How that could be-I thought the dead were souls,
he broke my trance. Don't that make you suspicious
That there's something the dead are keeping back?
Yes, there's something the dead are keeping back.
-Robert Frost, "Two Witches"
The week before Christmas is often a quiet one in a funeral parlor1, Shadow learned, over supper. They were sitting in a small restaurant, two blocks from Ibis and Jacquel's Funeral Parlor. Shadow's meal consisted of an all-day full breakfast-it came with hush2 puppies-while Mr. Ibis picked and pecked at a slice of coffee cake. Mr. Ibis explained it to him. "The lingering ones are holding on for one final Christmas," said Mr. Ibis, "or even for New Year's, while the others, the ones for whom other people's jollity and celebration will prove too painful, have not yet been tipped over the edge by that last showing of It's a Wonderful Life, have not quite encountered the final straw, or should I say, the final sprig of holly4 that breaks not the camel's but the reindeer's back." And he made a little noise as he said it, half smirk5, half snort, which suggested that he had just uttered a well-honed phrase of which he was particularly fond.
Ibis and Jacquel was a small, family-owned funeral home: one of the last truly independent funeral homes in the area, or so Mr. Ibis maintained. "Most fields of human merchandising value nationwide brand identities," he said. Mr. Ibis spoke6 in explanations: a gentle, earnest lecturing that put Shadow in mind of a college professor who used to work out at the Muscle Farm and who could not talk, could only discourse7, expound8, explain. Shadow had figured out within the first few minutes of meeting Mr. Ibis that his expected part in any conversation with the funeral director was to say as little as possible. "This, I believe, is because people like to know what they are getting ahead of time. Thus, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, F. W. Woolworth (of blessed memory): store brands maintained and visible across the entire country. Wherever you go, you will get something that is, with small regional variations, the same.
"In the field of funeral homes, however, things are, perforce, different. You need to feel that you are getting smalltown personal service from someone who has a calling to the profession. You want personal attention to you and your loved one in a time of great loss. You wish to know that your grief is happening on a local level, not on a national one. But in all branches of industry-and death is an industry, my young friend, make no mistake about that-one makes one's money from operating in bulk, from buying in quantity, from centralizing one's operations. It's not pretty, but it's true. Trouble is, no one wants to know that their loved ones are traveling in a cooler-van to some big old converted warehouse9 where they may have twenty, fifty, a hundred cadavers10 on the go. No, sir. Folks want to think they're going to a family concern, somewhere they'll be treated with respect by someone who'll tip his hat to them if he sees them in the street."
Mr. Ibis wore a hat. It was a sober brown hat that matched his sober brown blazer and his sober brown face. Small gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. In Shadow's memory Mr. Ibis was a short man; whenever he would stand beside him, Shadow would rediscover that Mr. Ibis was well over six feet in height, with a cranelike stoop. Sitting opposite him now, across the shiny red table, Shadow found himself staring into the man's face.
"So when the big companies come in they buy the name of the company, they pay the funeral directors to stay on, they create the apparency of diversity. But that is merely the tip of the gravestone. In reality, they are as local as Burger King. Now, for our own reasons, we are truly an independent. We do all our own embalming13, and it's the finest embalming in the country, although nobody knows it but us. We don't do cremations, though. We could make more money if we had our own crematorium, but it goes against what we're good at. What my business partner says is, if the Lord gives you a talent or a skill, you have an obligation to use it as best you can. Don't you agree?"
"Sounds good to me," said Shadow.
"The Lord gave my business partner dominion14 over the dead, just as he gave me skill with words. Fine things, words. I write books of tales, you know. Nothing literary. Just for my own amusement. Accounts of lives." He paused. By the time Shadow realized that he should have asked if he might be allowed to read one, the moment had passed. "Anyway, what we give them here is continuity: there's been an Ibis and Jacquel in business here for almost two hundred years. We weren't always funeral directors, though. We used to be morticians, and before that, undertakers"
"And before that?"
"Well," said Mr. Ibis, smiling just a little smugly, "we go back a very long way. Of course, it wasn't until after the War Between the States that we found our niche15 here. That was when we became the funeral parlor for the colored folks hereabouts. Before that no one thought of us as colored-foreign maybe, exotic and dark, but not colored.
Once the war was done, pretty soon, no one could remember a time when we weren't perceived as black. My business partner, he's always had darker skin than mine. It was an easy transition. Mostly you are what they think you are. It's just strange when they talk about African-Americans. Makes me think of the people from Punt, Ophir, Nubia. We never thought of ourselves as Africans-we were the people of the Nile."
"So you were Egyptians," said Shadow.
Mr. Ibis pushed his lower lip upward, then let his head bob from side to side, as if it were on a spring, weighing the pluses and minuses, seeing things from both points of view. "Well, yes and no. 'Egyptians' makes me think of the folk who live there now. The ones who built their cities over our graveyards16 and palaces. Do they look like me?"
Shadow shrugged17. He'd seen black guys who looked like Mr. Ibis. He'd seen white guys with tans who looked like Mr. Ibis.
"How's your coffee cake?" asked the waitress, refilling their coffees.
"Best I ever had," said Mr. Ibis. "You give my best to your ma."
"I'll do that," she said, and bustled18 away.
"You don't want to ask after the health of anyone, if you're a funeral director. They think maybe you're scouting19 for business," said Mr. Ibis, in an undertone. "Shall we see if your room is ready?"
Their breath steamed in the night air. Christmas lights twinkled in the windows of the stores they passed. "It's good of you, putting me up," said Shadow. "I appreciate it."
"We owe your employer a number of favors. And Lord knows, we have the room. It's a big old house. There used to be more of us, you know. Now it's just the three of us. You won't be in the way."
"Any idea how long I'm meant to stay with you?"
Mr. Ibis shook his head. "He didn't say. But we are happy to have you here, and we can find you work. If you are not squeamish. If you treat the dead with respect."
"So," asked Shadow, "what are you people doing here in Cairo? Was it just the name or something?"
"No. Not at all. Actually this region takes its name from us, although people barely know it. It was a trading post back in the old days."
"Frontier times?"
"You might call it that," said Mr. Ibis. "Evening Miz Simmons! And a Merry Christmas to you too! The folk who brought me here came up the Mississippi a long time back."
Shadow stopped in the street, and stared. "Are you trying to tell me that ancient Egyptians came here to trade five thousand years ago?"
Mr. Ibis said nothing, but he smirked20 loudly. Then he said, "Three thousand five hundred and thirty years ago. Give or take."
"Okay," said Shadow. "I'll buy it, I guess. What were they trading?"
"Not much," said Mr. Ibis. "Animal skins. Some food. Copper21 from the mines in what would now be Michigan's upper peninsula. The whole thing was rather a disappointment. Not worth the effort. They stayed here long enough to believe in us, to sacrifice to us, and for a handful of the traders to die of fever and be buried here, leaving us behind them." He stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, turned around slowly, arms extended. "This country has been Grand Central for ten thousand years or more. You say to me, what about Columbus?"
"Sure," said Shadow, obligingly. "What about him?"
"Columbus did what people had been doing for thousands of years. There's nothing special about coming to America. I've been writing stories about it, from time to time." They began to walk again.
"True stories?"
"Up to a point, yes. I'll let you read one or two, if you like. It's all there for anyone who has eyes to see it. Personally-and this is speaking as a subscriber22 to Scientific American, here-I feel very sorry for the professionals whenever they find another confusing skull23, something that belonged to the wrong sort of people, or whenever they find statues or artifacts that confuse them-for they'll talk about the odd, but they won't talk about the impossible, which is where I feel sorry for them, for as soon as something becomes impossible it slipslides out of belief entirely24, whether it's true or not. I mean, here's a skull that shows the Ainu, the Japanese aboriginal25 race, were in America nine thousand years ago. Here's another that shows there were Polynesians in California nearly two thousand years later. And all the scientists mutter and puzzle over who's descended26 from whom, missing the point entirely. Heaven knows what'll happen if they ever actually find the Hopi emergence27 tunnels. That'll shake a few things up, you just wait.
"Did the Irish come to America in the dark ages, you ask me? Of course they did, and the Welsh, and the Vikings, while the Africans from the West Coast-what in later days they called the Slave Coast or the Ivory Coast-they were trading with South America, and the Chinese visited Oregon a couple of times-they called it Fu Sang. The Basque established their secret sacred fishing grounds off the coast of Newfoundland twelve hundred years back. Now, I suppose you're going to say, but Mister Ibis, these people were primitives28, they didn't have radio controls and vitamin pills and jet airplanes."
Shadow hadn't said anything, and hadn't planned to say anything, but he felt it was required of him, so he said, "Well, weren't they?" The last dead leaves of fall crackled underfoot, winter-crisp.
