the unexpected party, even though his real seventieth birthday was over three weeks away.\n\nThat meant I had time to find Jim's file.\n\n\"Nothing better than cupcakes,\" said Officer Channing, grinning as she helped herself.\n\n\"And now, friends, let's start the entertainment!\" shouted Kipling with a bow so low his red clown nose fell off and rolled under a desk. \"If you could all gather round and join hands? Don't be shy.\"\n\nThat was my cue.\n\nI darted into the back stairwell. I raced down the steps to the basement, heaved open the wood doors, and sprinted into the shadowed rows of boxes.\n\nI raced along the back wall, slipping past filing cabinets and a copy machine, and veered into the _G_ s, the _J_ s, the _L_ s, zigzagging in and out, careful not to graze the shelves, my oversized clown shoes making loud quacking noises, my balloon pants making me trip.\n\nEighth row. Far left. At the very top. MASON, JIM LIVINGSTON.\n\nIt was there. My heart pounding, I had to jump up three times to shove it off the shelf without sending the entire thing toppling over. I set it carefully on the ground.\n\n\"You found it?\"\n\nI turned, startled, to see Martha hurrying toward me.\n\nShe'd never appeared down here before. The knowing, even anxious look on her face seemed to suggest she had come because she didn't trust me, because she didn't want me left alone with the box. Or was it that she'd hoped I would never actually find it?\n\nI ripped off the tape and pulled open the lid.\n\nI stared inside for an entire minute, unable to speak.\n\n_No. No. No. Impossible._\n\n\"Are you kidding me?\" whispered Martha in apparent shock, looking over my shoulder. \"After _all that_? Getting shot dead a million times?\"\n\nShaking her head, a hand on her hip, she took down another box.\n\n\"Maybe Jim's file got put somewhere else,\" she muttered.\n\nI couldn't stop staring in, unable to breathe.\n\nThe box was empty.\n\nThere wasn't a single paper left except a coupon: _$5 off 1 bin of Honey Love Fried Chicken. Soul Mate Special!_\n\nUpstairs, more singing and clapping had broken out. \"For he's a jolly good fellow...\"\n\nMartha was madly thrusting more boxes to the floor, yanking off the lids. Every one was crammed full of papers, plastic evidence bags, black ink.\n\nThat ink was back, seeping through the corners again.\n\n\"How can anyone find anything in here? It's a mess. There's some kind of leak.\"\n\nMartha was examining the ink between her fingers, wrinkling her nose, though when she caught my eye, the knowing expression on her face chilled me.\n\nWe spent another ten minutes going through boxes, Martha saying, \"It has to be here somewhere.\"\n\nThe only empty box we came across was Jim's.\n\nMartha knew something. That was clear. What it was, I had no idea.\n\n\"Edgar Mason and Torchlight Security are behind it,\" said Cannon when we were back at Wincroft, sprawled across the couches in the library. \"Who else could make an entire case file just _vanish_?\"\n\n\"They had everything destroyed,\" said Kipling in agreement. \"Which was why Calhoun and the other cops were always so touchy when we asked about the case. They've been paid off.\"\n\n\"But why?\" I asked.\n\n\"Don't you see?\" said Cannon. \"Something in there was incriminating to Jim.\"\n\n\"Right,\" said Wit with a nod. \"They didn't want it made public. So they sent some Torchlight ex\u2013Navy SEAL into the station and he stole it.\"\n\n\"Which means the Masons know the truth,\" said Kipling.\n\n_\"And,\"_ Cannon continued, \"if they haven't come forward to arrest anyone, if they've stayed silent, it means whatever they uncovered was damaging for the family.\"\n\nAs everyone fell silent, considering all this, my eyes caught Martha's.\n\nShe seemed skeptical, or her mind was somewhere else. I'd been unable to stop thinking about her sudden appearance in the basement and the look on her face when she'd spotted the ink. It made me wonder whether she suspected me somehow, whether she knew I'd received those texts from Jim asking me to meet him that night at the quarry.\n\n\"Out of all of us, Bee,\" she said suddenly, \"you spent the most time with the Masons. Did they ever tell you what they thought happened to their son?\"\n\nI shook my head, shrugging. \"We completely fell out of touch.\"\n\nCountless times during the past year, I'd wondered how the Masons had handled Jim's death. I never found out. I never even made it to Jim's funeral. My parents, fretting about my mental well-being, begged me not to go. And while a few Darrow students\u2014including Whitley, Cannon, and Kip\u2014had gotten special permission to take the train to New York for the service, I decided to stay away. My absence, I knew, would come as a relief. His family had liked their modern art collection infinitely more than they'd ever liked me. Jim's mom, Gloria\u2014a champagne flute of a woman, all ice-blond hair and long limbs, with a low voice\u2014always surveyed me as if I were a window with an airshaft view. Jim's father had to be introduced to me three times before he recalled who I was. And even then he called me Barbara.\n\n\"I say we pay a surprise visit to the Masons,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"We'll probably have to waterboard 'em to get 'em to talk, child,\" said Kipling. \"But count me in.\"\n\n\"There's a problem,\" I said.\n\n\"What?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"The wake.\"\n\n\"What about it?\"\n\n\"It's only eleven point two hours. That's not enough time.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Kip, frowning. \"We fly to East Hampton. We'll be outside the Masons' Water Mill estate in less than two hours.\"\n\n\"They're not in Water Mill. The Masons spend every summer on Amorgos, an island in the Aegean Sea. It takes eleven hours by plane. Plus a three-hour boat ride. Then you have to hike up a mountain to reach the house.\"\n\nThey seemed skeptical, so I dialed the Masons' Fifth Avenue apartment. The housekeeper who answered confirmed the family was away.\n\n\"Are they at Villa Anna Sofia on Amorgos Island?\" I asked.\n\n\"That's right. Would you like to leave a message for Mr. and Mrs. Mason?\"\n\nJim called his family's compound in Greece the Milk Shake for the way it oozed down the cliff overlooking the ocean. Much to my parents' irritation, I'd spent five days there with Jim the summer before junior year. Although the time had passed in a sunburnt blur of bleached-white beaches and outdoor feasts, sunset boat rides and Greek folk music, Jim working relentlessly on his musical, that island and the Masons' vertigo-inducing compound remained one of the most surreally beautiful places I'd ever seen.\n\n\"We could try Skyping them,\" suggested Kipling. \" 'Hi, we're Jim's old friends phoning from purgatory. We command you to tell us everything about your son's death.' \"\n\n\"I guess that's that,\" said Whitley gloomily.\n\n\"Not exactly,\" said Martha.\n\nI turned to her with a shiver of dread.\n\n\"It's time you guys learned the truth.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" asked Whitley.\n\nMartha cleared her throat.\n\n\"The Neverworld is more complex than you think. I mean, none of you have noticed anything strange?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, this is all perfectly routine,\" said Kipling, smiling.\n\n\"Strange things like what?\" I asked.\n\n\"Unusual disruptions. Magnetism. Instability.\"\n\nInstantly I thought of the mold, the peeling wallpaper, the tumbling trees, the collapsing shelves, the exploding snow globes, that black ink soaking through all the case files.\n\nMartha appeared to know what it was, what it meant. She was fumbling in her heavy black bag, pulling out a small black notebook.\n\nI recognized it. It was the one I'd spotted her carrying in the early days of the Neverworld, when she stopped to hastily scribble in the pages before moving on.\n\n\" 'Sighting, six thirty-nine p.m.,' \" she read. \" 'One mysterious purple-feathered owl perched atop a maple tree, unknown species.' \" She turned the page. \" 'Overheard. Variety of eighties songs by the Cure in every passing car and every surrounding house.' \"\n\nMartha closed the notebook, surveying us.\n\n\"Remember what the Keeper said. 'Imagine if each of your minds was placed inside a blender, and that blender turned on high. The resulting smoothie is this moment.' \"\n\n\"Okay,\" said Whitley, nervous.\n\n\"He was talking about the physics of the Neverworld. I'm very excited to tell you that it's based in part on J. C. Gossamer Madwick's groundbreaking masterpiece. And it's my fault.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" asked Cannon.\n\n\"I wrote a two-hundred-page thesis on the novel. I tracked down every rare book about it. Every obscure blog. I interviewed professors, experts, and scientists. I even went to visit Madwick's daughter on Bello Costa Island in the Florida Keys, rowing out to this tiny, falling-down beach house in a remote cove swarming with alligators. She let me inspect Madwick's notebooks, which have never been seen by anyone outside the family, not even the people at Harvard who've been bullying her to donate them to their archives. I read all eleven notebooks, translating them from Lurroscript, the language Madwick made up.\"\n\nShe stopped her mad outpouring of words to take a deep breath.\n\nI realized she was talking about _The Bend,_ the fantasy novel she'd been obsessed with, the one no one had ever heard of except her and a bunch of geeky fanboys on the Internet.\n\n\"My preoccupation with the book made it our reality. I lived it. Breathed it. Now it's in the Neverworld.\"\n\n\"But what does that mean, child?\" Kipling asked, faint shrillness in his voice. \"We're all about to float out into outer space? Become androids?\"\n\nMartha tilted her head and grinned, the lenses in her glasses flashing in the light.\n\nMy heart plunged. Whatever she was about to tell us, I knew I couldn't trust it.\n\nI also knew that in this world stuck on repeat, everything we knew was about to change.\n\n\"Well, for one thing,\" Martha said excitedly, \"it means rather than waking up at Wincroft, we can wake up anywhere in the past, present, or future.\"\n\n\"And how do we do that?\" asked Cannon.\n\n\"We climb out the unlatched window.\"\n\nWe could only stare, baffled.\n\nShe sighed. \" _Right._ Okay. I got way ahead of myself.\"\n\nShe took another impatient breath.\n\n\"Lesson One. J. C. Gossamer Madwick was a science fiction writer. He wrote just one book, called _The Dark House at Elsewhere Bend. The Bend_ for short. It's this amazing adventure story and alternative world, different from anything you've ever read. It was never published. Just photocopied over and over again, bound using a hole-puncher and garbage bag zip ties, passed hand to hand by anonymous travelers, student backpackers, and disaffected youths in hostels. The thing you have to do once you finish _The Bend_? You sign the dedication page and leave it for the next lucky person on a park bench, bunk bed, airplane seat, or train compartment. For the longest time the only copies to be found were in ancient bookshops and on eBay, some with hundreds of thousands of signatures. The ones with famous names of the readers, like Marilyn Monroe and Leonard Bernstein and Frank Sinatra? They went for as much as four, five grand. Now it's an official cult classic, steadily in print, and even random people like E.S.S. Burt have copies.\"\n\nTo my surprise, Martha raced over to the shelves and pulled out a hulking silver hardback book. Returning to the couches, she handed it to me. The cover featured a collage of birdcages, steam trains, men and women wearing top hats, masquerade masks straight out of Victorian England.\n\n> _The Dark House of Elsewhere Bend_ by J. C. Gossamer Madwick.\n> \n> _The legendary cult saga of future pasts. Present mysteries. An undying love at the end of the world._\n\nI flipped to the back flap and stared down at the author photo.\n\nIt was grainy and black-and-white. In a rumpled suit, Madwick was a man few would look twice at: hound-dog face, extravagant ears, an apologetic slouch suggesting he was more comfortable ducking out of a room than entering one.\n\n> _Jeremiah Chester Gossamer Madwick (December 2, 1891\u2013March 18, 1944) was an American novelist from Key West, Florida. His only work, the posthumously published_ The Dark House of Elsewhere Bend, _won the Gilmer-Hecht Prize for Fantasy in 1968. For 37 years he worked as a bus driver for the Key West transit office, driving passengers to and from Stock Island by day, and writing his 1,397-page masterpiece by hand on hotel notepads by night. At age 53, he was found dead in the doorway of Hasty Retreat Saloon, a harmonica, a tin of tobacco, and the final paragraph of his novel in his pocket._\n\n\"Madwick died penniless and unknown,\" Martha said. \"Now he's considered one of the greatest fantasy writers who ever lived. Harvard has an entire class about him: Hobos, Strangers, and Vagabonds: The Literature of Madwick. He even has a cult following in the real-life physics community due to his theory of time.\"\n\nShe paused to hastily draw something in her notebook. It was a sketch of a train.\n\n\"Which brings me to Lesson Two,\" she said. \"Time travel. Madwick viewed time not as linear, or an arrow, or even a fabric, like Einstein. He saw it as a locomotive. To time travel in _Elsewhere Bend,_ you climb out the window of your speeding train compartment and scale onto the roof, like a bandit in an old western. Then you carefully move toward the _front_ of the train, the future, or the _back_ of the train, the past. It's vital not to move too quickly in either direction because that will cause instability. Like, the train can jump the tracks, or crash, or separate compartments, or veer suddenly onto a _wrong_ track heading clear in the opposite direction.\"\n\nShuddering in apparent horror at the thought of such a scenario, Martha took a deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ears.\n\n\"In the event of such disasters, you, the time traveler, are doomed. Because you'll never be able to get your train back running on the original track, much _less_ on time, much _less_ climb back to the compartment in which you began. Although technically you can live the rest of your life in the past or future, the carriage where you were born, the original present, is where you belong. _Always._ That's where life will be the smoothest journey for you. Where things work out and love lasts. A life lived at any other time will be restless, rough, ill fated. You can visit the past and the future, but you can't stay there. Not if you want any chance at happiness.\"\n\n\"What does this have to do with the Neverworld?\" asked Cannon, uneasy.\n\n\"We want to interrogate Jim's parents? I believe we can. We just have to choose a day in the close past or the future where we can reach them in the eleven point two hours of the wake. Then we find the open window in our train and climb out. And this open window...\" She nibbled her fingernail. \"It's somewhere here. I don't know where yet, but it's a collision of life and death. It tends to be suicidal. In _The Bend,_ the protagonist uncovers it by accident in Chapter One when he tries to commit suicide. And obviously none of us has ever committed suicide.\"\n\nI shook my head. So did Whitley, Cannon, and Kipling.\n\n\"So that rules _that_ out,\" Martha said gloomily. \"We'll have to locate the open window by some other means. Which brings me to Lesson Three.\"\n\nShe cleared her throat. \"The Neverworld was created not only by me, but by each of you. _My_ biggest contribution is Madwick's _Dark House at Elsewhere Bend._ But what about you? The closer you study the Neverworld, the more of yourself you'll find. Your darkest secrets. Your worst nightmares. Your fears and dreams. The embarrassing thing you never want anyone to learn. It's all here, buried, if you look close enough.\"\n\nAn uneasy chill inched down my spine.\n\nThere was something threatening in the way she announced this. The others looked uncomfortable too. Whitley sat on the couch, motionless. Kipling looked pale. Cannon stared her down, completely absorbed.\n\nMartha surveyed her notebook with a faint smile. \"Kipling.\" She cleared her throat. \"I meant to ask you.\" She held up a page where she'd drawn a red wasp. \"The scarlet-bodied wasp moth. Native to Louisiana. I've spotted three at Wincroft. Two crawled out of the attic upstairs. Another from a radiator. They shouldn't exist this far north. Do you recognize it?\"\n\n\"How did you...?\" blurted Kipling. He chuckled nervously. \"Momma Greer used to catch them in mason jars. Kept them all around the house. Pit fiends, she called them. Said the sting was lethal and she'd put them on me while I slept if I didn't sit still during church.\"\n\nMartha nodded blankly, unsurprised. She turned the page.\n\n\"Cannon. Surely you've noticed all the Japanese larch?\"\n\nHe sat up, nervous. \"The...what?\"\n\n\"The Japanese larch and silver birch trees growing around Wincroft. If you look closer, they're dead. A bunch of tall, spindly black tree trunks sticking out of the ground. Those trees aren't native to Rhode Island. They're indigenous to the Chubu and Kanto regions of Japan. If you go up to one and dig down about six inches, chalky blue water pools everywhere.\" She beamed. \"You know what I'm getting at?\"\n\nCannon only stared.\n\n\"Blue Pond?\" she suggested. \"Cannon's Birdcage? The bug you discovered in Apple's OS X operating system sophomore year? The accidental combination of keystrokes that crashes your hard drive, delivering the photo of Blue Pond wallpaper to your screen? The photograph is an almost surreal picture of a bright blue lake, dead snow-tipped trees growing right out of it.\"\n\nHe was confounded. \"Okay. What about it?\"\n\n\"That photo is embedded in the Neverworld's landscape. Everywhere.\"\n\nCannon said nothing, only slipped to his feet, crossed the library to the window, stared out.\n\n\"Then there's Whitley,\" Martha went on officially. \"There's a volatility in the Neverworld's weather because of you.\"\n\n_\"Me?\"_ said Wit.\n\n\"Gale-force winds. Constant rain, thunder, lightning. It's your temper.\"\n\nWhitley glared at her.\n\n\"The night we went back to Darrow,\" Martha went on. \"How we got chased by the police. I watched wind overturn every car in the parking lot. It was because of your confession about being the White Rabbit.\"\n\nWhitley huffed in apparent disagreement, but her eyes flitted worriedly to the windows.\n\n\"These details go for all of us,\" Martha went on. \"The closer we get to the truth, the root of who we are, the more unstable this world will become. Which brings me to Beatrice.\"\n\nShe turned to me, her expression stony. My heart began to pound.\n\n\"I have no clue.\"\n\nEveryone frowned at her\u2014and then at me.\n\n\"Your contribution is here. Somewhere. But I haven't figured it out yet.\"\n\nI swallowed. What was Martha attempting to do? Intimidate me? Scare me? If so, it was working.\n\nShe sighed. \"One thing I do know is that if we try changing the wake, we have to stick together.\"\n\n\"Why is that?\" asked Cannon.\n\n\"We don't know how we're going to react. The past hooks you like a drug. The future jolts you like an electric chair. Reliving beautiful memories can be just as devastating as reliving the terrible ones. They're addictive. Given that time travel in _The Bend_ is so dangerous, and that inside the Neverworld there are elements we can't anticipate\u2014the things _you_ are each contributing\u2014we have no idea what will happen if we even attempt this.\" She shook her head, her voice trembling with so much emotion, she reminded me of an evangelical minister on a public access channel, lecturing a rapt congregation about the end of the world. \"It could be a complete disaster. We could accidentally end up in different train compartments on different trains speeding in different directions. That means it'll be impossible to ever make it back here. To Wincroft. Together. _To vote._ Then we really will be trapped here forever.\"\n\nThe rest of us eyed each other in alarm. No one spoke.\n\nI gazed down at the hulking book on my lap. I couldn't breathe.\n\nWhat was she up to? Was Martha actually trying to help us? Or was this new revelation only the meticulous and conniving arrangement of her chess pieces on the board, some ingenious trap we would all fall into, which would somehow result in everyone voting for her?\n\nWhat I _did_ know\u2014or at least strongly suspected\u2014was that she knew what my contribution to the Neverworld was. I could tell by the way she looked at me, by her flat, implausible explanation: _I haven't been able to figure it out._\n\nMartha always figured everything out. For whatever reason, she'd decided not to disclose this piece of information.\n\nNot yet.\n\nFor the next couple of wakes, we stayed in the library at Wincroft, studying _The Dark House at Elsewhere Bend._ We wanted to understand everything Martha had told us.\n\nWe downloaded the audiobook and spent hours listening to all 1,322 pages, curled up under mohair blankets, drinking tea as the narrator\u2014some young British actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company with an opera baritone and a schizophrenic ability to sound like completely different men and women, young, old, poor, aristocratic\u2014told the futuristic tale of love and loss. It was a bewitching story, one of the best I'd ever heard, a heart-pounding mystery unfolding against a future world, fascinating and terrifying plot twists you couldn't see coming.\n\nThe book took place far in the future. The main character, Jonathan Elster, was a bumbling, absentminded professor at a university for outcasts in Old Earth. He taught a popular alternative philosophy course, Intro to Unknowns, which covered, among other things, the nuts and bolts of time travel. For years, Elster had been in love from afar with a mysterious woman named Anastasia Bent, who taught in the history department. When she accidentally stumbled upon a cover-up about the history of the universe and vanished\u2014a fisherman witnessing her wandering a cliff walk suggested she committed suicide, though her body was never recovered\u2014Jonathan set off on a perilous quest across space and time to find her.\n\nAll of us grew silent and sullen as we listened. The violence at the Warwick police station had brought us all together, opened up the roped-off rooms in the sprawling, lavish mansion that had once been our friendship, flung the sheets off the furniture, turned on the lights. Now it seemed Martha's disclosure had us taking refuge in our separate rooms again, disappearing up winding staircases, holing up behind closed doors, the only hint of company an occasional creak of the floorboards overhead.\n\nI didn't know what they worried about. They chose not to confide in me or, it seemed, in each other.\n\nMy own anxiety had everything to do with Martha. Those bombshells she'd dropped\u2014J. C. Gossamer Madwick, the physical laws of the Neverworld being tied to each of us\u2014had prompted me to scrutinize her every knowing glance and comment even more closely than I had before. To my shock, I realized that somewhere in the time since I'd found her at Brown with Professor Beloroda, she'd managed to quietly seize control of the entire group. For years, her status had been peripheral. She was the tagalong sidekick, Jim's friend, the oddball you could count on to react to PETA commercials with some jarringly cynical comment like \"Such propaganda,\" or, when any couple ended up together at the end of a romantic comedy, \"Another horror movie with a high body count.\" Martha had always made us roll our eyes and chuckle. Now, incredibly, impossibly, she was the one the others looked to for guidance, for expertise and reassurance. A few times I tried confiding in Kip, Whitley, and Cannon, hinting that I didn't trust Martha or this new direction she was urging us toward. They didn't share my suspicion.\n\n\"What do you mean, she's up to something?\" Kipling asked me, frowning.\n\n\"I don't know. It's just a feeling.\"\n\n\"But it's good old Martha. Rain Man. She's not conniving. She's too honest and goofy.\"\n\n\"I don't think so.\"\n\n\"Oh, come on.\"\n\n\"I'm serious. She knows more than she's letting on.\"\n\n\"Does it really matter?\" whispered Kipling. \"What else can we do, Bee? I don't know about you, but I need something to change. Anything. Even if it means...\"\n\n\"Even if it means what?\"\n\nHe shrugged, his expression bleak, the meaning behind his unfinished sentence obvious.\n\n_Even if it means we never get out of here._\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nOur evenings passed in heated discussions about how to change the wake and get to the Masons.\n\nIn _The Bend,_ Jonathan Elster discovers time travel accidentally when following in the footsteps of the missing professor Anastasia Bent, who the police believe committed suicide by jumping off a seaside cliff. As Jonathan follows suit, jumping from the exact spot where Professor Bent was last seen, plummeting a hundred feet toward certain death, he finds himself crashing not into the rocky cliffs, but into the Thames in London in the year 2122.\n\n\"The open train compartment window for time travel always exists on the verge of death,\" said Martha, \"which is why so few people ever find it. You have to think you're facing your death in order to reach it. So how do we find it here, in the Neverworld? I know I already asked you guys this, but have any of you ever tried to commit suicide?\"\n\nAgain, we all shook our heads.\n\nMartha seemed perplexed by this response, though she only nibbled a thumbnail thoughtfully, saying nothing more.\n\nAnother critical fact to remember was that for everyone to arrive at the right place and time\u2014the same train compartment in the past or the future\u2014we had to make sure it was the final thought in our heads right before the moment on the verge of death.\n\n\"We'll aim for Villa Anna Sophia on Amorgos Island one day in the past,\" Martha announced. \"Yesterday. August twenty-ninth. That's where we'll start.\"\n\n\"Why the past and not the future?\" asked Cannon.\n\n\"You never know what tomorrow will bring. The future could hold a natural disaster, terrorist attack, alien invasion. The past has already happened, so we know what to expect.\"\n\n\"But if we're going into the past,\" I asked, \"why not just go straight to Vulcan Quarry on the night Jim died? Then we'll know everything.\"\n\n\"She's right,\" said Cannon.\n\n\"No,\" said Martha, shaking her head. \"No _way._ We're not ready. In _The Bend,_ the train gets shorter and shorter with each leap in time. That means our wakes will get shorter. It'll cause too much instability. It could mean we won't have enough time to come to vote with a consensus. We have to start out slowly.\"\n\nI didn't buy her explanation\u2014she seemed too quick to condemn my suggestion\u2014but the others appeared to accept her answer. So I decided not to challenge her. Not yet.\n\nNo one had been to Amorgos except me. Only I had visited Jim that summer. So the others could vividly envision the time and place, I showed them photos from the trip on my phone and told them what I remembered: The island's scalding brightness. The open-air Jeeps the Mason family drove around the island, tearing down the dirt roads like an occupying army. Edgar Mason, shut away at all hours in his space-age office, from which he'd abruptly emerge like Zeus coming down from Olympus (if Zeus was tanned to the color of whiskey, had spiky hedgehog hair, and rose every day at four a.m. to practice Ashtanga yoga while whispering into an earpiece). Jim's younger siblings and their respective friends stampeding up and down the house's staircases like herds of antelope. Jim had two younger twin sisters, Gloriana and Florence, and two adopted brothers from Uganda, Cal and Niles. Much to my amazement, they had a Swahili tutor living with them (\"A cultural attach\u00e9,\" Jim said). Jim and I had spent most of our time alone, reading aloud from John Lennon biographies, diving off the dock, exploring the coastline in a blue skiff called _Little Bird._ We snorkeled and ate grilled fish doused with lemon that squirted into my eyes and stung. We fed dinner rolls to the packs of wild dogs that patrolled the night streets like gangs, and stayed up into the early morning at drunken family feasts at gangplank tables under a blue night sky, chains of yellow paper lanterns bobbing overhead.\n\nThough Jim had invited me to spend the entire summer with him, my parents only agreed to let me visit for five days. To get them to agree to even that took State Department levels of persuasion. Those five days passed in the blink of an eye, each tinged with a blinding, far-fetched sheen, which made me feel at once uncomfortable and bewitched. Jim's world was so vivid, so improbable. As suddenly as I was thrown into it, I was tossed out, marooned back in sleepy Watch Hill, distracted and gloomy as I worked alongside my parents at the Crow, leaving milk shakes too long in the mixer, preparing egg salad sandwiches for customers who'd ordered turkey and Swiss. I was haunted, like Wendy by memories of Neverland and Peter Pan. I spent the rest of the summer tabulating in my head the seven-hour time difference so I could picture what Jim was doing, and roared through the house like a caged lion tossed a fresh carcass to seize the phone in time whenever he called.\n\nPer Martha's instructions, I described as best I could a single room in the house: the main living room, with its dreamy gauze curtains, whitewashed furniture, and scalding view of the Aegean. This was so they could feel as if they'd been there too, could have it be the very last thought in their heads before the moment on the verge of death\u2014whatever that turned out to be.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen the five of us weren't holed up in the library hashing over _The Bend,_ I'd grab an umbrella and head into the storm, hiking the property alone.\n\nAs I walked I could hear Martha's voice in my head, her unnerving whisper: _Your contribution is here. Somewhere._\n\nIt was during one of these solitary walks when, heading down the narrow stairs to the dock, I noticed the trees writhing with an intensity that wasn't normal. The ocean was rough, whitecaps licking the inky water. The sailboats moored far out in the cove clattered and bobbed. Ropes had come loose from the masts, thrashing like snakes. A buoy clanged somewhere out on the ocean, the sound mournful, deathly.\n\nSuddenly I heard a woman's sharp scream.\n\nThe moan of the wind made me think I'd imagined it.\n\nThen I heard another cry. This time it was a man.\n\nTwo people were arguing. Sensing that the voices were coming from behind me, I closed my umbrella and hurried off the dock and out of sight, darting into the foot-wide space between the bank and wooden steps.\n\nMoments later, I heard them again. I realized they weren't coming from Wincroft at all, but from one of the sailboats out in the harbor. Dark figures were moving along the deck of one anchored close to the dock of the property next door.\n\n_Andiamo,_ it was called.\n\nI remembered hearing Whitley mention it belonged to E.S.S. Burt. A tiny gold light was shining from the bow.\n\nThen it came: another scream.\n\nI waited. Minutes later, I heard a motor. A skiff was approaching. Peering through the steps, I saw Whitley. She was alone. She docked the boat, hastily knotting the ropes before climbing onto the pier, running up the steps. Her face caught the light as she barreled right past my head. She looked angry.\n\nI waited. When there were no further voices, I headed back to the house. I knocked once on the library doors, and opening them, I saw Whitley, soaking wet, sitting with Martha on the couch. They jolted upright as soon as I entered, startled looks on their faces. My first thought was of two teenagers surreptitiously smoking pot in a living room, suddenly interrupted by a parent.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" I asked.\n\n\"Nothing,\" said Whitley.\n\nMartha smiled. \"Could you give us a minute, Bee?\"\n\nI stared at Whitley. Never had she preferred to confide in Martha over me. _Never._ Hadn't our friendship come back to life after all this time in the Neverworld? Weren't we friends again? But she only stared back at me, sullen.\n\nI left with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, closing the door.\n\nAlmost immediately I could hear Whitley, her voice low and muffled, her words indistinguishable.\n\n_What the hell is going on?_\n\nI headed upstairs. Searching the bedrooms, I found no sign of Cannon, or Kipling either, which seemed to suggest they'd been aboard the boat too. Had they held some kind of secret meeting purposely behind my back? Why? What were they doing? I grabbed the umbrella, headed back outside, and hiked down to the dock.\n\nThere was no obvious movement on the sailboat and there were no more voices.\n\nI stayed there for another hour, watching. When nothing happened, I decided to hike back to Wincroft, and as I hurried up the path I noticed the Keeper.\n\nImmediately my throat constricted. The last time I'd seen him had been in the woods at Darrow. He seemed to have vanished for a time. Now he was back, a dark figure in a black raincoat, hunched over, drenched. He was digging with great exertion, his whole body contorting with each fling of dirt.\n\nI veered off the stone path to avoid him and sprinted through the trees. When I reached the house, I couldn't help turning back to look at him.\n\nHe hadn't noticed me. He was still digging what I now realized were four muddy holes in the earth. Four graves.\n\nBut that wasn't the strangest thing.\n\nHe was wearing the black glasses of a blind man.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nI didn't have time to ruminate on what the Keeper had been doing, or what it meant, because the very next wake the answer to the mystery of the sailboat argument and Whitley's private conversation with Martha came to light.\n\n\"Kipling has something to tell us,\" announced Martha as we all assembled in the library. \"Whitley brought this to my attention late last wake, and I think it could help us.