And there she was, alone and walking out in the cornfield while everyone else I cared for sat together in one room. She would always feel me and think of me. I could see that, but there was no longer anything I could do. Ruth had been a girl haunted and now she would be a woman haunted. First by accident and now by choice. All of it, the story of my life and death, was hers if she chose tot ell it, even to one person at a time.

Like a medical procedure,' Ruth said. 'Intricate surgery is needed to patch up the planet.

How to Commit the Perfect Murder" was an old game in heaven. I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away.

What did dead mean, Ray wondered. It meant lost, it meant frozen, it meant gone.

I wanted to be the moron of the family, because morons seemed to have more fun, more freedom and more personality.

These things, she felt, were not to be passed around like disingenuous party favors. She kept an honor code with her journals and her poems. 'Inside, inside,' she would whisper quietly to herself when she felt the urge to tell.

One thing about failing repeatedly: If you're still doing it after you've failed that much, you really mean it.