Evie hadn’t always felt that way. For a year after James had died, she’d cupped his half-dollar pendant between her pressed palms and prayed fervently for a miracle, for a telegram that would say GOOD NEWS! IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE, AND PRIVATE JAMES XAVIER O’NEILL HAS BEEN FOUND, SAFE, IN A FARMHOUSE IN FRANCE. But no such telegram ever arrived, and whatever possible faith might have bloomed in Evie withered and died. Now she saw it as just another advertisement for a life that belonged to a previous generation and held no meaning for hers.

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

There’s a moment of profound sadness that can be dispelled only by summoning my anger.

Next time we see you, you’ll be on trial for some ingenious crime!” Dottie said with a laugh. Evie grinned. “Just as long as they know my name.

Tonight, she went into the woods, and I fear she shall live in the woods of my soul for the rest of my days.

Just once, she'd like to be the exciting one, the girl somebody wanted.

Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn’t speak too freely or behave…strangely?” I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I eat the hearts of small children. I told them I like the French.