"The misconception is that men didn't travel long distances in boats before the days of Columbus. Yet New Zealand and Tahiti and countless29 Pacific Islands were settled by people in boats whose navigation skills would have put Columbus to shame; and the wealth of Africa was from trading, although that was mostly to the east, to India and China. My people, the Nile folk, we discovered early on that a reed boat will take you around the world, if you have the patience and enough jars of sweet water. You see, the biggest problem with coming to America in the old days was that there wasn't a lot here that anyone wanted to trade, and it was much too far away."
They had reached a large house, built in the style people called Queen Anne. Shadow wondered who Queen Anne was, and why she had been so fond of Addams Family-style houses. It was the only building on the block that wasn't locked up with boarded-over windows. They went through the gate and walked around the back of the building.
Through large double doors, which Mr. Ibis unlocked with a key from his key chain, and they were in a large, unheated room, occupied by two people. They were a very tall, dark-skinned man, holding a large metal scalpel, and a dead girl in her late teens, lying on a long, porcelain30 table that resembled both a slab31 and a sink.
There were several photographs of the dead girl pinned up on a corkboard on the wall above the body. She was smiling in one, a high school head shot. In another she was standing32 in a line with three other girls; they were wearing what might have been prom dresses, and her black hair was tied above her head in an intricate knotwork.
Cold on the porcelain, her hair was down, loose around her shoulders, and matted with dried blood.
"This is my partner, Mister Jacquel," said Ibis.
"We met already," said Jacquel. "Forgive me if I don't shake hands."
Shadow looked down at the girl on the table. "What happened to her?" he asked.
"Poor taste in boyfriends," said Jacquel.
"It's not always fatal," said Mr. Ibis, with a sigh. "This time it was. He was drunk, and he had a knife, and she told him that she thought she was pregnant. He didn't believe it was his."
"She was stabbed..." said Mr. Jacquel, and he counted. There was a click as he stepped on a foot switch, turning on a small Dictaphone on a nearby table, "Five times. There are three knife wounds in the left anterior33 chest wall. The first is between the fourth and fifth intercostal spaces at the medial border of the left breast, two point two centimeters in length; the second and third are through the inferior portion of the left mid-breast penetrating34 at the sixth interspace, overlapping35, and measuring three centimeters. There is one wound two centimeters long in the upper anterior left chest in the second interspace, and one wound five centimeters long and a maximum of one point six centimeters deep in the anteromedial left deltoid, a slashing36 injury. All the chest wounds are deep penetrating injuries. There are no other visible wounds externally." He released pressure from the foot switch. Shadow noticed a small microphone-dangling above the embalming table by its cord.
"So you're the coroner as well?" asked Shadow.
"Coroner's a political appointment around here," said Ibis. "His job is to kick the corpse38. If it doesn't kick him back, he signs the death certificate. Jacquel's what they call a prosector. He works for the county medical examiner. He does autopsies39 and saves tissue samples for analysis. He's already photographed her wounds."
Jacquel ignored them. He took a big scalpel and made a deep incision40 in a large V that began at both collarbones and met at the bottom of her breastbone, and then he turned the V into a Y, another deep incision that continued from her breastbone to her pubis. He picked up what looked like a small, heavy chrome drill with a medallion-sized round saw blade at the business end. He turned it on, and cut through the ribs41 at both sides of her breastbone.
The girl opened like a purse.
Shadow suddenly was aware of a mild but unpleasantly penetrating, pungent42, meaty smell.
"I thought it would smell worse," said Shadow.
"She's pretty fresh," said Jacquel. "And the intestines43 weren't pierced, so it doesn't smell of shit."
Shadow found himself looking away, not from revulsion, as he would have expected, but from a strange desire to give the girl some privacy. It would be hard to be nakeder than this open thing.
Jacquel tied off the intestines, glistening44 and snakelike in her belly45, below the stomach and deep in the pelvis. He ran them through his fingers, foot after foot of them, described them as "normal" to the microphone, put them in a bucket on the floor. He sucked all the blood out of her chest with a vacuum pump, and measured the volume. Then he inspected the inside of her chest. He said to the microphone, "There are three lacerations in the pericardium, which is filled with clotted46 and liquefying blood."
Jacquel grasped her heart, cut it at its top, turned it about in his hand, examining it. He stepped on his switch and said, "There are two lacerations of the myocardium; a one-point-five-centimeter laceration in the right ventricle and a one-point-eight-centimeter laceration penetrating the left ventricle."
Jacquel removed each lung. The left lung had been stabbed and was half collapsed47. He weighed them, and the heart, and he photographed the wounds. From each lung he sliced a small piece of tissue, which he placed into ajar.
"Formaldehyde," whispered Mr. Ibis helpfully.
Jacquel continued to talk to the microphone, describing what he was doing, what he saw, as he removed the girl's liver, the stomach, spleen, pancreas, both kidneys, the uterus and the ovaries. He weighed each organ, reported them as normal and uninjured. From each organ he took a small slice and put it into a jar of formaldehyde.
From the heart, the liver, and from one of the kidneys, he cut an additional slice. These pieces he chewed, slowly, making them last, while he worked.
Somehow it seemed to Shadow a good thing for him to do: respectful, not obscene.
"So you want to stay here with us for a spell?" said Jacquel, masticating50 the slice of the girl's heart.
"If you'll have me," said Shadow.
"Certainly we'll have you," said Mr. Ibis. "No reasons why not and plenty of reasons why. You'll be under our protection as long as you're here."
"I hope you don't mind sleeping under the same roof as the dead," said Jacquel.
Shadow thought of the touch of Laura's lips, bitter and cold. "No," he said. "Not as long as they stay dead, anyhow."
Jacquel turned and looked at him with dark brown eyes as quizzical and cold as a desert dog's. "They stay dead here" was all he said.
"Seems to me," said Shadow, "seems to me that the dead come back pretty easy."
"Not at all," said Ibis. "Even zombies, they make them out of the living, you know. A little powder, a little chanting, a little push, and you have a zombie. They live, but they believe they are dead. But to truly bring the dead back to life, in their bodies. That takes power." He hesitated, then, "In the old land, in the old days, it was easier then."
"You could bind51 the ka of a man to his body for five thousand years," said Jacquel. "Binding52 or loosing. But that was a long time ago." He took all the organs that he had removed and replaced them, respectfully, in the body cavity. He replaced the intestines and the breastbone and pulled the skin edges near each other. Then he took a thick needle and thread and, with deft53, quick strokes, he sewed it up, like a man stitching a baseball: the cadaver11 transformed from meat into girl once again.
"I need a beer," said Jacquel. He pulled off his rubber gloves and dropped them into the bin49. He dropped his dark brown overalls54 into a hamper55. Then he took the cardboard tray of jars filled with little red and brown and purple slices of the organs. "Coming?"
They walked up the back stairs to the kitchen. It was brown and white, a sober and respectable room that looked to Shadow as if it had last been decorated in 1920. There was a huge Kelvinator rattling56 to itself by one wall. Jacquel opened the Kelvinator door, put the plastic jars with their slivers57 of spleen, of kidney, of liver, of heart, inside. He took out three brown bottles. Ibis opened a glass-fronted cupboard, removed three tall glasses. Then he gestured for Shadow to sit down at the kitchen table.
Ibis poured the beer and passed a glass to Shadow, a glass to Jacquel. It was a fine beer, bitter and dark.
"Good beer," said Shadow.
"We brew58 it ourselves," said Ibis. "In the old days the women did the brewing59. They were better brewers than we are. But now it is only the three of us here. Me, him, and her." He gestured toward the small brown cat, fast asleep in a cat-basket in the corner of the room. "There were more of us, in the beginning. But Set left us to explore, what, two hundred years ago? Must be, by now. We got a postcard from him from San Francisco in 1905, 1906. Then nothing. While poor Horus..." he trailed off, in a sigh, and shook his head.
"I still see him, on occasion," said Jacquel. "On my way to a pickup60." He sipped61 his beer.
"I'll work for my keep," said Shadow. "While I'm here. You tell me what you need doing, and I'll do it."
"We'll find work for you," agreed Jacquel.
The small brown cat opened her eyes and stretched to her feet. She padded across the kitchen floor and pushed at Shadow's boot with her head. He put down his left hand and scratched her forehead and the back of her ears and the scruff of her neck. She arched, ecstatically, then sprang into his lap, pushed herself up against his chest, and touched her cold nose to his. Then she curled up in his lap and went back to sleep. He put his hand down to stroke her: her fur was soft, and she was warm and pleasant in his lap; she acted like she was in the safest place in the world, and Shadow felt comforted.
The beer left a pleasant buzz in Shadow's head.
"Your room is at the top of the stairs, by the bathroom," said Jacquel. "Your work clothes will be hanging in the closet-you'll see. You'll want to wash up and shave first, I guess."