\"\n\n\"You didn't,\" Cannon said angrily to Whitley.\n\n\"I had to,\" she answered.\n\nHe glared at her, livid.\n\n\"Oh, _please._ Stop the policeman act. You want to get out of here, don't you? I mean, don't you want to find out what really happened to Jim?\"\n\n\"It wasn't your secret to tell,\" he hissed.\n\n\"If it affects our ability to change the wake, it is.\"\n\n\"It's all right,\" said Martha, placing a hand on Cannon's shoulder. \"You can tell us.\"\n\nThat was when I noticed Kipling. He was crying. _Truly_ crying, in a way I'd never seen him before\u2014the kind of crying that was more of a wringing out than normal tears. He was seated on the couch, head in his hands, tears streaming down his chin.\n\n\"I call it the Black-Footed Sioux Carpet,\" he blurted suddenly, staring at the floor. \"It's a form of self-harm. 'An unsuitable attempt to solve interpersonal difficulties.' That's what the shrinks all call it. Momma Greer invented it. She coined the term from some crazy-lookin' rug she'd filched from an antiques store. We did it together. Mother-son bondin'. Sometimes we did it multiple times a week. She'd drive me out to a country road on a Friday night when she decided there was nothing good on TV. The first time I was five. We'd lie down in the road side by side, holdin' hands, waiting for a car. 'Roll out of the way when I say bingo,' she told me. 'We'll see how much God likes us. If he wants us to live. Cuz I'll only say bingo if God tells me to. That's the deal.' \" Kipling shuddered. \"I pissed myself I was so scared. I hadn't said my prayers. Good God. I mean, did God even know I existed? Did He like me? He couldn't like me _that_ much if He'd given me _this_ face to go through life with. _This_ body. I'd squeeze Momma Greer's hand. She was my lifeline. Then the car. You always felt it first in the pavement underneath you. It'd take Momma Greer a year to yell bingo. But it always came. I'd squeeze my eyes shut and roll out of the way. The tires would miss me by centimeters. By the time I opened my eyes Momma Greer would be up dancin' on the side of the road, whooping and hollerin', yankin' off all her clothes. 'See that? God loves us. He loves us after all.' She was always in a good mood after that. If I was lucky, it lasted a whole week.\"\n\nHe fell silent a moment, rubbing his eyes. I could only stare. While I had known Momma Greer was dangerous, this was by far the most terrifying thing I'd ever heard she'd done.\n\n\"It became an addiction,\" Kipling went on. \"The rush of it. I never stopped. Every few months, whenever things got out of hand or hopeless, I'd find a way to do my Black-Footed Sioux Carpet. I'd sneak off campus. Immediately felt better. I did a big one junior year, right before Christmas break, when Rector Trask told me I couldn't return next semester. I was kicked out. I was the sort of student\u2014 _how_ did he put it?\u2014who needed an environment with 'less vigorous expectations.' Like, he thought I'd do better in Sing-Sing. My Black-Footed Sioux Carpet after _that_ nearly got me made into an egg-scramble sandwich by a Folger's truck.\" He glanced up, sniffing. \"It certainly would have given new meanin' to their slogan 'The Best Part of Wakin' Up.' \"\n\nI gazed at him, speechless. Kipling had always been a rotten student. While I knew there had been cliffhangers at the end of every school year as to whether he was passing, I'd never known he was actually kicked out. His poor academic record had changed senior year, when he managed to focus on his studies. By the time we graduated, he had done well.\n\n\"It was Cannon who saved me,\" Kip said with a faint smile. \"He saw what I was tryin' so hard to hide.\"\n\n\"You weren't that good at hiding it,\" said Cannon, grinning. \"You were walking with a limp and winced when you sat down.\"\n\nKipling looked at me. \"Remember how I missed two months of school due to a 'family emergency'?\"\n\nI nodded. Vaguely I remembered him telling me a vibrant and long-winded story about his aunt's heart condition.\n\n\"It was all lies. I was at a treatment center in Providence, doin' tai chi, watercolorin' fruit bowls, and developin' a middle path to manage my unrestrained patterns of thought. It was Cannon who checked me in. Cannon who came during visitin' hours. Coordinated with the shrinks on my progress. Lobbied Darrow to give me one last chance. He helped turn my grades around. Got my college applications ready. Sat up with me all night helpin' write my essay about Momma Greer. 'Mommy Bipolar.' Otherwise known as 'How to Survive in the Custody of a Complete Lunatic.' That got me into Louisiana State. I'd be encrusted right now in the front tire treads of a UPS truck if it weren't for Cannon.\"\n\nMy mind was spinning. I thought back to senior year, and though I recalled Cannon as always quite busy, coming and going abruptly with his backpack and an armful of textbooks, never had I suspected what he was up to. But it made sense. He was the silent problem solver. \"The steady trickle of water that always finds a passage,\" Whitley used to say. Still, I felt hurt that they hadn't wanted to confide in me, that there had been an entire history happening right before my eyes about which I'd had no clue.\n\n\"Why did you never say anything?\" I asked Kipling.\n\nHe glanced at Cannon, and I saw pass wordlessly between them some fleeting shadow of understanding that was gone almost as soon as I recognized it.\n\nKipling shrugged. \"There comes a point where your personal pile of crazy gets to be a bit much. Even for your best friends.\"\n\n\"That's not quite the whole truth,\" prompted Whitley expectantly, tilting her head.\n\nKipling looked sheepish. \"Yeah, well.\" He cleared his throat. \"My eleventh-hour streak of Cs and Bs, revealin' me to be a decent student who'd only been _pretendin'_ all that time to be abysmal? That wasn't real.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" I asked.\n\nHe seemed unwilling to go on.\n\n\"Cannon hacked Darrow's network for him,\" blurted Whitley. \"All senior year. Kipling had every test from every teacher ahead of time. Including midterms and finals.\"\n\n\"Not every teacher,\" said Cannon.\n\nShe glared at him. \"It was still cheating.\"\n\n\"It was assisting a beloved friend,\" he said stonily.\n\nWhitley huffed. \"You could say the same thing about what I was doing as the White Rabbit. Everyone thinks _I'm_ the bad person? Look at what you guys were doing.\"\n\nCannon said nothing. For years he had assisted Darrow's notoriously backward IT department. It wasn't unusual for him to be summoned from class to help with some bug or networking error. And though he was glaring at Whitley now in obvious annoyance, he didn't appear to feel in the least bit guilty about this disclosure.\n\n\"How did you do it?\" I asked him.\n\nCannon shrugged. \"Social engineering. The weakest component in any given network is always the human. I sent a faculty-wide email, a required update for Darrow's intranet. For Kipling's teachers I included a RAT. They downloaded the trojan and I became root. It was as easy as untying a shoelace.\"\n\nHe frowned at the look of disbelief on my face.\n\n\"Come on, Sister Bee. You of all people should understand. Darrow-Harker was an obstacle in the way of Kipling's bright future. Kicked out junior year? He'd have to start over at some second-rate institution. Away from us. It'd look like shit on his record. And anyway, Kipling can't be measured by such blunt objects as As, Bs, and Cs. No. Kipling is an experience. I had to help him in the best way I could.\" He shrugged. \"There are the rules of this world, and there is what you do when life comes crashing down around you.\"\n\nCannon stared at me with such a penetrating look, I felt chills inching down my arms. I'd forgotten how intense a presence he could be, how when he focused, he seemed more energy than flesh and bone.\n\n\"So that's it,\" said Kipling. \"That's the two-headed monster in my closet who can't stop drooling.\"\n\n\"The question is,\" Martha whispered, looking him, \"will your secret help us change the wake?\"\n\nShe fell silent, frowning, lost in thought. For a minute no one said a word.\n\nThat was what Martha did sometimes\u2014let a question dangle for minutes, sometimes even an hour, before suddenly blurting the answer when everyone else had forgotten the problem.\n\n\"I have an idea,\" she said.\n\nThat was how we came to be parked in the wild beach rose along the empty coastal road at 4:47 in the morning, four minutes before the end of the wake.\n\nDirectly across the street was where we'd had the accident\u2014where, according to the Keeper, one Mr. Howard Heyward, age fifty-eight, of 281 Admiral Road, South Kingstown, had smashed his tow truck into our car, condemning us to the Neverworld, where somewhere, in some other dimension of time more real than this one, we were lying inside a totaled car inside a single second waiting to unlock.\n\nMartha knew the exact spot, a hairpin curve twisting one hundred and sixty degrees through dense pine trees. She admitted she'd come back here to inspect it in the Neverworld.\n\nHow had it happened? I could hardly remember. Aggressive flashes of headlights blinding me. Hedges of beach rose trembling in the torrential rain. Windshield wipers waving as if in warning. Liquid night. Our drunken laughter spilling everywhere. Honking. Spinning. The car bouncing off the road, leaping into the dark. A loss of gravity.\n\n\"He's a drunk,\" Martha said. \"He sits in the Raccoon and Hound Saloon in Warwick and drinks twelve Coors Lights. _Twelve._ Then he climbs behind the wheel. He can hardly stay awake. Nearly crashes into a telephone pole. In the Neverworld, he drives straight past the spot where he hits us. But that marks the end of the eleven point two hours of our wake.\"\n\nRain hammered the roof. The windshield and windows were fogged. I felt as if we were sealed inside a submarine at the bottom of the sea. The radio stuttered classical music.\n\nOnly one car had passed us, a blue pickup. Spotting us nestled in the bushes on the side of the road, it braked and backed up. Martha unrolled the window.\n\n\"You guys got a flat?\" asked a middle-aged man in a hunting vest. \"Need a hand?\"\n\n\"No, thanks,\" said Martha. \"We're fine. We're looking for our lost dog.\"\n\nHe frowned, baffled by the sight of five teenagers dressed in green hooded ponchos smiling stiffly. With a perplexed grimace and nothing left to say, he drove off.\n\n\"Three minutes,\" said Martha, checking her watch.\n\nI felt like I was going to be sick. Kipling and Cannon's revelations, shocking as they were, had elicited more questions than answers. For one thing, everyone was acting strange, though it was difficult to put my finger on why. They were irritable and out of it. Twice, when they weren't aware I was watching, I saw Kipling and Cannon exchange long, knowing glances, the meaning of which seemed vaguely ominous. _What was going on?_ What were they planning?\n\nAnd though Martha was coaching us, assuring us it was going to be fine\u2014 _August twenty-ninth, nine-thirty-five a.m., Villa Anna Sophia, Amorgos Island, Greece, that's all you have to remember, okay?_ \u2014the fact that she of all people was in charge of this operation only made it worse. What was she up to? Was she pushing us to follow in the footsteps of characters in _The Bend_ so she could condemn us somehow, trap us in some train compartment of time? Or was it only about the vote for her?\n\nThe vote. The vote. _The vote._\n\nNow, hunched beside Whitley in the backseat, I could feel the wake coming over me, that familiar ocean-wave immensity pressing down on my feet, inching into my shins. Abruptly, the radio belched with static, then began to cough and stutter \"Boys Don't Cry\" by the Cure.\n\nThe rain grew louder, as if the volume had been turned way up.\n\n\"I don't feel so swell,\" said Kip, pressing a hand to his throat.\n\nMartha turned to him. \"I feel it too. And it's not just the wake. It's the open window. It's happening.\"\n\nShe was filled with excitement\u2014as much as someone as deadpan as Martha _could_ be filled with excitement.\n\n\"Can you feel it?\"\n\nI did. There was an electrical charge in my hands, as if I'd just shuffled across a heavy carpet in socks. I held my hand an inch from the steamed window. It made a print. I waved it back and forth, and it magically wiped the window clean. I held my hand a few inches behind Whitley's hair hanging outside the hood of her poncho, and the gold strands leapt right into my hand like the tentacles of some strange sea creature.\n\n\"Two minutes,\" said Martha. \"Let's move.\"\n\nShe nodded at us and scrambled out, Cannon and Kipling taking off after her without a word. I opened the door and was instantly drenched by a blast of rain. Whitley grabbed my arm.\n\n\"I can't do this, Bee,\" she whimpered. \"I can't keep it straight in my head.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nShe was crying. Never in my life had I seen her so afraid.\n\n\"I'm going to get lost in the past. I know it.\"\n\n\"No. You're not.\" I grabbed her by the shoulders. \"Listen to me. August twenty-ninth. Nine-thirty-five a.m. Villa Anna Sophia. Say it.\"\n\n\"Villa Anna Sophia.\"\n\n\"Remember the sea. The sky. The pristine white beauty of it all. The curtains. The smell of oranges.\"\n\n\"Oranges. Right.\"\n\n\"You've got this.\"\n\nShe blinked at me, unsure. I held out my hand. She grabbed it. Then we both climbed out of the car into the downpour.\n\nI hadn't anticipated how chaotic it would be. The rain felt like nails. There was a gravitational pull intent on thrusting us back to the car. My thoughts turned to liquid, splattering the inside of my head. All we had to do was approach the spot of the accident and lie down in a Black-Footed Sioux Carpet the way Kipling had explained it. So far only Martha had made it. She was lying on her back along the faded yellow line. I headed toward her, trying to drag Whitley after me, but I was dizzy, and every step was like lifting four cinder blocks tied to my feet. Kip was standing in the road, turning in a circle like a cork caught in a toilet flush, and Cannon was on all fours, trying to crawl. I forced my thoughts to slow. I took big steps, one at a time, squeezing Whitley's hand. Finally we reached the spot and lay down beside Martha. A minute later Cannon arrived with Kipling.\n\nI blinked, raindrops pounding my face. I couldn't see. The rain was falling too hard, so I closed my eyes. The wake had crept up to my knees, pushing me into the pavement.\n\n_August twenty-ninth. Nine-thirty-five a.m._\n\nI could picture the rocky, windswept cliff, the modern white house poised there like an eagle's nest, nothing in the windows but a reflection of the sea.\n\n\"Fifty seconds!\" bellowed Martha.\n\n_Villa Anna Sophia._\n\n\"I can't do this!\" Whitley screamed.\n\nSomeone scratched me in the face. I moved my arm to shield my eyes, realizing it was a giant oak branch torn off a tree. It had careened over us before cartwheeling down the road.\n\nWhitley was sobbing, trying to scramble to her feet. Cannon held her in place.\n\n\"Stop it!\" he shouted.\n\n\"Let go of me! I can't do it!\"\n\n\"Calm down!\" shouted Martha.\n\n\"I can't! I keep thinking of other things! I can't stop my thoughts!\"\n\nI heard the roar of the approaching engine. Howard Heyward, age fifty-eight, drunk and half asleep, was seconds away now. My entire body was shaking. I squeezed my eyes closed, my fingers gripping the pavement, trying to hold on.\n\n_Amorgos Island. Greece._\n\nSomeone else was screaming now. Kipling.\n\n\"Stop it! Stop it!\"\n\n\"Don't you see? We're going to lose each other!\"\n\n\"It's a trick! It's a trap!\"\n\nThunder exploded like an atom bomb. My ears blew out, squeals and whines ricocheting strangely around my head. The wake was pressing down on my heart now, so strong it took a moment for me to realize something was viciously stabbing my neck. I cried out in pain, my cold, numbed fingers fumbling to see what it was. I felt something small, hard. I yanked it out of my neck, screaming.\n\nIt was the bumblebee pin, the one Jim had given me, the one stolen from me.\n\nThe rest happened at once. Headlights sliced through me. The truck was honking, careening toward us. Raindrops fell in slow motion. A howl of brakes. Someone was still screaming. I opened my eyes, catching a fleeting glimpse of a figure in a green poncho sprinting away, vanishing into the woods. Clanging metal. The truck was jackknifing, massive tires sliding on the wet pavement right toward my skull. A smell of scorched rubber. And hell.\n\nOne...two...\n\nBumblebee pin.\n\nJim.\n\nWhen I opened my eyes, it was daylight.\n\nI was facedown in the grass. I lifted my head, heart pounding, feeling an overpowering wave of nausea. I was sick to my stomach, my body spasming. It took a minute to catch my breath. I wiped my mouth, looking around, my eyes stinging in the light.\n\nI was not on any coastal road. I was not being run over by Howard Heyward's tow truck\u2014at least, not anymore. I was in no physical pain.\n\nI also wasn't in the back of the Jaguar. For the first time in a century it wasn't raining. The sun was shining. I was lying on the ground\u2014dead leaves, dirt, surrounded by trees. It was brisk out, a bite in the air, the sky hard blue. I held out my hands, opening them.\n\nThey were empty.\n\n_The bumblebee pin. Where is it?_\n\nI looked around. I definitely wasn't near Villa Anna Sophia or on any Greek island.\n\nI was in the middle of a forest. I stared down at my clothing.\n\nThe burgundy Ann Taylor wool coat my mother had picked up years ago at a secondhand store in Woonsocket. Black tights. Black wool dress. Scuffed black leather pumps.\n\nPuzzled, I stumbled to my feet. My shoes were too tight, my dress scratchy. I lurched forward, staring through the trees at a grassy clearing. There was a lake littered with small white sailboats, people milling around the perimeter. I stumbled toward it, wondering if I looked like some deranged lunatic. But as I stepped out of the woods and down the bank, no one gave me a second glance. There were at least twenty sailboats out on the lake, children and a few teenagers operating them by remote control.\n\nI understood where I was: Central Park. The Conservatory Lake. I'd visited here a long time ago with Jim.\n\n\"There you are.\"\n\nHearing his voice was like having the floor drop out under my feet. I couldn't breathe. I closed my eyes, my mind jelly. I was falling through a hole a mile deep.\n\n\"Where'd you go? Are you already trying to get rid of me?\"\n\nHe was alive. He was right behind me, his hand on my shoulder. He smelled the same: peppermint soap, wind, and fresh laundry.\n\n\"I came out here all the time as a little kid. Once, the remote control broke and my sailboat got stranded in the middle of the lake and my father said, as I cried, 'If you want it, go get it.' I had to wade out there and retrieve the thing. Clearly it was some survival-of-the-fittest, free-market personality test he'd learned in business school and\u2014 Hey, what's wrong?\"\n\nHe spun me around to face him.\n\n_What's wrong? How can I begin to answer that question?_\n\n\"Look at me.\"\n\nI opened my eyes.\n\nThe sight of Jim Mason inches away from me\u2014sun blazing behind him, birds chirping, kids squealing in delight\u2014was so unfeasible, my head turned inside out.\n\nThis wasn't real. It couldn't be.\n\nBut it was. It was Jim. He was the same, but he wasn't. As I stared up at him, it struck me how no one ever really sees anyone. Memory turns out to be a lazy employee, intent on doing the least amount of work. When a person is alive and around you all the time, it doesn't bother to record all the details, and when a person is dead, it Xeroxes a tattered recollection a million times, so the details are lost: the freckles, the crooked smile, the creases around the eyes.\n\n\"Come,\" Jim said. \"We can't be late.\"\n\nHe tucked my hand into the crook of his arm. I'd forgotten how he always did that. He escorted me down the path, past women wheeling babies in strollers\u2014all of whom glanced at him with varying degrees of admiration\u2014and a man pushing a shopping cart filled with plastic bottles.\n\nIt seemed the wake had brought me to one of the occasions when I'd visited Jim's family in New York.\n\nIt wasn't Christmas. And it was too chilly for spring break.\n\nSo when was it?\n\nI could ask him what we were going to be late to, but it was a daunting prospect to speak. Every time I looked at Jim, I felt jolts of disbelief. I wanted to annotate everything about him, every blink, sniff, and sideways grin. I was terrified too. There was a lump in my throat like a giant wad of gum, threatening to dislodge. If it did, I'd end up crying or rambling on madly about the Neverworld, the fact that he was dead now.\n\n_You're dead, my love. You have such little time._\n\nBiting my lip, I let him escort me across Fifth Avenue. We rushed into his building\u2014 _944 Fifth Avenue_ read the elegant script on the green awning\u2014its lobby pungent with hydrangea and roses from the colossal flower arrangement on the table, asteroid-like and silencing. Jim casually waved at the doorman.\n\n\"Hola, Murdoch.\"\n\nThen we were alone in the elevator. Jim leaned back against the wood-paneled wall, surveying me. I had forgotten the way he studied people as if they were priceless pieces of art.\n\n\"Don't be nervous,\" he said.\n\nHe was clutching my hand again, grazing his lips against my knuckles as he pulled me, walking backward, into his apartment. I had forgotten how grand it was, echoing like a museum, iron sculptures of birds and oil paintings of stark faces, spindly furniture more giant praying mantises than viable places to sit. Looking down, I noticed the scuffs on my Mary Jane pumps, the lint balls on my old stockings, and felt that familiar cringe of embarrassment. As we moved into the living room, slipping through the crowd, I noticed everyone was wearing black\u2014black dresses, black and white and red silk scarves, blue suits\u2014and I understood where I was.\n\nFreshman year at Darrow. Five years ago. A weekend in late September.\n\nJim had invited me to come home with him for his great-uncle Carl's funeral. I barely knew Jim back then.\n\nHe'd only introduced himself a week before.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n\"Jim Mason.\"\n\nHe was sitting behind me in English. He pulled his chair over, so close I could feel his peppermint breath on my cheek as I tried to work out a rhyme for a song I was writing.\n\n\"Whatcha doing?\" He frowned at the notebook I was scribbling in. \"What's _Fenfang's Chinese Laundry Meltdown: An Original Soundtrack_?\"\n\nEmbarrassed, I slid the book under my laptop.\n\n\"Nothing.\"\n\n\"That didn't look like nothing.\"\n\nI cleared my throat. It sounded like a swamp.\n\n\"I create fake album soundtracks for movies that don't exist. It's just something I do. Don't ask me why.\"\n\n\"I see.\" He nodded matter-of-factly. \"So, when's the commitment to the mental institution happening? Next week? Next year?\"\n\nI laughed.\n\nHe extended his hand. \"Jim Mason. Really delighted to make your acquaintance before they cart you off to your padded cell.\"\n\n\"Beatrice Hartley.\"\n\nHe winked. \"I'm a mad poet too.\"\n\nI smiled. There was a stretch of awkward silence, during which Jim did nothing but sit back and survey me. I turned to my laptop, trying to stop blushing, pretending to type something important. I assumed he was about to return to his desk and leave me alone.\n\nInstead, he started to beatbox, not even trying to be cool about it.\n\n\"There was a fetching girl in my English class \/ Wary as a bluebird, radiating class \/ I'm scared to look away from her, in case she flies away \/ Congress needs to declare her a national holiday.\"\n\nEveryone in class went silent, a boy behind me snickering.\n\nLittle did I know that this was how it would always be, that being the subject of Jim's attention would be like having a bomb go off in my face: unexpected, shocking, accompanied by a fallout of popular girls suddenly approaching me with long, swingy mermaid hair and doubtful glances.\n\n\"How do you know Jim Mason?\"\n\n\" _You're_ from New York?\"\n\n\"Did you go to Spence?\"\n\n\"I'm from Watch Hill. No, I went to Watch Hill East. I\u2014I don't know Jim.\"\n\nThat was how I met Whitley. She was friends with Jim from some exclusive Native American camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains.\n\n\"Jim Mason has a crush on you.\" It was the first thing she ever said to me.\n\nI hurried along the hallway, clutching the strap of my backpack like it was my floatation device and I was drowning.\n\n\"No, he doesn't.\"\n\n\"Yes, he does.\" She peered at me, frowning. \"He calls you 'haunting.' He said you're old-fashioned. And innocent. Like you're from the 1940s or something, and have been transported here by time machine.\"\n\n\"Thanks.\"\n\n\"It's a compliment.\"\n\nThe next day, suddenly Jim was strolling beside me down to the athletic fields. My heart flopped like a freshly caught fish.\n\n\"Did you grow up on an Amish farm milking cows at sunrise?\" he asked.\n\n\"Um. No.\"\n\n\"You look like you did.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"Want to come home with me this Sunday?\"\n\nHe asked it like he was offering me a bite of his sandwich.\n\nI said no. Sunday was Family Sunday, which meant Darrow's students either went home for the day or signed up for a field trip to a museum. I hadn't seen my mom and dad in a month, and they'd planned an elaborate lasagna dinner. Of course, the truth was I said no because I was terrified by Jim's attention, the brash, drenching spotlight of it, both blinding me and causing everyone else to stare.\n\nLittle did I know, _no_ to Jim was simply a yes that hadn't happened yet.\n\n\"Beatrice!\" he shamelessly rapped at the start of English, causing our teacher Mrs. Henderson to regard me with irritation. \"She's a realist. With secrets. A conscienceless realist who leaves me sleepless. And speechless. Oh, Beatrice.\"\n\nHe left notes in my locker. _Say yes (jump off a cliff with me)._ He recorded a theme song about me. It got passed around the entire school.\n\n\" 'The Queen's Neck'? _Please,_ \" I heard a girl hiss during chapel.\n\n\"Say yes!\" Jim blurted when he passed me in the hall. (\"Yes to _what_? Having his babies?\" the varsity volleyball captain snarked to her friends.) Jim called my parents to formally introduce himself, discuss train times to and from Penn Station, give them his word that I'd be safe with him, that he was a gentleman.\n\nThis deluge of attention would have been too much coming from anyone who wasn't Jim Livingston Mason, Jim of the thick, tangled black hair, the chocolate eyes, the sideways grin.\n\n\"He sounds so adorable and kind of quirky, actually,\" said my mom.\n\nBack then she'd been na\u00efve about the old-moneyed jungle of Darrow and Jim's lionlike position inside it.\n\n\"It's wonderful you're already making some interesting connections,\" said my dad.\n\nThe Sunday trip to Jim's house for the funeral\u2014 _this very trip_ \u2014would end in disaster.\n\nFast-forward five, six hours? I'd be taking a train home from New York early, alone, the reasons for which Jim and I always argued about afterward. To this day I found it difficult to recall what had really happened. What had I been so upset about? I could never separate my shyness, my self-consciousness at being painfully underdressed and awkward, from the truth. During the post-funeral buffet, held in some relative's Gilded Age apartment on Park Avenue, I remembered Jim disappeared for what felt like a torturous period of time. I'd grabbed my coat off the hall rack and snuck out without a word to anyone. I cried the whole ride back to school. I vowed\u2014unreasonably, because even then my feelings for him felt as inevitable as seawater in a rowboat full of holes\u2014that this would be the end of my friendship with Jim Mason.\n\nThat Monday morning, however, during English, he placed a red Cartier box on the notebook I'd been drawing in.\n\n\"Forgive me.\"\n\nInside the box was a diamond-encrusted bumblebee pin.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThe bumblebee pin.\n\nThinking of how it had mysteriously gone missing from the sock drawer in my dorm room, then abruptly reappeared all these years later, jammed in the side of my neck as we lay in the middle of the coastal road, sent a fresh wave of shock through me. Clearly it had been meant as a means of sabotage, a surefire way to get rid of me, make me think of Jim, thereby pulling me into some compartment of the past. Whoever had done it had meant to hurt me, purposefully destroy any chance we had of voting and leaving the Neverworld.\n\n_Which one of them had done it?_\n\n\"Cookie?\"\n\nI jumped, startled. I realized dazedly I was in the Masons' living room staring out the window at Central Park, which from this height looked like an architectural rendering of a park with pipe-cleaner trees. One of Jim's adopted siblings\u2014Niles, nine or ten years old\u2014was offering me a stack of cookies held between his thumb and forefinger.\n\nI took one. \"Thanks.\"\n\nHe squinted. \"You're Jim's latest girlfriend?\"\n\n\"No. I'm a friend of his from school.\"\n\n\"Well, take care you don't go\"\u2014the little kid crossed his eyes, making a deranged clown face\u2014\"like all the others.\"\n\nI laughed.\n\n\"Whoa\u2014 Did you see that?\"\n\nThe kid moved to inspect a large red Rothko, which had just fallen clean off the wall, revealing a dark square of what appeared to be mold.\n\n\"That was totally _Poltergeist_!\"\n\nI smiled stiffly, moving away as Jim led his mother over.\n\n\"Mom. This is the girl I was telling you about. Beatrice Hartley.\"\n\n\"Hullo there.\"\n\nMrs. Mason was beautiful, her black suit sealing her like an envelope. She extended her hand like it was a gift. I'd forgotten how chilly she could be: the boredom in her smile, the flick of her eyes over my shoulder, as if somewhere behind me something more charming was always happening, like dolphins leaping out of the sea.\n\n\"Darling, did you speak to Artie Grossman about the Currin?\"\n\nMr. Mason stepped over. He was short and tan, with spiky hair and the tense stare of all moguls. His teeth were big and artificially white, hinting they'd glow in the dark during a blackout.\n\n\"Dad,\" said Jim. \"This is Beatrice.\"\n\nMr. Mason smiled warmly, shaking my hand.\n\n\"Just started Darrow-Harker with Jimmy, is that it? How are you finding those old-school traditions and Kennedy smiles?\"\n\n\"Fine.\"\n\n\"Wonderful. Wonderful. Glory, did you talk to Artie?\"\n\n\"I'll do it right now,\" said Mrs. Mason.\n\nShe was smiling again, drifting away. \"Lovely to meet you,\" she said unconvincingly over her shoulder.\n\nI couldn't help staring after the two of them, wondering how they had reacted to Jim's death. What had they done, all these polished, perfumed people? Had any of them screamed and lost their minds as I had, or had life simply floated on?\n\nJim was dead now. He was lying in a coffin underneath a gravestone that read _Life Now Forever_ in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. In this sunlit apartment with the thick walls and marble floors, the idea was unfathomable.\n\nJim smiled after them. He appeared to mistake my stare for admiration.\n\n\"They met on the R train when they were twenty years old. Still madly in love after twenty-eight years. Completely unforgivable. Come.\"\n\nHe clasped my hand again. We slipped through the crowd, past mute housekeepers in gray uniforms, a waiter holding a tray of triangular sandwiches like little starched pocket squares. He whisked me out of the living room, past three siblings playing Wiffle ball in the foyer (\"Totally inappropriate!\" Jim shouted at them), a wood-paneled library with a ladder to retrieve the thousands of first-edition leather-bound books, a dining room with a modern steel chandelier that looked like a giant tarantula. In two years I'd eat Christmas dinner there and his mother wouldn't say a word to me the entire meal. His father would call me Barbara.\n\nJim pulled me through a door and closed it behind me. It was his bedroom, a shadowed, chaotic rock star's lair with electric guitars mounted on the wall and sheet music covering every flat surface, handwritten quarter notes and half rests spangling the bars. Synthesizers. A McIntosh stereo. Three laptops. Piles of notebooks burping up pages where song lyrics were taking shape in terrible handwriting. _Lost Little Blue._ A biography of Janis Joplin. _Sweeney Todd: The Complete Score._ A framed copy of a Bruce Springsteen Madison Square Garden set list signed with a note: _Love you, Jimmy. Keep hearing the music. Bruce._ Rumpled boxers and T-shirts and rolled-up posters swamped the corners of the room.\n\nJim was rifling through a bookshelf, looking for something.\n\n\"Okay, so, I have this song I wrote about a girl I haven't met yet,\" he said, pulling out a notebook. \" 'Immortal She.' It's about the love you have for someone that can't die, no matter how far apart you are, even if you're separated by death or time. That's what I'm searching for.\"\n\nThe lump in my throat was there again, a pile of rubble.\n\nHe began to read the lyrics, as he would countless times after this. I came to know that song well. It was one of the best he ever wrote. I'd sing it for him on a picnic blanket at school during finals week. He'd sing it to me some nights at Wincroft as I fell asleep.\n\nI remembered this exact moment. I'd related it to Whitley a dozen times, because it was the classic chorus refrain of \"The Ballad of Jim and Bee,\" an old standard. This was the first time we were ever alone together, our first deep conversation. Our first kiss was seconds away. Having it before me again made me feel paralyzed, out of control. As he read, stumbling over a word here and there, pausing to scratch his nose, he seemed so beautiful and so young\u2014younger than I ever remembered. He raised his chin and strained his voice a funny way on certain words, as if they were spears he was launching blindly over a wall.\n\n\"It's beautiful,\" I said when he finished.\n\nHe had a funny look on his face. He carefully set the book on his desk and sat beside me.