Breeze In My Hair Quotes

Maybe you really are a poet," I whisper. He smiles softly. "Only a fool for you." "Pretend?" My voice is small, soft like the breeze blowing through my short hair. "Never." "None of it?" I ask quietly. "Darling"-he smiles- "I have never had to pretend to want you.

sometimes i don't know, which moment which cool gust of wind will come, and enchant me tousling my hair and my heart, stirring...that familiar ache of poetry, which drop will kiss the old wrench in my soul reminding me, all over again i miss you better in the rain.

There are people in the world, who are just wrong, and then there are the masses of population that are right, or at the very least they lie in the veil of between. I on the other hand, do not belong to any group. I don’t exist. It’s not that I don’t have substance; I have a body like everyone else. I can feel the fire when it burns against my skin, the rain when it caresses my face and the breeze as it fingers my hair. I have all the senses that other people do. I am just empty, inside.

You are such a bad boy." She tugged on the hair that brushed my collar. "I can be real bad. You haven't seen anything yet," I murmured, bending my head so I could take a nip at the soft skin at the back of her neck. "I'm not sure I could keep up with you. I'm extremely inexperienced. We are in completely different planets when it comes to sexual experience," her breathing was labored as I licked and kissed different sweet spots on her shoulders and collarbone. "I didn't say anything about sex, Eva," I grinned before kissing her jawline. "You're the naughty one who brought up sex.

A cool breeze stirred my hair at that moment, as the night wind began to come down from the hills, but it felt like a breath from another world.

The air tasted just the same, smelled just the same. The wind making my hair feel sticky, the salty sea breeze, all of it felt just right. Like it had been waiting for me to get there.

The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, "A serious misfortune of my life has arrived." I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me. I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet... wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil. From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

I finally found him sitting on his balcony. He was leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed. Soft music played, and a cool ocean breeze blew back my hair as I stepped on to the balcony and inhaled the scent of the sea. "May I join you?" I asked softly. He didn’t bother opening his eyes. "If you like." The moon in the dark sky looked like a giant white plate dipping its edge into the ocean. We sat quietly for a while. I closed my eyes too and listened to him hum along in harmony with the music. "You haven’t played your guitar in a long time. I miss it," I said when the song was finished. Ren turned away. "I fear there is no music left in me.

If it comes to that, prince, I will stop you.” I stood. A breeze blew across the surface of the river, tossing hair and tugging at clothes. I gripped the railing and stared out over the water, feeling his eyes on my back. “If it comes to that,” I told him quietly, “I'd want you to.

I don’t think I’m making myself very clear Low,” he’d lowered his voice and the effect made goose bumps break out over my body. “I was only interested in one person at that bar last night. I only came to see one person,” he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and softly caressed my earlobe before tracing the line of my jaw. “I was there for you.

Dear Goat, How does one fall in love? Do you trip? Do you stumble, lose your balance and drop to the sidewalk, graze your knee, graze your heart? Do you crash to the stony ground? Is there a precipice, from which you float, over the edge, forever? I know I'm in love when I see you, I know when I long to see you. Not a muscle has moved. Leaves hang unruffled by any breeze. The air is still. I have fallen in love without taking step. When did this happen? I haven't even blinked. I'm on fire. Is that too banal for you? It's not, you know. You'll see. It's what happens. It's what matters. I'm on fire. I no longer eat, I forget to eat. Food looks silly to me, irrelevant. If I even notice it. But I notice nothing. My thoughts are full and raging, a house full of brothers, related by blood, feuding blood feuds: "I'm in love." "Typically stupid choice." "I am, though, I'm racked by love as if love were pain." "Go ahead. Fuck up your life. It's all wrong and you know it. Wake up. Face it." "There's only one face, it's all I see, awake or asleep." I threw the book out the window last night. I tried to forget. You are all wrong for me, I know it, but I no longer care for my thoughts unless they're thoughts of you. When I'm close to you, in your presence, I feel your hair brush my cheek when it does not. I look away from you, sometimes. Then I look back. When I tie my shoes, when I peel an orange, when I drive my car, when I lie down each night without you, I remain, As ever, Ram

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I look at him...and I remember how it was when I kissed him and felt that love. It makes me want that back. I want to feel it again. I want to return to it. Other times though...other times, I'm so scared. I listen to these guys...and to Jerome...and then the doubts gnaw at me. I can't get them out of my head. We've been sleeping together, you know. Literally. It hasn't been a problem so far, but sometimes I lie awake watching him, thinking this can't last. The longer it does...I feel like...like I'm standing on a high wire, with Seth at one end and me at the other. We're trying to reach each other, but one misstep, one breeze, one side-glance, and I'll fall over the edge. And keep falling and falling." Carter leaned toward me and brushed the hair away from the side of my face. "Don't look down then," he whispered.

