It was like she was MADE of cake, light and pretty and decorated on the outside-with her sweet laugh and pink streak to her hair-but it was anyone's guess what was on the inside.

It had always fascinated him that she'd consumed so many words, that her head was full of stories, told a thousand different ways.

To this day she could make tap water boil just by kissing him.

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.

There was a mood of magic and frenzy to the room. Crystalline swirls of sugar and flour still lingered in the air like kite tails. And then there was the smell-the smell of hope, the kind of smell that brought people home.

Safe is just another word for scared.