\n\n\"I was going to wait to do this, like, weeks, and be this total gentleman and woo you like a knight in medieval times? But I'm punting that plan. I'm not a knight. I'm not even a gentleman. But I am devoted. Once I decide I'm with you, it never goes away. I swear to you that, Beatrice.\"\n\nHe kissed me. There was a whole world in that kiss. Every moment of pain, regret, loneliness I'd felt since he'd died fell away. I'd missed him so much, how much hit me only now. As his hands slid down my back, I knew I was going to tell him about the Neverworld, the Keeper, the vote, his death. Would he be able to tell me why he died if I asked him? Couldn't we run out of here, get into a car, and go live out the wake at a highway motel where the light was gold and the carpet full of vending machine crackers?\n\nTomorrow we could do it again.\n\nAnd again.\n\nAnd again.\n\nI didn't have to be without him anymore. I'd tell him everything. He, of all people, would understand. It'd be like it was before, before his strange moods, his anger, his lies.\n\nWhen he pulled away, I was aware of a rapid popping noise behind us. Jim looked stunned.\n\n\"How weird.\"\n\nHe stood, moving to the guitars mounted on the wall. He widened his eyes, mystified. \"All the strings just broke. Every single one.\" He grinned. \"It must be your effect on me.\"\n\nI smiled weakly.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nMy decision to tell Jim everything set off some gangster-movie escape scene from the funeral, wavered, and stalled the moment he took my hand and we rejoined his family.\n\nThere were so many uncles, cousins, women wearing black mink coats and stilettos with toothpick heels, swirls of blond hair like sugar garnishes on thirty-four-dollar desserts. We made our way outside, a glamorous black-clad procession up Madison Avenue into the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel.\n\n\"Last time I was here it was for Allegra de Fonso,\" a woman told me.\n\nThe funeral service was long, filled with sniffling people quoting Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan, \"Let It Be\" by the Beatles. There was a speech from a red-eyed woman who couldn't stop clearing her throat. Children snickered over an ancient man in the front row announcing too loudly, \"It smells like cat piss,\" before a nurse escorted him out. Jim smiled down at me and squeezed my hand. I found myself staring in wonder at a photo of the dead man: Great-Uncle Carl, memorialized in a laminated poster propped on a brass easel beside the casket. He had mottled red skin and an oblivious yellow smile. Had he ended up in some kind of Neverworld? I was closer to Great-Uncle Carl's state than any of these people could imagine.\n\nI had to tell Jim.\n\nHowever, once the service ended and the crowd spilled onto the sidewalk\u2014black Cadillac Escalades lined up eight deep, everyone shaking hands and muttering condolences and observations about Carl, how he \"did it his way\" and was a son of a gun\u2014every time I was about to tell him \"I need to talk to you,\" some new person tapped his shoulder and gave him a bear hug, asking how he'd been, when his first musical was premiering on Broadway. Jim was amiable and kept trying to make his way back to me, but before he could, someone else would approach. When he finally rejoined me, he had two girls in tow. He knew them from grade school.\n\n\"Beatrice, meet Delphine and Luciana.\"\n\nI'd always recalled the girls as intimidating and otherworldly. Seeing them now, they weren't as jaw-dropping as I'd remembered, though they had waist-length hair, which they tossed out of their eyes like ponies, and a bored manner that could be mistaken for expertise. Jim kept putting his arm around me as he talked, but after a while, as I stood listening to stories about Millicent, Castman, and Ripper\u2014whether these were people, a law firm, or impossible-to-get-into nightclubs, I couldn't tell\u2014I began to feel like a giant old L-shaped couch that had been carried out to the sidewalk and left there.\n\nThe feeling continued when we piled into an Escalade. We were a large group. Jim was forced to sit in the back next to Luciana. I sat next to an elderly woman wearing red taffeta who reeked of alcohol.\n\n\"Here we go again to do what we do,\" she mumbled.\n\nWe were dropped off at Jim's great-aunt's apartment on Park Avenue. Jim deposited me on a love seat by a porcelain pug and disappeared on a mission to find me a Coke. After forty-five minutes with no sign of him, I stood up and roamed the dense crowd, perusing bookshelves and photographs, slipping down crowded hallways as if I knew where I was going. I peered into the kitchen, where caterers were sweating over ovens and trays, and a guest bathroom where the wallpaper looked like twenty-four-karat gold. It was all coming back to me, how desolate I'd felt, adrift in a place I didn't belong. I'd wanted nothing more than to be away from these people, back in Watch Hill, eating lasagna with my parents, hearing my dad talk about a new BBC David Attenborough program on Netflix.\n\nNow, five years later, inside the Neverworld, I wasn't nearly so sensitive, but I was still bothered by Jim's absence. Where had he gone? He'd told me he'd gotten stuck talking to relatives, and I'd believed him.\n\nThe question gnawed at me.\n\nI snooped in room after room, searching for him in bedrooms that resembled hotel rooms, offices that looked like libraries, an echoing marble gallery filled with aviation antiques behind glass. Jim was nowhere. Neither, worryingly, were the two girls. At one point, when I opened a closet filled with nothing but Japanese puzzles and board games, Jim's father, Edgar, stepping out of an office, spotting me, and doubtlessly noticing how awkward I looked, beckoned me.\n\n\"Jessica,\" he said to me, smiling warmly, slipping what appeared to be a small black flash drive attached to a rubber bracelet over his wrist. I caught a glimpse of a series of digital numbers flashing along the side before he pulled his shirtsleeve over it.\n\n\"Can I get you a drink, my dear?\"\n\n\"No, thank you, Mr. Mason.\"\n\n\"Edgar. Come meet my partner, Craig, and his daughter, Greta. Greta just returned from Sri Lanka, where she was a visiting neurosurgeon at the District Hospital in Colombo.\"\n\nObviously, high-powered Craig and his neurosurgeon daughter didn't want to be saddled talking to a mute high school freshman, so it was a matter of seconds before they turned to greet someone\u2014\"Bertrand? Is that you?\"\u2014and I slipped away.\n\nI couldn't call Jim. I didn't have a purse with me, much less a phone. I could wait where he'd left me. Eventually he'd come back. Wouldn't he?\n\nAnother hour went by. With each passing second my plan to confess, run away with him, began to grow stale and sag. When I was jostled for the third time by a woman toting a giant alligator handbag, and Mrs. Mason slipped past me with a cardboard smile, Martha's words of warning suddenly leapt into my head.\n\n_We don't know how we're going to react. The past hooks you like a drug. The future jolts you like an electric chair. Reliving beautiful memories can be just as devastating as reliving the terrible ones. They're addictive._\n\nMaybe it was shock at being forgotten by Jim again, the nagging question of his lies about Vida Joshua, or the understanding that one of my friends had tried to destroy me, deliberately sticking me with the pin to send me to back to some other moment in time, doubtlessly believing I'd be too smitten with Jim to ever leave his side again, trapping me here forever.\n\nI leapt to my feet, barging through the crowd. In the hallway I snatched my burgundy coat off the coatrack. It abruptly collapsed, sending piles of minks to the floor. I threw down my old coat, seized the fattest, most unwieldy fur I could find, and shrugged it on, hit by a wave of perfume. I ran down the hall, my heart pounding, pressing the down button for the elevator. It splintered under my finger. I wheeled around, shoved open the door to the stairs, and raced down each flight, lightbulbs in the lamps overhead shattering as I passed each landing. I charged out into the lobby, the doormen gawking.\n\nHow could I have forgotten where I was, and what I had to do?\n\nDidn't I want to live?\n\nI sprinted outside. The wind was strong, too strong, the green awning chattering and flapping in the gale. I ran to the sidewalk, about to hail a cab, when I heard a girl's shrill laughter. Wheeling around, I saw Jim.\n\nHe was perched on the wrought-iron railing in front of the building next door, Delphine and Luciana beside him. They were talking to a doorman, cracking up over his comical impression of someone, what looked like Marlon Brando in _The Godfather._ They were all howling so hard they couldn't stop.\n\nI stood there, frozen, willing Jim to look up and see me.\n\nBut he didn't. Staring at his grinning face, I realized then. I saw it as plain as day. I hadn't even crossed his mind.\n\nMaybe I never did.\n\nI wanted to shout his name. I wanted to scream like some vengeful witch in a fairy tale, causing clouds to fast-forward across the sky, wiping the smiles off their faces: \"Jim Mason, in four years you'll be dead!\"\n\nHe leaned back so carelessly, hooking his arm around Luciana's neck and nuzzling her ear, my heart felt freshly sliced in two.\n\nI'd been so stupid, so blind.\n\nTears sprang to my eyes. I veered around and ran out into the street, nearly getting hit by a taxi before the driver slammed on the brakes, honking.\n\nI climbed in.\n\n\"Honey, are you okay? What the\u2014? _Jesus!_ \"\n\nThe driver blinked, mystified at the sight in front of him. The green awning to Jim's apartment building had come entirely free in the wind, detaching from the sidewalk. It was barreling down Fifth Avenue, clanging and swooping; it collided with the rear windshield of a town car before soaring straight up into the air, gold poles flying out, bystanders shouting as it was flung through the sky like some strange soaring monster.\n\n_I'm anything but okay._\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nMartha had said to meet back at Wincroft in the event of an emergency.\n\n_Always go back to the original wake. If we have that as our meeting place, there remains a hope we can all eventually convene there across space and time. To change the wake again, go back to the coastal road if you can and do the exact same thing, okay? If you can't get to the coastal road, find a suicide._\n\nI took the train back to Newport. When I arrived it was after ten. I climbed into a waiting cab at the station, asking the driver to take me to Narragansett. It was a half-hour drive, and I didn't have money, but I figured I'd be able to think of something at Wincroft.\n\nThe gate was open. The lamps were lit. As the cab accelerated down the drive, I could see the driver sit up and glance at me curiously in the rearview mirror, wondering if I was an heiress. The house lights were on. There were eight gleaming cars in the driveway. As the cab waited, I went running up the steps and rang the bell.\n\nWhen the door opened, I found myself face to face with E.S.S. Burt. He wasn't as creepy as I remembered. In fact, he looked like any rich man in a pastel sweater. There were voices coming from the dining room, glasses clinking. Apparently I had interrupted a dinner party.\n\n\"Can I help you?\" he asked.\n\n\"I'm looking for Whitley.\"\n\n\"She's not here. She's up at her boarding school. Darrow-Harker.\"\n\n\"We were supposed to grab dinner tonight.\"\n\nHe was surprised. \"Did you try calling her?\"\n\n\"She's not picking up.\" I went on to explain that unfortunately I didn't have enough money to pay the forty-eight dollars for the cab. Blinking in bewilderment, Burt pulled out his wallet, jogged down the steps, and paid the driver.\n\n\"I guess I'll go back to my hotel and try Whitley later,\" I said.\n\nHe nodded, puzzled. \"What did you say your name was?\"\n\n\"Beatrice.\"\n\nBurt didn't know what to make of me, a gawky girl in a black mink bulky as a killer whale. I waved to him and took off on foot down the driveway. He watched me, then disappeared back inside, apparently too preoccupied with his party to wonder, if the cab had driven off, how I was going to get anywhere. I circled back to his vintage-car garage, typed in the four-digit security code. Thankfully it was the same code as five years later, and the door rose with a groan. I hurried to the key stand in the back and unhooked the keys to the Rolls.\n\nDriving out to the coastal road, I expected sirens. None came. My heart began to pound. I could feel the wake coming on. Checking the time, I realized in surprise that this wake had shortened. It had been barely eight hours. I could feel the crushing heaviness pressing into my legs. I floored the gas, engine roaring. The prospect that I might end up with Jim again, back in Central Park, if I didn't make it into another wake willed me to drive faster and faster. My legs went numb. As I rounded the curves, the car seemed to fly out from under me, tree branches scratching at the windshield like an angry mob. When I reached the hairpin curve, I veered into the bushes, narrowly missing a tree. I barreled out, lurching into the middle of the road, the strong wind shoving me down across the yellow line.\n\nI rolled onto my back, gasping. The sky was a deep night-blue, freckled with stars.\n\nI had no idea whether this plan would work. Would the open window even be here anymore? I slowed my thoughts and closed my eyes. _August 29. Villa Anna Sophia. Amorgos Island. Greece._ I waited for a car to come, but there was only the deafening wind in my ears, the shrill hiss of crickets, the distant whoosh of the sea, even as a metronome. I heard a piercing whistling, growing louder. A bicycle. It came at me suddenly, the rider swerving to avoid me, losing control, crashing into bushes on the side of the road with a clang of metal, shouting. The biker was uninjured. After a moment of gasping and swearing, he lurched to his feet.\n\nHe stared down at me, faceless in the dark.\n\n_\"What the fuck?\"_ he whispered as his head jerked up in surprise, headlights of an oncoming car illuminating him like a flash camera.\n\nHe threw himself out of the way as my world went dark.\n\nWhen I opened my eyes I was lying on my stomach on wooden planks. Instantly, streaks of vivid blue tore into my vision. It was the ocean. I raised my head, blinking. I was wearing cutoff jean shorts and a faded pink Captain's Crow T-shirt. I was lying on a dock, barefoot. I turned my head and saw the white wooden staircase zigzagging up the sheer rock face, at least a hundred feet high.\n\nVilla Anna Sophia. I'd actually made it.\n\nLight-headed with relief, I lurched to my feet, only I was so woozy, I stumbled and was sick, nearly falling into the water. Catching my breath, I lurched to my feet.\n\nI headed up the stairs. With every step I took, pebbles and rocks loosened under the planks, bouncing, plummeting down the cliff into the ocean. I kept moving. I didn't look down. When I reached the top, panting, the house\u2014a wild architectural marvel of glass and steel\u2014sat before me, totally silent. It looked deserted. I hurried past the pool, an inflated swan raft drifting leisurely in the center, and tried one of the glass doors. It was locked, the windows shaded. I was just wondering if I'd gotten the wrong day when I heard a woman scream. With a pang of unease I tore down the stone path, past the olive trees, to the front, where I saw Kipling outside the massive double-oak doors. He appeared to be keeping watch.\n\nI was so relieved to see him, I threw my arms around his neck.\n\n\"Thank goodness,\" I whispered.\n\n\" _What_ \u2014my\u2014how did you manage it, child? Martha said we'd lost you, maybe forever.\"\n\nI pulled away. There was no point going into what had happened, not yet. Blinking up at Kipling, though it hurt me to think it, I reasoned he could have very well have been the one to stick me with the pin. Yet he seemed genuinely relieved to see me.\n\n\"I made a mistake,\" I said. \"Where is everyone?\"\n\n\"Inside.\" He made a face. \"We've tied the whole family up and we're tryin' to extract information. But it's not going well.\" He shrugged, visibly nervous. \"We _tried_ the nice way. Arriving casually, announcin' we happened to be on vacation, and were friends of Jim's, and we wanted to know about his death, and so on. But they're slippery eels, the Masons. They served us grilled octopus and basil sorbet and invited us for a dip in their pool. Before we knew it, four hours had passed. We were all drunk on ouzo, and we hadn't had one _real_ conversation about Jim. Whitley got fed up. So these last few wakes, she's gone nuts on these people. The deluxe Whitley special, you know, with the screamin' and the punchin' of walls and the throwin' dishes.\" He sighed. \"Edgar Mason has his twenty-four-hour security detail, but they switch shifts at noon and they're lazy, so that's when we strike. We've got two tied-up guards at the end of the driveway.\"\n\nI frowned. \"But how many wakes have you had?\"\n\n\"Five. Each one lasts about five hours. How many have _you_ had?\"\n\n\"One.\"\n\nThis had to be what Martha meant about instability, trains speeding in different directions at different speeds, the risk of never being in the same place at the same time to vote.\n\nThere wasn't time to worry about it, not yet. Kipling had opened the door and was beckoning me inside.\n\nThere on the couches sat Mr. and Mrs. Mason, tied up along with their four children, their eyes red from crying. They were watching Whitley in mute horror. She looked like a South American guerilla, bandana wrapped around her head, T-shirt knotted in a crop top around her waist, a mad glint in her eyes. She was holding a gun on Mr. Mason. The side of his face was swollen. It was a shock seeing Jim's family like this, when at the last wake they were crisp as fresh flower arrangements, floating around, air-kissing people at Great-Uncle Carl's funeral.\n\nSpotting me, Whitley widened her eyes in surprise. She raced over.\n\n\"Beatrice,\" she said, hushed. \"Where the hell did you come from?\"\n\nI gave her an abbreviated version of what had happened, how I'd accidentally returned to a different date but managed to get back to the coastal road to change the wake.\n\n\"So you're all right, then?\"\n\nI nodded. \"Where's Martha?\"\n\n\"Trying to log on to Edgar's computer. Not having much luck.\"\n\n\"What about Cannon?\"\n\n\"He's gone.\"\n\nI stared at her. \"What?\"\n\nShe shook her head with a bleak look. \"He never arrived. We have no idea where he is. One second he was there, and the next? Nowhere.\"\n\nI recalled the person I'd seen sprinting into the woods. Cannon.\n\n\"Hello? Oh, my God. Is that _you_?\"\n\nMrs. Mason, sitting on the couch, craned her neck to get a better look at me. I'd never seen her so forlorn. She was almost unrecognizable. Her face was red; her blond hair, usually so immaculate, had wilted like a plant left too close to a radiator.\n\n\"Who? Who are you talking about?\" asked Mr. Mason.\n\n\"That little girl Jim went with in school. _You_ know. _Her._ \" She glared at me. \" _You're_ involved in this? You let us go right now. We have no information about Jimmy.\"\n\nI grabbed the gun from Whitley and pointed it at Mrs. Mason. She gasped.\n\n\"Tell me what you know about Jim's death,\" I said.\n\nShe glanced at her husband, terrified, then back at me. She began to whimper. It was an odd sound, like a beach ball losing air through a tiny hole.\n\n\"Leave her alone!\" bellowed Edgar suddenly. \"Gloria has nothing to do with this, you little con artist!\"\n\nI pointed the gun at him. \"What happened to Jim?\"\n\n\"I've told you people countless times now,\" he said, spitting. \"We know nothing.\"\n\n\"That's impossible.\"\n\nHe shook his head. \"The police told us it was suicide.\"\n\n\"Jim never would have done that. And you know it.\"\n\n\"I don't. I _don't_ know it.\" Mr. Mason appeared to be crying, staring at the floor.\n\nThat was when I remembered.\n\nI stepped behind him, inspecting his wrists, which were bound with zip ties. I yanked up the cuff of his shirtsleeve. Mr. Mason knew what I was after, because he immediately began to contort himself, trying to move his hands away.\n\n\"No! Don't you dare\u2014\"\n\nIt was the black rubber bracelet I'd seen him wearing. He still had it on, five years later, though this one seemed an even more sophisticated version, with digital letters and punctuation with the numbers. I couldn't pull it off his wrist, so I went into the kitchen, returning with a knife.\n\n\"Don't you dare! Don't you _dare_!\"\n\nI sliced the bracelet off his wrist.\n\n\"Now you've done it. Good for you. Bravo. Kiss your future goodbye, missy, because you'll be spending the rest of your life in a hole so foul you'll _beg_ to be sent to prison.\"\n\n\"I should be so lucky,\" I said.\n\nI turned to Whitley, who was blinking at me in shock.\n\n\"What got into _you_?\" she whispered.\n\n\"I'll be in Mr. Mason's office,\" I said, racing up the spiral staircase.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nMartha was stunned to see me.\n\n\"Oh, my God. What happened?\"\n\n\"It's a long story. But I'm fine.\"\n\nI raced into the all-glass tower, pulling a chair alongside Martha behind the hulking desk. She couldn't seem to stop staring. Naturally it made me wonder if she had been the one to stab me with the bumblebee pin. But there was no figuring it out. Not yet.\n\n\"I've been trying to log on to Edgar's laptop,\" she said, indicating the screen. \"It's impossible. There are three prompts for encrypted passwords.\"\n\nI stared down at the shifting line of numbers, symbols, and letters on the bracelet. They reset every fifteen seconds. I typed the displayed sequence into the three password boxes.\n\nThe computer unlocked.\n\n\"Are you kidding me?\" whispered Martha in awe. \"Like _that_? How did you\u2014?\"\n\n\"I'll explain later.\"\n\nBefore I clicked into the desktop, I placed a piece of tape over the webcam. I didn't know what would happen when it became clear that there was a security breach, but I knew we'd have to work quickly. Edgar Mason had a personalized email interface called Torchlight Command. As soon as I opened the program, a timer recording my activity appeared in the upper right corner of the screen.\n\nThe first thing to do was to search for emails from Jim.\n\nWe couldn't find one. Searching for the names of his brothers and sisters turned up countless emails, but there was not a single message either to or from Jim.\n\n\"He's been wiped from his father's email,\" whispered Martha. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Maybe he wrote something inflammatory.\"\n\nShe shrugged.\n\nOn the hard drive, there were over two thousand folders on a cloud server called Torchlight Library. I searched for _Jim Mason._ Nothing came up. We found a trove of financial records, listings of obscure holding companies with names like Redshore Capital America and Groundview Fund, with addresses in the Cayman Islands and Panama City. There were trade receipts and wire transactions from a bank in Turkey to another in Switzerland, some of which listed dollar amounts so enormous they looked like typos. If any of it was illegal, or tied in any way to Jim's death, the truth was buried under layers of names, numbers, and symbols, none of which could be easily excavated.\n\n\"Maybe Edgar's committing fraud,\" said Martha. \"Sweatshops. Child exploitation. Maybe Jim found out about it, and they had a major falling-out.\"\n\n\"If Jim had found out something like that, he'd have been devastated, yes. But he wouldn't have killed himself.\"\n\nShe shrugged. \"What if Edgar hired someone to kill Jim?\"\n\nI stared at her, surprised. \"His own son?\"\n\n\"If he thought he was going to lose the empire he built? Why not?\"\n\nSuddenly she sat up, frowning, pointing at the glass walls. I realized in horror that every pane was breaking. All around us thin cracks were spidering through the glass, branching out, one after the other.\n\n\"The instability of the Neverworld,\" whispered Martha.\n\nI nodded and hurriedly clicked back into the in-box. I certainly didn't want her to wonder what the destruction meant, if it was all being caused by me. I leaned forward, squinting at the screen.\n\n\"Most of Edgar's emails are from this woman named Janet,\" I said, clearing my throat. \"His executive assistant. They have a system where she reads his emails and summarizes them.\"\n\n\" 'Chris Endleberg, president of Princeton, called,' \" Martha read slowly. \" 'He appreciates the way you handled the matter re S.O. They'll hold off on disciplinary measures.' Huh. Okay. What else?\"\n\nWe scanned the emails in the weeks leading up to Jim's death.\n\nThere was nothing unusual. A board member was problematic. _Patrick has to go._ A real estate broker wanted to show Edgar an off-market listing for an estate in Bedford worth $48 million. _Sick pad, man._ Someone involved in a fast-food restaurant wanted another loan. _I hear your concerns, but it's time to expand on the line of frozen fried chicken dinners with romance-related flavor names._ In the days following Jim's death, there were emails about funeral arrangements and flower deliveries, the West Side Boys Choir, lists of who was attending and who would speak. It was oddly cold to read through. Just like that, Jim's death was another action item in his father's in-box. My name was buried among three hundred others.\n\n\"I don't get it,\" whispered Martha, frowning at an email she'd just opened.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\" 'S.O. wants to change his dormitory, FYI.' \" She glanced at me. \"This is from Janet. 'He needs you to call the Princeton dean and make it happen, as this isn't freshman policy.' Bizarre.\"\n\n\"What's bizarre?\" I asked.\n\n\"Another email from Princeton. Who in the Mason family goes to Princeton?\"\n\nIt was a good question. Jim was the oldest. His other siblings were in grade school.\n\n\"Who is S.O.?\" I wondered.\n\nWe did a search of the initials. One more email appeared. As I opened it, the wall of broken glass in front of us spontaneously fell away, millions of shards sliding across the roof and down the side of the house. A powerful gust of wind billowed through the room, sending the gauzy curtains flying out and stacks of papers swirling off Mr. Mason's desk.\n\n\"We don't have much time,\" I said hastily. \"The system is about to lock us out.\"\n\nMartha nodded, biting her lip, and peered closer at the email.\n\n_S.O. wants lunch tomorrow to discuss a business opportunity. Booked 1 p.m. Jean-Georges._\n\n\"Try searching the keyword _Princeton,_ \" Martha said.\n\nI did, and one more email appeared.\n\n_Chris Endleberg of Princeton wants to thank you personally for your donation. Invited you to dinner 2\/24. I declined, as you'll be in Buenos Aires._\n\n\"S.O. could be a cousin,\" I suggested. \"Maybe Edgar pays for his education?\"\n\n\"Or S.O. is his Emotional Support Animal, wearing a yellow vest, which he takes with him on planes, trains, and automobiles.\"\n\nThis appeared to be her attempt at humor, though you could never tell with Martha.\n\n\"Or S.O. is his imaginary childhood friend,\" I said.\n\n\"Or S.O. is his _sixth_ personality, as he has secretly suffered from schizophrenia for years.\"\n\nWe smiled at each other, though unsurprisingly, the moment ended as soon as we realized what was happening: we weren't on edge in each other's company.\n\nThat was when another three walls of glass dropped away and a strong gale barreled through again, papers exploding around the room.\n\nAt that moment, Whitley stuck her head around the doorframe.\n\n\"The wake is three minutes away\u2014\" She frowned. \"What the\u2014 What's happening in here?\"\n\nMartha leapt to her feet. \"It's the Neverworld. We have to go. _Now._ \"\n\nThey hurriedly explained their plan. We needed to head back to Wincroft to find Cannon. The Masons were impossible to break. It was better for the five of us to get back together than to keep interrogating them. Our questions were eliciting no new information about Jim.\n\n\"Use the cliff for the wake,\" Martha ordered cryptically before ducking out.\n\nI remained where I was, searching Edgar's laptop as the wind howled around me, and papers cycloned, every glass wall falling away. Not a minute later, the desktop speakers sounded an alarm, and I was locked out, the screen going black. I leapt to my feet, and as I hurried past the open spaces overlooking the backyard, I spotted Martha, Kipling, and Whitley running out of the house and past the pool toward the cliff.\n\n_Use the cliff for the wake._\n\nI watched, stunned, as they stood side by side at the very edge.\n\nThey joined hands. Then they jumped.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen I returned downstairs, the Masons looked terrified.\n\nThey'd seen what I'd just seen. They believed now that we were all crazy.\n\nI questioned them for another hour. Mr. Mason's cell rang incessantly. So did the landline. A printer wailed in a room upstairs. It was doubtlessly Torchlight Security trying to alert Mr. Mason of the security breach. Holding the gun on him, I said I wanted to know what he and Jim had argued about in his final days alive.\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" he wailed. \"My son and I didn't argue. We never argued.\"\n\n\"Who is S.O.?\"\n\n\"S.O.?\" He looked confused.\n\n\"The freshman at Princeton.\"\n\nHe sneered. \"It's a colleague's son. What does _he_ have to do with\u2014 You truly are a troubled young woman, my dear. If you have any sense, you'll untie us all, go back to your dingbat life, and hope\u2014no, _pray_ \u2014my fleet of attorneys doesn't decide to spread you on a cracker and serve you as an hors d'oeuvre.\"\n\nI tried setting a few more verbal traps for Mr. Mason to fall into, telling him Jim had confessed to me all about his financial fraud. I tried to see whether he looked uneasy or afraid. Unsurprisingly, my blind fishing elicited little more than confounded stares and indignant comments from the family that they'd always thought I was a good girl, which made my involvement in this nightmare all the more disappointing.\n\n\"There's no need to pretend,\" I said. \"You never liked me. And my _name,_ in case you were wondering, is not Jessica, or Antonella, or Barbara, or Blair. It's Beatrice Hartley.\"\n\nI shot the gun into the ceiling. Instantly, minute cracks fanned out through the plaster, spreading into every corner, then moving down the walls.\n\n\"We'll give you any amount of money,\" whimpered Mrs. Mason, worriedly eyeing the ceiling.\n\nThat was when I felt the wake coming on. I set down the gun and left without a word, leaving the Masons staring after me, uncertain, afraid. As I raced past the pool, I saw two police cars inching up the vertiginous drive. One emerged, shouting at me in Greek.\n\nI ran to the edge of the cliff.\n\nAs I stood there, the rocks and dirt began to loosen and tumble under me, as if I were the weight of a building, as if I weighed ten million tons. Boulders were pulling out of the ground. I leapt into the air, shouting, just as the ground dropped out. I was plummeting fast, upside down, breath sucking from my lungs. Blue sky spun overhead. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to quiet my mind as I thought of Wincroft the day I'd first arrived there, though almost immediately something else slipped into my head.\n\nA connection. It was barely remembered, an itch at the back of my brain.\n\nI'd seen it before. Twice.\n\nI tried to ignore it. Spiky grass, bushes, and cypress trees were spinning past me. Screaming, I opened my eyes to catch sight of the entire cliff through the dust, then the house dismantling behind me, a roaring mass of shattered glass and steel and rock coming for me as we all fell toward the sea.\n\nIt was too late.\n\n\"Hon? You okay?\"\n\nSomeone was shaking my shoulder.\n\nMy eyes opened. I jerked my head up, shouting.\n\nA large woman with red hair and heavy eye makeup stared down at me, visibly freaked out. She was wearing a pink visor emblazoned with a cartoon chicken, a heart on its chest.\n\n\"Sorry, hon, you can't sleep here. Do you need me to call someone?\"\n\nI looked around. I was in a wooden booth in a cramped fast-food restaurant. People around me were eating fried chicken and fries and drinking milk shakes. The walls were covered with heart wallpaper, photos of couples kissing or holding hands. I blinked at the paper mat in the tray in front of me.\n\n_Alonso's Honey Love Fried Chicken. One Taste and You're Lovestruck._\n\n\"Where\u2014where am I?\" I blurted.\n\n\"Newport. I can call your mom for you, hon. Or a shelter?\"\n\nI shook my head and lurched to my feet. I realized dazedly that I was wearing my old Darrow uniform: a white blouse, green tartan skirt, black tights, the beat-up black Steve Madden ankle boots that had seen me through four years of school.\n\n\"Seriously. I can call someone.\"\n\nI pressed a hand to my throbbing head, and stumbled away from the woman.\n\n_What had happened?_ Why hadn't I made it to Wincroft? Then I remembered the thought that had slipped into my mind as I'd been falling.\n\nIt was what Vida had said, about the ride she'd given Jim.\n\n_Some dingy section of town. Dollar stores. A pet store. The parking lot had some man in a chicken costume handing out heart balloons._\n\n\"Why did Jim want to go there?\" Cannon had asked her.\n\n_Maybe he wanted to eat fried chicken and buy a pet iguana? I have no clue._\n\nFried chicken and hearts had turned up again in the coupon inside Jim's empty case file.\n\n_$5 off a bin of Honey Love Fried Chicken. Soul Mate Special!_\n\nFinally, it had appeared in an email I'd read in Edgar Mason's in-box. A restaurant owner had been asking for another loan. _I hear your concerns, but it's time to expand on the line of frozen fried chicken dinners with romance-related flavor names._\n\nI staggered past the cashier, blinking at the laminated advertisement on the counter.\n\n_ALL-NEW! Honey Love Fried Chicken Organic Chicken Dinners, now available in the frozen-food aisle at a supermarket near you. Try our original flavor! Honey Love Mesquite._\n\n\"May I take your order, miss?