You evah hear of a magic screw?' I cough back a laugh. 'No. No, sir.

No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.

Might. Is there any opiate more powerful than that word?

There are times when one friend requires the blind faith of another.

When you looked up to the sky and cried 'Why?' sometimes the sky shrugged, yet other times it answered with warm assurance of linked hands.

Memphis—it’s just a bird. Birds fly around, brother. It’s what they do. It’s not following you, and it’s not a sign. Unless you really did give it candy and flowers, in which case you are one strange brother.

Evie was so nervous that she downed her cocktail in two stiff swigs, then refilled her glass. Henry arched an eyebrow. “A pro, I see.” “What else is there to do in Ohio?