When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.

Crying wasn't like riding a bike. Give it up, and you quickly forget how it's done.

Just because something is unspoken doesn't mean that it disappears.

I wasn't quite as certain that I knew her soul. When it came right down to it, I wasn't sure she knew me either.

She didn't like being twelve. It felt like someplace between who she'd been and who she was about to be. It felt like no place at all.

She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people. It was a talent, as it was a curse.

He stepped off the pavement like a man jumping off a bridge, as calm as a swimmer with an ocean out below. Lucy had known what he was going to do the instant their eyes met. She'd know what he intended because she would have done the very same thing if she'd had his courage. Nothing was going to break his fall.