\"\n\nThe teenage boy behind the cash register was staring at me. With a fitful smile I shoved open the door and moved outside, steadying myself on a _Newport Daily News_ vending machine. After a moment, I realized I was staring at someone wearing a yellow cartoon chicken costume passing out heart-shaped balloons to passersby. The strip mall was exactly as Vida had described it. There was a handful of people loitering around the parking lot.\n\nI leaned down to check the newspaper date.\n\nFriday. May 14. Last year.\n\nI'd managed to get it right. After all, I remembered the night I'd watched Jim drive away with Vida as if it were yesterday.\n\nAn elderly man was pushing a shopping cart loaded with shopping bags past me.\n\n\"Excuse me?\" I asked. \"What time is it?\"\n\nHe checked his watch. \"Twelve-forty-nine.\"\n\nVida had said she'd dropped Jim off around eight or nine o'clock, which meant I had nearly eight hours to kill until he appeared. I hoped the wake would last that long. If Jim even _did_ appear. It was a long shot. It also wasn't the worst connection to make. Whoever had confiscated the papers from Jim's case file at the Warwick police station hadn't looked twice at the coupon, but what if it had been actual evidence? What if it had been stuck in Jim's file because the detectives had been tracking his movements during the final days of his life, and they'd discovered he'd come here to this complex, to this restaurant?\n\nMy head was still pounding. I slipped along the covered sidewalk, past a liquor store, a Dollar Mart, a pet store called Man's Best Friend. I had to change my clothes. If Jim did come here, the restaurant was small. He'd spot me immediately. But I had no money to buy clothes. I watched the people come and go, men in faded T-shirts racing into the liquor store, women hauling toddlers, an old woman bent over ninety degrees pushing a cart. When I spotted a smiling woman leaving a stationery store walking a Pomeranian, I approached her.\n\n\"Excuse me, ma'am? I'm hoping you might help me. I need a change of clothes\u2014\"\n\nShe picked up her dog with a horrified look and climbed into her car.\n\nI ended up going into every store at the shopping center, striding brazenly through Employees Only swinging doors into back storerooms, janitors' closets, and cargo unloading areas, to see if I could find some kind of spare uniform. I managed to steal a pair of khakis from Man's Best Friend, a hoodie from a manager's closet inside the Stop & Shop. I asked an old man pulling a pint of Ben & Jerry's out of the freezer if I could have his baseball cap. There must have been something totally desperate, or strange, or otherworldly on my face, because he handed it to me without a word and quickly wheeled his cart away.\n\nI hurried into a Chinese restaurant, Fu Mao Noodle, and changed in the bathroom, grabbing a handful of fortune cookies by the register as I left. I sat eating them on a bench outside the pet store facing the parking lot, a feeling of dread in my chest. _Small opportunities are the beginnings of great enterprises. You are the architect of your fortune. Big journeys begin with a single step._ I had to change benches three times, because every one I sat on, the wood began to splinter and crack under me. One even collapsed in half.\n\nThe longer I waited, the more afraid I was that I'd been right to track Jim here, that he'd actually appear. Was he meeting some other girl? What had preoccupied him, been so shameful that he couldn't tell me about it? _What had he been so afraid of?_\n\nAt five minutes after eight a beat-up red Nissan pulled into the parking lot, a For Sale sign in the back window. It slinked up to Honey Love Fried Chicken and the passenger door opened. Jim climbed out. Black T-shirt. Jeans.\n\nI could see Vida behind the wheel. Jim entered the restaurant. Vida waited a moment, as if to make sure he wasn't coming back. Then she drove off, exactly as she'd said.\n\nI waited another minute. Then I darted along the covered walkway, ignoring the fact that every column was spotted with black mold.\n\nI peered through the glass door. Jim was standing at the counter, his back to me.\n\nI quickly slipped inside and took a seat at an empty table by the window.\n\n\"Call him again,\" I heard Jim say. He sounded angry.\n\nThe woman he was speaking with\u2014the one who'd shaken me awake\u2014was mystified.\n\n\"I just did. He said he'd be right out\u2014\"\n\n_\"Call him again.\"_\n\nFrightened, she grabbed the phone, dialing.\n\n\"He says he'll be right out.\"\n\nSeconds later, a Hispanic man with a thick mustache appeared from a back room. He was slight, midforties, a kind face.\n\n\"Jim. It's been too long. How are you?\"\n\n\"We need to talk.\"\n\n\"I'm about to jump on a conference call. Why don't you come back after closing?\"\n\n\"We're going to talk _now._ \"\n\nDisconcerted, the man beckoned Jim to follow him. I slid to my feet, watching them disappear through the back door. I waited another minute and headed after them, pausing to hear another door slam before I darted inside. The kitchen was in front of me. Beyond that, there appeared to be a back office. The door was closed, but it looked thin, and hurrying up to it, I could make out the voices easily enough.\n\n\"I'LL ASK YOU ONE MORE TIME. WHO IS ESTELLA ORNATO?\"\n\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\n\"ESTELLA ORNATO!\"\n\n\"She\u2014well, yes, she's my daughter\u2014\"\n\n_\"And?\"_\n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Four years old. She died last year. That jog your memory?\"\n\n\"Jim, please, let's not do this here\u2014\"\n\n\"DO NOT PICK UP THAT PHONE OR I SWEAR\u2014\"\n\n\"Jim\u2014\"\n\n\"FOR ONCE WOULD SOMEONE TELL ME THE TRUTH?\"\n\n\"Who told you? Where is this coming from?\"\n\n\"Your brother wrote me a letter. ESTELLA DID NOT DIE IN A CAR ACCIDENT\u2014\"\n\n\"Jim. _Jim._ Now, hear me out\u2014\"\n\nThe voices quieted. Abruptly something large smashed against the door.\n\n\"TELL ME THE TRUTH OR I SWEAR TO GOD\u2014\"\n\n\"Excuse me,\" said a woman. \"You're not authorized to be here.\"\n\nI turned. It was the redhead. She was indignant, hands on her hips.\n\n\"I have an interview with your manager,\" I blurted.\n\nShe squinted at me, puzzled. A second deafening crash from inside the office was disturbing enough that she quickly forgot me and went hurrying back to the kitchen to confer, wide-eyed, with the teenager behind the cash register.\n\n\"DID MY FATHER PAY FOR THIS? AND THIS? AND THIS?\"\n\nThere was a high-pitched cry, followed by a moan. Alarmed, I pushed open the door, barging in to see Jim throwing a bag of golf clubs on Mr. Ornato, now cowering on the floor in a fetal position. Jim started kicking him in the stomach.\n\n\"Jim,\" I said.\n\nHe turned, startled. The redhead barged past me into the office. \"Oh, my God. Mr. Ornato. Are you okay? I'm going to call the police.\"\n\n\"No, no, it's all right.\" Gasping, he rolled upright, his face sweaty, his hair standing on end. \"There's no need. It's just a misunderstanding. Let's get back to work.\"\n\nJim wiped his face in the crook of his arm, dimly surveying the demolished room.\n\nThen he began to sob. I stepped toward him and put my arms around him.\n\n\"Let's get out of here,\" I whispered into his ear.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWe sat on the curb outside Fu Mao Noodle. We watched the cars speed past in the closing day, the sky going blue and black, traffic lights changing from red to green to yellow. We watched small black birds land on telephone wires and fly away, heard the giggling wheels of shopping carts. All that ordinary life\u2014vending machines belching up sodas, stock boys taking cigarette breaks, cars backing in, backing out.\n\nI watched it all as Jim told me everything.\n\nI listened in shock. It made perfect sense\u2014his father's obsession with security, Jim's distraction and moodiness, his decision not to tell anyone, not even me. If he had told me the truth before, would it have changed everything? Would he still be alive?\n\nIt had to do with the boating accident. Jim and a friend had taken out a speedboat on Mecox Bay, and they'd crashed into a fisherman in a skiff. When Jim woke up in the hospital, he heard the story from his family and the police\u2014all corroborated by articles in the _East Hampton Star._ No one except Jim was hurt.\n\nThe fisherman happened to be none other than Alonso Ornato, the owner of Honey Love Fried Chicken. But this wasn't the whole truth. Alonso had had his four-year-old daughter, Estella, in the boat with him. She was killed on impact.\n\nThis should have resulted in a charge of manslaughter against Jim, which meant, as a minor with his father's connections, at most, given that he'd been drinking, he'd have gone to a juvenile facility for a few months, maybe even weeks, and would have been released on probation.\n\nThat wasn't good enough for the Masons.\n\nInstead, they decided the incident shouldn't have happened at all. So they decided to erase it from history and redesign the past. They struck a deal with Alonso Ornato. They would take care of him and his family for the rest of their lives\u2014monthly allowances, new houses and cars, Ivy League educations for his other kids, bottomless loans for his business\u2014all in exchange for erasing Estella from the boat that day. She would die in a car accident instead.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Mason arranged the whole thing with the assistance of Torchlight. They drove Alonso's car into a tree, artfully inflicting the right kind of damage so the police wouldn't ask any questions.\n\n\"Wipe the spill off the kitchen counter,\" said Jim. \"Remove all signs of rot. Fumigate the foul odors seeping through the basement. All for me. So I'd suffer no shame. No heartache. No pain. I could continue my life guilt-free, like a diet drink. I could soft-shoe toward my golden destiny.\" He stared blankly at the pavement. \"They don't realize they've destroyed me.\"\n\nI touched his arm. \"That's not true. You can still do something.\"\n\n_You are such a liar,_ whispered the voice in my head. _What can he do now? He's dead._\n\n\"Like what, Bee? It's gotten inside my head. It's why I've been sick, why I can't write a goddamn decent note anymore. I'll never pick up another instrument. Because their poison is inside me.\" He hit the side of his head scarily, over and over. I grabbed his hand to make him stop. \"They've killed me, don't you see?\"\n\n\"You should contact a newspaper. Turn them in to the police.\"\n\nHe laughed bitterly. \"Sure. I'll turn them in. That'll solve everything. My family will be destroyed. My brothers and sisters will have convicts for parents. The whole world will loathe us. We'll become poster children for all that's depraved. All to placate my guilty conscience. What good would it do? That girl will still be dead. That's the worst part. I can't _do_ a goddam thing. I've gone over it and over it.\"\n\nHe began to cry again, head in his hands.\n\nI stared out into the parking lot with a strange feeling of desolation and calm. Jim was right. Even if he were alive and this moment were real, what could he do? Start a foundation in Estella's name? Write a musical about it all? The awful thing was, what the Masons had done was like toxic gas, pervading everything.\n\nWe stared ahead in silence, holding hands. It felt as if we'd both removed our glasses, and now we saw for the first time that the world had never been as beautiful as we'd always thought. It was a vision lost, never to come back.\n\n\"At least I have you, Beatrice,\" said Jim, squeezing my hand. \"You save me.\"\n\n_But you don't have me. I'm not even alive. Neither are you._\n\n_We're ghosts. We're air. We're approximations._\n\nI felt a painful lump in my throat. I wanted to cry, for him, for myself. My legs were growing heavy. It was the wake. I didn't know how much time I had left. It seemed to be moving through me faster now. My head felt as if it were melting.\n\nJim frowned, surveying me. Perhaps he was wondering how I'd known to follow him here. Then I realized he had noticed the black mildew covering the cracked curb we were sitting on, and the pavement quietly splintering under our shoes.\n\nI lurched to my feet, staring down at him. There was one last thing I had to know.\n\n\"You wouldn't, because of this, do something terrible, would you?\"\n\nHe squinted up at me.\n\n\"You wouldn't throw your life away.\"\n\n\"You mean commit suicide?\" He looked insulted.\n\n_No._\n\n\"I have to go.\"\n\nI turned and took off running, though when he began shouting my name, asking where I was going, I threw back my head and turning, laughing crazily, I shouted, \"I love you, Jim Mason. I always have.\"\n\nI ran out of the parking lot into the six-lane highway. Cars honked. A woman in a passing car rolled down the window and started to scream at me. \"Get out of the way! Honey, what are you doing out here? _Honey?_ \" I could hear Jim calling me, but I stepped in front of a cement truck and closed my eyes.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n_August 30. Wincroft. 6:12 p.m._\n\n\"Beatrice? Bee! Beatrice!\"\n\nMartha, Kip, and Whitley were waiting for me in the library.\n\nThere was no sign of Cannon.\n\n\"You made it, Bee,\" said Whitley, hugging me.\n\n\"What happened after we left?\" asked Kipling.\n\nI didn't answer. Instead, I slipped past them, heading straight to an upstairs bedroom. Minutes later, returning downstairs, my suspicions confirmed\u2014I'd found what I'd been looking for\u2014I explained where I'd gone. I told them about the connection I'd made between the man in the chicken costume handing out heart balloons, whom Vida had mentioned, the Honey Love fried chicken coupon left in Jim's case file, and the email in Edgar Mason's in-box.\n\nI told them about Estella Ornato.\n\nNo one said a word for a long time. Whitley opened her laptop and Googled the name, then read aloud the only information that appeared about Estella's death, a four-sentence mention in the _South Shore Sentinel._\n\n\" 'Officials have released the name of a four-year-old child killed Wednesday night in a car accident in Water Mill,' \" she read.\n\n\"S.O.,\" I said to Martha. \"I think it's Alonso Ornato's son.\"\n\nSure enough, a search of _Ornato_ and _Princeton_ turned up a Facebook page belonging to Sebastian Ornato, about to start his sophomore year. On his page there was a photograph of him sitting in Firestone Library wearing a Princeton sweatshirt, grinning and making a goofy peace sign.\n\n\"Poor kid thinks he got into Princeton on his own steam,\" said Kipling.\n\n\"I can't believe it,\" said Whitley, solemn. \"I knew Jim's family was capable of anything. But erasing the existence of an _entire person_? Designing a new death that's more elegant and acceptable to all involved? And getting away with it?\"\n\n\"It proves Jim's suicide, doesn't it?\" suggested Kipling, taking a deep breath. \"Jim probably felt so alone. Lost. So he rode his bike out to Vulcan Quarry and jumped.\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" I said.\n\nThey turned to me in surprise. I told them what Jim had said in the parking lot.\n\n\"Well, if it wasn't suicide,\" said Whitley, \"then what happened?\"\n\nI dug in my pocket and pulled out the bumblebee pin, placing it on the coffee table.\n\nKip widened his eyes. \"What is that, child?\"\n\n\"The gift Jim bought me freshman year.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's right,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"Didn't someone steal it from you?\" asked Martha.\n\nI nodded. \"I just found it upstairs in Whitley's jewelry case.\"\n\nWit stared at me, her face pale.\n\n\"You stole it from me. I know you did. It was one of your notorious thefts. Wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Bee, I'm so sorry\u2014\"\n\n\"You never think. Little do you know how your most haphazard gestures inflict such pain. It hurts to be your friend. It always has. But I still love you.\"\n\nIgnoring Wit's astonished face, I went on to explain how I'd been stuck in the neck with the pin moments before the wake, which had sent me plunging back into the past with thoughts of Jim.\n\n\"I didn't do it, Bee,\" said Whitley. \"I swear.\"\n\n\"I know. It was Cannon.\"\n\nEveryone gaped at me.\n\n\"He knew you'd taken it, so he stole it out of your jewelry case the first night we changed the wake. He wanted to throw me off track, send the rest of you into a state of perpetual limbo. He doesn't want us to find out what happened to Jim. He doesn't want to ever leave the Neverworld.\"\n\n\"You think he had something to do with Jim's death?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"I don't know yet.\"\n\n\"Bee does have a point,\" said Kipling with a dubious expression. \"Cannon knows if anything goes wrong he's supposed to meet us here. So where the hell is he?\"\n\n\"He's hiding somewhere in the past or the future,\" I said. \"There's really only one way to get to the bottom of what happened to Jim.\"\n\nNo one spoke for a minute, all of us doubtlessly thinking the same thing.\n\n\"No,\" said Martha, shaking her head. \"No. It's out of the question, Bee. _No._ \"\n\n\"It's not as dangerous as you think,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes, it _is._ \"\n\n\"I did it already. I went back even farther, five years by accident. The crazy thing about the past is that you never meet yourself. There are no doubles. If you arrive there, your past self exits on cue to make room for you.\"\n\nMartha looked furious. \"How long are your wakes now?\"\n\nI shrugged.\n\n\"Ours are only _four hours._ \" She shook her head. \"They're getting shorter and shorter. And it's getting worse. Every time we go into the past or future, it makes the possibility of a unanimous vote even more impossible. _Don't you get it?_ \"\n\nShe snapped this at me so furiously\u2014eyes bulging, glasses going crooked on the end of her nose\u2014I could only stare back in shock. We all did.\n\nShe fell silent, seemingly embarrassed by her outburst.\n\nKipling turned to me. \"How long is your wake now?\"\n\n\"Six hours?\"\n\n\"It's enough time to try, isn't it?\"\n\nMartha said nothing, staring sullenly at the floor.\n\n\"If we arrive at Vulcanation at one in the morning,\" I said, \"even if your wake is four hours, or three, I'm almost positive it will give us enough time to see what happened to Jim.\"\n\nWith a pang of queasiness I thought back to his last text. Sent at 11:29 p.m.\n\n_I'm going to the quarry. Meet me._\n\nThey still didn't know about the texts from Jim. I wasn't going to tell them.\n\n\"Let's do it,\" said Whitley.\n\nAs the rest of us talked about the logistics of changing the wake, Martha stayed silent, slumped way down in the couch cushions, her expression a mixture of resentment and hopelessness. It appeared my suggestion of venturing once and for all to Vulcan Quarry was flying in the face of her grand plan. It had made her lose control of the group, though what she was so anxious about, and what this meant for the vote, I could only imagine.\n\nWhen I woke I was staring at a clear night sky filled with stars, the deafening screech of crickets in my ears. I was lying in thick grass, the long, razorlike blades slicing my bare arms. I was wearing my Darrow uniform. I lifted my head, realizing with a rush of relief that I was outside the quarry, though almost immediately relief gave way to suffocating dread.\n\nThe rusted chain-link fence was only a few feet away. I checked my watch.\n\nIt was 1:02 a.m.\n\nI crawled to my feet, dizzy, and looked around.\n\nThere was no sign of anyone.\n\nI groped my way along the fence, kicking back the grass, the gnarled coils of brambles sharp as barbed wire. Ahead I could see the rusted yellow sign: NO TRESPASSING. Somewhere near was the hole we'd always used. I bent down, forcing aside the weeds, fumbling along the ground. I found the hole and crawled through.\n\nFar ahead, suspended in the sky, I could see the Foreman's Lookout. I shivered, trying to ignore the nausea rising in my throat. The old wood tower looked like an abandoned space station in the dark.\n\n\"Bee!\" hissed a voice behind me.\n\nI whipped around. Whitley was waving at me from the other side of the fence. Kipling was behind her, his head barely visible above the ocean of grass. I directed them toward the opening, and within seconds they were beside me.\n\n\"Where's Martha?\" I asked.\n\n\"Missing,\" said Kipling, scrambling to his feet.\n\n_\"What?\"_\n\n\"She bailed.\"\n\n\"One second she was there,\" said Whitley, shaking her head. \"The next, nowhere.\"\n\n\"She never wanted to come,\" said Kipling. \"So she _didn't._ \"\n\nWe eyed each other, unsettled at the thought. Where had she gone? Was she hiding out like Cannon somewhere in the past or future, terrified of what we were about to discover?\n\nThere were so many questions, but there was no time to figure them out. Not now.\n\n\"We need a hiding place,\" I whispered. \"There's that cement pipe in the grass next to the entry to the mining shafts. We could stay there.\"\n\nWhitley frowned. \"What about the old mapping office right beside the road?\"\n\nI shook my head. \"Too obvious. Jim might see us. Then we'll have interfered with the past, and we won't find out what actually happened.\"\n\n\"Cement pipe it is,\" said Kipling, with a cryptic grin.\n\nWe took off, fighting our way through the grass to reach the quarry road. Little was left of it, apart from bits of rock and gravel, and the grass there was only knee-high. As we headed down the path, I noticed after a minute that Kipling was lagging far behind, an oddly bleak look on his face. When he saw I was waiting for him, he glanced up, feigning a smile.\n\n\"Are you all right?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh, _sure,_ child. Splendid. It isn't every day I get to watch one of my friends get murdered.\"\n\nI put my arm around him for reassurance, pulling him beside me as we trudged on, fighting back the fronds, the wail of the crickets so deafening, it sounded like a million knives being sharpened in my ears. Yet the question blinked glaringly in my mind: _How did he know Jim was murdered?_ He'd blurted it without thinking.\n\nAs if he _knew._\n\nAs we walked on, Kipling seemed unconcerned about his disclosure, which made me wonder if it had actually been one. Did he know something? Or was he only giving voice to his suspicion that someone came out here tonight to kill Jim?\n\nWithin minutes we had reached the center of Vulcanation, where the old quarry road made an elongated U past the mapping office, the outhouses, the Foreman's Lookout. The Lookout was held aloft by four massive steel legs reinforced with crisscrossing beams, the wood ladder stretching up the center like an old, arthritic backbone. There were a few more structures dotting the road\u2014lodging for the miners, little more than heaps of rotten pine logs\u2014and a collapsed crane, which looked like the remains of a great blue whale.\n\nThe three of us paused, looking around, apprehensive. It was totally overgrown and wild, more than I remembered. The tempo of the crickets' screeching began to quicken as if it were the pulse of the night itself, terrified, on edge.\n\nThere didn't appear to be anyone here.\n\nNot Jim. Not anyone.\n\nSuddenly, a wave of nausea came over me, and I was sick all over the ground.\n\n\"Poor Bee,\" said Whitley, brushing away the hair stuck to my cheek. \"Maybe we should forget all this and go back.\"\n\nI shook my head. \"I'll be fine.\"\n\nIgnoring her worried glance, I stepped past her into the grass. It took a few minutes for us to find the cement pipe, some thirty feet long, only a few feet from the edge of the quarry. As I stepped toward the precipice, I was afraid the ground would start to crumble underneath me, but it held. I stared out, my chest tightening from the shock of how abruptly the ground gave way to total nothingness.\n\nIt was a three-hundred-foot drop, the crater stretching out, a stadium of rock, a vast sky littered with stars, and far below the lake, dark water glistening in the moonlight.\n\n\"Sister Bee,\" whispered Kip, stepping up beside me. \"I have a funny feeling death will be like this.\"\n\nHis voice, eerily flat, sent a surge of fear through me. I wondered numbly if he was about to push me in.\n\n\"It'll feel like falling, but on and on, never stopping. You know?\"\n\nHe was staring at me with a thin little smile. I swallowed, barely able to breathe.\n\n\"Look,\" said Whitley.\n\nTurning, I saw she was leaning against the pipe, pointing at something. High in the wooden tower of the Lookout, a tiny green light was visible in a window. It belonged to the oil lamp some student had smuggled up there years earlier.\n\nNone of us spoke. The conclusion was obvious: Someone had been up there. Or they were up there now.\n\n\"I'll go see who it is,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"No,\" I said.\n\n\"Why not? I want to see if it's Jim\u2014\"\n\n\"He'll _see_ you. If you interfere, we won't know what really happened\u2014\"\n\n\"Then let me just see if I can find his bike.\"\n\n\"Don't.\" I grabbed her arm.\n\n\"Bee, what's the matter with\u2014 _Stop_ it!\"\n\nShe yanked it loose, about to take off, but suddenly the sound of someone yards away fighting a path through the brush made her stop dead.\n\nNone of us moved as we watched the top of a dark head bobbing toward us.\n\n_It was Jim._ A wave of horror choked me.\n\nThe grass trembled and shook. Martha stepped out.\n\nWe gaped at her. Her neon-blue hair was gone. She was her old self from Darrow, dark hair in a careless ponytail, oversized Oxford shirt.\n\n\"What hole did you just crawl out of?\" asked Kipling.\n\n\"We thought you ditched us,\" said Wit.\n\n\"Yeah. Sorry about that.\" She adjusted her glasses. \"For _some_ reason\u2014I think it was because I was thinking of the map of the entire quarry before the wake\u2014I ended up waking not by the south fence with you guys, but by the _east_ fence behind the Pancake House. I had to hike the mile along the quarry road to get here.\" She took a deep breath. \"Seen anything yet?\"\n\n\"Only that light,\" said Whitley, indicating the Foreman's Lookout.\n\nMartha squinted up at it. She seemed unsurprised.\n\n\"Did you see anyone along the road?\" I asked her.\n\nShe shook her head.\n\nIt was then that I noticed she was drenched in sweat. Her shirt clung to her. Her hair was plastered to her forehead. Walking along the quarry road wouldn't have exerted her to that extent. She was lying.\n\nNoticing my stare, she smiled thinly and slipped past me to the pipe, wiping her forehead.\n\n\"Now what?\" she whispered.\n\n\"Now we wait and see,\" I said, moving beside her.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThe car arrived at one-thirty.\n\nWe heard it coming before we saw it. A loose hubcap. Radio blaring. The four of us fell silent, standing shoulder to shoulder along the pipe. Gold headlights swept across the grass. Then a red Nissan slowly rounded the quarry road, bouncing and clanging along the uneven ground before stopping right beside the Foreman's Lookout. I couldn't see who was driving, though I could make out a For Sale sign in the back window.\n\n\"Vida Joshua?\" whispered Whitley, incredulous.\n\nThe engine idled, white moths whirling in the headlights. The radio switched off. There was a moment of silence. Then the driver's door opened, and someone climbed out.\n\nWhen I saw who it was, chills electrocuted my spine.\n\nCannon.\n\nHe dressed in jeans, his old gray hacker's hoodie. He fought through the grass and disappeared into the old mapping office, a sagging shed with a tin roof, though after a minute he reemerged, agitated. He clambered back to the car, texted someone, waited for a response, crossing and uncrossing his arms. As I watched him, I wondered how Cannon of all people had come to be driving Mr. Joshua's car, a car that usually remained parked behind the music school when Vida wasn't using it. Then I remembered how he and Whitley had always stolen things around campus. He had stolen the car to drive out here to meet someone.\n\n\"Hello?\" Cannon called. \"Anybody here?\"\n\nNo one answered.\n\nHe moved to the front of the car and sat on the hood, staring meditatively into the headlights. Another ten minutes, and he was furious. He looked around, scowling, then seemed to give up and climbed behind the wheel, slamming the door, radio blasting heavy metal. He tried to pull away, but the wheels were caught in the grass, the tires spinning. He put the car in reverse, and it bumped backward a few feet. He hit the gas harder and the car roared back, hitting something. Cannon inched the car forward, then reversed again. The car jerked, smashing whatever it was, bouncing over it and stalling.\n\nCannon climbed out. He crouched down to check under the tires.\n\nHe stood up immediately. Then he bent down again. Then he stood up.\n\nHe bent down a third time.\n\n\"No. No. No. No. _No._ \"\n\nCannon threw his head back and began to howl.\n\n\"No. No. No.\"\n\nBewildered, I glanced over at Martha, Kipling, and Whitley watching the scene in silence beside me. They seemed as puzzled as I was.\n\nMuttering something, Cannon bent down once more, seemingly trying to wrench whatever he had run over out from under the tires. For minutes, all we could see were shaking grasses.\n\nWhen he stood up again, he was making a strange noise, as if he was crying. That was when I caught sight of what was in his hand.\n\nA tweed cap. It was Jim's.\n\n_No. This can't be happening._\n\nCannon was back behind the wheel. After a few tries, he managed to back out, doing a three-point turn. He was about to drive away, it seemed, only he had second thoughts, because the car jolted to a halt and he climbed out again.\n\nHe stood frozen for a moment, as if in a trance.\n\nThen he stepped over to what he had pulled out from under the wheels; what I could see now in a rush of disbelief, of horror, as I scrambled on top of the pipe for a better look, was no log. It was Jim, my Jim, lying on his side. His jeans were streaked with blood. Cannon was cradling Jim's head in his lap. Cannon bent over him, whispering something, and then he was on his feet again, on the phone.\n\n\"Call me. I need you to come. I need you to help me. _Now._ Please call me back. Please. Please.\"\n\nHe said it over and over, his voice a high-pitched whine. It was terrible to witness. Cannon's resolute action, his ease with problem-solving, his unflappable tenaciousness\u2014all of which had come to define him in my mind the way waves define the ocean, clouds the sky\u2014it was gone now. He was a different person.\n\n\"I need you. I need you now. Please come. _Please._ \"\n\nWhoever he was calling, no one answered. Cannon climbed into the driver's seat again, sitting in pitch darkness, engine running, radio on.\n\nFifteen minutes later, when he finally emerged, he had a plan. He was his old self, the fixer. He grabbed Jim's ankles and began to pull him brutally through the grass, cursing as Jim lost a loafer, crying out in disbelief, in despair, before wiping his face in the crook of his arm and continuing on.\n\nHe reached the quarry's edge. It was yards away from where we were watching.\n\nHe threw Jim into the quarry without saying a prayer, without hesitation.\n\nThere was the hushed whir of the body falling, knocking against rocks, and then nothing, the muted splash of Jim hitting the water lost in the shriek of crickets.\n\nCannon stared after him, immobile, his blank face hollowed by shadows.\n\nI wondered if he was considering going in with Jim, ending it all, right then and there.\n\nInstead, he turned with an empty stare, climbed into the car, and drove off.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nIt was a moment before any of us could move.\n\nI was standing on top of the pipe in the dark, my heart pounding, my mind short-circuiting. Too late, I realized the cement was cracking under my feet. Abruptly, with an angry belch, the entire thing collapsed, Martha and the others jumping back into the grass as I was sent plummeting into the pile of rubble.\n\nWit helped me, gasping, to my feet.\n\n\"What the hell was that? Are you okay?\"\n\nI nodded, climbing out, dusting myself off.\n\nWe stood silently in a circle for a moment, eyeing each other in shock.\n\n\"But who did Cannon call?\" whispered Wit with a hint of indignation. \"Because it wasn't me. I never knew any of this.\"\n\n\"He called Kipling,\" said Martha.\n\nWe turned to Kip. He eyed us stiffly, guiltily, his arms held at odd angles at his side.\n\n\"She's right,\" he whispered. \"The devil called, and I answered.\"\n\nHe said it flatly, with a hint of relief, and I remembered with a shiver of shock the meaningful glance I'd seen Kip exchange with Cannon back in the Wincroft library, when they were confessing how Kipling had made it through Darrow. They hadn't been thinking about the arrangement Cannon had made, or the cheating. They'd been thinking about this very night, and the secret they kept.\n\n\"I helped him throw Jim's body into the quarry,\" said Kipling.\n\nWe stared at him.\n\n\"How can that be?\" asked Whitley. \"We didn't _see_ you.\"\n\n\"Chapter Thirty-Nine, _The Bend,_ \" whispered Martha. \"You never run into yourself in the past or the future.\"\n\nKipling nodded. \"I had to come here. I had to watch. I had to know, once and for all, if it had been my idea to throw Jim into the lake, or Cannon's. Would it happen if I wasn't a part of it? I had to know who was the bad one, and who was worse.\"\n\n\"Did Cannon tell you why he had come here?\" Martha asked, and bit her lip.\n\n\"He did.\"\n\n\"What did he say?\"\n\nKipling smiled demurely. \"Why don't you ask her?\" He nodded at Whitley.\n\nShe glared at him, livid. For a moment, I thought she was about to start screaming, unleashing one of her rages. Instead, she sighed.\n\n\"Cannon was my best customer,\" she said.\n\n\"What are you talking about?\" I whispered.\n\n\"Adderall. The White Rabbit gave him his boundless supply. He popped them like Tic-Tacs. He still does.\"\n\n\"All that time during school, he never knew you were the White Rabbit?\" asked Martha.\n\nWit shook her head. \"Not until Vida. I was too scared to tell him.