I’m sorry,” he repeats again, too low for Raven and Tack to hear. “I’m sorry for everything.

This is the past: It drifts, it gathers. If you are not careful, it will bury you.

I'll find you," he says, watching me with the eyes I remember. "I won't let you go again

That was what her parents did not understand—and had never understood—about stories. Liza told herself storied as though she was weaving and knotting an endless rope. Then, no matter how dark or terrible the pit she found herself in, she could pull herself out, inch by inch and hand over hand, on the long rope of stories.

All this time, I thought we were growing apart because I was leaving Lena behind. But really it was the reverse. She was learning to lie. She was learning to love.

The worst is knowing I can't tell anybody what's happening -or what's happened- to me. Not even my mom.

I was glad when the invalids were executed