Shadow did. He showered standing in the cast-iron tub and he shaved, very nervously62, with a straight razor that Jacquel loaned him. It was obscenely sharp, and had a mother-of-pearl handle, and Shadow suspected it was usually used to give dead men their final shave. He had never used a straight razor before, but he did not cut himself. He washed off the shaving cream, looked at himself naked in the fly-specked bathroom mirror. He was bruised63: fresh bruises65 on his chest and arms overlaying the fading bruises that Mad Sweeney had left him. His eyes looked back mistrustfully from the mirror at him.
And then, as if someone else were holding his hand, he raised the straight razor, placed it, blade open, against his throat.
It would be a way out, he thought. An easy way out. And if there's anyone who'd simply take it in their stride, who'd just clean up the mess and get on with things, it's the two guys sitting downstairs at the kitchen table drinking their beer. No more worries. No more Laura. No more mysteries and conspiracies66. No more bad dreams. Just peace and quiet and rest forever. One clean slash37, ear to ear. That's all it'll take.
He stood there with the razor against his throat. A tiny smudge of blood came from the place where the blade touched the skin. He had not even noticed a cut. See, he told himself, and he could almost hear the words being whispered in his ear. It's painless. Too sharp to hurt. I'll be gone before I know it.
Then the door to the bathroom swung open, just a few inches, enough for the little brown cat to put her head around the door frame and "Mrr?" up at him curiously67.
"Hey," he said to the cat. "I thought I locked that door."
He closed the cutthroat razor, put it down on the side of the sink, dabbed68 at his tiny cut with a toilet paper swab. Then he wrapped a towel around his waist and went into the bedroom next door.
His bedroom, like the kitchen, seemed to have been decorated some time in the 1920s: there was a washstand and a pitcher69 beside the chest of drawers and mirror. Someone had already laid out clothes for him on the bed: a black suit, white shirt, black tie, white undershirt and underpants, black socks. Black shoes sat on the worn Persian carpet beside the bed.
He dressed himself. The clothes were of good quality, although none of them was new. He wondered who they had belonged to. Was he wearing a dead man's socks? Would he be stepping into a dead man's shoes? He adjusted the tie in the mirror and now it seemed to him that his reflection was smiling at him, sardonically70.
Now it seemed inconceivable to him that he had ever thought of cutting his throat. His reflection continued to smile as he adjusted his tie.
"Hey," he said to it. "You know something that I don't?" and immediately felt foolish.
The door creaked open and the cat slipped between the doorpost and the door and padded across the room, then up on the windowsill. "Hey," he said to the cat. "I did shut that door. I know I shut that door." She looked at him, interested. Her eyes were dark yellow, the color of amber71. Then she jumped down from the sill onto the bed, where she wrapped herself into a curl of fur and went back to sleep, a circle of cat upon the old counterpane.
Shadow left the bedroom door open, so the cat could leave and the room air a little, and he walked downstairs. The stairs creaked and grumbled73 as he walked down them, protesting his weight, as if they just wanted to be left in peace.
"Damn, you look good," said Jacquel. He was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, and was now himself dressed in a black suit similar to Shadow's. "You ever driven a hearse?"
"No."
"First time for everything, then," said Jacquel. "It's parked out front."
***
An old woman had died. Her name had been Lila Goodchild. At Mr. Jacquel's direction, Shadow carried the folded aluminum74 gurney up the narrow stairs to her bedroom and unfolded it next to her bed. He took out a translucent75 blue plastic body bag, laid it next to the dead woman on the bed, and unzipped it open. She wore a pink nightgown and a quilted robe. Shadow lifted her and wrapped her, fragile and almost weightless, in a blanket, and placed it onto the bag. He zipped the bag shut and put it on the gurney. While Shadow did this, Jacquel talked to a very old man who had, when she was alive, been married to Lila Goodchild. Or rather, Jacquel listened while the old man talked. As Shadow had zipped Mrs. Goodchild away, the old man had been explaining how ungrateful his children had been, and grandchildren too, though that wasn't their fault, that was their parents', the apple didn't fall far from the tree, and he thought he'd raised them better than that.
Shadow and Jacquel wheeled the loaded gurney to the narrow flight of stairs. The old man followed them, still talking, mostly about money, and greed, and ingratitude76. He wore bedroom slippers77. Shadow carried the heavier bottom end of the gurney down the stairs and out onto the street, then he wheeled it along the icy sidewalk to the hearse. Jacquel opened the hearse's rear door. Shadow hesitated, and Jacquel said, "Just push it on in there. The supports'll fold up out of the way." Shadow pushed the gurney, and the supports snapped up, the wheels rotated, and the gurney rolled right onto the floor of the hearse. Jacquel showed him how to strap78 it in securely, and Shadow closed up the hearse while Jacquel listened to the old man who had been married to Lila Goodchild, unmindful of the cold, an old man in his slippers and his bathrobe out on the wintry sidewalk telling Jacquel how his children were vultures, no better than hovering79 vultures, waiting to take what little he and Lila had scraped together, and how the two of them had fled to St. Louis, to Memphis, to Miami, and how they wound up in Cairo, and how relieved he was that Lila had not died in a nursing home, how scared he was that he would.
They walked the old man back into the house, up the stairs to his room. A small TV set droned from one corner of the couple's bedroom. As Shadow passed it he noticed that the newsreader was grinning and winking80 at him. When he was sure that no one was looking in his direction he gave the set the finger.
"They've got no money," said Jacquel when they were back in the hearse. "He'll come in to see Ibis tomorrow. He'll choose the cheapest funeral. Her friends will persuade him to do her right, give her a proper send-off in the front room, I expect. But he'll grumble72. Got no money. Nobody around here's got money these days. Anyway, he'll be dead in six months. A year at the outside."
Snowflakes tumbled and drifted in front of the headlights. The snow was coming south. Shadow said, "Is he sick?"
"It ain't that. Women survive their men. Men-men like him-don't live long when their women are gone. You'll see-he'll just start wandering, all the familiar things are going to be gone with her. He gets tired and he fades and then he gives up and then he's gone. Maybe pneumonia83 will take him or maybe it'll be cancer, or maybe his heart will stop. Old age, and all the fight gone out of you. Then you die."
Shadow thought. "Hey, Jacquel?"
"Yeah."
"Do you believe in the soul?" It wasn't quite the question he had been going to ask, and it took him by surprise to hear it coming from his mouth. He had intended to say something less direct, but there was nothing less direct that he could say.
"Depends. Back in my day, we had it all set up. You lined up when you died, and you'd answer for your evil deeds and for your good deeds, and if your evil deeds outweighed84 a feather, we'd feed your soul and your heart to Ammet, the Eater of Souls."
"He must have eaten a lot of people."
"Not as many as you'd think. It was a really heavy feather. We had it made special. You had to be pretty damn evil to tip the scales on that baby. Stop here, that gas station. We'll put in a few gallons."
The streets were quiet, in the way that streets only are when the first snow falls. "It's going to be a white Christmas," said Shadow as he pumped the gas.
"Yup. Shit. That boy was one lucky son of a virgin85."
"Jesus?"
"Lucky, lucky guy. He could fall in a cesspit and come up smelling like roses. Hell, it's not even his birthday, you know that? He took it from Mithras. You run into Mithras yet? Red cap. Nice kid."
"No, I don't think so."
"Well...I've never seen Mithras around here. He was an army brat3. Maybe he's back in the Middle East, taking it easy, but I expect he's probably gone by now. It happens. One day every soldier in the empire has to shower in the blood of your sacrificial bull. The next they don't even remember your birthday."
Swish went the windshield wipers, pushing the snow to the side, bunching the flakes82 up into knots and swirls86 of clear ice.
A traffic light turned momentarily yellow and then red, and Shadow put his foot on the brake. The hearse fishtailed and swung around on the empty road before it stopped.
The light turned green. Shadow took the hearse up to ten miles per hour, which seemed enough on the slippery roads. It was perfectly87 happy cruising in second gear: he guessed it must have spent a lot of its time at that speed, holding up traffic.
"That's good," said Jacquel. "So, yeah, Jesus does pretty good over here. But I met a guy who said he saw him hitchhiking by the side of the road in Afghanistan and nobody was stopping to give him a ride. You know? It all depends on where you are."
"I think a real storm's coming," said Shadow. He was talking about the weather.
Jacquel, when, eventually, he began to answer, wasn't talking about the weather at all. "You look at me and Ibis," he said. "We'll be out of business in a few years. We got savings88 put aside for the lean years, but the lean years have been here for a long while, and every year they just get leaner. Horus is crazy, really bugfuck crazy, spends all his time as a hawk89, eats roadkill, what kind of a life is that? You've seen Bast. And we're in better shape than most of them. At least we've got a little belief to be going along with. Most of the suckers out there have barely got that. It's like the funeral business-the big guys are going to buy you up one day, like it or not, because they're bigger and more efficient and because they work. Fighting's not going to change a damned thing, because we lost this particular battle when we came to this green land a hundred years ago or a thousand or ten thousand. We arrived and America just didn't care that we'd arrived. We get bought out, or we press on, or we hit the road. So, yes. You're right. The storm's coming."