\"\n\nI thought back to Cannon's reaction when he'd learned Wit was the White Rabbit. He had been livid. Now I understood why. It was because she had known his secret all along, and had never told him hers.\n\n\"So let me get this straight,\" said Martha. \"On the night Jim died, Cannon called the White Rabbit for another stash of Adderall, and you sent him out here.\"\n\nWhitley nodded, sullen.\n\n\"Why here?\"\n\nWit shook her head. \"Jim had found me out a few weeks before. He was watching me constantly, telling me I had to stop. I was afraid to do a drop on campus. So I decided out here was perfect. It was remote. I texted Cannon as the White Rabbit, telling him he could find his supply inside a desk in the mapping office. Only I couldn't make it out here in time. I got caught talking to Mrs. Lapinetti about my Italian final. I raced back to the quarry and did the drop, but I had no further contact that night from Cannon.\"\n\n\"When did you make it back here?\" asked Martha.\n\n\"It was three in the morning. I didn't see anything or anyone, I swear to God.\"\n\n\"You must have just missed them.\" Martha checked her watch. \"When Jim turned up dead at the quarry, you must have suspected Cannon. After all, you knew he'd come out here.\"\n\nWit nodded. \"But I knew he'd never willingly hurt Jim.\"\n\nMartha turned, staring up at the Foreman's Lookout.\n\n\"So the only question now is...\"\n\nShe fell silent, nibbling a fingernail.\n\n\"What?\" prompted Kipling.\n\n\"How did Jim appear so suddenly under that car?\"\n\nShe turned on her heel, resolved.\n\n\"Come,\" she ordered.\n\nBeckoning us to follow her, she vanished into the grass.\n\nWhen we caught up to Martha, she was crouching underneath the Foreman's Lookout. Staring overhead, I saw in astonishment that the ladder to climb up was missing. I realized then that what remained of it was strewn all over the ground.\n\n\"Incredible.\"\n\nMartha gasped in shock over some revelation, then stood up, shaking her head.\n\n\"It's really the most impossible sequence of events.\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Kipling.\n\n\"Momma Greer was right.\"\n\n\"About?\"\n\n\"The freak possible.\"\n\nMartha rolled one of the pieces of wood under her sneaker, then gazed up at the landing suspended high over our heads.\n\n\"Poor Jim.\"\n\nShe looked at me, and instantly I felt chills inching up my arms. What was she aiming at? What was she trying to do? It was dark, but her eyes sparkled behind her glasses, alert, alive.\n\n\"It happened right here,\" she said. \"Jim was undone over Beatrice confronting him about his lie, the night he went off with Vida. He was also distraught over Estella Ornato. His perfect life had fallen down around him, so he escaped here, as he often did, to be alone, to write music. He started to climb up to the Foreman's Lookout, but the ladder gave out. He managed to grab a few supporting beams, trying to save himself, but they didn't hold.\"\n\nMartha bent down to inspect a piece of the wood, showing us that the underside was completely rotten.\n\n\"He fell. It was a considerable distance, five, six stories, a drop that would have killed most people. Yet Jim survived.\"\n\n\"How?\" I whispered.\n\n\"He was drunk. It's why drunk drivers survive car accidents. Drunks don't tense up on impact. They relax. That saves their lives. He was unconscious for an hour. Maybe two. Then he woke up.\" She squinted out at the quarry road. \"He must have heard the car, or seen the headlights. Or maybe he was just trying to get to his bike.\"\n\nMartha hurried to the other side of the road and dragged Jim's bike out of the grass, throwing it at our feet with the flair of a magician whisking a rabbit from a hat.\n\n\"He crawled from here to here.\" She pointed toward the road. \"That's eight, ten feet? He was trying to get help. At that point, Cannon had climbed behind the wheel again. If Jim called out, it was lost in the crickets, the engine, the radio. We couldn't hear a thing, or see much in the dark. Neither did Cannon. Cannon, assuming the White Rabbit stood him up, has to get back to school, drive the car back before Moses returns to the gatehouse after his AA meeting. Frustrated, he puts the car in reverse, hitting Jim. He realizes what's happened, and he goes crazy. He calls Kipling, who is in his debt. Kipling arrives, and together they decide that the only way out of this unimaginable turn of events is to throw Jim into the quarry and pray the police think suicide.\"\n\nKipling nodded. \"We hoped the cops wouldn't notice the difference between injuries sustained from a car hitting you and injuries from a three-hundred-foot fall.\"\n\n\"The police probably would have looked closer,\" said Martha, \"if not for the Masons. They were worried the business about Estella Ornato was about to be exposed. They didn't know what Jim had told people. Given the level of his anger, they probably weren't so sure Jim _didn't_ commit suicide, having learned the truth about what they'd done. What _he_ had done. So they stayed silent. And probably applied some pressure on that little police station. Whatever other pieces of evidence the cops unearthed\u2014Jim's visit to Honey Love Fried Chicken, Vida's tip-off about Shrieks being the real White Rabbit, cell phone records? They stopped pursuing it.\"\n\n\"The Masons confiscated the contents of Jim's case file, don't forget,\" said Kipling.\n\n\"Exactly.\"\n\n\"But there's blood here,\" whispered Whitley. She was using the light on her cell to illuminate the area where the Nissan had been parked. \"It wouldn't take much effort for police to see that something brutal had happened right here.\"\n\n\"We cleaned it up,\" said Kipling. \"I noticed the blood, and we spent an hour tearing up the grass with bloodstains. I shoved it into my backpack and spent more time at school flushing it down the toilet.\"\n\n\"There you have it,\" said Martha. \"The freak possible.\"\n\nThere was nothing to say, nothing to do except to consider the strange history Martha had just related like a professor illuminating to her students some new law of gravity. For a while, I was aware of nothing but my own shallow breathing, and the orchestra of crickets, and the night, gasping and alive all around us.\n\nNever had I imagined a truth like this.\n\n\"It's too extraordinary,\" whispered Whitley, crossing her arms, shivering. \"When you think about it, we all killed Jim. I sent Cannon here. And Cannon hit Jim with the car. And Kipling helped him cover it up. All of us are guilty, right? All of us except Martha and Beatrice. You're the good ones.\"\n\n\"That's not true,\" I blurted, tears burning my eyes, a lump in my throat.\n\n\"It's time to get out of here.\"\n\nMartha whispered this, frowning thoughtfully as she stared overhead. Bewildered, none of us moved. Then she was pushing us and I realized, stunned, looking up, that without even being aware of it, I'd been standing too close to one of the tower's steel legs, because the entire thing was tottering. The wood was groaning and splintering.\n\nSuddenly, with a thunderous moan of metal and glass, the entire Lookout was tipping over, rusted nails and screws and wooden beams raining down on us as we took off across the quarry road. I threw myself into the wall of grass, fighting back blades as they slapped and whipped my face. I ducked and covered my head as the entire structure collapsed around me with a roar, Kipling and Whitley shouting somewhere behind me. I felt myself tossed forward.\n\nWhen I opened my eyes, I was on my stomach, the immense pressure of the ending wake pressing against my legs. I managed to heave myself onto my back, blinking up at the sky.\n\nI heard voices, and then Martha and the others were bending over me.\n\n\"She's at the end of her wake,\" said Martha. \"We don't have much time. We have to find Cannon.\"\n\n\"I think I know where he is,\" said Whitley, her face grave.\n\nWhen she told us the location, no one spoke. Of all possible places in space and time, this one seemed the most frightening, and the most impossible.\n\n\"No,\" said Martha. \"No way. It's too risky for Bee.\" She was helping me to my feet, pulling me toward the edge of the quarry. \"We should go back to Wincroft.\"\n\n\"We need Cannon for the vote,\" I said. \"I'll go. I'll get him and bring him back.\"\n\nMartha looked anxious. But there wasn't time to argue. I could feel the wake traveling up my neck. I knew what to do. I stared down at the quarry and the lake, so far below.\n\nThis was the same journey Jim had made. My Jim.\n\n\"I'll see you there,\" I whispered.\n\nThey were watching me, afraid, but there was no time and nothing to say to reassure them. I squeezed their hands, one by one.\n\nThen I jumped.\n\nWhen I opened my eyes, I was submerged in freezing water.\n\nMilky blue liquid floated before my eyes. I kicked, barely able to feel my legs. I couldn't tell which way was the surface. My lungs throbbing in pain, I blew bubbles, watching dimly as they floated in the opposite direction of where I'd thought to go. I kicked after them into murky darkness, the water growing icier, shadowed fish circling me, their cold, gelatinous skin brushing my toes and fingertips.\n\nI wanted to scream.\n\nI kicked again. Suddenly, I breached the lake's surface, gulping in the icy air.\n\nI looked around. Dense white fog swirled everywhere, chalky and crystalline. A thin layer of ice on the pond's surface splintered around my shoulders. I dog-paddled in a circle, groping for something to hold on to, but there was nothing. It was impossible to see more than a foot ahead. Dead white tree trunks rose out of the water around me, retreating into the whiteness overhead.\n\nIt was where Whitley had told us to go. Blue Pond, Cannon's Birdcage, at 3:33 p.m. on his birthday last year. It was the real-life place in the photo inside the bug Cannon had discovered in Apple's operating system sophomore year at Darrow. It was a dreamlike setting of chalky mist, and thin black Japanese larch and silver birch trees growing straight out of an icy blue lake.\n\nThere was nothing else here.\n\n\"Cannon?\"\n\nMy voice, hoarse and unsteady, ventured only a few feet in front of me before giving up. My legs were so frozen, they felt unattached to me. The cold was like knives in my back.\n\n\"Cannon!\"\n\nA boat motor roared behind me. Startled, I turned to see the paint-chipped bow of a skiff blasting out of the fog, heading straight toward me. I caught a glimpse of faded blue words, _Little Bird,_ Cannon hunched over the motor, his bearded face red, his hair long and matted. The boat hit my head. White pain exploded through my skull. The water silenced my shocked scream as I was dragged under.\n\nEverything went black.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen I opened my eyes again, I was submerged in freezing water.\n\nIt was silent.\n\nBlue water clouded my eyes. I could see debris floating around me, seaweed, bits of shell, and mud. Long, dark fish with overbites and bulging eyes drifted around me. They looked dead until I touched one and it shot into the shadows.\n\nI wasn't in pain, apart from my lungs. I blew bubbles, kicking after them. Within seconds I had blasted through the surface, gasping.\n\nIt was the exact same scene, the Blue Pond, Cannon's Birdcage.\n\nA motor grunted. I whipped around to see the skiff heading for me again.\n\nI dove back down into the water, madly kicking through the explosion of bubbles as the boat missed my head by inches. My left foot burst with pain as the propeller's blade sliced it. When I resurfaced, Cannon had circled the boat around and was aiming for me again.\n\nI dove under again, swimming away a few feet before coming up for air.\n\n\"Cannon, please, just wait a minute\u2014\"\n\n\"You shouldn't have come here, Beatrice.\"\n\n\"We need to talk.\"\n\n\"There's nothing to say.\"\n\n\"What about Jim?\"\n\nHe scowled at the mention of the name, killing the engine.\n\n\"Cannon. Please. I just want to talk to you.\"\n\nI held out my hand.\n\nHe leaned over the boat, smiling reluctantly, extending his hand to help me aboard. As I grabbed it, however, he pulled an oar out and struck me with it on the side of the head, my vision exploding into whiteness.\n\nI screamed. I could feel my body sprawling, coming apart, cold water in my mouth, an oar on my back as he pushed me down.\n\nNo matter how hard I fought, that oar remained on my shoulders, keeping me underwater.\n\nHe was drowning me.\n\nThere was no reasoning with Cannon anymore.\n\nThe Neverworld had driven him mad.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen I opened my eyes again, I was submerged in freezing water.\n\nThe quiet was deafening.\n\nI realized with a stab of panic exactly what was happening: I was reliving the same wake over and over again. Cannon was killing me, whereupon I remained dead until I was pulled back to the wake. How long did it last? An hour? Minutes?\n\nI could hardly think. I was nauseous with fear. I had to stay calm. Trying to ignore the pain in my lungs, I kept swimming. Blinking up at the surface, I could see the underside of Cannon's boat amid large chunks of ice. He was hiding between the trees, waiting. I dove deeper, ignoring the dark fish with their flaking skin shooting around my legs. When I couldn't hold my breath any longer, I swam to the surface, trying not to make noise as I gulped down air.\n\nCannon's boat was yards away. He didn't see me. He was standing in the skiff, looking around.\n\n\"Beatrice!\" he called. His voice sounded calm, even friendly. \"You out here?\"\n\nI ducked back under and swam away, the water growing dark and murky, the rotten roots of underwater trees, yellowed and tangled, wafting what looked like chimney soot. I could no longer feel my feet or hands. My thoughts were cloudy and strange. As I swam past the debris of a sunken skiff, the faded words _Little Bird_ barely visible, I felt the pull of an undertow. I tried to fight it, but the current was too powerful. As soon as I recognized the deep thundering drone of a waterfall, it was too late; I was plunging through the air. Spray blasted me like a fire hose. Rocks knocked my head and scraped my hands, branches clawing my face. White trees. Blue sky. They flipped over me and under me. I kept waiting to hit the ground, for it all to go black, but the end refused to come.\n\nI was falling, falling for what felt like an hour, every inch of my body freezing, stiffening.\n\nThen I hit a boulder. Life left me like light from a bulb with the flip of a switch.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen I opened my eyes, I was submerged in freezing water.\n\nHow many times had I been here before? Four times? Four million?\n\nFish swirled around me like murderous thoughts. I swam into them and they scattered.\n\nI floated deep under the water until I spotted his boat. The water was getting colder. A thin layer of ice was forming on the surface, growing thicker by the minute. I could see Cannon, searching for me. Grabbing a submerged piece of driftwood, I swam directly underneath the hull, clinging there, breathing through a hole in the ice around the boat's edge. I yanked off my pink T-shirt and let it drift to the other side. Cannon, thinking it was me, bent over to pull it out, and as he did, I surfaced and jammed the wood in his back as hard as I could. He cried out in surprise, pitching forward, losing his balance, somersaulting through the ice. I climbed into the boat, nearly capsizing it. I yanked the cord to start the engine. I pried off Cannon's hands gripping the side and veered the boat away.\n\n\"Beatrice!\" he howled, waving at me. \"Come back!\"\n\nI ignored him. His old gray hoodie and a red flannel blanket were folded up around a thermos in the hull. I yanked on the sweater, wrapped the blanket around my shoulders. I unscrewed the thermos and drank. It was tea, so hot it scalded my mouth.\n\nI drove on. It was impossible to see where I was going. The fog disclosed only inches of the world at a time. Blue water, driftwood, blackened tree trunks\u2014they appeared suddenly, ramming the sides of the boat, causing the engine to stall. After a while I could hear the deafening roar of the waterfall and Cannon far behind me. He was crying.\n\n\"I'm freezing. I'm going to die here. Help me, Beatrice.\"\n\nI wasn't sure how far I'd gone when I spotted a coil of long blond hair under the ice, ice at least three inches thick. I smashed it with the oar, realizing in shock that it was Whitley floating there. She was barely conscious. A few feet away, trapped under the ice, were Martha and Kipling.\n\nOne by one, I heaved them into the boat. They were half dead, heads lolling. I placed them in the stern, pulled off their boots and jeans and T-shirts, pulled the blanket over their legs to get them warm, poured tea into their mouths.\n\nSoon they showed signs of life.\n\n\"What is happening?\" asked Martha.\n\nI told her. She asked to see Cannon, so I turned the boat back, steering between the trees until we stumbled upon him. He was clinging to a trunk, so much ice encrusting his beard it was completely white.\n\nHe was dead. His lips were blue. He had pulled off all his clothes.\n\n\"His wake must be years if his hair is this long,\" whispered Martha, touching a frozen strand. She turned to me. \"We have to keep at this, but next time, keep him alive. It's up to you, Bee. We don't arrive in time. So get control of the boat, restrain him, but keep him alive until we get here. Then we can vote.\"\n\n_Cannon's not himself anymore. How can he vote?_\n\nI wanted to ask this, only I realized as the boat jerked backward suddenly that we were getting pulled into the waterfall.\n\nI grabbed the oar, trying to fight it. Martha grabbed the other paddle. Whitley tried to grab hold of passing tree trunks to stop us. Kipling could only stare out at the fog, petrified. It was futile, of course. In less than a minute, the skiff was swinging into the throes of the current, water pounding us. We were rocketing past boulders, ricocheting against trees, overturning into the whiteout. The last thing I saw was Whitley reaching out to try to grab my hand as the boat fell out from under us and we fell.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nThe vote. The vote. _The vote._\n\nHow long did it all go on? The fight for the skiff. Cannon's rescue. Binding his ankles and wrists. Hauling my friends out of the ice.\n\nI did it over and over again, in the freezing cold, trying not to drown.\n\nI tried different tactics every time. Cannon might have been half mad, but he was on to me. He was a strange, terrifying foe, at times vicious, other times childlike. He was the worst person to have to capture alive, because I knew him from before. There were times when he was his old self again, funny and kind and sensitive, vocal about wanting to help me, to do everything in his power to make it better. Inevitably, though, he'd cast this persona off like a Halloween costume, revealing someone upended by rage and regret. I understood then that Cannon had always lived his life with his future glory in mind, that every moment of his every day and every act of kindness had been because he was expecting that at some future date he would be somebody at last. Now that he had no future, he didn't know how to exist.\n\nHe'd shout his grievances into the fog.\n\n\"I was duped. Swindled. First there was the nightmare of Jim. And now this? _Are you kidding me?_ It isn't supposed to be like this. I'm supposed to grow up! I'm supposed to have another seventy years! I never made an impression. It's like I was never even here. Was I here? Was I even here, Beatrice? _Beatrice!_ Where are you?\"\n\nSometimes, when Cannon gave me trouble, I was too late freeing the others from the ice. When I found them they were all dead except Martha. She was always semiconscious, deliriously whispering the same two words over and over again.\n\n_It's you._\n\nAfter a while, I had a map of the entire Blue Lake in my head like a blind man who's memorized every inch of his neighborhood. I knew where every dead tree stood, where every boulder sat, when every spray of water would firework over the rocks into oblivion.\n\nThe chance for the vote inched closer. Faster and faster I restrained Cannon. This had as much to do with his increasing fatigue, his resignation, as with my speed and resolve. I bound his hands and ankles with a yellow vine ripped from the bottom of the lake, pulling him up into the boat, leaving him sulking in the bow. Faster and faster I revived the others.\n\nThe remainder of my wake was eleven minutes. Eleven minutes between the time they were warm and under the blanket and the moment I rigged the boat to the trees so we wouldn't plunge into the waterfall. Eleven minutes to vote.\n\n\"I'm not voting,\" Cannon always said.\n\n\"Yes you are,\" said Whitley.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Then you'll drown here.\"\n\nHe laughed. I'd grown used to his mad cackle by then, but it still scared the others.\n\n\"Drowning? You think I'm scared of _drowning_? Drowning for me is shaking a hand. It's saying 'Have a nice day!' It's saying 'Would you like an Egg McMuffin with those hotcakes?' It's saying 'Welcome to Home Depot, can I help you select a Weedwacker?' \"\n\n\"Please stop,\" whispered Whitley, trying not to cry.\n\nThe vote. The vote. _The vote._\n\nWe had no pen and no paper. I pried a piece of splintered wood off the skiff's bottom boards and we used that to cut the first initial of our chosen survivor into our palms.\n\nOver time, strange things began to happen in those eleven minutes. The dead trees began to topple and crash into the water, creating waves that surged and flooded the boat. The fog retreated, revealing a gray sky, clouds roiling like potion in a witch's cauldron. Swarms of red insects like the ones Martha had drawn boomeranged around us like tiny squalls of rain, emitting a high-pitched hum, colliding with our foreheads and ears and getting tangled in our hair, making us scream. A single fat fly appeared too, buzzing around our heads. We all knew it was Pete, the imaginary friend who'd lived inside Cannon's boyhood computer, the one he'd told us about. Ice encrusted our hair and eyelashes. It thundered and snowed and hailed. In the eleventh minute, the skiff even began to disintegrate under us, blue water seeping up between the beams until the wood began to blacken and crumble to mud.\n\nI understood what was happening, though I didn't say a word. No one did. It was the decision, the slow settling in on the single name. It was the death of our dreams, our youth, of possibility. There had always been hope here in the Neverworld, no matter how terrifying things got.\n\nNow even that was disappearing.\n\nCannon ignored our entreaties to vote. He stayed slumped against the side of the boat, staring out, singing \"Just Like Heaven\" by the Cure under his breath, repeating the phrase \"You, soft and lonely\" over and over again.\n\nThen, one wake, he actually snatched the wood from Kipling, and gnashing his teeth in frustration, he too carved what appeared to be someone's initials into his hand. He did it rashly, blood oozing between his fingers as he collapsed back, staring out, exhausted.\n\nThat was when Whitley sat up, pointing into the fog.\n\nIt was the Keeper. He was rowing a boat toward us, wearing his dark suit and tie. He maneuvered alongside us. In spite of the hail, his boat jerking and bobbing against ours, the spray of water, he was remarkably dry.\n\n\"Congratulations,\" he shouted, his voice scarcely audible over the thunder. \"There is a consensus.\"\n\n\"What?\" gasped Whitley.\n\nThe Keeper only smiled, gripping the sides of the boat so as not to be tossed out.\n\nHe cleared his throat, straightening his tie, though almost immediately the wind flung it back over his shoulder.\n\n\"Life does not belong to you. It is the apartment you rent. Love without fear, for love is an airplane that carries you to new lands. There is a universe in silence. A tunnel to peace in a scream. Get a good night's sleep. Laugh when you can. You are more magical than you know. Take your advice from the elderly and children. None of it is as crucial as you think, but that makes it no less vital. Our lives go on. And on. Look for the breadcrumbs.\"\n\nI think we were only half listening. We were all stupefied.\n\n\"It's been a pleasure.\" He bowed.\n\nAnd just like that, he took up the oars again and rowed away.\n\nThe change was immediate. The water stilled. The storm tapered off. The roar of the waterfall faded to a whisper. The sun emerged out of the blue sky, glaring and hot. In fact, the scene so quickly transformed to a calm, serene lake with shimmering water that the memory of all I'd endured these past twelve wakes\u2014or twelve million\u2014seemed as hazy as some half-remembered dream.\n\nIt grew hot. Whitley and Kip stripped down to their underwear, and whooping and shouting, they cannonballed into the water as if it were the final hours of summer camp. Cannon, with a deadened look, threw himself headfirst over the side, and though I stood in alarm, calling out his name, he only kicked away from me on his back, his eyes closed. He seemed so tired. He seemed to want peace.\n\nThat left me with Martha. I had something important to say to her, and I might never have another chance.\n\n\"Martha.\"\n\nShe was watching Whitley and Kipling laughing about something. She turned.\n\n\"We've never been friends. I just want to tell you that I understand why. And it's okay.\"\n\nShe stared at me.\n\n\"I was his girlfriend. Everyone was in love with Jim. It wasn't so hard to imagine that you were too. I just wish we'd gotten to know each other better.\"\n\nShe tilted her head, frowning.\n\n\"Jim? You think I was in love with Jim?\"\n\nI nodded. She smiled.\n\n\"I never loved Jim. It was you. What you did for me. You saved my life.\"\n\nShe said it faintly. I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly.\n\n\"Do you remember that night freshman year, during the snowstorm? The night of Holiday Dance. The power went out, and you ran back to the dorm to change your dress. You found me reading in the common room. You laughed because I hadn't noticed the window was wide open, and there was a snowdrift on the carpet. You stayed and talked with me, even though Jim was waiting for you.\"\n\nI remembered. It was the one time we'd had a good conversation.\n\n\"It wasn't an accident the window was open.\"\n\nI stared at her.\n\n\"I'd been planning it for weeks. I'd done the math. Sixth floor. Larkin Hall. A simple acceleration due to gravity across seventy-six feet. Even landing in a snowdrift, my chance of survival was less than one percent.\"\n\nI couldn't breathe.\n\n\"It was stupid. One of those dark spells of loneliness that I thought meant everything. Little did I know, it meant nothing. These monumental moments of our childhood, they're just one bend in the river, a tight curve filled with boulders so you can't see beyond. The river roars on across distances we can't even imagine. I was about to jump when I heard someone coming. It surprised me, so I hesitated, threw myself on the couch, grabbed some random book, pretending to read. You came in, and you saved my life. So here, in the Neverworld, I had to save yours.\"\n\nI opened my mouth to say something, but no sound emerged.\n\n\"I thought for sure you were on to me,\" she said, shaking her head. \"Like, back at the Warwick police station, how I suddenly appeared downstairs with you. You knew I was the one who removed the papers from Jim's case file, right?\"\n\n\"What?\" I whispered.\n\n\"It wasn't the Masons. It was me. I hid the files in another box so they'd never find them.\" She took a deep, unsteady breath. \"Because it was all there. Jim's texts to you. I didn't want them to suspect you. That was why I was so against going back to Vulcanation. I didn't want them to find out the truth. So as soon as we landed, I snuck away so I could dismantle the ladder from the Foreman's Lookout before anyone else saw it. I climbed up fifty feet, got a million splinters, but I knew I had to present a compelling scenario with such assurance that they'd all be blind to the truth.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\nShe studied me with a soft smile.\n\n\"You know, Beatrice. You were there.\"\n\nChills ricocheted down my spine.\n\n\"I saw you. Coming back from the quarry.\" She squeezed my hand. \"You have nothing to feel guilty about. Whatever happened, I know you acted with a full heart. I never doubted you. And I never will.\"\n\nAll my blood drained into my feet. I was going to be sick.\n\n\"Jim loved you. But he didn't see you. He was incapable of that. You were the one to keep him propped up. You were his scaffolding. He could be riveting, and addictive. And you loved him, and we rarely see those we love as they are.\" She sighed, hunching her shoulders. \"That's what killed me the most. Why I could never be your friend. Why I couldn't stay around you. You made me so mad, Bee.\"\n\nShe shook her head, staring at me, her face a wild pool of emotion barely contained.\n\n\"I've seen it before. It happened to my sister. She loved a boy, and that love made her put herself last and forget herself, and it killed her. Your love was that unquestioning. It made you do things that were dangerous. _That_ ripped me up.\"\n\n\"What are you talking about, Martha?\"\n\n\" _Nowhere Man._ Jim's musical? Everyone gushed about how brilliant it was. And it was. But it was strange, wasn't it, how suddenly after weeks of whining, being unable to write a single word, Jim had it all come together on the eve of his debut at Spring Vespers? Like magic?\"\n\nShe stared at me, her face grave.\n\n\"You were the magic.\"\n\nI was unable to speak. I felt as if a glaring light were suddenly shining into my eyes.\n\n\"You showed them to me the night of the snowstorm. Those dream soundtracks. I never forgot them. I committed the words to heart. I recognized your voice immediately when Jim showed me what he'd written. 'You're my Sunday best, my new-car smell, \/ You're Ch\u00e2teau Margaux, no zinfandel.' \" Martha shook her head. \"Jim thought nothing of passing off your words as his own. Did he say he was just _borrowing_ them? That he'd give you credit _later_? He swallowed everything around him, leaving nothing behind.\" She wrinkled her nose. \"It's so funny. For such an energetic person, the space around him was always so cold. And anyway, his grand plans for himself always exceeded his _actual_ talent.\"\n\nShe shrugged with a look of resignation. I felt a wave of hot emotion in my chest.\n\n\"Jim didn't steal the lyrics from me,\" I said. \"I gave them to him. They were just sitting in a drawer in the dark, no use to anyone. I had to help him.\"\n\nMartha surveyed me so intently, I felt light-headed.\n\n\"Everything I've done in this Neverworld,\" she said, \"the good, the weird, the absurd, the exhausting, was for you. Pushing the discussion in a calculated direction. Asking you the pointed questions so I'd appear impartial. Distracting the others from seeing the rot that kept bubbling up around you all the time. Mold, breaking glass, tar, oil, tumbling trees, falling Lookout Towers\u2014 _God,_ Bee, it was like trying to hide a typhoon swirling around you, all because of this secret you were hiding. That you were there that night.\"\n\nShe shook her head, biting her lip.\n\n\"I even spent a million hours talking to this kooky professor with scary facial hair and bad breath at Brown to learn the art of persuasion, to implant the idea in all of their heads that _you_ had to go on, because you had to be the one to tell our story.\"\n\nMy mind was crawling stupidly over her words like a crab, trying to make them out.\n\nWhat was she talking about? I had voted for Martha. Martha was going to live.\n\n\"I couldn't tell you what I was doing because you'd have tried to stop me. You'd have messed it all up. We had to get to the bottom of Jim's death for the vote, but you had to stay beyond blame. You had to remain Sister Bee.\" She shook her head. \"I'm only telling you all this so you'll know. So you'll see. Because we all have our words tucked away in notebooks in drawers in the dark. You can't just give them away, Bee. They're yours. Like a fingerprint. Like your children. They are the light that shines your way. Without them, you'll be lost.\"\n\nShe reached out and gently tucked loose strands of hair behind my ears.\n\n\"Never, ever give away your words again.\"\n\nMartha. _I was so wrong._\n\n\"Anyway.\" She removed her glasses, folding them, carefully setting them on the seat beside her with a faint smile. \"Chapter Seventy-Two. This is only the beginning.\"\n\nShe stood and, mumbling something that sounded like _breadcrumbs,_ she dove into the water, kicking into the turquoise depths.\n\nI sat there, shaken, unable to move.\n\n_So absolutely wrong._\n\nI lurched to my feet, shading my eyes.\n\n\"Martha!\"\n\nThere was no sign of her.\n\nWhitley and Kipling, swimming a few yards away, turned in alarm.\n\n\"She was just here. Martha. I\u2014I have to tell her. I have to let her know\u2014\" I was untying the skiff, grabbing the oars, crying as I steered the boat between the trees. \"Martha!\"\n\nI jumped overboard, swam into the darkness, reached out into the empty cold.\n\nWhen Whitley and Kip hauled me back into the boat, I was sobbing.\n\n\"She was just here. And now it's too late. Too late. Don't you realize? Martha. She's never coming back. I have to tell her. She's gone, and it's too late now to tell her\u2014\"\n\n\"Shhh,\" said Whitley, hugging me and wiping the tears from my cheeks. \"It's all over now, Bee. Look around. It's almost gone.\"\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\n_Look around. It's almost gone._\n\nIf only someone had told me that before. About life. If only I had understood.\n\nWe didn't speak after that. We didn't need to. All we did was wrap ourselves in the blanket, and gaze out at the water.\n\nCannon was already somewhere else.\n\nThe sun was setting. It had turned the bold orange of children's paintings, and it was casting a warmth on our faces so gentle it seeped into us, filling every dark hole and lighting every corner. I'd felt this way before, back at Darrow on some ordinary Tuesday with my friends, when one of them said what I felt and life sharpened into focus, as it did sometimes. There was a momentary stillness, a sense of the eternal in the strands of our laughter like windblown ponytails, in the touch of our shoulders, side by side.