Tis a strange thing, that the only friends I have I found in the same way, lying flat in the meadows, crying as if their hearts would break.

How right- how incredibly, utterly right- and how impossible!

I have no word of yours to assure me that our brief friendship held for you the same significance it held for me, but I must go on believing so. Every hope of the future is meaningless unless I have faith that you and I will share it together.

the demons that make a person afraid are the hardest to cast out.

After the keen still days of September, the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth...The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch. The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze. The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet. Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her...In October any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible.

From that first moment, in a way she could never explain, the Meadows claimed her and made her their own.

All the way up the river she's been holding back somehow, waiting. Now you'll both have to wait. I'm not going to disappoint her, Kit. When I take you on board the Witch, it's going to be for keeps.