Shadow turned onto the street where the houses were, all but one of them, dead, their windows blind and boarded. "Take the back alley," said Jacquel.
He backed the hearse up until it was almost touching90 the double doors at the rear of the house. Ibis opened the hearse, and the mortuary doors, and Shadow unbuckled the gurney and pulled it out. The wheeled supports rotated and dropped as they cleared the bumper91. He wheeled the gurney to the embalming table. He picked up Lila Goodchild, cradling her in her opaque92 bag like a sleeping child, and placed her carefully on the table in the chilly93 mortuary, as if he were afraid to wake her.
"You know, I have a transfer board," said Jacquel. "You don't have to carry her."
"Ain't nothing," said Shadow. He was starting to sound more like Jacquel. "I'm a big guy. It doesn't bother me."
As a kid Shadow had been small for his age, all elbows and knees. The only photograph of Shadow as a kid that Laura had liked enough to frame showed a solemn child with unruly hair and dark eyes standing beside a table laden94 high with cakes and cookies. Shadow thought the picture might have been taken at an embassy Christmas party, as he had been dressed in a bow tie and his best clothes.
They had moved too much, his mother and Shadow, first around Europe, from embassy to embassy, where his mother had worked as a communicator in the Foreign Service, transcribing95 and sending classified telegrams across the world, and then, when he was eight years old, back to the United States, where his mother, now too sporadically96 sick to hold down a steady job, had moved from city to city restlessly, spending a year here or a year there, temping when she was well enough. They never spent long enough in any place for Shadow to make friends, to feel at home, to relax. And Shadow had been a small child...
He had grown so fast. In the spring of his thirteenth year the local kids had been picking on him, goading97 him into fights they knew they could not fail to win and after which Shadow would run, angry and often weeping, to the boys' room to wash the mud or the blood from his face before anyone could see it. Then came summer, a long, magical thirteenth summer, which he spent keeping out of the way of the bigger kids, swimming in the local pool, reading library books at poolside. At the start of the summer he could barely swim. By the end of August he was swimming length after length in an easy crawl, diving from the high board, ripening98 to a deep brown from the sun and the water. In September, he returned to school to discover that the boys who had made him miserable99 were small, soft things no longer capable of upsetting him. The two who tried it were taught better manners, hard and fast and painfully, and Shadow found that he had redefined himself: he could no longer be a quiet kid, doing his best to remain unobtrusively at the back of things. He was too big for that, too obvious. By the end of the year he was on the swimming team and the weight-lifting team, and the coach was courting him for the triathlon team. He liked being big and strong. It gave him an identity. He'd been a shy, quiet, bookish kid, and that had been painful; now he was a big dumb guy, and nobody expected him to be able to do anything more than move a sofa into the next room on his own.
Nobody until Laura, anyway.
***
Mr. Ibis had prepared dinner: rice and boiled greens for himself and Mr. Jacquel. "I am not a meat eater," he explained. "While Jacquel gets all the meat he needs in the course of his work." Beside Shadow's place was a carton of chicken pieces from KFC and a bottle of beer. There was more chicken than Shadow could eat, and he shared the leftovers101 with the cat, removing the skin and crusty coating, then shredding102 the meat for her with his fingers.
"There was a guy in prison named Jackson," said Shadow, as he ate, "worked in the prison library. He told me that they changed the name from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC because they don't serve real chicken anymore. It's become this genetically103 modified mutant thing, like a giant centipede with no head, just segment after segment of legs and breasts and wings. It's fed through nutrient104 tubes. This guy said the government wouldn't let them use the word chicken."
Mr. Ibis raised his eyebrows105. "You think that's true?"
"Nope. Now, my old cellmate, Low Key, he said they changed the name because the word 'fried' had become a bad word. Maybe they wanted people to think that the chicken cooked itself."
After dinner Jacquel excused himself and went down to the mortuary. Ibis went to his study to write. Shadow sat in the kitchen for a little longer, feeding fragments of chicken breast to the little brown cat, sipping106 his beer. When the beer and the chicken were gone, he washed up the plates and cutlery, put them on the rack to dry, and went upstairs.
By the time he reached the bedroom the little brown cat was once more asleep at the bottom of the bed, curled into a fur crescent. In the middle drawer of the vanity he found several pairs of striped cotton pajamas108. They looked seventy years old, but smelled fresh, and he pulled on a pair that, like the black suit, fitted him as if they had been tailored for him.
There was a small stack of Reader's Digests on the little table beside the bed, none of them dated later than March 1960. Jackson, the library guy-the same one who had sworn to the truth of the Kentucky Fried Mutant Chicken Creature story, who had told him the story of the black freight trains that the government uses to haul political prisoners off to Secret Northern Californian Concentration Camps, moving across the country in the dead of the night-Jackson had also told him that the CIA used the Reader's Digest as a front for their branch offices around the world. He said that every Reader's Digest office in every country was really CIA.
"A joke," said the late Mr. Wood, in Shadow's memory. "How can we be sure the CIA wasn't involved in the Kennedy assassination109?"
Shadow cracked the window open a few inches-enough for fresh air to get in, enough for the cat to be able to get out onto the balcony outside. He turned on the bedside lamp, climbed into bed, and read for a little, trying to turn off his mind, to get the last few days out of his head, picking the dullest-looking articles in the dullest-looking Digests. He noticed he was falling asleep halfway110 through "I Am Joe's Pancreas." He barely had time enough to turn out the bedside light and put his head down on the pillow before his eyes closed for the night.
***
Later he was never able to recollect111 the sequence and details of that dream: attempts to remember it produced nothing more than a tangle112 of dark images. There was a girl. He had met her somewhere, and now they were walking across a bridge. It spanned a small lake, in the middle of a town. The wind was ruffling113 the surface of the lake, making waves tipped with whitecaps, which seemed to Shadow to be tiny hands reaching for him.
-Down there, said the woman. She was wearing a leopard-print skirt, which flapped and tossed in the wind, and the flesh between the top of her stockings and her skirt was creamy and soft and in his dream, on the bridge, before God and the world, Shadow went down to his knees in front of her, burying his head in her crotch, drinking in the intoxicating114 jungle female scent107 of her. He became aware, in his dream, of his erection in real life, a rigid115, pounding, monstrous116 thing as painful in its hardness as the erections he'd had as a boy, when he was crashing into puberty.
He pulled away and looked upward, and still he could not see her face. But his mouth was seeking hers and her lips were soft against his, and his hands were cupping her breasts, and then they were running across the satin smoothness of her skin, pushing into and parting the furs that hid her waist, sliding into the wonderful cleft117 of her, which warmed and wetted and parted for him, opening to his hand like a flower.
The woman purred against him ecstatically, her hand moving down to the hardness of him and squeezing it. He pushed the bedsheets away and rolled on top of her, his hand parting her thighs118, her hand guiding him between her legs, where one thrust, one magical push...
Now he was back in his old prison cell with her, and he was kissing her deeply. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, clamped her legs about his legs to hold him tight, so he could not pull out, not even if he wanted to.
Never had he kissed lips so soft. He had not known that there were lips so soft in the whole world. Her tongue, though, was sandpaper-rough as it slipped against his.
-Who are you? he asked.
She made no answer, just pushed him onto his back and, in one lithe119 movement, straddled him and began to ride him. No, not to ride him: to insinuate120 herself against him in a series of silken-smooth waves, each more powerful than the one before, strokes and beats and rhythms that crashed against his mind and his body just as the wind-waves on the lake splashed against the shore. Her nails were needle-sharp and they pierced his sides, raking them, but he felt no pain, only pleasure, everything was transmuted121 by some alchemy into moments of utter pleasure.
He struggled to find himself, struggled to talk, his head now filled with sand dunes122 and desert winds.
-Who are you? he asked again, gasping123 for the words.
She stared at him with eyes the color of dark amber, then lowered her mouth to his and kissed him with a passion, kissed him so completely and so deeply that there, on the bridge over the lake, in his prison cell, in the bed in the Cairo funeral home, he almost came. He rode the sensation like a kite riding a hurricane, willing it not to crest124, not to explode, wanting it never to end. He pulled it under control. He had to warn her.
-My wife, Laura. She will kill you.
-Not me, she said.
A fragment of nonsense bubbled up from somewhere in his mind: In medieval days it was said that a woman on top during coitus would conceive a bishop125. That was what they called it: trying for a bishop....
