Please, ground, just open up and let me fall into an endless crevasse till I hit the center of the earth and combust. Please. Is that too much to ask?

There are no coincidences. And everything means something.

Being good is something that one must choose over and over again, every day, throughout the day, for the rest of one's life," Asher said. "A day is made of a thousand decisions, most small, some huge. With each decision you have the chance to work toward light, or sink toward darkness.

Fire is a fragile lover, court her well, neglect her not; her faith is like a misty smoke, her anger is destructive hot.

I should have known the power-hungry slave drivers at River's Edge would see my five days of freedom only as a challenge to be filled.

Please, ground, just open up and let me fall into an endless crevasse till I hit the center of the earth and combust. Please. Is that too much to ask?

Of course, when we got home, we found that Dagda had peed on my down comforter. He had also eaten part of Mom's maidenhair fern and barfed it up on the carpet. Then he had apparently worked himself into a frenzy sharpening his ting by amazingly effective claws on the armrest of my dad's favorite chair. Now he was asleep on a pillow, curled up like a fuzzy little snail. "God, he's so cute," I said, shaking my head.