\n\nSomething began to happen to me. Whether it was death or some other state in the mystery of all life, I didn't know. It pulled me to the bottom of the boat, leaving me staring up at the vast yellow sky. They had more time in their last wake, Kipling and Wit. But they would feel it eventually. I could see them crouched beside me, whispering words I couldn't hear, uncertain yet unafraid, their hands warm as they squeezed mine, waiting for what came next.\n\nI would never let go of them. Never.\n\nThen their faces dissolved into the darkening day, and I slipped away.\n\nI was floating in milky space.\n\nSomething hard was shoved down my throat. I heard footsteps.\n\n\"Good morning.\" A man was speaking. \"How you holding up?\"\n\nThere was a clattering noise. Someone was beside me.\n\n\"I know this is difficult. As I explained yesterday, we'll be taking this one step at a time. Her weaning parameters look very good. So I'm hoping to remove her breathing tube today. We need to see if she can follow commands.\"\n\nThere was a flurry of activity, hushed whispering. A hand touched my arm.\n\n\"Beatrice? Can you open your eyes for me?\"\n\nI blinked. All I could see were streaks of color.\n\n\"Oh, my God.\"\n\n\"Beatrice?\"\n\n\"There. There she goes....\"\n\n_\"Bumblebee?\"_\n\n\"Can you show me two fingers?\"\n\nDizziness. I was floating in a swamp. I tried to lift my hand. My throat was on fire.\n\n\"What about your other hand? That's great. Wiggle your toes.\"\n\nSomeone was leaning over me. Suddenly a light beamed into my eyes, sending a hot purple pinball knocking around my skull.\n\nI blinked again.\n\nThat was when I saw a TV on the wall. It was a morning talk show, the sound muted, the date at the bottom of the screen snapping into focus.\n\n_7:21 a.m. September 10._\n\nI was alive.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nAs I fell back into the warm, watery darkness, my final conversation with Martha drifted through my head. It felt like she'd just left me moments ago. Her confession had turned me inside out. It was the secret I'd kept so deep inside my heart it had actually remained buried, out of sight, like a missing airplane that had vanished with such totality, some questioned whether the passengers had even existed.\n\nWhitley hadn't realized how right she was.\n\n_When you think about it, we all killed Jim._\n\nNo one had ever questioned me\u2014not my friends, not the police, not my parents. No one. Because I was the good one, Sister Bee.\n\n_I'm going to the quarry. Meet me._\n\nIn my dorm room, I listened to Jim's message over and over again, staring out the window at the empty lawn. I was so alone. I loved him. Yet I hated him. I hated how he could make me feel so alive, then invisible, as if he were a magician and I was the rabbit in his hat. I was desperate to see him, forgive him, to banish him from my thoughts. I wished he'd never seen anything rare in me. The prospect of being without him was too painful to imagine.\n\nI jumped out of bed, threw off my pajamas, and slipped on the sexy lingerie I'd saved up for, the tight white jean shorts Jim liked, the white off-the-shoulder Gucci top borrowed from Whitley. I was going to sleep with him. It was a stupid decision, but it filled me with excitement, a concrete resolution I could hold on to like a towrope. I put on eyeliner and mascara, Whitley's red MAC lipstick. I pulled my hair out of its usual ponytail so it fell down my back. I pulled on my Converse, threw two candles into my backpack, yanked the comforter off my bed.\n\nThen I went running out to Vulcan Quarry.\n\nBy a stroke of luck, I was so distracted by my decision to sleep with Jim that I left my phone on the sink in the bathroom. Later, I would gather that the detectives, pinging the cell towers on the night Jim died, saw that mine hadn't moved, providing me with an alibi. Yet if they had questioned me, I doubted they would have suspected I was lying. No one ever doubted anything I said.\n\nAnd they should have.\n\nWhen I arrived at the quarry it was 12:15. There was no sign of Jim. He hadn't arrived yet. The night was cool, the sky clear, stars bright. We always met at the base of the Foreman's Lookout and did the ascent on the ladder together. This time, I went first. I wanted to set everything up, to surprise him. I couldn't wait to see him, to forget it all, to go back to how things were in the beginning. I was scared too\u2014scared to be with him again, scared of the doubt in my head. As I climbed, I noticed that some of the nails holding the ladder's wooden rungs were looser than usual. Others were actually missing, especially in the final few feet where you reached the hatch.\n\nHalfway up the ladder I stopped, noticing not just that my hands were shaking, but that I had ripped my entire left shin without realizing it. It was bleeding, gruesome-looking. I looked like a skinned possum. I started climbing down again. I didn't want Jim to see me like this. I was lopsided, overtired. I was ugly, unlike Vida Joshua. Vida Joshua was a siren. I should go back to my dorm. That was the right thing, the safe thing.\n\nI was almost on the ground when I stopped again. I was being a coward, meek, living so _pianissimo,_ as Jim used to tell me. Why was I always so afraid of things happening to me? I began to climb up again\u2014 _Carpe noctem!_ Whitley was always shrieking with her head back. Seize the night. Why couldn't I do it for once? When I reached the landing, I noticed that some of the nails holding the ladder's wood rungs were rattling.\n\nI lit the candles in the grimy room. I turned on the oil lamp on the old wood table where a hundred Darrow students had carved their initials. I spread out my comforter, undressed, and waited.\n\nSoon I heard Jim. He was talking to himself, his words slurred.\n\nI rolled to my feet, gathering the comforter around me. I crept to the landing, peering out.\n\nHe was halfway up the ladder. He was also drunk, swinging an arm out as he sang something. It was the lyrics to a new song in his musical, lyrics I had written.\n\n\" 'In the dark there grows a tree. \/ A castle tower shelters thee. When will I stop, when will I see? \/ There is no poison but for me.' \"\n\nMuttering, he began to climb again. I tiptoed back inside and reclined across the comforter. He'd be here within seconds. It was happening. The thought gave me a strange feeling of emptiness. I was making a mistake. It was obvious. I needed to stay away from Jim. I should be asleep in my room.\n\nAt that moment I heard a clanging noise. Jim was screaming.\n\nI leapt to my feet. Three of the rungs by the landing had fallen away. Jim was barely holding on. He was straining to grab the next rung, but it was just out of reach. Gasping, he managed to swing his leg out so his foot rested on one of the crisscrossing beams supporting the tower legs.\n\n\"Bee?\" He blinked up at me, sweat glinting on his forehead. \"Oh, God, Bee. Thank God.\" He held out his hand. \"Pull me up.\"\n\nI froze. He began to shout, his face contorting.\n\n\"Beatrice! What's the matter with you? Pull me up! _Beatrice!_ \"\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWhat happened in those four seconds?\n\nI'll never know.\n\nIt was so fast. I saw Jim. Yet I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.\n\nI wished with all my heart I could say it was just panic, but it wasn't. It was something else too. A little cave inside my heart. Somehow I knew if I pulled him up I'd never be free of him. Maybe Martha was right. Maybe it was about the lyrics he'd taken from me, albums I'd slid in front of him after he'd been sobbing that he was a hack, that he'd never be as accomplished as his father, that it was all over, his dreams were done. I'd gone into my closet and handed him my collection of dream soundtracks, eleven books of lyrics and drawings I'd worked on all my life for no reason except they were the one place I could be myself. Maybe it was how he had taken them, sniffing as if I'd only handed him a pen when he knew what they were to me, what they had meant, and started copying my rhymes into his notebook. Maybe it was the question that if he could so easily take my words, would he take everything else?\n\nMy hesitation lasted only a moment. I sprang to life, racing toward him, wedging my feet in the landing door so they were secure, lying on my stomach, reaching to him.\n\nI was too late.\n\nHe fell. His head smashed a wooden beam, his hat flying off. He hit the ground with dull thud.\n\nHe lay still, five stories below me, a streak of blood across his cheek.\n\nThe next minute was a dream. The realization of what had just happened got bulldozed dumbly around my disintegrating mind.\n\n_Jim's dead. Jim's dead. This isn't happening._\n\nMadly I ran around the Foreman's Lookout, shivering, crying, blowing out candles, stuffing the comforter into my bag. I yanked on my clothes. I scrambled down the ladder four rungs at a time, barely making it around the gaping hole, threw myself into the grass.\n\nI rolled to my feet, staring down at Jim.\n\nBlood was oozing across the side of his face. His eyes were closed. He was dead. I was certain. I had to call the police. Yet, groping around in my backpack for my phone, I couldn't find it. Had I left it in the Lookout? Looking up, I realized I'd accidentally left the oil lamp burning. It was then that I saw headlights igniting the grass like wildfire. A car. It appeared, bouncing along the rutted road, a loose hubcap, radio blaring.\n\nIt was Mr. Joshua's beat-up red Nissan, the For Sale sign taped to the back window.\n\nVida Joshua. That was who I thought it was. What was she doing here? Had Jim meant to text her to meet him here, not me?\n\nThe question sent me retreating into the dark, sprinting back through the grass. I needed to go home. I needed my mom. I found the opening in the fence and struggled through.\n\nVida was going to find Jim and call an ambulance.\n\n_He would be fine. Everything was fine._\n\nI don't remember sprinting back through the woods and across campus. The next thing I knew I was barreling up the steps to the fourth floor of my dorm, racing down the hall. That must have been when Martha saw me. She lived on my floor, studied in the corner common room. I hurried to my room and locked the door, stripping naked. Everyone says I'm the good one, the kind one, so that means I am, doesn't it? It means I always do the right thing.\n\nI folded the La Perla underwear back into the tissue paper at the back of my drawer, returned Whitley's top to my closet. I found my phone where I'd left it on the bathroom sink. It was 1:02 a.m. No messages. My hands trembling, I managed to wipe the lipstick off, splash my face with cold water, yank the grass and leaves out of my hair.\n\nThe realization of what I was doing hit me like a slap in the face. What was I doing, not calling the police? I had to go to Jim. My love. I began to dial 911, but the conversation I was about to have with the dispatcher made me stop.\n\n_My boyfriend is lying dead in Vulcan Quarry. He fell. Please send an ambulance._\n\n_Are you there? Where are you?_\n\n_I ran away. I was jealous of another girl. I was angry. I loved him. We'd had a fight._\n\nCannon. I needed Cannon, the problem solver. I ran across the courtyard and climbed the oak tree to his room on the third floor of Marlborough. I knocked on his window. No answer. I pulled it open. There was no one there.\n\nKipling. Kipling would help me. He had a tower room in Eldred. I climbed back down the tree, raced across campus, slipped in through the fire exit, up the back stairs. His room was empty too. When I ran along the gable to Whitley's dorm room and knocked on her window, she too was missing.\n\nWhat was going on? Where was everyone?\n\n_Martha._ Racing back to Creston, I could see her light on in the window on the fourth floor, but imagining her flat response as I confessed to her, weeping, frightened, sent me running straight back to my room, my heart scuttling around like a rodent in my chest.\n\nI crawled into bed, staring at the ceiling. I kept telling myself to call my mom, but I couldn't move. Questions exploded in my head like grenades: If I'd never decided to surprise Jim, would he still be alive? Had he wanted to see Vida, not me? Had I loosened the rungs from climbing up and down and then up again? Where were my friends? Had Jim managed to call them for help, and were they with him right now, hearing all about what I'd done, that I'd let him fall and left him there? Had I killed Jim?\n\nI had to go back to the quarry. From there I'd call the police. I climbed out of bed, yanked on jeans, a T-shirt, boots. I ran all the way out there again, petrified, certain Moses was going to catch me. When I arrived it was after four. My entire body shaking, I stepped to the spot under the Foreman's Lookout where the ladder was, and stopped.\n\nJim was gone.\n\nThere was no sign he'd ever been there.\n\nNo blood. A few blades of bent grass. Otherwise, there was nothing.\n\nVida had found him and taken him to the hospital. Or, by some miracle, he'd gotten up and walked away unscathed, which meant he loathed me now. They all did.\n\nI returned to my room, staggered. All I wanted to do was die.\n\nI wandered through the next day like a zombie. When I thought of the night before, the memories were distorted, as if I'd made them up. Had it actually happened? There was no sign of Jim. No one had seen him. Whitley, Kip, and Cannon all acted friendly but stiff. They said they'd been in their rooms all night. Martha claimed she'd slept in the library.\n\nA day later, the news arrived: Jim had been found dead in the quarry lake.\n\nIt was impossible. I didn't understand. What had happened after I'd run away? What had Vida done to Jim? Why were my friends all lying? What were they afraid of?\n\nTo find answers, I'd gone to Wincroft.\n\nAnd all along, Martha had known my secret. Martha had been cleaning up my every move, all the while protecting me.\n\nHow had I never seen it? How could I have been so blind?\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nWhen I opened my eyes, I was propped up in a hospital bed. The room was in sharp focus: pale yellow walls, counters and tabletops, an air conditioner, a vase of flowers, a teddy bear with a helium balloon proclaiming GET WELL SOON. In front of me sat a plate of hospital food, a pink cup with a straw.\n\nThere was no longer something lodged in my throat, though it felt scratchy and raw.\n\n\"She's awake,\" blurted my mom, turning from the window.\n\n\"My dear sweet Bumble,\" said my dad, stepping toward me.\n\nThey hurried over, peering anxiously at me. My mom was gripping a wad of Kleenex, her hair standing vertical in places from sleeping in a chair. My dad had more gray hair than I remembered.\n\n\"Don't try to talk,\" he said. \"All is well. You're at Miriam Hospital in Providence. You were in a car accident, and you sustained a head injury. Bleeding on the surface of the brain. The doctors took care of it, and you're going to make a full recovery, okay, kiddo?\"\n\nI could tell my dad had instructed my mom not to talk very much, because she was nodding at everything he was saying, trying not to cry.\n\n_Just tell me my friends are still alive. They're recovering in rooms down the hall._\n\n\"You're going to rest,\" said my mom, squeezing my hand.\n\nI looked past her across the room, where there was a framed print of a beach scene on the wall and a dry-erase board sign reading _Your nurse on duty is LAURIE_.\n\nA bony teenager with a mop of blond hair was sitting in a chair by the door, staring at me. It took me a moment to realize it was Sleepy Sam, the British teenage boy I'd scooped ice cream alongside all summer at the Crow.\n\nMy mom followed my gaze. \"You remember Sam.\"\n\n\"He's come here every day to read to you,\" said my dad.\n\nSam shuffled over.\n\n\"Really glad to see you open your eyes, Bee. Welcome back.\"\n\nMy dad clapped a hand on his shoulder. \"Sam's a world-class dramatic reader. Who knew? He does all the different voices. Fifty characters? No sweat. He could have a big future on the West End.\"\n\nIt was then that I noticed the book under Sam's arm. The cover was silver with a collage of birdcages and steam trains, rosy-cheeked characters wearing top hats. _The legendary cult saga of future pasts. Present mysteries._\n\nThe title sent a shock of adrenaline through me.\n\n_The Dark House of Elsewhere Bend._\n\n\"Good morning, Beatrice.\"\n\nA silver-haired doctor in a white coat and green scrubs entered carrying a clipboard and a paper coffee cup. He was accompanied by an Asian woman, also wearing a white coat.\n\n\"Welcome back,\" he said. \"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm one of your physicians. Dr. Miller. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.\"\n\nHe was leaning over me, shining a light into my eyes. When I looked past it to his face, I gasped.\n\nI'd recognize him anywhere. He was and would forever be etched into my brain, floating in front of me whenever I closed my eyes for the rest of my life: those green, all-seeing eyes, the mahogany baritone, the elegant, exhausted manner suggestive of a retired ballet dancer whose every step held thousands of hours of rehearsal and a faint ache.\n\n_It couldn't be. It's impossible._\n\n\"When can she move to the rehab facility?\" asked my mom.\n\n\"A few days. The weakness on the left side of her body and some of the short-term-memory difficulties should improve over time. But it can take months.\"\n\nThe Keeper.\n\nHe asked me to raise my arms, hold up three fingers, and bend my knees. He asked me if I knew what year it was, who the president of the United States was, my age. I was dizzy. I could hardly focus on anything he said, gaping as I was so incredulously at his face. He'd set down his paper cup on the tray in front of me. The tag on the tea bag dangled over the side.\n\nHe grabbed the cup, took a sip, turned on his heel. He whispered something to my parents as they moved after him to the door. Then he slipped out with the woman in tow, vanishing down the hall.\n\nMy mom and dad had no choice but to tell me, even though I knew.\n\nKipling St. John.\n\nWhitley Lansing.\n\nCannon Beecham.\n\nMartha Ziegler.\n\nThey were dead.\n\nI moved to the rehab facility and spent six weeks there, wandering the linoleum hallways with my soft-grip adjustable cane, practicing going up and down stairs and raising my left arm, which trembled and shuddered with a mind of its own. I snuck onto the public computer after dinner the first night I was there and read about it.\n\nThe accident was reported in the _Providence Journal,_ the _Warwick Beacon,_ and _USA Today._ All the articles used the same phrase: \"shocking loss of young life.\" It also came up in a _Republican Nation_ editorial about drunk driving and its prevalence in New England communities with a rising unemployment rate. Every story led with photos of Whitley, the textbook dead blond dream girl, then moved on to Cannon, Kipling, and Martha, always mentioning Martha's full scholarship to MIT. My name was mentioned at the very end, the name of the lone survivor, the lucky one.\n\nTheir Facebooks became memorials. I wasn't surprised. It had happened with Jim. Kids they barely knew at Darrow and friends from their hometowns posted messages like _my heart's broken_ and _the world is empty now,_ littered with prayer emojis, anonymous comments of _life is pain,_ and GIFs of Heath Ledger.\n\nI'd missed their funerals. I'd been in the hospital. So I read about them. All their hometown newspapers did follow-ups to the tragedy (because the initial articles had racked up hundreds of Shares and Likes), featuring photos of some red-eyed family member reading a poem in a church pulpit. The blown-up, framed picture of Kipling\/Cannon\/Martha\/Whitley stared out from the easel beside them, their unwitting happiness and total lack of understanding of what was to come a powerful reminder that life, among many things, was all hairpin curves.\n\n_Linda Tolledo speaks during a service for her daughter, Whitley Lansing, who died in a car accident._\n\nThere was even an ongoing memorial of flowers, photos, candles, and teddy bears being left on the side of the coastal road at the crash site. People took pictures of it and posted them with hashtags like #rip and #neverforget.\n\nThey never suffered, the police told my mom and dad. They all died on impact.\n\nI survived because I hadn't been wearing my seat belt. I'd gotten tossed out, landing in a cluster of bushes, while the others were trapped in the car as it barreled down the ravine.\n\nLittle did anyone know the real reason that I'd survived: I had lived a century inside a second. I had died thousands of times, learned about and loved four people in a way few ever had the chance. I had called a place home where details such as life and death didn't matter, where what did matter were the trembling moments of connection in between.\n\nAnd afterward, you felt nothing but awe for every second of your little life.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nSo began life outside the Neverworld.\n\nIt was different from what I remembered. _I_ was different.\n\nAnd it wasn't just the scar of a reverse question mark wrapping around my skull above my right ear. My hair hid the scar, but it was there if you looked for it, my tattoo, my memento. To outsiders I seemed confident, if a little solemn. I was less prone to biting my lip and tucking my hair behind my ears. I no longer worried whether people liked me, or whether I was pretty or had made a mistake. I wasn't afraid to eat in a crowded cafeteria at a table alone or talk to a cute boy I didn't know, or to sing karaoke, audition, give a speech. All the things people spend so much time worrying about in this world\u2014the Neverworld had unchained me from all that. I was no longer in a hurry to fill silence. I could just let it sit forever like a bowl of fruit.\n\nMy parents' friends whispered, \"Beatrice has really come out of her shell,\" and \"You must be so relieved.\" They marveled when they heard the news that I had transferred to Boston College, was majoring in music theory and art history, working part-time at a video game company, volunteering at a nonprofit that had people read books at bedtime to foster children.\n\nIt was those kids I told about the Neverworld Wake.\n\nI told no one else, not even my mom and dad. Somehow I knew that those children, with their wide eyes and knowledge of the dark, their kingdoms of morning and hide-and-seek, naptime, and snack, that they, of everyone, would understand. I told them I'd visited the secretest, wildest wrinkle in all the world. That one day, they might find themselves in one too, some lost dreamland between life and death, where past, present, and future are a jungle and hell can become heaven in the blink of an eye.\n\n\"How do we go there?\" a girl whispered.\n\n\"If you're chosen, it'll find you. But the trick is not to be afraid. Because it isn't so different from this world after all.\"\n\nHad the Neverworld been real? Or had it been a side effect of my injury, the _right-sided subdural hematoma requiring a craniotomy for evacuation,_ eleven days passed in a coma, intubated and sedated. Sam had read me the book. One of my physicians looked like the Keeper. Had it all been in my head? Had my senses, as I slept, pulled details from the boisterous world in motion around me, spinning it into a reality that existed only for me?\n\nOf course the Neverworld had been real, though I could never prove it.\n\nI tried to. I tried to corroborate all the secrets. I discovered that while some things did check out\u2014Mrs. Kahn did live down the road from Wincroft with her collection of snow globes; there was an exclusive marina called Davy Jones's Locker, a Ted Daisy who lived in Cincinnati, an Officer Channing at the Warwick police station who worked in traffic\u2014others didn't. There was no mention of Estella Ornato on the Internet. Honey Love Fried Chicken had once existed, but it had been replaced with a Foot Locker the year before. The White Rabbit, the Black-Footed Sioux Carpet\u2014there was no way of verifying them.\n\nSo many of the dots we had connected could not be connected here.\n\nThe only real evidence of the Neverworld's existence was time. It no longer ran in a straight line for me. Instead, now and then, it looped and lost its balance. An hour would pass in the blink of an eye. I'd sit down for a history lecture and my mind would wander so completely, the bell would ring and I'd realize in shock that everyone was packing up to leave, an entire class's worth of notes scribbled across the dry-erase board, which seconds earlier had been bare.\n\nI'd look around, wondering if the Keeper was nearby, standing in a flower bed planting tulips or atop a ladder trimming ivy, because I recognized this out-of-body interruption for what it was: aftershocks of the Neverworld, instability, just as Martha had warned. My locomotive was skidding ever so slightly along the tracks.\n\nI still thought of Jim. But he was no longer the ghost who haunted me. I saw him as a boy, beautiful and unsteady like the rest of us. I saw our time together closer to what it probably was\u2014something between the wild imagining of love and the real thing. Sometimes in that shaky in-between we found each other and it was real. Other times it trembled and broke like a wild kite with too fragile a string. If Jim hadn't died, our love would have stopped and turned off the lights like the carousel in a traveling carnival, the music, played later, not as beautiful as I'd always thought. We would be barely remembered. In twenty years, we'd find each other on Facebook or whatever came after that, and we'd marvel at how ordinary we'd become, how all the glory we swore we'd seen in each other's eyes was gone.\n\nI thought of my friends every day. Sometimes when I closed my eyes I could feel them beside me. I imagined where they were now. Because they were somewhere. And together. That I knew. I prayed that they were happy\u2014or whatever lay beyond human happiness.\n\nI think they were.\n\nMostly I thought of Martha, who she was and what she had done for me. There wasn't a moment of my life that I didn't owe to her. Sometimes it rendered me listless and sad, made me say no to the frat party, the Sunday-night pizza feast, the Spring Fling, and I'd hole up alone in my dorm, drawing or writing lyrics, left with the painful truth of it, how the people who change us are the ones we never saw clearly at all, not until they were gone.\n\nI'd remember how Jim had insisted that one day I'd think with wonder: _I was friends with Martha Zeigler. That's how big she's gonna be._\n\nHe had been right.\n\nI shouldn't have lived. It should have been Martha. I was never the good one. I saw very little as it truly was. But that was what Martha taught me. We swear we see each other, but all we are ever able to make out is a tiny porthole view of an ocean. We think we remember the past as it was, but our memories are as fantastic and flimsy as dreams. It's so easy to hate the pretty one, worship the genius, love the rock star, trust the good girl.\n\nThat's never their only story.\n\nWe are all anthologies. We are each thousands of pages long, filled with fairy tales and poetry, mysteries and tragedy, forgotten stories in the back no one will ever read.\n\nThe most we can do is hold out our hands and help each other across the unknown. For in our held hands we find pathways through the dark, across jungles and cities, bridges suspended over the deepest caverns of this world. Your friends will walk with you, holding on with all their might, even when they're no longer there.\n\n* * *\n\n\u2014\n\nTwo years after the accident, I published a dream soundtrack.\n\nIt was released by a little publishing house out of Minneapolis called Brace Yourself Books. Not even they knew what to do with it. The market for an album soundtrack for a movie that doesn't exist is a pretty small one.\n\nWhen I received the four printed albums from my publisher, though, I left school and boarded an Amtrak train bound for St. Louis. When I arrived, I took a bus to Winwood Falls, where I hiked a mile past pink brick mansions with shell fountains to a cemetery called Ardenwood. With a map I took the self-guided walking tour past mausoleums of famous writers and captains of industry, peeling off when I found a section for the new graves.\n\nWhitley was up a stone path on a hill. Standing in front of her marble headstone made me cry, because the quote that Linda had chosen was from one of Jim's best songs, \"Immortal She.\" The fact that she'd had the insight to comb Whitley's Instagram and find it meant that maybe I'd been wrong about her too. Maybe she'd understood her daughter all along.\n\nShe lives on, fireflies in my head.\n\nI will not forget her when I am dead.\n\nShe is my memory, she is my song.\n\nShe is the road when the car is long gone.\n\nShe is the pillow on my bed.\n\nShe is my words, unsaid.\n\nWhen the sun goes dark and the earth is bereft,\n\nShe'll live in the echo the silence left.\n\nI set the little album by the flowers and walked away.\n\nNext, I boarded another Amtrak, bound for New Orleans, and then a bus with broken air-conditioning to Moss Bluff, a town with Spanish moss giving every street corner the shadowed scruff of a three-day beard. I walked the eight miles to Kipling's.\n\nTo my surprise, the house was just as he'd described it: a rambling white mansion of peeling paint, with a white peacock wandering the yard. I'd always thought he exaggerated his life, but in fact, he left out all sorts of colorful details, like the green Cadillac sitting in the middle of the driveway, weeds growing through the floor like hair overtaking old men's ears.\n\nI left the album on the porch swing. When I looked back, I saw a bent-over gray-haired woman in a green housedress examining it. She looked after me, puzzled.\n\nThen Los Angeles: two days on the train, barreling past deserts and strip malls and palm trees. I took a bus to Montecito, where I walked to Cannon's house, a cream-colored Victorian. I slipped the album into the mailbox and jogged down the steps as a car alarm sounded. A man across the street stopped watering his lawn to look at me.\n\nThree days later, I arrived in Providence, Rhode Island. I had read seven mystery novels and twelve magazines, and was out of clean underwear, with a kink in my neck. I walked the final four miles feeling a strange sense of calm, arriving at Ziegler Auto Repair just after dusk.\n\nThere was no one in reception. Most of the lights were off. I stuck the album in the window next to a sign, COFFEE 99\u00a2. As I was leaving, the door to the garage opened.\n\n\"Can I help you?\"\n\nI turned. It was Martha's dad. Though I had never met him, they had the same chin, the same thick glasses. He was wearing oil-streaked coveralls, wiping his hands on a rag.\n\nI introduced myself, telling him I was an old friend of Martha's.\n\n\"Of course. Beatrice, right? That's so nice. It's not often I meet a friend of Martha's.\"\n\n\"I'm here because I made an album. Sort of. I wanted her to have it. It's a soundtrack for a movie that doesn't exist about four unlikely superheroes. They all have these hidden powers. Anyway, I wanted you to have a copy.\"\n\nI held out the album, and he took it, turning it over. He put those thick glasses away and took out reading glasses, placing them on the end of his nose.\n\n\"Ah.\" He glanced up in surprise. \"You dedicated it to Martha?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\" 'To Martha. Who saw me and still believed.' How about that.\" He smiled at me, pointing toward reception. \"You know, I got her posters up in the waiting room. She always had a vision of the world that lay beyond. Even when she was little. Nothing much scared Martha.\"\n\nI let him show me her things, drawings she'd made as a child, a collection of paintings featuring an owl with purple feathers, blueprints of a winged invention she'd made. He showed me the work of Martha's older sister too, a girl named Jenny who had painted incredible canvases of oceans, hiding entire ink kingdoms and words inside the waves.\n\n\"Everything is on loan to us,\" he said, wiping tears from his eyes. \"Even our children.\"\n\nHe offered me a root beer, but I refused, explaining that I had to go.\n\n\"Maybe I'll come back sometime,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, sure. You're always welcome.\"\n\nI left him staring after me, turning the album over in his hands, doubtlessly sensing there was much more I hadn't told him.\n\nThen I was on the bus, staring out the window at the darkened sky. At one point I saw a streak of orange light along the horizon, but it was only the track lights on the ceiling of the bus. The shimmering leaves of the passing branches seemed somehow electric and alive, more than usual, and though I wanted to believe it was some hidden world opening up for me again, I sat back against the seat and told myself the truth.\n\nThis time it was just the wind.\n\u2014\n\nI'd like to thank my editor, Beverly Horowitz, for shepherding me through my first adventure into the world of young adult books. From our first conversation three years ago through the many drafts, her wisdom, humor, and awake-all-night meticulousness were an education and an inspiration. I am also deeply indebted to my agent and friend, Binky Urban, for following me into uncharted territory, always providing unerring advice and insight.\n\nI am especially grateful to the many creative thinkers at Delacorte Press who worked tirelessly on this book's behalf, especially Noreen Herits, John Adamo, Colleen Fellingham, Alison Kolani, Tamar Schwartz, and Rebecca Gudelis. Thanks also to Kate Medina and the team at Penguin Random House, whose commitment to writers and readers, no matter the trend, never fails to awe.\n\nI would like to thank Felicity Blunt, Roxane Eduard, and Mairi Friesen-Escandell for introducing this book to readers abroad; Ron Bernstein for his film rights expertise; Brenda Cronin, Seth Rabinowitz, and Nicole Caruso, confidants and sounding boards; and Anne Pessl, first-draft champion, seer of all blind spots, and wonder-mom.\n\nMost especially I wish to thank to my three Fates, David, Winter, and Avalon, whose vision of the world and reverence for all stories, great and small, are my daily joy.\n\nFinally, I would like to thank every young reader who has ever approached me at a bookstore. It was you who whose passion for characters who empower and overcome inspired me to write this story.\n\n**MARISHA PESSL** is the author of _Night Film_ and _Special Topics in Calamity Physics,_ her bestselling debut, which was awarded the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize and selected as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the _New York Times Book Review._ She lives with her husband and two children in New York City. Visit Marisha online at MarishaPessl.com and on Facebook, and follow @marishapessl on Twitter and Instagram.\n\n# _What's next on  \nyour reading list?_\n\n[Discover your next  \ngreat read!](http:\/\/links.penguinrandomhouse.com\/type\/prhebooklanding\/isbn\/9780399553950\/display\/1)\n\n* * *\n\nGet personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.\n\nSign up now.\n  1. Cover\n  2. Title Page\n  3. Copyright\n  4. Contents\n  5. Dedication\n  6. Epigraph\n  7. Part 1\n    1. Chapter 1\n    2. Chapter 2\n    3. Chapter 3\n    4. Chapter 4\n    5. Chapter 5\n    6. Chapter 6\n    7. Chapter 7\n    8. Chapter 8\n    9. Chapter 9\n  8. Part 2\n    1. Chapter 10\n    2. Chapter 11\n    3. Chapter 12\n    4. Chapter 13\n    5. Chapter 14\n    6. Chapter 15\n    7. Chapter 16\n    8. Chapter 17\n    9. Chapter 18\n  9. Part 3\n    1. Chapter 19\n    2. Chapter 20\n    3. Chapter 21\n    4. Chapter 22\n    5. Chapter 23\n    6. Chapter 24\n    7. Chapter 25\n    8. Chapter 26\n    9. Chapter 27\n  10. Acknowledgments\n  11. About the Author\n\n  1. Cover\n  2. Cover\n  3. Title Page\n  4. Contents\n  5. Start\n\n  1. iii\n  2. iv\n  3. v\n  4. vii\n  5. \n  6. \n  7. \n  8. \n  9. \n  10. \n  11. \n  12. \n  13. \n  14. \n  15. \n  16. \n  17. \n  18. \n  19. \n  20. \n  21. \n  22. \n  23. \n  24. \n  25. \n  26. \n  27. \n  28. \n  29. \n  30. \n  31. \n  32. \n  33. \n  34. \n  35. \n  36. \n  37. \n  38. \n  39. \n  40. \n  41. \n  42. \n  43. \n  44. \n  45. \n  46. \n  47. \n  48. \n  49. \n  50. \n  51. \n  52. \n  53. \n  54. \n  55. \n  56. \n  57. \n  58. \n  59. \n  60. \n  61. \n  62. \n  63. \n  64. \n  65. \n  66. \n  67. \n  68. \n  69. \n  70. \n  71. \n  72. \n  73. \n  74. \n  75. \n  76. \n  77. \n  78. \n  79. \n  80. \n  81. \n  82. \n  83. \n  84. \n  85. \n  86. \n  87. \n  88. \n  89. \n  90. \n  91. \n  92. \n  93. \n  94. \n  95. \n  96. \n  97. \n  98. \n  99. \n  100. \n  101. \n  102. \n  103. \n  104. \n  105. \n  106. \n  107. \n  108. \n  109. \n  110. \n  111. \n  112. \n  113. \n  114. \n  115. \n  116. \n  117. \n  118. \n  119. \n  120. \n  121. \n  122. \n  123. \n  124. \n  125. \n  126. \n  127. \n  128. \n  129. \n  130. \n  131. \n  132. \n  133. \n  134. \n  135. \n  136. \n  137. \n  138. \n  139. \n  140. \n  141. \n  142. \n  143. \n  144. \n  145. \n  146. \n  147. \n  148. \n  149. \n  150. \n  151. \n  152. \n  153. \n  154. \n  155. \n  156. \n  157. \n  158. \n  159. \n  160. \n  161. \n  162. \n  163. \n  164. \n  165. \n  166. \n  167. \n  168. \n  169. \n  170. \n  171. \n  172. \n  173. \n  174. \n  175. \n  176. \n  177. \n  178. \n  179. \n  180. \n  181. \n  182. \n  183. \n  184. \n  185. \n  186. \n  187. \n  188. \n  189. \n  190. \n  191. \n  192. \n  193. \n  194. \n  195. \n  196. \n  197. \n  198. \n  199. \n  200. \n  201. \n  202. \n  203. \n  204. \n  205. \n  206. \n  207. \n  208. \n  209. \n  210. \n  211. \n  212. \n  213. \n  214. \n  215. \n  216. \n  217. \n  218. \n  219. \n  220. \n  221. \n  222. \n  223. \n  224. \n  225. \n  226. \n  227. \n  228. \n  229. \n  230. \n  231. \n  232. \n  233. \n  234. \n  235. \n  236. \n  237. \n  238. \n  239. \n  240. \n  241. \n  242. \n  243. \n  244. \n  245. \n  246. \n  247. \n  248. \n  249. \n  250. \n  251. \n  252. \n  253. \n  254. \n  255. \n  256. \n  257. \n  258. \n  259. \n  260. \n  261. \n  262. \n  263. \n  264. \n  265. \n  266. \n  267. \n  268. \n  269. \n  270. \n  271. \n  272. \n  273. \n  274. \n  275. \n  276. \n  277. \n  278. \n  279. \n  280. \n  281. \n  282. \n  283. \n  284. \n  285. \n  286. \n  287. \n  288. \n  289. \n  290. \n  291. \n  292. \n  293. \n  294. \n  295. \n  296. \n  297. \n  298. \n  299. \n  300. \n  301. \n  302. \n  303. \n  304. \n  305. \n  306. \n  307. \n  308. \n  309. \n  310. \n  311. \n  312. \n  313. \n  314. \n  315. \n  316. \n  317. \n  318. \n  319. \n  320. \n  321. \n  322. \n  323. \n  324. \n  325. \n  326. \n  327. \n  328.\n\n","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}