He wanted to know her name, but he dared not ask her a third time, and she pushed her chest against his, and he could feel the hard nubs of her nipples against his chest, and she was squeezing him, somehow squeezing him down there deep inside her and this time he could not ride it or surf it, this time it picked him up and spun126 and tumbled him away, and he was arching up, pushing into her as deeply as he could imagine, as if they were, in some way, part of the same creature, tasting, drinking, holding, wanting...
-Let it happen, she said, her voice a throaty feline127 growl128. Give it to me. Let it happen.
And he came, spasming and dissolving, the back of his mind itself liquefying, then sublimating129 slowly from one state to the next.
Somewhere in there, at the end of it, he took a breath, a clear draught130 of air he felt all the way down to the depths of his lungs, and he knew that he had been holding his breath for a long time now. Three years, at least. Perhaps even longer.
-Now rest, she said, and she kissed his eyelids131 with her soft lips. Let it go. Let it all go.
The sleep he slept after that was deep and dreamless and comforting, and Shadow dived deep and embraced it.
***
The light was strange. It was, he checked his watch, 6:45 A.M., and still dark outside, although the room was filled with a pale blue dimness. He climbed out of bed. He was certain that he had been wearing pajamas when he went to bed, but now he was naked, and the air was cold on his skin. He walked to the window and closed it.
There had been a snowstorm in the night: six inches had fallen, perhaps more. The corner of the town that Shadow could see from his window, dirty and run-down, had been transformed into somewhere clean and different: these houses were not abandoned and forgotten, they were frosted into elegance132. The streets had vanished completely, lost beneath a white field of snow.
There was an idea that hovered133 at the edge of his perception. Something about transience. It flickered134 and was gone.
He could see as well as if it were full daylight.
In the mirror, Shadow noticed something strange. He stepped closer, and stared, puzzled. All his bruises had vanished. He touched his side, pressing firmly with his fingertips, feeling for one of the deep pains that told him he had encountered Mr. Stone and Mr. Wood, hunting for the greening blossoms of bruise64 that Mad Sweeney had gifted him with, and finding nothing. His face was clear and unmarked. His sides, however, and his back (he twisted to examine it) were scratched with what looked like claw marks.
He hadn't dreamed it, then. Not entirely.
Shadow opened the drawers, and put on what he found: an ancient pair of blue-denim135 Levi's, a shirt, a thick blue sweater, and a black undertaker's coat he found hanging in the wardrobe at the back of the room.
He wore his own old shoes.
The house was still asleep. He crept through it, willing the floorboards not to creak, and then he was outside, and he walked through the snow, his feet leaving deep prints on the sidewalk. It was lighter136 out than it had seemed from inside the house, and the snow reflected the light from the sky.
After fifteen minutes of walking, Shadow came to a bridge with a big sign on the side of it warning him he was now leaving historical Cairo. A man stood under the bridge, tall and gangling137, sucking on a cigarette and shivering continually. Shadow thought he recognized the man.
And then, under the bridge in the winter darkness, he was close enough to see the purple smudge of bruise around the man's eye, and he said, "Good morning, Mad Sweeney."
The world was so quiet. Not even cars disturbed the snowbound silence.
"Hey, man," said Mad Sweeney. He did not look up. The cigarette had been rolled by hand.
"You keep hanging out under bridges, Mad Sweeney," said Shadow, "people gonna think you're a troll."
This time Mad Sweeney looked up. Shadow could see the whites of his eyes all around his irises138. The man looked scared. "I was lookin' for you," he said. "You gotta help me, man. I fucked up big time." He sucked on his hand-rolled cigarette, pulled it away from his mouth. The cigarette paper stuck to his lower lip, and the cigarette fell apart, spilling its contents onto his ginger139 beard and down the front of his filthy140 T-shirt. Mad Sweeney brushed it off, convulsively, with blackened hands, as if it were a dangerous insect.
"My resources are pretty much tapped out, Mad Sweeney," said Shadow. "But why don't you tell me what it is you need. You want me to get you a coffee?"
Mad Sweeney shook his head. He took out a tobacco pouch141 and papers from the pocket of his' denim jacket and began to roll himself another cigarette. His beard bristled142 and his mouth moved as he did this, although no words were said aloud. He licked the adhesive143 side of the cigarette paper and rolled it between his fingers. The result looked only distantly like a cigarette. Then he said," 'M not a troll. Shit. Those bastards're fucken mean."
"I know you're not a troll, Sweeney," said Shadow, gently. "How can I help you?"
Mad Sweeney flicked145 his brass146 Zippo, and the first inch of his cigarette flamed and then subsided147 to ash. "You remember I showed you how to get a coin? You remember?"
"Yes," said Shadow. He saw the gold coin in his mind's eye, watched it tumble into Laura's casket, saw it glitter around her neck. "I remember."
"You took the wrong coin, man."
A car approached the gloom under the bridge, blinding them with its lights. It slowed as it passed them, then stopped, and a window slid down. "Everything okay here, gentlemen?"
"Everything's just peachy, thank you, officer," said Shadow. "We're just out for a morning walk."
"Okay now," said the cop. He did not look as if he believed that everything was okay. He waited. Shadow put a hand on Mad Sweeney's shoulder, and walked him forward, out of town, away from the police car. He heard the window hum closed, but the car remained where it was.
Shadow walked. Mad Sweeney walked, and sometimes he staggered.
The police car cruised past them slowly, then turned and went back into the city, accelerating down the snowy road.
"Now, why don't you tell me what's troubling you," said Shadow.
"I did it like he said. I did it all like he said, but I gave you the wrong coin. It wasn't meant to be that coin. That's for royalty148. You see? I shouldn't even have been able to take it. That's the coin you'd give to the king of America himself. Not some pissant bastard144 like you or me. And now I'm in big trouble. Just give me the coin back, man. You'll never see me again, if you do, I sweartofuckenBran, okay? I swear by the years I spent in the fucken trees."
"You did it like who said, Sweeney?"
"Grimnir. The dude you call Wednesday, You know who he is? Who he really is?"
"Yeah. I guess."
There was a panicked look in the Irishman's crazy blue eyes. "It was nothing bad. Nothing you can-nothing bad. He just told me to be there at that bar and to pick a fight with you. He said he wanted to see what you were made of."
"He tell you to do anything else?"
Sweeney shivered and twitched149; Shadow thought it was the cold for a moment, then knew where he'd seen that shuddering150 shiver before. In prison: it was a junkie shiver. Sweeney was in withdrawal151 from something, and Shadow would have been willing to bet it was heroin152. A junkie leprechaun? Mad Sweeney pinched off the burning head of his cigarette, dropped it on the ground, put the unfinished yellowing rest of it into his pocket. He rubbed his dirt-black fingers together, breathed on them to try and rub warmth into them. His voice was a whine153 now, "Listen, just give me the fucken coin, man. I'll give you another, just as good. Hell, I'll give you a shitload of the fuckers."
He took off his greasy154 baseball cap, then, with his right hand, he stroked the air, producing a large golden coin. He dropped it into his cap. And then he took another from a wisp of breath steam, and another, catching155 and grabbing them from the still morning air until the baseball cap was brimming with them and Sweeney was forced to hold it with both hands.
He extended the baseball cap filled with gold to Shadow. "Here," he said. "Take them, man. Just give me back the coin I gave to you." Shadow looked down at the cap, wondered how much its contents would be worth.
"Where am I going to spend those coins, Mad Sweeney?" Shadow asked. "Are there a lot of places you can turn your gold into cash?"
He thought the Irishman was going to hit him for a moment, but the moment passed and Mad Sweeney just stood there, holding out his gold-filled cap with both hands like Oliver Twist. And then tears swelled156 in his blue eyes and began to spill down his cheeks. He took the cap and put it-now empty of everything except a greasy sweatband-back over his thinning scalp. "You gotta, man," he was saying. "Didn't I show you how to do it? I showed you how to take coins from the hoard157. I showed you where the hoard was. Just give me that first coin back. It didn't belong to me."
"I don't have it anymore."
Mad Sweeney's tears stopped, and spots of color appeared in his cheeks. "You, you fucken-" he said, and then the words failed him and his mouth opened and closed, wordlessly.
"I'm telling you the truth," said Shadow. "I'm sorry. If I had it I'd give it back to you. But I gave it away."
Sweeney's grimy hands clamped on Shadow's shoulders, and the pale blue eyes stared into his. The tears had made streaks158 in the dirt on Mad Sweeney's face. "Shit," he said. Shadow could smell tobacco and stale beer and whiskey-sweat. "You're telling the truth, you fucker. Gave it away and freely and of your own will. Damn your dark eyes, you gave it a-fucken-way."
"I'm sorry." Shadow remembered the whispering thump159 the coin had made as it landed on Laura's casket.
