Safe is just another word for scared.

Snow flurries began to fall and they swirled around people's legs like house cats. It was magical, this snow globe world.

If anyone had been paying attention to the signs, they would have realized that air turns white when things are about to change, that paper cuts mean there's more to what's written on the page than meets the eye, and that birds are always out to protect you from things you don't see.

Crystalline swirls of sugar and flour still lingered in the air like kite tails.

...she was still water in his hands. He didn't know how to hold on.

She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.

It felt as though they were the only people in the world, two young women about to bury the symbol of their helplessness, as if that's all it would take to make them whole again.