Memories, so sweet and bitter.. they had both nourished and devoured him for so many years. Until a time came when they began to fade, turning faint and blurred, only an ache to be quickly pushed away because it went to your heart. For what was the use of remembering all you had lost?

She pressed her hand against her chest. No heart. So where did the love she felt come from?

Ten minutes can be a long time when you're waiting with a beating heart for something you don't understand, something you don't really want to know.

A thousand enemies outside the house are better than one within. Arab proverb

So Mo began filling the silence with words. He lured them out of the pages as if they had only been waiting for his voice, words long and short, words sharp and soft, cooing, purring words. They danced through the room, painting stained glass pictures, tickling the skin. Even when Meggie nodded off she could still hear them, although Mo had closed the book long ago. Words that explained the world to her, its dark side and its light side, words that built a wall to keep out bad dreams. And not a single bad dream came over that wall for the rest of the night.

A library book, I imagine, is a happy book.

Dustfinger closed his eyes and listened. He was home again.