"Sorry or not, I'm damned and I'm doomed160." He wiped his nose and his eyes on his sleeves, muddying his face into strange patterns.
Shadow squeezed Mad Sweeney's upper arm in an awkward male gesture.
"Twere better I had never been conceived," said Mad Sweeney, at length. Then he looked up. "The fellow you gave it to. Would he give it back?"
"It's a woman. And I don't know where she is. But no, I don't believe she would."
Sweeney sighed, mournfully. "When I was but a young pup," he said, "there was a woman I met, under the stars, who let me play with her bubbies, and she told me my fortune. She told me that I would be undone161 and abandoned west of the sunset, and that a dead woman's bauble162 would seal my fate. And I laughed and poured more barley163 wine and played with her bubbies some more, and I kissed her full on her pretty lips. Those were the good days-the first of the gray monks164 had not yet come to our land, nor had they ridden the green sea to westward165. And now." He stopped, midsentence. His head turned and he focused on Shadow. "You shouldn't trust him," he said, reproachfully.
"Who?"
"Wednesday. You mustn't trust him."
"I don't have to trust him. I work for him."
"Do you remember how to do it?"
"What?" Shadow felt he was having a conversation with half a dozen different people. The self-styled leprechaun sputtered166 and jumped from persona to persona, from theme to theme, as if the remaining clusters of brain cells were igniting, flaming, and then going out for good.
"The coins, man. The coins. I showed you, remember?" He raised two fingers to his face, stared at them, then pulled a gold coin from his mouth. He tossed the coin to Shadow, who stretched out a hand to catch it, but no coin reached him.
"I was drunk," said Shadow. "I don't remember."
Sweeney stumbled across the road. It was light now and the world was white and gray. Shadow followed him. Sweeney walked in a long, loping stride, as if he were always falling, but his legs were there to stop him, to propel him into another stumble. When they reached the bridge, he held onto the bricks with one hand, and turned and said, "You got a few bucks167? I don't need much. Just enough for a ticket out of this place. Twenty bucks will do me fine. Just a lousy twenty?"
"Where can you go on a twenty dollar bus ticket?" asked Shadow.
"I can get out of here," said Sweeney. "I can get away before the storm hits. Away from a world in which opiates have become the religion of the masses. Away from." He stopped, wiped his nose on the side of his hand, then wiped his hand on his sleeve.
Shadow reached into his jeans, pulled out a twenty and passed it to Sweeney. "Here."
Sweeney crumpled168 it up and pushed it deep into the breast pocket of his oil-stained denim jacket, under the sew-on patch showing two vultures on a dead branch and, beneath them, the words PATIENCE MY ASS12! I'M GOING TO KILL SOMETHING! He nodded. "That'll get me where I need to go," he said.
He leaned against the bricks, fumbled169 in his pockets until he found the unfinished stub of cigarette he had abandoned earlier. He lit it carefully, trying not to burn his fingers or his beard. "I'll tell you something," he said, as if he had said nothing that day. "You're walking on gallows170 ground, and there's a rope around your neck and a raven-bird on each shoulder waiting for your eyes, and the gallows tree has deep roots, for it stretches from heaven to hell, and our world is only the branch from which the rope is swinging." He stopped. "I'll rest here a spell," he said, touching down, his back resting against the black brickwork.
"Good luck," said Shadow.
"Hell, I'm fucked," said Mad Sweeney. "Whatever. Thanks."
Shadow walked back toward the town. It was 8:00 A.M. and Cairo was waking. He glanced back to the bridge and saw Sweeney's pale face, striped with tears and dirt, watching him go.
It was the last time Shadow saw Mad Sweeney alive.
***
The brief winter days leading up to Christmas were like moments of light between the winter darknesses, and they fled fast in the house of the dead.
It was the twenty-third of December, and Jacquel and Ibis's played host to a wake for Lila Goodchild. Bustling171 women filled the kitchen with tubs and with saucepans, and with skillets and with Tupperware, and the deceased was laid out in her casket in the funeral home's front room with hothouse flowers around her. There was a table on the other side of the room laden high with coleslaw and beans and cornmeal hush puppies and chicken and ribs and black-eyed peas, and by midafternoon the house was filled with people weeping and laughing and shaking hands with the minister, everything being quietly organized and overseen172 by the sober-suited Messrs. Jacquel and Ibis. The burial would be on the following morning.
When the telephone in the hall rang (it was Bakelite and black and had an honest-to-goodness rotary173 dial on the front), Mr. Ibis answered. Then he took Shadow aside. "That was the police," he said. "Can you make a pickup?"
"Sure."
"Be discreet174. Here." He wrote down an address on a slip of paper, then passed it to Shadow, who read the address, written in perfect copperplate handwriting, and then folded it up and put it in his pocket. "There'll be a police car," Ibis added.
Shadow went out back and got the hearse. Both Mr. Jacquel and Mr. Ibis had made a point, individually, of explaining that, really, the hearse should only be used for funerals, and they had a van that they used to collect bodies, but the van was being repaired, had been for three weeks now, and could he be very careful with the hearse? Shadow drove carefully down the street. The snowplows had cleaned the roads by now, but he was comfortable driving slowly. It seemed right to go slow in a hearse, although he could barely remember the last time he had seen a hearse on the streets. Death had vanished from the streets of America, thought Shadow; now it happened in hospital rooms and in ambulances. We must not startle the living, thought Shadow. Mr. Ibis had told him that they move the dead about in some hospitals on the lower level of apparently175 empty covered gurneys, the deceased traveling their own paths in their own covered ways.
A dark blue police cruiser was parked on a side street, and Shadow pulled up the hearse behind it. There were two cops inside the cruiser, drinking their coffee from thermos176 tops. They had the engine running to keep warm. Shadow tapped on the side window.
"Yeah?"
"I'm from the funeral home," said Shadow.
"We're waiting for the medical examiner," said the cop. Shadow wondered if it was the same man who had spoken to him under the bridge. The cop, who was black, got out of the car, leaving his colleague in the driver's seat, and walked Shadow back to a Dumpster. Mad Sweeney was sitting in the snow beside the Dumpster. There was an empty green bottle in his lap, a dusting of snow and ice on his face and baseball cap and shoulders. He didn't blink.
"Dead wino," said the cop.
"Looks like it," said Shadow.
"Don't touch anything yet," said the cop. "Medical examiner should be here any time now. You ask me, the guy drank himself into a stupor177 and froze his ass."
"Yes," agreed Shadow. "That's certainly what it looks like."
He squatted178 down and looked at the bottle in Mad Sweeney's lap. Jameson Irish whiskey: a twenty-dollar ticket out of this place. A small green Nissan pulled up, and a harassed179 middle-aged180 man with sandy hair and a sandy mustache got out, walked over. He touched the corpse's neck. He kicks the corpse, thought Shadow, and if it doesn't kick him back...
"He's dead," said the medical examiner. "Any ID?"
"He's a John Doe," said the cop.
The medical examiner looked at Shadow. "You working for Jacquel and Ibis?" he asked.
"Yes," said Shadow.
"Tell Jacquel to get dentals and prints for ID and identity photos. We don't need a post. He should just draw blood for toxicology. Got that? Do you want me to write it down for you?"
"No," said Shadow. "It's fine. I can remember."
The man scowled181 fleetingly182, then pulled a business card from his wallet, scribbled183 on it, and gave it to Shadow, saying, "Give this to Jacquel." Then the medical examiner said "Merry Christmas" to everyone, and was on his way. The cops kept the empty bottle.
Shadow signed for the John Doe and put it on the gurney. The body was pretty stiff, and Shadow couldn't get it out of a sitting position. He fiddled184 with the gurney, and found out that he could prop81 up one end. He strapped185 John Doe, sitting, to the gurney and put him in the back of the hearse, facing forward. Might as well give him a good ride. He closed the rear curtains. Then he drove back to the funeral home.
The hearse was stopped at a traffic light when Shadow heard a voice croak186, "And it's a fine wake I'll be wanting, with the best of everything, and beautiful women shedding tears and their clothes in their distress187, and brave men lamenting188 and telling fine tales of me in my great days."
"You're dead, Mad Sweeney," said Shadow. "You take what you're given when you're dead."
"Aye, that I shall," sighed the dead man sitting in the back of the hearse. The junkie whine had vanished from his voice now, replaced with a resigned flatness, as if the words were being broadcast from a long, long way away, dead words being sent out on a dead frequency. The light turned green and Shadow put his foot gently down on the gas.
"But give me a wake, nonetheless," said Mad Sweeney. "Set me a place at table and give me a stinking189 drunk wake tonight. You killed me, Shadow. You owe me that much."
"I never killed you, Mad Sweeney," said Shadow. It's twenty dollars, he thought, for a ticket out of here. "It was the drink and the cold killed you, not me."
