Boys,' she says, 'just aren't very good at being afraid.

There doesn't seem like there should be an artful way to butcher a cow, but there is, and this is not it.

I never knew there were so many different ways to say good-bye.

He was clearly related to Declan: same nose, same dark eyebrows, same phenomenal teeth. But there was a carefully cultivated sense of danger to this Lynch brother. This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colors. Everything about him was a warning: If this snake bit you, you had no one to blame but yourself.

The trees called to me, urging me to abandon what I knew and vanish into the oncoming night. It was a desire that had been tugging me with disconcerting frequency these days.

I'm always sure of what I do," he said. "Sometimes I was just never sure there was supposed to be a happy ending.

I can't tell the difference," I said. "Between not fighting and giving up.