+{"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n          A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT\n\n                             by\n\n                         MARK TWAIN\n                     (Samuel L. Clemens)\n\n                           Part 3.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nSLOW TORTURE\n\nStraight off, we were in the country.  It was most lovely and\npleasant in those sylvan solitudes in the early cool morning\nin the first freshness of autumn.  From hilltops we saw fair\ngreen valleys lying spread out below, with streams winding through\nthem, and island groves of trees here and there, and huge lonely\noaks scattered about and casting black blots of shade; and beyond\nthe valleys we saw the ranges of hills, blue with haze, stretching\naway in billowy perspective to the horizon, with at wide intervals\na dim fleck of white or gray on a wave-summit, which we knew was\na castle.  We crossed broad natural lawns sparkling with dew,\nand we moved like spirits, the cushioned turf giving out no sound\nof footfall; we dreamed along through glades in a mist of green\nlight that got its tint from the sun-drenched roof of leaves\noverhead, and by our feet the clearest and coldest of runlets\nwent frisking and gossiping over its reefs and making a sort of\nwhispering music, comfortable to hear; and at times we left the\nworld behind and entered into the solemn great deeps and rich\ngloom of the forest, where furtive wild things whisked and scurried\nby and were gone before you could even get your eye on the place\nwhere the noise was; and where only the earliest birds were turning\nout and getting to business with a song here and a quarrel yonder\nand a mysterious far-off hammering and drumming for worms on\na tree trunk away somewhere in the impenetrable remotenesses of\nthe woods.  And by and by out we would swing again into the glare.\n\nAbout the third or fourth or fifth time that we swung out into\nthe glare--it was along there somewhere, a couple of hours or so\nafter sun-up--it wasn't as pleasant as it had been.  It was\nbeginning to get hot.  This was quite noticeable.  We had a very\nlong pull, after that, without any shade.  Now it is curious how\nprogressively little frets grow and multiply after they once get\na start.  Things which I didn't mind at all, at first, I began\nto mind now--and more and more, too, all the time.  The first\nten or fifteen times I wanted my handkerchief I didn't seem to care;\nI got along, and said never mind, it isn't any matter, and dropped\nit out of my mind.  But now it was different; I wanted it all\nthe time; it was nag, nag, nag, right along, and no rest; I couldn't\nget it out of my mind; and so at last I lost my temper and said\nhang a man that would make a suit of armor without any pockets\nin it.  You see I had my handkerchief in my helmet; and some other\nthings; but it was that kind of a helmet that you can't take off\nby yourself.  That hadn't occurred to me when I put it there;\nand in fact I didn't know it.  I supposed it would be particularly\nconvenient there.  And so now, the thought of its being there,\nso handy and close by, and yet not get-at-able, made it all the\nworse and the harder to bear.  Yes, the thing that you can't get\nis the thing that you want, mainly; every one has noticed that.\nWell, it took my mind off from everything else; took it clear off,\nand centered it in my helmet; and mile after mile, there it stayed,\nimagining the handkerchief, picturing the handkerchief; and it\nwas bitter and aggravating to have the salt sweat keep trickling\ndown into my eyes, and I couldn't get at it.  It seems like a little\nthing, on paper, but it was not a little thing at all; it was\nthe most real kind of misery.  I would not say it if it was not so.\nI made up my mind that I would carry along a reticule next time,\nlet it look how it might, and people say what they would.  Of course\nthese iron dudes of the Round Table would think it was scandalous,\nand maybe raise Sheol about it, but as for me, give me comfort\nfirst, and style afterwards.  So we jogged along, and now and then\nwe struck a stretch of dust, and it would tumble up in clouds and\nget into my nose and make me sneeze and cry; and of course I said\nthings I oughtn't to have said, I don't deny that.  I am not\nbetter than others.\n\nWe couldn't seem to meet anybody in this lonesome Britain, not\neven an ogre; and, in the mood I was in then, it was well for\nthe ogre; that is, an ogre with a handkerchief.  Most knights\nwould have thought of nothing but getting his armor; but so I got\nhis bandanna, he could keep his hardware, for all of me.\n\nMeantime, it was getting hotter and hotter in there.  You see,\nthe sun was beating down and warming up the iron more and more\nall the time.  Well, when you are hot, that way, every little thing\nirritates you.  When I trotted, I rattled like a crate of dishes,\nand that annoyed me; and moreover I couldn't seem to stand that\nshield slatting and banging, now about my breast, now around my\nback; and if I dropped into a walk my joints creaked and screeched\nin that wearisome way that a wheelbarrow does, and as we didn't\ncreate any breeze at that gait, I was like to get fried in that\nstove; and besides, the quieter you went the heavier the iron\nsettled down on you and the more and more tons you seemed to weigh\nevery minute.  And you had to be always changing hands, and passing\nyour spear over to the other foot, it got so irksome for one hand\nto hold it long at a time.\n\nWell, you know, when you perspire that way, in rivers, there comes\na time when you--when you--well, when you itch.  You are inside,\nyour hands are outside; so there you are; nothing but iron between.\nIt is not a light thing, let it sound as it may.  First it is one\nplace; then another; then some more; and it goes on spreading and\nspreading, and at last the territory is all occupied, and nobody\ncan imagine what you feel like, nor how unpleasant it is.  And\nwhen it had got to the worst, and it seemed to me that I could\nnot stand anything more, a fly got in through the bars and settled\non my nose, and the bars were stuck and wouldn't work, and I\ncouldn't get the visor up; and I could only shake my head, which\nwas baking hot by this time, and the fly--well, you know how a fly\nacts when he has got a certainty--he only minded the shaking enough\nto change from nose to lip, and lip to ear, and buzz and buzz\nall around in there, and keep on lighting and biting, in a way\nthat a person, already so distressed as I was, simply could not\nstand.  So I gave in, and got Alisande to unship the helmet and\nrelieve me of it.  Then she emptied the conveniences out of it\nand fetched it full of water, and I drank and then stood up, and\nshe poured the rest down inside the armor. One cannot think how\nrefreshing it was.  She continued to fetch and pour until I was\nwell soaked and thoroughly comfortable.\n\nIt was good to have a rest--and peace.  But nothing is quite\nperfect in this life, at any time.  I had made a pipe a while back,\nand also some pretty fair tobacco; not the real thing, but what\nsome of the Indians use: the inside bark of the willow, dried.\nThese comforts had been in the helmet, and now I had them again,\nbut no matches.\n\nGradually, as the time wore along, one annoying fact was borne in\nupon my understanding--that we were weather-bound.  An armed novice\ncannot mount his horse without help and plenty of it.  Sandy was\nnot enough; not enough for me, anyway.  We had to wait until\nsomebody should come along.  Waiting, in silence, would have been\nagreeable enough, for I was full of matter for reflection, and\nwanted to give it a chance to work.  I wanted to try and think out\nhow it was that rational or even half-rational men could ever\nhave learned to wear armor, considering its inconveniences; and\nhow they had managed to keep up such a fashion for generations\nwhen it was plain that what I had suffered to-day they had had\nto suffer all the days of their lives.  I wanted to think that out;\nand moreover I wanted to think out some way to reform this evil\nand persuade the people to let the foolish fashion die out; but\nthinking was out of the question in the circumstances.  You couldn't\nthink, where Sandy was.\n\nShe was a quite biddable creature and good-hearted, but she had\na flow of talk that was as steady as a mill, and made your head\nsore like the drays and wagons in a city.  If she had had a cork\nshe would have been a comfort.  But you can't cork that kind;\nthey would die.  Her clack was going all day, and you would think\nsomething would surely happen to her works, by and by; but no,\nthey never got out of order; and she never had to slack up for\nwords.  She could grind, and pump, and churn, and buzz by the week,\nand never stop to oil up or blow out.  And yet the result was just\nnothing but wind.  She never had any ideas, any more than a fog\nhas.  She was a perfect blatherskite; I mean for jaw, jaw, jaw,\ntalk, talk, talk, jabber, jabber, jabber; but just as good as she\ncould be.  I hadn't minded her mill that morning, on account of\nhaving that hornets' nest of other troubles; but more than once\nin the afternoon I had to say:\n\n\"Take a rest, child; the way you are using up all the domestic air,\nthe kingdom will have to go to importing it by to-morrow, and it's\na low enough treasury without that.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nFREEMEN\n\nYes, it is strange how little a while at a time a person can be\ncontented.  Only a little while back, when I was riding and\nsuffering, what a heaven this peace, this rest, this sweet serenity\nin this secluded shady nook by this purling stream would have\nseemed, where I could keep perfectly comfortable all the time\nby pouring a dipper of water into my armor now and then; yet\nalready I was getting dissatisfied; partly because I could not\nlight my pipe--for, although I had long ago started a match factory,\nI had forgotten to bring matches with me--and partly because we\nhad nothing to eat.  Here was another illustration of the childlike\nimprovidence of this age and people.  A man in armor always trusted\nto chance for his food on a journey, and would have been scandalized\nat the idea of hanging a basket of sandwiches on his spear.  There\nwas probably not a knight of all the Round Table combination who\nwould not rather have died than been caught carrying such a thing\nas that on his flagstaff.  And yet there could not be anything more\nsensible.  It had been my intention to smuggle a couple of sandwiches\ninto my helmet, but I was interrupted in the act, and had to make\nan excuse and lay them aside, and a dog got them.\n\nNight approached, and with it a storm.  The darkness came on fast.\nWe must camp, of course.  I found a good shelter for the demoiselle\nunder a rock, and went off and found another for myself.  But\nI was obliged to remain in my armor, because I could not get it off\nby myself and yet could not allow Alisande to help, because it\nwould have seemed so like undressing before folk.  It would not\nhave amounted to that in reality, because I had clothes on\nunderneath; but the prejudices of one's breeding are not gotten\nrid of just at a jump, and I knew that when it came to stripping\noff that bob-tailed iron petticoat I should be embarrassed.\n\nWith the storm came a change of weather; and the stronger the wind\nblew, and the wilder the rain lashed around, the colder and colder\nit got.  Pretty soon, various kinds of bugs and ants and worms\nand things began to flock in out of the wet and crawl down inside\nmy armor to get warm; and while some of them behaved well enough,\nand snuggled up amongst my clothes and got quiet, the majority\nwere of a restless, uncomfortable sort, and never stayed still,\nbut went on prowling and hunting for they did not know what;\nespecially the ants, which went tickling along in wearisome\nprocession from one end of me to the other by the hour, and are\na kind of creatures which I never wish to sleep with again.\nIt would be my advice to persons situated in this way, to not roll\nor thrash around, because this excites the interest of all the\ndifferent sorts of animals and makes every last one of them want\nto turn out and see what is going on, and this makes things worse\nthan they were before, and of course makes you objurgate harder,\ntoo, if you can.  Still, if one did not roll and thrash around\nhe would die; so perhaps it is as well to do one way as the other;\nthere is no real choice.  Even after I was frozen solid I could\nstill distinguish that tickling, just as a corpse does when he is\ntaking electric treatment.  I said I would never wear armor\nafter this trip.\n\nAll those trying hours whilst I was frozen and yet was in a living\nfire, as you may say, on account of that swarm of crawlers, that\nsame unanswerable question kept circling and circling through my\ntired head: How do people stand this miserable armor?  How have\nthey managed to stand it all these generations?  How can they sleep\nat night for dreading the tortures of next day?\n\nWhen the morning came at last, I was in a bad enough plight: seedy,\ndrowsy, fagged, from want of sleep; weary from thrashing around,\nfamished from long fasting; pining for a bath, and to get rid of\nthe animals; and crippled with rheumatism.  And how had it fared\nwith the nobly born, the titled aristocrat, the Demoiselle Alisande\nla Carteloise?  Why, she was as fresh as a squirrel; she had slept\nlike the dead; and as for a bath, probably neither she nor any\nother noble in the land had ever had one, and so she was not\nmissing it.  Measured by modern standards, they were merely modified\nsavages, those people.  This noble lady showed no impatience to get\nto breakfast--and that smacks of the savage, too.  On their journeys\nthose Britons were used to long fasts, and knew how to bear them;\nand also how to freight up against probable fasts before starting,\nafter the style of the Indian and the anaconda.  As like as not,\nSandy was loaded for a three-day stretch.\n\nWe were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I limping along\nbehind.  In half an hour we came upon a group of ragged poor\ncreatures who had assembled to mend the thing which was regarded\nas a road.  They were as humble as animals to me; and when I\nproposed to breakfast with them, they were so flattered, so\noverwhelmed by this extraordinary condescension of mine that\nat first they were not able to believe that I was in earnest.\nMy lady put up her scornful lip and withdrew to one side; she said\nin their hearing that she would as soon think of eating with the\nother cattle--a remark which embarrassed these poor devils merely\nbecause it referred to them, and not because it insulted or offended\nthem, for it didn't.  And yet they were not slaves, not chattels.\nBy a sarcasm of law and phrase they were freemen.  Seven-tenths\nof the free population of the country were of just their class and\ndegree: small \"independent\" farmers, artisans, etc.; which is\nto say, they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were about\nall of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respect-worthy,\nand to subtract them would have been to subtract the Nation and\nleave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king,\nnobility and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with\nthe arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value\nin any rationally constructed world.  And yet, by ingenious\ncontrivance, this gilded minority, instead of being in the tail\nof the procession where it belonged, was marching head up and\nbanners flying, at the other end of it; had elected itself to be\nthe Nation, and these innumerable clams had permitted it so long\nthat they had come at last to accept it as a truth; and not only\nthat, but to believe it right and as it should be.  The priests\nhad told their fathers and themselves that this ironical state\nof things was ordained of God; and so, not reflecting upon how\nunlike God it would be to amuse himself with sarcasms, and especially\nsuch poor transparent ones as this, they had dropped the matter\nthere and become respectfully quiet.\n\nThe talk of these meek people had a strange enough sound in\na formerly American ear.  They were freemen, but they could not\nleave the estates of their lord or their bishop without his\npermission; they could not prepare their own bread, but must have\ntheir corn ground and their bread baked at his mill and his bakery,\nand pay roundly for the same; they could not sell a piece of their\nown property without paying him a handsome percentage of the\nproceeds, nor buy a piece of somebody else's without remembering\nhim in cash for the privilege; they had to harvest his grain for him\ngratis, and be ready to come at a moment's notice, leaving their\nown crop to destruction by the threatened storm; they had to let\nhim plant fruit trees in their fields, and then keep their indignation\nto themselves when his heedless fruit-gatherers trampled the grain\naround the trees; they had to smother their anger when his hunting\nparties galloped through their fields laying waste the result of\ntheir patient toil; they were not allowed to keep doves themselves,\nand when the swarms from my lord's dovecote settled on their crops\nthey must not lose their temper and kill a bird, for awful would\nthe penalty be; when the harvest was at last gathered, then came\nthe procession of robbers to levy their blackmail upon it: first\nthe Church carted off its fat tenth, then the king's commissioner\ntook his twentieth, then my lord's people made a mighty inroad\nupon the remainder; after which, the skinned freeman had liberty\nto bestow the remnant in his barn, in case it was worth the trouble;\nthere were taxes, and taxes, and taxes, and more taxes, and taxes\nagain, and yet other taxes--upon this free and independent pauper,\nbut none upon his lord the baron or the bishop, none upon the\nwasteful nobility or the all-devouring Church; if the baron would\nsleep unvexed, the freeman must sit up all night after his day's\nwork and whip the ponds to keep the frogs quiet; if the freeman's\ndaughter--but no, that last infamy of monarchical government is\nunprintable; and finally, if the freeman, grown desperate with his\ntortures, found his life unendurable under such conditions, and\nsacrificed it and fled to death for mercy and refuge, the gentle\nChurch condemned him to eternal fire, the gentle law buried him\nat midnight at the cross-roads with a stake through his back,\nand his master the baron or the bishop confiscated all his property\nand turned his widow and his orphans out of doors.\n\nAnd here were these freemen assembled in the early morning to work\non their lord the bishop's road three days each--gratis; every\nhead of a family, and every son of a family, three days each,\ngratis, and a day or so added for their servants.  Why, it was\nlike reading about France and the French, before the ever memorable\nand blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such\nvillany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood--one: a settlement\nof that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for\neach hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of\nthat people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and\nshame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell.\nThere were two \"Reigns of Terror,\" if we would but remember it\nand consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other\nin heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had\nlasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand\npersons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are\nall for the \"horrors\" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror,\nso to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe,\ncompared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty,\nand heart-break?  What is swift death by lightning compared with\ndeath by slow fire at the stake?  A city cemetery could contain the\ncoffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so\ndiligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could\nhardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror\n--that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has\nbeen taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.\n\nThese poor ostensible freemen who were sharing their breakfast\nand their talk with me, were as full of humble reverence for their\nking and Church and nobility as their worst enemy could desire.\nThere was something pitifully ludicrous about it.  I asked them\nif they supposed a nation of people ever existed, who, with a free\nvote in every man's hand, would elect that a single family and its\ndescendants should reign over it forever, whether gifted or boobies,\nto the exclusion of all other families--including the voter's; and\nwould also elect that a certain hundred families should be raised\nto dizzy summits of rank, and clothed on with offensive transmissible\nglories and privileges to the exclusion of the rest of the nation's\nfamilies--_including his own_.\n\nThey all looked unhit, and said they didn't know; that they had\nnever thought about it before, and it hadn't ever occurred to them\nthat a nation could be so situated that every man _could_ have\na say in the government.  I said I had seen one--and that it would\nlast until it had an Established Church.  Again they were all\nunhit--at first.  But presently one man looked up and asked me\nto state that proposition again; and state it slowly, so it could\nsoak into his understanding.  I did it; and after a little he had\nthe idea, and he brought his fist down and said _he_ didn't believe\na nation where every man had a vote would voluntarily get down\nin the mud and dirt in any such way; and that to steal from a nation\nits will and preference must be a crime and the first of all crimes.\nI said to myself:\n\n\"This one's a man.  If I were backed by enough of his sort, I would\nmake a strike for the welfare of this country, and try to prove\nmyself its loyalest citizen by making a wholesome change in its\nsystem of government.\"\n\nYou see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to\nits institutions or its office-holders.  The country is the real\nthing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing\nto watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are\nextraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out,\nbecome ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body\nfrom winter, disease, and death.  To be loyal to rags, to shout\nfor rags, to worship rags, to die for rags--that is a loyalty\nof unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented\nby monarchy; let monarchy keep it.  I was from Connecticut, whose\nConstitution declares \"that all political power is inherent in\nthe people, and all free governments are founded on their authority\nand instituted for their benefit; and that they have _at all times_\nan undeniable and indefeasible right to _alter their form of\ngovernment_ in such a manner as they may think expedient.\"\n\nUnder that gospel, the citizen who thinks he sees that the\ncommonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his\npeace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is\na traitor.  That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this\ndecay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate anyway, and\nit is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see\nthe matter as he does.\n\nAnd now here I was, in a country where a right to say how the\ncountry should be governed was restricted to six persons in each\nthousand of its population.  For the nine hundred and ninety-four\nto express dissatisfaction with the regnant system and propose\nto change it, would have made the whole six shudder as one man,\nit would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black\ntreason.  So to speak, I was become a stockholder in a corporation\nwhere nine hundred and ninety-four of the members furnished all\nthe money and did all the work, and the other six elected themselves\na permanent board of direction and took all the dividends.  It seemed\nto me that what the nine hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was\na new deal.  The thing that would have best suited the circus side\nof my nature would have been to resign the Boss-ship and get up\nan insurrection and turn it into a revolution; but I knew that the\nJack Cade or the Wat Tyler who tries such a thing without first\neducating his materials up to revolution grade is almost absolutely\ncertain to get left.  I had never been accustomed to getting left,\neven if I do say it myself.  Wherefore, the \"deal\" which had been\nfor some time working into shape in my mind was of a quite different\npattern from the Cade-Tyler sort.\n\nSo I did not talk blood and insurrection to that man there who sat\nmunching black bread with that abused and mistaught herd of human\nsheep, but took him aside and talked matter of another sort to him.\nAfter I had finished, I got him to lend me a little ink from his\nveins; and with this and a sliver I wrote on a piece of bark--\n\n   Put him in the Man-factory--\n\nand gave it to him, and said:\n\n\"Take it to the palace at Camelot and give it into the hands of\nAmyas le Poulet, whom I call Clarence, and he will understand.\"\n\n\"He is a priest, then,\" said the man, and some of the enthusiasm\nwent out of his face.\n\n\"How--a priest?  Didn't I tell you that no chattel of the Church,\nno bond-slave of pope or bishop can enter my Man-Factory?  Didn't\nI tell you that _you_ couldn't enter unless your religion, whatever\nit might be, was your own free property?\"\n\n\"Marry, it is so, and for that I was glad; wherefore it liked me not,\nand bred in me a cold doubt, to hear of this priest being there.\"\n\n\"But he isn't a priest, I tell you.\"\n\nThe man looked far from satisfied.  He said:\n\n\"He is not a priest, and yet can read?\"\n\n\"He is not a priest and yet can read--yes, and write, too, for that\nmatter.  I taught him myself.\" The man's face cleared.  \"And it is\nthe first thing that you yourself will be taught in that Factory--\"\n\n\"I?  I would give blood out of my heart to know that art.  Why,\nI will be your slave, your--\"\n\n\"No you won't, you won't be anybody's slave.  Take your family\nand go along.  Your lord the bishop will confiscate your small\nproperty, but no matter.  Clarence will fix you all right.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n\"DEFEND THEE, LORD\"\n\nI paid three pennies for my breakfast, and a most extravagant\nprice it was, too, seeing that one could have breakfasted a dozen\npersons for that money; but I was feeling good by this time, and\nI had always been a kind of spendthrift anyway; and then these\npeople had wanted to give me the food for nothing, scant as\ntheir provision was, and so it was a grateful pleasure to emphasize\nmy appreciation and sincere thankfulness with a good big financial\nlift where the money would do so much more good than it would\nin my helmet, where, these pennies being made of iron and not\nstinted in weight, my half-dollar's worth was a good deal of a\nburden to me.  I spent money rather too freely in those days,\nit is true; but one reason for it was that I hadn't got the\nproportions of things entirely adjusted, even yet, after so long\na sojourn in Britain--hadn't got along to where I was able to\nabsolutely realize that a penny in Arthur's land and a couple of\ndollars in Connecticut were about one and the same thing: just\ntwins, as you may say, in purchasing power.  If my start from\nCamelot could have been delayed a very few days I could have paid\nthese people in beautiful new coins from our own mint, and that\nwould have pleased me; and them, too, not less.  I had adopted\nthe American values exclusively.  In a week or two now, cents,\nnickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, and also a trifle of\ngold, would be trickling in thin but steady streams all through\nthe commercial veins of the kingdom, and I looked to see this\nnew blood freshen up its life.\n\nThe farmers were bound to throw in something, to sort of offset\nmy liberality, whether I would or no; so I let them give me a flint\nand steel; and as soon as they had comfortably bestowed Sandy\nand me on our horse, I lit my pipe.  When the first blast of smoke\nshot out through the bars of my helmet, all those people broke\nfor the woods, and Sandy went over backwards and struck the ground\nwith a dull thud.  They thought I was one of those fire-belching\ndragons they had heard so much about from knights and other\nprofessional liars.  I had infinite trouble to persuade those people\nto venture back within explaining distance.  Then I told them that\nthis was only a bit of enchantment which would work harm to none\nbut my enemies.  And I promised, with my hand on my heart, that\nif all who felt no enmity toward me would come forward and pass\nbefore me they should see that only those who remained behind would\nbe struck dead.  The procession moved with a good deal of promptness.\nThere were no casualties to report, for nobody had curiosity enough\nto remain behind to see what would happen.\n\nI lost some time, now, for these big children, their fears gone,\nbecame so ravished with wonder over my awe-compelling fireworks\nthat I had to stay there and smoke a couple of pipes out before\nthey would let me go.  Still the delay was not wholly unproductive,\nfor it took all that time to get Sandy thoroughly wonted to the new\nthing, she being so close to it, you know.  