For all his clever ideas, Maven has nothing to say to this. He just stares, his breath coming in tiny, scared puffs. I know the look on his face; I wear it every time I’m forced to say good-bye to someone. “It’s too bad we didn’t stay longer,” I murmur, looking out at the river. “I would have liked to die close to home.” Another breeze sends a curtain of my hair across my face but Maven brushes it away and pulls me close with startling ferocity. Oh. His kiss is not at all like his brother’s. Maven is more desperate, surprising himself as much as me. He knows I’m sinking fast, a stone dropping through the river. And he wants to drown with me. “I will fix this,” he murmurs against my lips. I have never seen his eyes so bright and sharp. “I won’t let them hurt you. You have my word.

I had my arms around his waist, smiling as I looked up at him. Being with Alex made me so completely happy, in an easy, uncomplicated way that I hadn't felt since I was a small child. "I love you," I said. In the five days we'd been there, it was the first time I'd said the words to him in English; they just slipped out. Alex's expression went very still as he looked down at me, his dark hair stirred by the slight breeze. I picked up a sudden wave of his emotions, and they almost brought tears to my eyes. Gently, he took my face in his hands and kissed me. "I love you, too," he said against my lips.

Walking into the library, I took in my breath sharply and stopped: glass fronted bookcases and Gothic panels, stretching fifteen feet to a frescoed and plaster-medallioned ceiling. In the back of the room was a marble fireplace, big as a sepulchre, and a globed gasolier--dripping with prisms and strings of crystal beading--sparkled in the dim. There was a piano, too, and Charles was playing, a glass of whiskey on the seat beside him. He was a little drunk; the Chopin was slurred and fluid, the notes melting sleepily into one another. A breeze stirred the heavy, moth-eaten velvet curtains, ruffling his hair.

After you were bitten, I knew what would happen. I waited for you to change, every night, so I could bring you back and keep you from getting hurt." A chilly gust of wind lifter his hair and sent a shower of golden leaves glimmering down around him. He spred out his arms, letting them fall into his hands. He looked like a dark angel in an eternal autumn wood. "Did you know you get one happy day for everyone you catch?" I didn't know what he meant, even after he opened his fist to show me the quivering leaves crumpled in his palm. One happy day for every falling leaf you catch." Sam's voice was low. I watched the egdes of the leaves slowly unfold, fluttering in the breeze."How long did you wait?" It would have been romantic if hr'd had the courage to look into my face to say it, but instead, he dropped his eyes to the ground and scuffed his boots in the leaves- countless possibilities for happy days- on the ground. "I haven't stopped." And I should've said something romantic too, but i didn't have the courage, either. So instead, I watched the shy way he was chewing his lip and studying the leaves, and said, "That must've been very borring.

I brought to mind the image of the stranger lying there in the first light of dawn: the slight growth of whiskers on his chin, strands of his red hair shifting gently on the faint stirrings of the morning breeze, the pallor, the extended legs, the quivering fingers, that last, sucking breath. And that word, blown into my face ... "Vale." The thrill of it all! Yes," I said, "it was devastating.

I love you, I love you, my heart is a rose which your love has brought to bloom, my life is a desert fanned by the delicious breeze of your breath, and whose cool spring are your eyes; the imprint of your little feet makes valleys of shade for me, the odour of your hair is like myrrh, and wherever you go you exhale the perfumes of the cassia tree. Love me always, love me always. You have been the supreme, the perfect love of my life; there can be no other...

He ran his fingers through my hair, his touch so gentle that it felt like a warm summer breeze. “All I want is you.” I shivered. Milo’s lips parted in his sleep, and he made an adorable suckling motion. “All I want is to be a family. A real, live family, together and safe from all of this.” “We will be,” he promised. “I will make sure of it.” I leaned against him and wrapped my arm around his waist, his silk shirt tickling the inside of my wrist. How long would it be before we got to spend time together like this again?

