Inexpressible Island. Paullina Simons

8. Tales of Love and Hate

9. Cripplegate

10. Blood Brothers

11. Mia, Mia

       12. Falling Beams

       13. Gold Rings

       14. Gone with the Wind

       15. The Great Fire

       16. Finch and Frankie

       17. Ghost Bride and Johnny Blaze

       18. Deepest Shelter in Town

       19. A House on Grimsby Street

       20. Lunch at the Ten Bells

       21. Empty Igloo

       22. A Girl Named Maria

       23. Two Prayers

       24. Mytholmroyd

       25. Land of Hope and Glory

       26. Dream Machine

       27. Cargo Cult

      Part Two: Trace Decay

       28. Morecambe Bay

       29. Junk Shop

       30. The One-Eyed King

       31. Dark Equinox

       32. Fathers and Sons

       33. Silver Angel

       34. Seven Stars

       35. Perennial Live-Forevers

      Part Three: Future Imperfect

       36. Phantasmagoria in Two, Take 2

       37. Paradiso and Purgatorio

       38. Hollywood Hills

       39. A Dress for Beatrice

       40. Free Licks

       41. Crystal of Souls

       42. Inferno

       43. The Julian by Diane von Furstenberg

       44. Mystique and Doctor Doom

       45. Powers Devours

       46. Hey Baby

       47. Pink Palace

       48. Big Ben

       49. Everything Forever

       50. The Dungeon of the Haunted Warlord

       Acknowledgements

       Keep Reading …

      About the Author

      By the same author

      About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

       The Two of Them

      WAY DOWN WE GO.

      “Julian, I’m going to tell you a story,” Ashton said, “about a rider and a preacher. The rider bet his only horse that the preacher could not recite the Lord’s Prayer without his thoughts wandering. The bet was gladly accepted, and the holy man began to mouth the familiar words. Halfway through, he stopped and said, ‘Did you mean the saddle also?’”

      “That is not a story about a rider and a preacher,” Julian said. “It’s a story about how to lose a horse.”

      “Ashton, why aren’t you eating my Kjøttkaker?” Julian’s mother said.

      “Oh, he doesn’t like it, Mom,” Julian said. “He told me when you were in the kitchen. He doesn’t care for your Norwegian cooking.”

      “Julian!”

      “Ignore him, Mrs. C,” Ashton said. “I love your meatballs. You know he’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”

      “Consider me risen. Why do you do that, son?”

      “Do what, Mom, joke around?”

      “Mrs. C,” Ashton said with a mouth full of Kjøttkaker, “the other day your son told me I was like a brother he never had.”

      “Julian!” yelled his mother and five brothers.

      “Jules, remember to look both ways before you go fuck yourself,” said his brother Harlan.

      “Funny, I was about to say the same thing to Ashton,” Julian said. Ashton laughed and laughed.

      Julian’s mother made Ashton’s favorite for dessert: lefse—rolled up sweet flatbread sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

      “Ashton, did Julian ever tell you the story of how he stumped a mystic when he was thirteen?” Joanne Cruz said. “Eat, eat, while I tell you. A pillar of the church was visiting our parish, a revered Augustinian monk, a man of prodigious theological output. He gave a lecture and then invited some questions. And your skinny friend, his voice still unbroken, stepped up to