It plugged up her\nconversation mill, too, for a considerable while, and that was\na gain.  But above all other benefits accruing, I had learned\nsomething.  I was ready for any giant or any ogre that might come\nalong, now.\n\nWe tarried with a holy hermit, that night, and my opportunity\ncame about the middle of the next afternoon.  We were crossing\na vast meadow by way of short-cut, and I was musing absently,\nhearing nothing, seeing nothing, when Sandy suddenly interrupted\na remark which she had begun that morning, with the cry:\n\n\"Defend thee, lord!--peril of life is toward!\"\n\nAnd she slipped down from the horse and ran a little way and stood.\nI looked up and saw, far off in the shade of a tree, half a dozen\narmed knights and their squires; and straightway there was bustle\namong them and tightening of saddle-girths for the mount.  My pipe\nwas ready and would have been lit, if I had not been lost in\nthinking about how to banish oppression from this land and restore\nto all its people their stolen rights and manhood without disobliging\nanybody.  I lit up at once, and by the time I had got a good head\nof reserved steam on, here they came.  All together, too; none of\nthose chivalrous magnanimities which one reads so much about\n--one courtly rascal at a time, and the rest standing by to see fair\nplay.  No, they came in a body, they came with a whirr and a rush,\nthey came like a volley from a battery; came with heads low down,\nplumes streaming out behind, lances advanced at a level.  It was\na handsome sight, a beautiful sight--for a man up a tree.  I laid\nmy lance in rest and waited, with my heart beating, till the iron\nwave was just ready to break over me, then spouted a column of\nwhite smoke through the bars of my helmet.  You should have seen\nthe wave go to pieces and scatter!  This was a finer sight than\nthe other one.\n\nBut these people stopped, two or three hundred yards away, and\nthis troubled me.  My satisfaction collapsed, and fear came;\nI judged I was a lost man.  But Sandy was radiant; and was going\nto be eloquent--but I stopped her, and told her my magic had\nmiscarried, somehow or other, and she must mount, with all despatch,\nand we must ride for life.  No, she wouldn't.  She said that my\nenchantment had disabled those knights; they were not riding on,\nbecause they couldn't; wait, they would drop out of their saddles\npresently, and we would get their horses and harness.  I could not\ndeceive such trusting simplicity, so I said it was a mistake; that\nwhen my fireworks killed at all, they killed instantly; no, the men\nwould not die, there was something wrong about my apparatus,\nI couldn't tell what; but we must hurry and get away, for those\npeople would attack us again, in a minute.  Sandy laughed, and said:\n\n\"Lack-a-day, sir, they be not of that breed!  Sir Launcelot will\ngive battle to dragons, and will abide by them, and will assail\nthem again, and yet again, and still again, until he do conquer\nand destroy them; and so likewise will Sir Pellinore and Sir Aglovale\nand Sir Carados, and mayhap others, but there be none else that\nwill venture it, let the idle say what the idle will.  And, la,\nas to yonder base rufflers, think ye they have not their fill,\nbut yet desire more?\"\n\n\"Well, then, what are they waiting for?  Why don't they leave?\nNobody's hindering.  Good land, I'm willing to let bygones be\nbygones, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"Leave, is it?  Oh, give thyself easement as to that.  They dream\nnot of it, no, not they.  They wait to yield them.\"\n\n\"Come--really, is that 'sooth'--as you people say?  If they want to,\nwhy don't they?\"\n\n\"It would like them much; but an ye wot how dragons are esteemed,\nye would not hold them blamable. They fear to come.\"\n\n\"Well, then, suppose I go to them instead, and--\"\n\n\"Ah, wit ye well they would not abide your coming.  I will go.\"\n\nAnd she did.  She was a handy person to have along on a raid.\nI would have considered this a doubtful errand, myself.  I presently\nsaw the knights riding away, and Sandy coming back.  That was\na relief.  I judged she had somehow failed to get the first innings\n--I mean in the conversation; otherwise the interview wouldn't have\nbeen so short.  But it turned out that she had managed the business\nwell; in fact, admirably.  She said that when she told those people\nI was The Boss, it hit them where they lived: \"smote them sore\nwith fear and dread\" was her word; and then they were ready to\nput up with anything she might require.  So she swore them to appear\nat Arthur's court within two days and yield them, with horse and\nharness, and be my knights henceforth, and subject to my command.\nHow much better she managed that thing than I should have done\nit myself!  She was a daisy.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nSANDY'S TALE\n\n\"And so I'm proprietor of some knights,\" said I, as we rode off.\n\"Who would ever have supposed that I should live to list up assets\nof that sort.  I shan't know what to do with them; unless I raffle\nthem off.  How many of them are there, Sandy?\"\n\n\"Seven, please you, sir, and their squires.\"\n\n\"It is a good haul.  Who are they?  Where do they hang out?\"\n\n\"Where do they hang out?\"\n\n\"Yes, where do they live?\"\n\n\"Ah, I understood thee not.  That will I tell eftsoons.\"  Then she\nsaid musingly, and softly, turning the words daintily over her\ntongue: \"Hang they out--hang they out--where hang--where do they\nhang out; eh, right so; where do they hang out.  Of a truth the\nphrase hath a fair and winsome grace, and is prettily worded\nwithal.  I will repeat it anon and anon in mine idlesse, whereby\nI may peradventure learn it.  Where do they hang out.  Even so!\nalready it falleth trippingly from my tongue, and forasmuch as--\"\n\n\"Don't forget the cowboys, Sandy.\"\n\n\"Cowboys?\"\n\n\"Yes; the knights, you know: You were going to tell me about them.\nA while back, you remember.  Figuratively speaking, game's called.\"\n\n\"Game--\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, yes!  Go to the bat.  I mean, get to work on your\nstatistics, and don't burn so much kindling getting your fire\nstarted.  Tell me about the knights.\"\n\n\"I will well, and lightly will begin.  So they two departed and\nrode into a great forest.  And--\"\n\n\"Great Scott!\"\n\nYou see, I recognized my mistake at once.  I had set her works\na-going; it was my own fault; she would be thirty days getting down\nto those facts.  And she generally began without a preface and\nfinished without a result.  If you interrupted her she would either\ngo right along without noticing, or answer with a couple of words,\nand go back and say the sentence over again.  So, interruptions\nonly did harm; and yet I had to interrupt, and interrupt pretty\nfrequently, too, in order to save my life; a person would die if\nhe let her monotony drip on him right along all day.\n\n\"Great Scott!\" I said in my distress.  She went right back and\nbegan over again:\n\n\"So they two departed and rode into a great forest.  And--\"\n\n\"_Which_ two?\"\n\n\"Sir Gawaine and Sir Uwaine.  And so they came to an abbey of monks,\nand there were well lodged.  So on the morn they heard their masses\nin the abbey, and so they rode forth till they came to a great\nforest; then was Sir Gawaine ware in a valley by a turret, of\ntwelve fair damsels, and two knights armed on great horses, and\nthe damsels went to and fro by a tree.  And then was Sir Gawaine\nware how there hung a white shield on that tree, and ever as the\ndamsels came by it they spit upon it, and some threw mire upon\nthe shield--\"\n\n\"Now, if I hadn't seen the like myself in this country, Sandy,\nI wouldn't believe it.  But I've seen it, and I can just see those\ncreatures now, parading before that shield and acting like that.\nThe women here do certainly act like all possessed.  Yes, and\nI mean your best, too, society's very choicest brands.  The humblest\nhello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could teach gentleness,\npatience, modesty, manners, to the highest duchess in Arthur's land.\"\n\n\"Hello-girl?\"\n\n\"Yes, but don't you ask me to explain; it's a new kind of a girl;\nthey don't have them here; one often speaks sharply to them when\nthey are not the least in fault, and he can't get over feeling\nsorry for it and ashamed of himself in thirteen hundred years,\nit's such shabby mean conduct and so unprovoked; the fact is,\nno gentleman ever does it--though I--well, I myself, if I've got\nto confess--\"\n\n\"Peradventure she--\"\n\n\"Never mind her; never mind her; I tell you I couldn't ever explain\nher so you would understand.\"\n\n\"Even so be it, sith ye are so minded.  Then Sir Gawaine and\nSir Uwaine went and saluted them, and asked them why they did that\ndespite to the shield.  Sirs, said the damsels, we shall tell you.\nThere is a knight in this country that owneth this white shield,\nand he is a passing good man of his hands, but he hateth all\nladies and gentlewomen, and therefore we do all this despite to\nthe shield.  I will say you, said Sir Gawaine, it beseemeth evil\na good knight to despise all ladies and gentlewomen, and peradventure\nthough he hate you he hath some cause, and peradventure he loveth\nin some other places ladies and gentlewomen, and to be loved again,\nand he such a man of prowess as ye speak of--\"\n\n\"Man of prowess--yes, that is the man to please them, Sandy.\nMan of brains--that is a thing they never think of.  Tom Sayers\n--John Heenan--John L. Sullivan--pity but you could be here.  You\nwould have your legs under the Round Table and a 'Sir' in front\nof your names within the twenty-four hours; and you could bring\nabout a new distribution of the married princesses and duchesses\nof the Court in another twenty-four.  The fact is, it is just\na sort of polished-up court of Comanches, and there isn't a squaw\nin it who doesn't stand ready at the dropping of a hat to desert\nto the buck with the biggest string of scalps at his belt.\"\n\n\"--and he be such a man of prowess as ye speak of, said Sir Gawaine.\nNow, what is his name?  Sir, said they, his name is Marhaus the\nking's son of Ireland.\"\n\n\"Son of the king of Ireland, you mean; the other form doesn't mean\nanything.  And look out and hold on tight, now, we must jump\nthis gully....  There, we are all right now.  This horse belongs in\nthe circus; he is born before his time.\"\n\n\"I know him well, said Sir Uwaine, he is a passing good knight as\nany is on live.\"\n\n\"_On live_.  If you've got a fault in the world, Sandy, it is that\nyou are a shade too archaic.  But it isn't any matter.\"\n\n\"--for I saw him once proved at a justs where many knights were\ngathered, and that time there might no man withstand him.  Ah, said\nSir Gawaine, damsels, methinketh ye are to blame, for it is to\nsuppose he that hung that shield there will not be long therefrom,\nand then may those knights match him on horseback, and that is\nmore your worship than thus; for I will abide no longer to see\na knight's shield dishonored.  And therewith Sir Uwaine and\nSir Gawaine departed a little from them, and then were they ware\nwhere Sir Marhaus came riding on a great horse straight toward\nthem.  And when the twelve damsels saw Sir Marhaus they fled into\nthe turret as they were wild, so that some of them fell by the way.\nThen the one of the knights of the tower dressed his shield, and\nsaid on high, Sir Marhaus defend thee.  And so they ran together\nthat the knight brake his spear on Marhaus, and Sir Marhaus smote\nhim so hard that he brake his neck and the horse's back--\"\n\n\"Well, that is just the trouble about this state of things,\nit ruins so many horses.\"\n\n\"That saw the other knight of the turret, and dressed him toward\nMarhaus, and they went so eagerly together, that the knight of\nthe turret was soon smitten down, horse and man, stark dead--\"\n\n\"_Another_ horse gone; I tell you it is a custom that ought to be\nbroken up.  I don't see how people with any feeling can applaud\nand support it.\"\n\n    .   .   .   .\n\n\"So these two knights came together with great random--\"\n\nI saw that I had been asleep and missed a chapter, but I didn't\nsay anything.  I judged that the Irish knight was in trouble with\nthe visitors by this time, and this turned out to be the case.\n\n\"--that Sir Uwaine smote Sir Marhaus that his spear brast in pieces\non the shield, and Sir Marhaus smote him so sore that horse and\nman he bare to the earth, and hurt Sir Uwaine on the left side--\"\n\n\"The truth is, Alisande, these archaics are a little _too_ simple;\nthe vocabulary is too limited, and so, by consequence, descriptions\nsuffer in the matter of variety; they run too much to level Saharas\nof fact, and not enough to picturesque detail; this throws about\nthem a certain air of the monotonous; in fact the fights are all\nalike: a couple of people come together with great random\n--random is a good word, and so is exegesis, for that matter, and\nso is holocaust, and defalcation, and usufruct and a hundred others,\nbut land! a body ought to discriminate--they come together with\ngreat random, and a spear is brast, and one party brake his shield\nand the other one goes down, horse and man, over his horse-tail\nand brake his neck, and then the next candidate comes randoming in,\nand brast _his_ spear, and the other man brast his shield, and down\n_he_ goes, horse and man, over his horse-tail, and brake _his_ neck,\nand then there's another elected, and another and another and still\nanother, till the material is all used up; and when you come to\nfigure up results, you can't tell one fight from another, nor who\nwhipped; and as a _picture_, of living, raging, roaring battle,\nsho! why, it's pale and noiseless--just ghosts scuffling in a fog.\nDear me, what would this barren vocabulary get out of the mightiest\nspectacle?--the burning of Rome in Nero's time, for instance?\nWhy, it would merely say, 'Town burned down; no insurance; boy\nbrast a window, fireman brake his neck!'  Why, _that_ ain't a picture!\"\n\nIt was a good deal of a lecture, I thought, but it didn't disturb\nSandy, didn't turn a feather; her steam soared steadily up again,\nthe minute I took off the lid:\n\n\"Then Sir Marhaus turned his horse and rode toward Gawaine with\nhis spear.  And when Sir Gawaine saw that, he dressed his shield,\nand they aventred their spears, and they came together with all\nthe might of their horses, that either knight smote other so hard\nin the midst of their shields, but Sir Gawaine's spear brake--\"\n\n\"I knew it would.\"\n\n--\"but Sir Marhaus's spear held; and therewith Sir Gawaine and\nhis horse rushed down to the earth--\"\n\n\"Just so--and brake his back.\"\n\n--\"and lightly Sir Gawaine rose upon his feet and pulled out\nhis sword, and dressed him toward Sir Marhaus on foot, and therewith\neither came unto other eagerly, and smote together with their\nswords, that their shields flew in cantels, and they bruised their\nhelms and their hauberks, and wounded either other.  But Sir Gawaine,\nfro it passed nine of the clock, waxed by the space of three hours\never stronger and stronger and thrice his might was increased.\nAll this espied Sir Marhaus, and had great wonder how his might\nincreased, and so they wounded other passing sore; and then when\nit was come noon--\"\n\nThe pelting sing-song of it carried me forward to scenes and\nsounds of my boyhood days:\n\n\"N-e-e-ew Haven! ten minutes for refreshments--knductr'll strike\nthe gong-bell two minutes before train leaves--passengers for\nthe Shore-line please take seats in the rear k'yar, this k'yar\ndon't go no furder--_ahh_-pls, _aw_-rnjz, b'_nan_ners,\n_s-a-n-d_'ches, p--_op_-corn!\"\n\n--\"and waxed past noon and drew toward evensong.  Sir Gawaine's\nstrength feebled and waxed passing faint, that unnethes he might\ndure any longer, and Sir Marhaus was then bigger and bigger--\"\n\n\"Which strained his armor, of course; and yet little would one\nof these people mind a small thing like that.\"\n\n--\"and so, Sir Knight, said Sir Marhaus, I have well felt that\nye are a passing good knight, and a marvelous man of might as ever\nI felt any, while it lasteth, and our quarrels are not great, and\ntherefore it were a pity to do you hurt, for I feel you are passing\nfeeble.  Ah, said Sir Gawaine, gentle knight, ye say the word\nthat I should say.  And therewith they took off their helms and\neither kissed other, and there they swore together either to love\nother as brethren--\"\n\nBut I lost the thread there, and dozed off to slumber, thinking\nabout what a pity it was that men with such superb strength\n--strength enabling them to stand up cased in cruelly burdensome\niron and drenched with perspiration, and hack and batter and bang\neach other for six hours on a stretch--should not have been born\nat a time when they could put it to some useful purpose.  Take\na jackass, for instance: a jackass has that kind of strength, and\nputs it to a useful purpose, and is valuable to this world because\nhe is a jackass; but a nobleman is not valuable because he is\na jackass.  It is a mixture that is always ineffectual, and should\nnever have been attempted in the first place.  And yet, once you\nstart a mistake, the trouble is done and you never know what is\ngoing to come of it.\n\nWhen I came to myself again and began to listen, I perceived that\nI had lost another chapter, and that Alisande had wandered a long\nway off with her people.\n\n\"And so they rode and came into a deep valley full of stones,\nand thereby they saw a fair stream of water; above thereby was\nthe head of the stream, a fair fountain, and three damsels sitting\nthereby. In this country, said Sir Marhaus, came never knight\nsince it was christened, but he found strange adventures--\"\n\n\"This is not good form, Alisande.  Sir Marhaus the king's son of\nIreland talks like all the rest; you ought to give him a brogue,\nor at least a characteristic expletive; by this means one would\nrecognize him as soon as he spoke, without his ever being named.\nIt is a common literary device with the great authors.  You should\nmake him say, 'In this country, be jabers, came never knight since\nit was christened, but he found strange adventures, be jabers.'\nYou see how much better that sounds.\"\n\n--\"came never knight but he found strange adventures, be jabers.\nOf a truth it doth indeed, fair lord, albeit 'tis passing hard\nto say, though peradventure that will not tarry but better speed\nwith usage.  And then they rode to the damsels, and either saluted\nother, and the eldest had a garland of gold about her head, and\nshe was threescore winter of age or more--\"\n\n\"The _damsel_ was?\"\n\n\"Even so, dear lord--and her hair was white under the garland--\"\n\n\"Celluloid teeth, nine dollars a set, as like as not--the loose-fit\nkind, that go up and down like a portcullis when you eat, and\nfall out when you laugh.\"\n\n\"The second damsel was of thirty winter of age, with a circlet of\ngold about her head.  The third damsel was but fifteen year of age--\"\n\nBillows of thought came rolling over my soul, and the voice faded\nout of my hearing!\n\nFifteen!  Break--my heart! oh, my lost darling!  Just her age\nwho was so gentle, and lovely, and all the world to me, and whom\nI shall never see again!  How the thought of her carries me back\nover wide seas of memory to a vague dim time, a happy time, so many,\nmany centuries hence, when I used to wake in the soft summer\nmornings, out of sweet dreams of her, and say \"Hello, Central!\"\njust to hear her dear voice come melting back to me with a\n\"Hello, Hank!\" that was music of the spheres to my enchanted ear.\nShe got three dollars a week, but she was worth it.\n\nI could not follow Alisande's further explanation of who our\ncaptured knights were, now--I mean in case she should ever get\nto explaining who they were.  My interest was gone, my thoughts\nwere far away, and sad.  By fitful glimpses of the drifting tale,\ncaught here and there and now and then, I merely noted in a vague\nway that each of these three knights took one of these three damsels\nup behind him on his horse, and one rode north, another east,\nthe other south, to seek adventures, and meet again and lie, after\nyear and day.  Year and day--and without baggage.  It was of\na piece with the general simplicity of the country.\n\nThe sun was now setting.  It was about three in the afternoon when\nAlisande had begun to tell me who the cowboys were; so she had made\npretty good progress with it--for her.  She would arrive some time\nor other, no doubt, but she was not a person who could be hurried.\n\nWe were approaching a castle which stood on high ground; a huge,\nstrong, venerable structure, whose gray towers and battlements were\ncharmingly draped with ivy, and whose whole majestic mass was\ndrenched with splendors flung from the sinking sun.  It was the\nlargest castle we had seen, and so I thought it might be the one\nwe were after, but Sandy said no.  She did not know who owned it;\nshe said she had passed it without calling, when she went down\nto Camelot.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nMORGAN LE FAY\n\nIf knights errant were to be believed, not all castles were desirable\nplaces to seek hospitality in.  As a matter of fact, knights errant\nwere _not_ persons to be believed--that is, measured by modern\nstandards of veracity; yet, measured by the standards of their own\ntime, and scaled accordingly, you got the truth.  It was very\nsimple: you discounted a statement ninety-seven per cent; the rest\nwas fact.  Now after making this allowance, the truth remained\nthat if I could find out something about a castle before ringing\nthe door-bell--I mean hailing the warders--it was the sensible\nthing to do.  So I was pleased when I saw in the distance a horseman\nmaking the bottom turn of the road that wound down from this castle.\n\nAs we approached each other, I saw that he wore a plumed helmet,\nand seemed to be otherwise clothed in steel, but bore a curious\naddition also--a stiff square garment like a herald's tabard.\nHowever, I had to smile at my own forgetfulness when I got nearer\nand read this sign on his tabard:\n\n  \"Persimmon's Soap -- All the Prime-Donna Use It.\"\n\nThat was a little idea of my own, and had several wholesome purposes\nin view toward the civilizing and uplifting of this nation.  In the\nfirst place, it was a furtive, underhand blow at this nonsense\nof knight errantry, though nobody suspected that but me.  I had\nstarted a number of these people out--the bravest knights I could\nget--each sandwiched between bulletin-boards bearing one device\nor another, and I judged that by and by when they got to be numerous\nenough they would begin to look ridiculous; and then, even the\nsteel-clad ass that _hadn't_ any board would himself begin to look\nridiculous because he was out of the fashion.\n\nSecondly, these missionaries would gradually, and without creating\nsuspicion or exciting alarm, introduce a rudimentary cleanliness\namong the nobility, and from them it would work down to the people,\nif the priests could be kept quiet.  This would undermine the Church.\nI mean would be a step toward that.  Next, education--next, freedom\n--and then she would begin to crumble.  It being my conviction that\nany Established Church is an established crime, an established\nslave-pen, I had no scruples, but was willing to assail it in\nany way or with any weapon that promised to hurt it.  Why, in my\nown former day--in remote centuries not yet stirring in the womb\nof time--there were old Englishmen who imagined that they had been\nborn in a free country: a \"free\" country with the Corporation Act\nand the Test still in force in it--timbers propped against men's\nliberties and dishonored consciences to shore up an Established\nAnachronism with.\n\nMy missionaries were taught to spell out the gilt signs on their\ntabards--the showy gilding was a neat idea, I could have got the\nking to wear a bulletin-board for the sake of that barbaric\nsplendor--they were to spell out these signs and then explain to\nthe lords and ladies what soap was; and if the lords and ladies\nwere afraid of it, get them to try it on a dog.  The missionary's\nnext move was to get the family together and try it on himself;\nhe was to stop at no experiment, however desperate, that could\nconvince the nobility that soap was harmless; if any final doubt\nremained, he must catch a hermit--the woods were full of them;\nsaints they called themselves, and saints they were believed to be.\nThey were unspeakably holy, and worked miracles, and everybody\nstood in awe of them.  If a hermit could survive a wash, and that\nfailed to convince a duke, give him up, let him alone.\n\nWhenever my missionaries overcame a knight errant on the road\nthey washed him, and when he got well they swore him to go and\nget a bulletin-board and disseminate soap and civilization the rest\nof his days.  As a consequence the workers in the field were\nincreasing by degrees, and the reform was steadily spreading.\nMy soap factory felt the strain early.  At first I had only two\nhands; but before I had left home I was already employing fifteen,\nand running night and day; and the atmospheric result was getting\nso pronounced that the king went sort of fainting and gasping\naround and said he did not believe he could stand it much longer,\nand Sir Launcelot got so that he did hardly anything but walk up\nand down the roof and swear, although I told him it was worse up\nthere than anywhere else, but he said he wanted plenty of air; and\nhe was always complaining that a palace was no place for a soap\nfactory anyway, and said if a man was to start one in his house\nhe would be damned if he wouldn't strangle him.  There were ladies\npresent, too, but much these people ever cared for that; they would\nswear before children, if the wind was their way when the factory\nwas going.\n\nThis missionary knight's name was La Cote Male Taile, and he said\nthat this castle was the abode of Morgan le Fay, sister of\nKing Arthur, and wife of King Uriens, monarch of a realm about\nas big as the District of Columbia--you could stand in the middle\nof it and throw bricks into the next kingdom.  \"Kings\" and \"Kingdoms\"\nwere as thick in Britain as they had been in little Palestine in\nJoshua's time, when people had to sleep with their knees pulled up\nbecause they couldn't stretch out without a passport.\n\nLa Cote was much depressed, for he had scored here the worst\nfailure of his campaign.  He had not worked off a cake; yet he had\ntried all the tricks of the trade, even to the washing of a hermit;\nbut the hermit died.  This was, indeed, a bad failure, for this\nanimal would now be dubbed a martyr, and would take his place\namong the saints of the Roman calendar.  Thus made he his moan,\nthis poor Sir La Cote Male Taile, and sorrowed passing sore.  And\nso my heart bled for him, and I was moved to comfort and stay him.\nWherefore I said:\n\n\"Forbear to grieve, fair knight, for this is not a defeat.  We have\nbrains, you and I; and for such as have brains there are no defeats,\nbut only victories.  Observe how we will turn this seeming disaster\ninto an advertisement; an advertisement for our soap; and the\nbiggest one, to draw, that was ever thought of; an advertisement\nthat will transform that Mount Washington defeat into a Matterhorn\nvictory.  We will put on your bulletin-board, '_Patronized by the\nelect_.'  How does that strike you?\"\n\n\"Verily, it is wonderly bethought!\"\n\n\"Well, a body is bound to admit that for just a modest little\none-line ad, it's a corker.\"\n\nSo the poor colporteur's griefs vanished away.  He was a brave\nfellow, and had done mighty feats of arms in his time.  His chief\ncelebrity rested upon the events of an excursion like this one\nof mine, which he had once made with a damsel named Maledisant,\nwho was as handy with her tongue as was Sandy, though in a different\nway, for her tongue churned forth only railings and insult, whereas\nSandy's music was of a kindlier sort.  I knew his story well, and so\nI knew how to interpret the compassion that was in his face when he\nbade me farewell.  He supposed I was having a bitter hard time of it.\n\nSandy and I discussed his story, as we rode along, and she said\nthat La Cote's bad luck had begun with the very beginning of that\ntrip; for the king's fool had overthrown him on the first day,\nand in such cases it was customary for the girl to desert to the\nconqueror, but Maledisant didn't do it; and also persisted afterward\nin sticking to him, after all his defeats.  But, said I, suppose\nthe victor should decline to accept his spoil?  She said that that\nwouldn't answer--he must.  He couldn't decline; it wouldn't be\nregular.  I made a note of that.  If Sandy's music got to be too\nburdensome, some time, I would let a knight defeat me, on the chance\nthat she would desert to him.\n\nIn due time we were challenged by the warders, from the castle\nwalls, and after a parley admitted.  I have nothing pleasant to\ntell about that visit.  But it was not a disappointment, for I knew\nMrs. le Fay by reputation, and was not expecting anything pleasant.\nShe was held in awe by the whole realm, for she had made everybody\nbelieve she was a great sorceress.  All her ways were wicked, all\nher instincts devilish.  She was loaded to the eyelids with cold\nmalice.  All her history was black with crime; and among her crimes\nmurder was common.  I was most curious to see her; as curious as\nI could have been to see Satan.  To my surprise she was beautiful;\nblack thoughts had failed to make her expression repulsive, age\nhad failed to wrinkle her satin skin or mar its bloomy freshness.\nShe could have passed for old Uriens' granddaughter, she could\nhave been mistaken for sister to her own son.\n\nAs soon as we were fairly within the castle gates we were ordered\ninto her presence.  King Uriens was there, a kind-faced old man\nwith a subdued look; and also the son, Sir Uwaine le Blanchemains,\nin whom I was, of course, interested on account of the tradition\nthat he had once done battle with thirty knights, and also on\naccount of his trip with Sir Gawaine and Sir Marhaus, which Sandy\nhad been aging me with.  But Morgan was the main attraction, the\nconspicuous personality here; she was head chief of this household,\nthat was plain.  She caused us to be seated, and then she began,\nwith all manner of pretty graces and graciousnesses, to ask me\nquestions.  Dear me, it was like a bird or a flute, or something,\ntalking.  I felt persuaded that this woman must have been\nmisrepresented, lied about.  She trilled along, and trilled along,\nand presently a handsome young page, clothed like the rainbow, and\nas easy and undulatory of movement as a wave, came with something\non a golden salver, and, kneeling to present it to her, overdid\nhis graces and lost his balance, and so fell lightly against her\nknee.  She slipped a dirk into him in as matter-of-course a way as\nanother person would have harpooned a rat!\n\nPoor child! he slumped to the floor, twisted his silken limbs in\none great straining contortion of pain, and was dead.  Out of the\nold king was wrung an involuntary \"O-h!\" of compassion.  The look\nhe got, made him cut it suddenly short and not put any more hyphens\nin it.  Sir Uwaine, at a sign from his mother, went to the anteroom\nand called some servants, and meanwhile madame went rippling sweetly\nalong with her talk.\n\nI saw that she was a good housekeeper, for while she talked she\nkept a corner of her eye on the servants to see that they made\nno balks in handling the body and getting it out; when they came\nwith fresh clean towels, she sent back for the other kind; and\nwhen they had finished wiping the floor and were going, she indicated\na crimson fleck the size of a tear which their duller eyes had\noverlooked.  It was plain to me that La Cote Male Taile had failed\nto see the mistress of the house.  Often, how louder and clearer\nthan any tongue, does dumb circumstantial evidence speak.\n\nMorgan le Fay rippled along as musically as ever.  Marvelous woman.\nAnd what a glance she had: when it fell in reproof upon those\nservants, they shrunk and quailed as timid people do when the\nlightning flashes out of a cloud.  I could have got the habit\nmyself.  It was the same with that poor old Brer Uriens; he was\nalways on the ragged edge of apprehension; she could not even turn\ntoward him but he winced.\n\nIn the midst of the talk I let drop a complimentary word about\nKing Arthur, forgetting for the moment how this woman hated her\nbrother.  That one little compliment was enough.  She clouded up\nlike storm; she called for her guards, and said:\n\n\"Hale me these varlets to the dungeons.\"\n\nThat struck cold on my ears, for her dungeons had a reputation.\nNothing occurred to me to say--or do.  But not so with Sandy.\nAs the guard laid a hand upon me, she piped up with the tranquilest\nconfidence, and said:\n\n\"God's wounds, dost thou covet destruction, thou maniac?  It is\nThe Boss!\"\n\nNow what a happy idea that was!--and so simple; yet it would never\nhave occurred to me.  I was born modest; not all over, but in spots;\nand this was one of the spots.\n\nThe effect upon madame was electrical.  It cleared her countenance\nand brought back her smiles and all her persuasive graces and\nblandishments; but nevertheless she was not able to entirely cover up\nwith them the fact that she was in a ghastly fright. She said:\n\n\"La, but do list to thine handmaid! as if one gifted with powers\nlike to mine might say the thing which I have said unto one who\nhas vanquished Merlin, and not be jesting.  By mine enchantments\nI foresaw your coming, and by them I knew you when you entered\nhere.  I did but play this little jest with hope to surprise you\ninto some display of your art, as not doubting you would blast\nthe guards with occult fires, consuming them to ashes on the spot,\na marvel much beyond mine own ability, yet one which I have long\nbeen childishly curious to see.\"\n\nThe guards were less curious, and got out as soon as they got permission.\n\n\n\n\n\nEnd of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's\nCourt, Part 3., by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)\n\n*** ","meta":{"redpajama_set_name":"RedPajamaBook"}}