I know this sounds ridiculous," he spoke solemnly, lacing his fingers in my hair. "But sometimes I feel like I'm caught in your gravity. And no matter where I am, anywhere in the world, if I wrote 'I love you' on a note, and made a paper airplane, and threw it into the breeze...it would still find you. My words couldn't escape you, any more than I can." (Ryan)

He smiled and leaned over and asked in a soft voice, “Don’t you know you’re beautiful?” I swallowed, hoping my throat allowed the words through without making me sound all choked up. “I wouldn’t say ‘beautiful.’ I realize I have nice hair and eyes. I got those from my mother. But I don’t have a good personality. So it really takes away from the others.

The sun on my cheek became the touch of a warm hand, the gentle breeze in my hair his his breath as he whispered that he loved me.

Anything you need a helmet to do,” I say, “you probably simply shouldn’t do.” He steps closer, the breeze ruffling his hair, and pulls the helmet down over my head. “Or maybe,” he says, eyes crinkled against the sun, “everything worth doing comes with some risk.

From the east a spring breeze is touching us, passing by, And so in the goblet in the green wine tiny ripples are formed. The blossoms stolen by the whirl are falling to the earth. My fair girl will be drunken soon with her blushed cheeks. Beside the blue pavilion the peach tree - Do you know, how long it will bloom? It’s a trembling shine, a dream: it cheats us and steals away. Rise and dance! The sun is fading! Who never was full of demanding live and crazy in his young days will vainly - when the hair is white - sigh and wail.

I have a message for your daughter,” said Cale. “I am bound to her with cables that not even God can break. One day, if there is a soft breeze on her cheek, it may be my breath; one night, if the cool wind plays with her hair, it may be my shadow passing by.” And with this terrible threat he faced forward and the procession started once more. In less than a minute they were gone. In her shady room Arbell Swan-Neck stood white and cold as alabaster.

Ask me about my childhood, and I will tell you to walk to the edge of the woods with a choir of crickets chirping from every direction, a hot, humid breeze brushing through your hair, your feet, bare and callused. Stand there, unmoving, and watch the dance of ten thousand fireflies blinking on and off in the darkness. Inhale the scent of cured tobacco, freshly plowed southern soil, burning leaves, and honeysuckle. Swallow the taste of blackberries, picked straight from the bushes, and lick your teeth, the after-taste still sweet in your mouth. Now, stretch out on the ground and relax all your muscles. Watch nature's festival of flickering lights.

A stiff breeze lifted the hair from my head. At my feet, the city doused its lights in sleep, its buildings blackened, as if for a funeral.

Suddenly, the wind changed course. Dora’s hair slowly changed direction too, whipping over to the opposite side. The breeze carried her scent to my nose. It was a scent I hadn’t smelled before. It smelled like fallen leaves, or the first buds in spring. The kind of smell that evoked contrary images all at once. I

Songs of the Soul On a dark night, Inflamed by love-longing - O exquisite risk! - Undetected I slipped away. My house, at last, grown still. Secure in the darkness, I climbed the secret ladder in disguise - O exquisite risk! - Concealed by the darkness. My house, at last, grown still. That sweet night: a secret. Nobody saw me; I did not see a thing. No other light, no other guide Than the one burning in my heart. This light led the way More clearly than the risen sun To where he was waiting for me - The one I knew so intimately - In a place where no one could find us. O night, that guided me! O night, sweeter than sunrise! O night, that joined lover with Beloved! Lover transformed in Beloved! Upon my blossoming breast, Which I cultivated just for him, He drifted into sleep, And while I caressed him, A cedar breeze touched the air. Wind blew down from the tower, Parting the locks of his hair. With his gentle hand He wounded my neck And all my senses were suspended. I lost myself. Forgot myself. I lay my face against the Beloved's face. Everything fell away and I left myself behind, Abandoning my cares Among the lilies, forgotten.

