This is how the fire starts. This is how we burn.

No, I call. Come back. I'm here, he says. But I can't see. It's too bright. You can't hold back the light, Gemma. I'm here. Trust me.

My cholera's acting up again.

Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villains.

I hear they feed you in Sing Sing,” Evie muttered. “Three squares a day.” “Evangeline,” Will said with a sigh. “Charity begins at home.” “So does mental illness.

No one asks how or what I am doing. They could not care less. We’re all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they’d like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance. A fissure forms in the vessel. I’m cracking open.

You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.