I wonder about death, I who may never know it. It looks much like ecstacy, the way they open their mouths as they drown, the way their fingers dig into your skin. Their eyes are wide and startled and they trash in your hands as though with an excess of passion.

Little mouse," a voice said through the keyhole. "Don't you know the more you wriggle, the greater the cat's delight?

Someone could cut through the mess in our house and look at it like one might look at rings on a tree or layers of sediment. They'd find the black-and-white hairs of a dog we had when I was six, the acid-washed jeans my mother once wore, the seven blood-soaked pillowcases from the time I skinned my knee. All our family secrets rest in endless piles.

You don't have to protect these people, Cassel." I am these people.

She looks honestly upset, but then, I’ve learned that I can’t read her. The problem with a really excellent liar is that you have to just assume they’re always lying.

It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.

You better get over here with my car,” Grandad says. “Before I call the cops and tell them you stole it.” “Sorry,” I say contritely. Then the rest of what he said sinks in and I laugh. “Wait, did you just threaten me with calling the police? Because that I’d like to see.