Evie wanted to cry. From fear. From exhaustion, yes. But mostly from the cruel uselessness, the damned stupid arbitrariness of it all.

Things aren't good or bad in and of themselves. It's what we do with them that makes them so.

They don't know what they're in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who'll nod and smile and take her tea but who isn't really here.

People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept.

With each shimmy, the bugle beads on their scandalously revealing costumes swung and shook. It was the sort of display Evie knew her mother would have found appalling—an example of the moral decay of the young generation. It was sexual and dangerous and thrilling, and Evie wanted more of it.

All the small, simple, conscious acts of living a sudden defense against the dying we do every day.

The wind picks up. It sends leaves scurrying for cover until a softer breeze blows through, settling them down again as if to say, Shhh, there, there, it's all right. One leaf still dances in the air. It spins higher and higher, defying gravity and logic, stretching for something just out of reach. It shall have to fall, of course. Eventually. But for now, I hold my breath, willing it to keep going, taking comfort in its struggle.