There was no reply, and there was silence in the car for the rest of the journey. After he parked at the back, Shadow wheeled the gurney out of the hearse and into the mortuary. He manhandled Mad Sweeney onto the embalming table as if he were hauling a side of beef.
He covered the John Doe with a sheet and left him there, with the paperwork beside him. As he went up the back stairs he thought he heard a voice, quiet and muted, like a radio playing in a distant room, which said, "And what would drink or cold be doing killing190 me, a leprechaun of the blood? No, it was you losing the little golden sun killed me, Shadow, killed me dead, as sure as water's wet and days are long and a friend will always disappoint you in the end."
Shadow wanted to point out to Mad Sweeney that that was a kind of bitter philosophy, but he suspected it was the being dead that made you bitter.
He went upstairs to the main house, where a number of middle-aged women were putting Saran Wrap on casserole dishes, popping the Tupperware tops onto plastic pots of cooling fried potatoes and macaroni and cheese.
Mr. Goodchild, the husband of the deceased, had Mr. Ibis against a wall, and was telling him how he knew none of his children would come out to pay their respects to their mother. The apple don't fall far from the tree, he told anyone who would listen to him. The apple don't fall far from the tree.
***
That evening Shadow laid an extra place at the table. He put a glass at each place, and a bottle of Jameson Gold in the middle of the table. It was the most expensive Irish whiskey they sold at the liquor store. After they ate (a large platter of leftovers left for them by the women) Shadow poured a generous tot into each glass-his, Ibis's, Jacque's, and, Mad Sweeney's.
"So what if he's sitting on a gurney in the cellar," said Shadow, as he poured, "on his way to a pauper's grave. Tonight we'll toast him, and give him the wake he wanted."
Shadow raised his glass to the empty place at the table. "I only met Mad Sweeney twice, alive," he said. "The first time I thought he was a world-class jerk with the devil in him. The second time I thought he was a major fuckup and I gave him the money to kill himself. He showed me a coin trick I don't remember how to do, gave me some bruises, and claimed he was a leprechaun. Rest in peace, Mad Sweeney." He sipped the whiskey, letting the smoky taste evaporate in his mouth. The other two drank, toasting the empty chair along with him.
Mr. Ibis reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a notebook, which he flipped191 through until he found the appropriate page, and he read out a summarized version of Mad Sweeney's life.
According to Mr. Ibis, Mad Sweeney had started his life as the guardian192 of a sacred rock in a small Irish glade193, over three thousand years ago. Mr. Ibis told them of Mad Sweeney's love affairs, his enmities, the madness that gave him his power ("a later version of the tale is still told, although the sacred nature, and the antiquity194, of much of the verse has long been forgotten"), the worship and adoration195 in his own land that slowly transmuted into a guarded respect and then, finally into amusement; he told them the story of the girl from Bantry who came to the New World, and who brought her belief in Mad Sweeney the leprechaun with her, for hadn't she seen him of a night, down by the pool, and hadn't he smiled at her and called her by her own true name? She had become a refugee, in the hold of a ship of people who had watched their potatoes turn to black sludge in the ground, who had watched friends and lovers die of hunger, who dreamed of a land of full stomachs. The girl from Bantry Bay dreamed, specifically, of a city where a girl would be able to earn enough to bring her family over to the New World. Many of the Irish coming into America thought of themselves as Catholics, even if they knew nothing of the catechism, even if all they knew of religion was the Bean Sidhe, the banshee, who came to wail196 at the walls of a house where death soon would be, and Saint Bride, who was once Bridget of the two sisters (each of the three was a Brigid, each was the same woman), and tales of Finn, of Ofsin, of Conan the Bald-even of the leprechauns, the little people (and was that not the biggest joke of the Irish, for the leprechauns in their day were the tallest of the mound197 folk)...
All this and more Mr. Ibis told them in the kitchen that night. His shadow on the wall was stretched and birdlike, and as the whiskey flowed Shadow imagined it head of a huge waterfowl, beak198 long and curved, and it was somewhere in the middle of the second glass that Mad Sweeney himself began to throw both details and irrelevancies into Ibis's narrative199 ("...such a girl she was, with breasts cream-colored and spackled with freckles200, with the tips of them the rich reddish pink of the sunrise on a day when it'll be bucketing down before noon but glorious again by supper...") and then Sweeney was trying, with both hands, to explain the history of the gods in Ireland, wave after wave of them as they came in from Gaul and from Spain and from every damn place, each wave of them transforming the last gods into trolls and fairies and every damn creature until Holy Mother Church herself arrived and every god in Ireland was transformed into a fairy or a saint or a dead King without so much as a by-your-leave...
Mr. Ibis polished his gold-rimmed spectacles and explained-enunciating even more clearly and precisely201 than usual, so Shadow knew he was drunk (his words, and the sweat that beaded on his forehead in that chilly house, were the only indications of this)-with forefinger202 wagging, that he was an artist and that his tales should not be seen as literal constructs but as imaginative re-creations, truer than the truth, and Mad Sweeney said, "I'll show you an imaginative re-creation, my fist imaginatively re-creating your fucken face for starters," and Mr. Jacquel bared his teeth and growled203 at Sweeney, the growl of a huge dog who's not looking for a fight but can always finish one by ripping out your throat, and Sweeney took the message and sat down and poured himself another glass of whiskey.
"Have you remembered how I do my little coin trick?" he asked Shadow with a grin.
"I have not."
"If you can guess how I did it," said Mad Sweeney, his lips purple, his blue eyes beclouded, "I'll tell you if you get warm."
"It's not a palm is it?" asked Shadow.
"It is not."
"Is it a gadget204 of some kind? Something up your sleeve or elsewhere that shoots the coins up for you to catch?"
"It is not that neither. More whiskey, anybody?"
"I read in a book about a way of doing the miser's dream with latex covering the palm of your hand, making a skin-colored pouch for the coins to hide behind."
"This is a sad wake for Great Sweeney who flew like a bird across all of Ireland and ate watercress in his madness: to be dead and unmourned save for a bird, a dog, and an idiot. No, it is not a pouch."
"Well, that's pretty much it for ideas," said Shadow. "I expect you just take them out of nowhere." It was meant to be sarcasm205, but then he saw the expression on Sweeney's face. "You do," he said. "You do take them from nowhere."
"Well, not exactly nowhere," said Mad Sweeney. "But now you're getting the idea. You take them from the hoard."
"The hoard," said Shadow, starting to remember. "Yes."
"You just have to hold it in your mind, and it's yours to take from. The sun's treasure. It's there in those moments when the world makes a rainbow. It's there in the moment of eclipse and the moment of the storm."
And he showed Shadow how to do the thing.
This time Shadow got it.
***
Shadow's head ached and pounded, and his tongue tasted and felt like flypaper. He squinted206 at the glare of the daylight. He had fallen asleep with his head on the kitchen table. He was fully48 dressed, although he had at some point taken off his black tie.
He walked downstairs, to the mortuary, and was relieved but unsurprised to see that John Doe was still on the embalming table. Shadow pried207 the empty bottle of Jameson Gold from the corpse's rigor-mortised fingers and threw it away. He could hear someone moving about in the house above.
Mr. Wednesday was sitting at the kitchen stable when Shadow went upstairs. He was eating leftover100 potato salad from a Tupperware container with a plastic spoon. He wore a dark gray suit, a white shirt, and a deep gray tie: the morning sun glittered on the silver tie pin in the shape of a tree. He smiled at Shadow when he saw him.
"Ah, Shadow m'boy, good to see you're up. I thought you were going to sleep forever."
"Mad Sweeney's dead," said Shadow.
"So I heard," said Wednesday. "A great pity. Of course it will come to all of us, in the end." He tugged208 on an imaginary rope, somewhere on the level of his ear, and then jerked his neck to one side, tongue protruding209, eyes bulging210. As quick pantomimes went, it was disturbing. And then he let go of the rope and smiled his familiar grin. "Would you like some potato salad?"
"I would not." Shadow darted211 a look around the kitchen and out into the hall. "Do you know where Ibis and Jacquel are?"
"Indeed I do. They are burying Mrs. Lila Goodchild-something that they would probably have liked your help in doing, but I asked them not to wake you. You have a long drive ahead of you."
"We're leaving?"
"Within the hour."
"I should say goodbye."
"Goodbyes are overrated. You'll see them again, I have no doubt, before this affair is done."
For the first time since that first night, Shadow observed, the small brown cat was curled up in her basket. She opened her incurious amber eyes and watched him go.
So Shadow left the house of the dead. Ice sheathed212 the winter-black bushes and trees as if they'd been insulated, made into dreams. The path was slippery.
Wednesday led the way to Shadow's white Chevy Nova, parked out on the road. It had been recently cleaned, and the Wisconsin plates had been removed, replaced with Minnesota plates. Wednesday's luggage was already stacked in the backseat. Wednesday unlocked the car with keys that were duplicates of the ones Shadow had in his own pocket.
