This Girl: She Bent Reality Around Her

The Thing About Being A Mystery Writer, What Marks A Mystery Writer Out From A Chick Lit Author Or Historical Fiction Writer, Is That You Always Find A Mystery In Every Situation.

...and Our Footsteps Rang And Echoed Till It Sounded Like The Room Was Full Of Dancers, The House Calling Up All The People Who Had Danced Here Across Centuries Of Spring Evenings, Gallant Girls Seeing Gallant Boys Off To War, Old Men And Women Straight-backed While Outside Their World Disintegrated And The New One Battered At Their Doors, All Of Them Bruised And All Of Them Laughing, Welcoming Us Into Their Long Lineage.

Her Forehead Was A Maze Of Anxious Little Grooves, From A Lifetime Of Wondering About Whether Everyone Within Range Was Ok.

But This Is What I Know About People Getting Ready To Walk Of The Edge Of Their Own Lives: They Want Someone To Know How They Got There. Maybe They Want To Know That When They Dissolve Into Earth And Water, That Last Fragment Will Be Saved, Held In Some Corner Of Someone's Mind; Or Maybe All They Want Is A Chance To Dump It Pulsing And Bloody Into Someone Else's Hands, So It Won't Weigh Them Down On The Journey. They Want To Leave Their Stories Behind. No One In All The World Knows That Better Than I Do.

There Was A Time When I Believed I Was The Redeemed One, The Boy Borne Safely Home On The Ebb Of Whatever Freak Tide Carried Peter And Jamie Away. Not Any More. In Ways Too Dark And Crucial To Be Called Metaphorical, I Never Left That Wood.