“Riublf,” I said to Colin with my mouth full, “leb’s get goinf.”

“I don’t think we’re going anywhere, Ms. Next.”

I looked up and saw what he meant. Occupying every square inch of space-on the sea beach, the foreshore, the dunes and even standing in the sea-were hundreds upon hundreds of identical black-clad Mrs. Danvers, staring at me malevolently. We’d killed five of their number recently, so I guessed they wouldn’t be that pleased. Mind you, they were always pretty miserable, so it might have had nothing to do with it. I instinctively grasped the butt of my pistol, but it was pointless-like using a peashooter against a T-54 battle tank.

“Well,” I said, swallowing the last piece of the recipe and addressing the nearest Danverclone, “you’d better take me to your leader.”

35. The Bees, the Bees

The Danverclones moved in silently. With bewildering speed and a tentacle-like movement of their bony limbs, four of them grasped my arms while another took my shoulder bag and a sixth removed my pistol. A seventh, who appeared to be the platoon commander, spoke briefly into a mobilefootnoterphone:

“Target Number One located and in custody.”

She then snapped the phone shut and used a brief series of hand signals to the other Mrs. Danvers, who began to jump out of the poem, beginning with the ones right at the back. I looked across at Colin, who was also being held tightly. A Danverclone had pulled his taxi license from his wallet and held it up in front of him before tearing it in two and tossing the halves in the air. He glanced at me and looked severely annoyed, but not with me-more with the Danverclones and the circumstances. I was just wondering where they would take me when there was a faint crackle in the air and my recently appointed least-favorite person was standing right in front of me. She was dressed in all her black leather finery, twin automatics on her hips and a long black greatcoat that fell to the ground. She leered at me as she appeared, and I thought about spitting in her eye but decided against it-she was too far away, and if I’d missed, I would just have looked even more enfeebled.

“Well, well,” said Thursday1-4, “the great Thursday Next finally brought to book.”

“Wow!” I replied. “Black is surely the color of choice today.”

She ignored me and continued, “Do you know, it’s going to be fun being you. Senator Jobsworth has extended me all the rights that are usually yours-you in the BookWorld, you at the CofG, you in the much-awaited and now greenlighted Thursday Next Returns-This Time It’s Personal and you in the Outland. That’s the bit I like best. As much Landen as I want.” She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “And believe me, I want a lot.”

I gave an almighty howl of anger and struggled to break loose from the Danvers, but without any luck. The clones all sniggered, and Thursday1-4 smiled unpleasantly.

“It’s time for you to vanish, Thursday,” she growled.

She tossed a pair of handcuffs to the Danvers, who pulled my arms behind my back and secured them. Thursday1-4 held on to me, took my shoulder bag from a nearby clone and began to walk away when the commander of the Mrs. Danvers contingent said, “I have orders to take her direct to the Île Saint-Joseph within Papillon as per your original plan, Ms. Next1-4.”

The other me turned to the Mrs. Danvers, looked her up and down and sneered, “You’ve done your job, Danny-you’ll be rewarded. This is my prisoner.”

But Mrs. Danvers had an order, and Danvers only do one thing: They do as they’re told-and, until countermanded by a written order, they do it rather well.

“I have my written instructions,” the clone said more firmly, and the other Danvers took a menacing step toward us, three of them producing weapons from within the folds of their black dresses.

“I’m countermanding your order.”

“No,” said Mrs. Danvers. “I have my orders, and I will carry them out.”

“Listen here shitface,” said Thursday1-4 with a snarl, “I’m the new Mrs. de Winter now-geddit?”

Mrs. Danvers took a step back in shocked amazement, and in that short moment Thursday1-4 held tightly to my arm and jumped us both out.

I was expecting a ready dug grave-or worse, a shovel and a place for me to dig one, but there wasn’t. Instead the place where we’d arrived looked more like the sitting room of a Georgian country house of moderate means somewhere, and, thankfully, there wasn’t a shovel in sight-but there was a Bradshaw, five Bennet sisters and Mr. Bennet, who were all staring at me expectantly, which was somewhat confusing.

“Ah!” said Bradshaw. “Thank goodness for that. Sorry to keep you in the dark, old girl, but I knew my footnoterphone was bugged. We’ve got to get you across to the CofG, but right now we have a serious and very pressing problem.”

“O-kay,” I said slowly and in great puzzlement. I looked across at Thursday who was rapidly divesting herself of the weapons and leather apparel.

“I actually swore,” she muttered unhappily, holding one of the automatics with a disdainful finger and thumb. “And these clothes! Made from animal skins…”

My mouth may have dropped open at this. “Thursday5?” I mumbled. “That’s you?”

She nodded shyly and shrugged. Underneath the leathers, I noticed, was her usual attire of naturally dyed cotton, crocheted sweater and Birkenstocks. She had taken her failure over the Minotaur to heart and made good. Perhaps I’d been too hasty over her assessment.

“We knew you were in the BookWorld, but then you disappeared off the radar,” said Bradshaw. “Where have you been the past ten hours?”

“I was trapped in a moral dilemma. Any news from the Outland? I mean, are people buying into this whole reality book thing?”

“And how!” exclaimed Bradshaw. “The news from the CofG is that a half million people are waiting to see how The Bennets will turn out, as the idea of being able to change a major classic has huge appeal-it’s the latest fad in the Outland, and you know how the Outlanders like fads.”

“Sometimes I think they like little else.”

Bradshaw looked at his watch. “There’s only six minutes before Pride and Prejudice as we know it is going to be rewritten and lost forever, and we don’t have a seriously good plan of action. In fact,” he added, “we don’t have any plan of action.”

Everyone stared at me. Twenty seconds ago I thought I was almost certainly dead; now I was expected at short notice to fashion a plan of infinite subtlety to save one of our greatest novels from being reduced to a mind-numbing morass of transient popular entertainment.

“Right,” I said as I attempted to gather my thoughts. “Lizzie?”

“Here, ma’am,” said the second-eldest Bennet sister, bobbing respectfully.

“Fill me in. How does this reality-book thing work? Have you been given any instructions?”

“We’ve not been told much, ma’am. We are expected to collect ourselves in the house, but instead of looking for husbands and happiness, we are to undertake a preset task of an altogether curious nature. And as we do so,” she added sorrowfully, “our new actions and words are indelibly burned into the new edition of our book.”