"I'll drive," said Wednesday. "It'll be at least an hour before you're good for anything."
They drove north, the Mississippi on their left, a wide silver stream beneath a gray sky. Shadow saw, perched on a leafless gray tree beside the road, a huge brown-and-white hawk, which stared down at them with mad eyes as they drove toward it, then took to the wing and rose in slow and powerful circles.
Shadow realized it had only been a temporary reprieve213, his time in the house of the dead; and already it was beginning to feel like something that happened to somebody else, a long time ago.
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1
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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2
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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3
brat
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| n.孩子；顽童 | |
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holly
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| n.[植]冬青属灌木 | |
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smirk
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| n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说 | |
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6
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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7
discourse
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| n.论文，演说；谈话；话语；vi.讲述，著述 | |
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8
expound
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| v.详述；解释；阐述 | |
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9
warehouse
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| n.仓库；vt.存入仓库 | |
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10
cadavers
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| n.尸体( cadaver的名词复数 ) | |
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11
cadaver
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| n.尸体 | |
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12
ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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13
embalming
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| v.保存（尸体）不腐( embalm的现在分词 )；使不被遗忘；使充满香气 | |
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14
dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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15
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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16
graveyards
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| 墓地( graveyard的名词复数 )； 垃圾场； 废物堆积处； 收容所 | |
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17
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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18
bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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19
scouting
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| 守候活动，童子军的活动 | |
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20
smirked
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| v.傻笑( smirk的过去分词 ) | |
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21
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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22
subscriber
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| n.用户，订户；（慈善机关等的）定期捐款者；预约者；签署者 | |
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23
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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24
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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25
aboriginal
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| adj.（指动植物）土生的，原产地的，土著的 | |
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26
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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27
emergence
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| n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体 | |
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28
primitives
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| 原始人（primitive的复数形式） | |
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29
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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30
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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31
slab
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| n.平板，厚的切片；v.切成厚板，以平板盖上 | |
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32
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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33
anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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34
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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35
overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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36
slashing
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| adj.尖锐的；苛刻的；鲜明的；乱砍的v.挥砍( slash的现在分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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37
slash
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| vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩 | |
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38
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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39
autopsies
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| n.尸体解剖( autopsy的名词复数 )；验尸；现场验证；实地观察 | |
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40
incision
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| n．切口，切开 | |
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41
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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42
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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43
intestines
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| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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44
glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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45
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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46
clotted
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| adj.凝结的v.凝固( clot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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48
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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49
bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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50
masticating
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| v.咀嚼( masticate的现在分词 )；粉碎，磨烂 | |
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51
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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52
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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53
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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54
overalls
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| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
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55
hamper
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| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
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56
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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57
slivers
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| （切割或断裂下来的）薄长条，碎片( sliver的名词复数 ) | |
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58
brew
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| v.酿造，调制 | |
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59
brewing
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| n. 酿造, 一次酿造的量 动词brew的现在分词形式 | |
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60
pickup
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| n.拾起，获得 | |
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61
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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62
nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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63
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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64
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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65
bruises
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| n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 ) | |
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66
conspiracies
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| n.阴谋，密谋( conspiracy的名词复数 ) | |
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67
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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68
dabbed
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| （用某物）轻触( dab的过去式和过去分词 )； 轻而快地擦掉（或抹掉）； 快速擦拭； （用某物）轻而快地涂上（或点上）… | |
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69
pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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70
sardonically
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| adv.讽刺地，冷嘲地 | |
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71
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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72
grumble
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| vi.抱怨；咕哝；n.抱怨，牢骚；咕哝，隆隆声 | |
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73
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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74
aluminum
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| n.(aluminium)铝 | |
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75
translucent
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| adj.半透明的；透明的 | |
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76
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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77
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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78
strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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79
hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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80
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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81
prop
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| vt.支撑；n.支柱，支撑物；支持者，靠山 | |
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82
flakes
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| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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83
pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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84
outweighed
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| v.在重量上超过( outweigh的过去式和过去分词 )；在重要性或价值方面超过 | |
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85
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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86
swirls
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| n.旋转( swirl的名词复数 )；卷状物；漩涡；尘旋v.旋转，打旋( swirl的第三人称单数 ) | |
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87
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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88
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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89
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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90
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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91
bumper
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| n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的 | |
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92
opaque
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| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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93
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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94
laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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95
transcribing
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| （用不同的录音手段）转录( transcribe的现在分词 )； 改编（乐曲）（以适应他种乐器或声部）； 抄写； 用音标标出（声音） | |
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96
sporadically
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| adv.偶发地，零星地 | |
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97
goading
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| v.刺激( goad的现在分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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98
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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99
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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100
leftover
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| n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的 | |
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101
leftovers
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| n.剩余物，残留物，剩菜 | |
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102
shredding
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的现在分词 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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103
genetically
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| adv.遗传上 | |
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104
nutrient
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| adj.营养的，滋养的；n.营养物，营养品 | |
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105
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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106
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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107
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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108
pajamas
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| n.睡衣裤 | |
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109
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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110
halfway
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| adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途 | |
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111
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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112
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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113
ruffling
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| 弄皱( ruffle的现在分词 )； 弄乱； 激怒； 扰乱 | |
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114
intoxicating
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| a. 醉人的,使人兴奋的 | |
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115
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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116
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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117
cleft
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| n.裂缝；adj.裂开的 | |
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118
thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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119
lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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120
insinuate
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| vt.含沙射影地说，暗示 | |
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121
transmuted
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| v.使变形，使变质，把…变成…( transmute的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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123
gasping
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| adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词 | |
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124
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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125
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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126
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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127
feline
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| adj.猫科的 | |
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128
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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129
sublimating
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| v.（使某物质）升华( sublimate的现在分词 )；使净化；纯化 | |
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130
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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131
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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132
elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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133
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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134
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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135
denim
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| n.斜纹棉布；斜纹棉布裤，牛仔裤 | |
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136
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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137
gangling
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| adj.瘦长得难看的 | |
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138
irises
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| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
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139
ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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140
filthy
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| adj.卑劣的；恶劣的，肮脏的 | |
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141
pouch
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| n.小袋，小包，囊状袋；vt.装...入袋中，用袋运输；vi.用袋送信件 | |
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142
bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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143
adhesive
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| n.粘合剂；adj.可粘着的，粘性的 | |
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144
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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145
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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146
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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147
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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148
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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149
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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150
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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151
withdrawal
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| n.取回，提款；撤退，撤军；收回，撤销 | |
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152
heroin
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| n.海洛因 | |
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153
whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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154
greasy
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| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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155
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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156
swelled
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| 增强( swell的过去式和过去分词 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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157
hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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158
streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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159
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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160
doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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161
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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162
bauble
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| n.美观而无价值的饰物 | |
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163
barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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164
monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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165
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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166
sputtered
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| v.唾沫飞溅( sputter的过去式和过去分词 )；发劈啪声；喷出；飞溅出 | |
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167
bucks
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| n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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168
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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169
fumbled
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| （笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下 | |
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170
gallows
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| n.绞刑架，绞台 | |
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171
bustling
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| adj.喧闹的 | |
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172
overseen
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| v.监督，监视( oversee的过去分词 ) | |
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173
rotary
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| adj.(运动等)旋转的；轮转的；转动的 | |
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174
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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175
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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176
thermos
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| n.保湿瓶，热水瓶 | |
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177
stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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178
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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179
harassed
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| adj. 疲倦的，厌烦的 动词harass的过去式和过去分词 | |
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180
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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181
scowled
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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182
fleetingly
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| adv.飞快地，疾驰地 | |
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183
scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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184
fiddled
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| v.伪造( fiddle的过去式和过去分词 )；篡改；骗取；修理或稍作改动 | |
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185
strapped
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| adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带 | |
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186
croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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187
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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188
lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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189
stinking
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| adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透 | |
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190
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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191
flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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192
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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193
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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194
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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195
adoration
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| n.爱慕，崇拜 | |
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196
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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197
mound
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| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
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198
beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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199
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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200
freckles
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| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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201
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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202
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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203
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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204
gadget
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| n.小巧的机械，精巧的装置，小玩意儿 | |
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205
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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206
squinted
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| 斜视( squint的过去式和过去分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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207
pried
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| v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开 | |
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208
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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209
protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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210
bulging
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| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
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211
darted
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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212
sheathed
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| adj.雕塑像下半身包在鞘中的；覆盖的；铠装的；装鞘了的v.将（刀、剑等）插入鞘( sheathe的过去式和过去分词 )；包，覆盖 | |
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213
reprieve
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| n.暂缓执行（死刑）；v.缓期执行；给…带来缓解 | |
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