Lucky" (feat. Colbie Caillat) Do you hear me, I'm talking to you Across the water across the deep blue ocean Under the open sky, oh my, baby I'm trying Boy I hear you in my dreams I feel your whisper across the sea I keep you with me in my heart You make it easier when life gets hard I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend Lucky to have been where I have been Lucky to be coming home again Ooohh ooooh oooh oooh ooh ooh ooh ooh They don't know how long it takes Waiting for a love like this Every time we say goodbye I wish we had one more kiss I'll wait for you I promise you, I will I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend Lucky to have been where I have been Lucky to be coming home again Lucky we're in love every way Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed Lucky to be coming home someday And so I'm sailing through the sea To an island where we'll meet You'll hear the music fill the air I'll put a flower in your hair Though the breezes through trees Move so pretty you're all I see As the world keeps spinning round You hold me right here right now I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend Lucky to have been where I have been Lucky to be coming home again I'm lucky we're in love every way Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed Lucky to be coming home someday

A Colder breeze lifted a dead leaf to the roof and sent it scuttling merrily on its way to catch in my hair. It crackled dry and brittle when Chris plucked it out and held it, just staring down at a dead maple leaf as if his very life depended on reading its secret for knowing how to blow in the wind. No arms, no legs, no wings... bit it could fly when dead.

I needed to not be at work today. I needed to sit around my house without a bra, my hair in a weird bun, watching reruns of Schitt’s Creek. My eyes were still puffy, and I was a soft breeze away from losing it again—and I got my period. I get to bleed for a week without the sweet release of death.

My best friend Zoe has a perfect rear end and stick legs, and long, silky black hair. She is obviously not descended from William Penn. There are no dowdy pilgrims in her ancestry. Whereas I am grounded and mired in this place, she's like milkweed fluff that will take off with the first strong breeze. Stronger than fluff, though. She's like a bullet just waiting for someone to pull the trigger.

So I lay on your breast for an obscure hour Feeling your fingers go Like a rhythmic breeze Over my hair, and tracing my brows, Till I knew you not from a little wind:  — I wonder now if God allows Us only one moment of his keys. If only then You could have unlocked the moon on the night, And I baptized myself in the light Of your love; we both have entered then the white Pure passion, and never again.

Soft moonlight touches my lips and cheeks, I feel your soul dance in my heart. Breeze of the Southern sea blows my hair, I feel your love touch my flowers of desire, In my garden roses dance with the kindness of air. I feel my soul wanting her bliss to share.

We come and go from mystery and, in between, we try to forget. But a breeze passing in a still room stirs my hair now and then in soft affection. I think it is my mother.

You, like everyone else in London, think life happens to me. That I live by the swing of my skirts and the breeze in my hair. You think I ran into the fray on a lark.

A quiet but indomitable voice behind me said, “I believe this is my dance.” It was Ren. I could feel his presence. The warmth of him seeped into my back, and I quivered all over like spring leaves in a warm breeze. Kishan narrowed his eyes and said, “I believe it is the lady’s choice.” Kishan looked down at me. I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I simply nodded and removed my arms from his neck. Kishan glared at his replacement and stalked angrily off the dance floor. Ren stepped in front of me, took my hands gently in his, and placed them around his neck, bringing my face achingly close to his. Then he slid his hands slowly and deliberately over my bare arms and down my sides, until they encircled my waist. He traced little circles on my exposes lower back with his fingers, squeezed my waist, and drew my body up tightly against him. He guided me expertly through the slow dance. He didn’t say anything, at least not with words, but he was still sending lots of signals. He pressed his forehead against mine and leaned down to nuzzle my ear. He buried his face in my hair and lifted his hand to stroke down the length of it. His fingers played along my bare arm and at my waist. When the song ended, it took both of us a min to recover our senses and remember where we were. He traced the curve of my bottom lip with his finger then reached up to take my hand from around his neck and led me outside to the porch. I thought he would stop there, but he headed down the stairs and guided me to a wooded area with stone benches. The moon made his skin glow. He was wearing a white shirt with dark slacks. The white made me think of him as the tiger. He pulled me under the shadow of a tree. I stood very still and quiet, afraid that if I spoke I’d say something I’d regret. He cupped my chin and tilted my face up so he could look in my eyes. “Kelsey, there’s something I need to say to you, and I want you to be silent and listen.” I nodded my head hesitantly. “First, I want to let you know that I heard everything you said to me the other night, and I’ve been giving your words some very serious thought. It’s important for you to understand that.” He shifted and picked up a lock of hair, tucked it behind my ear, and trailed his fingers down my cheek to my lips. He smiled sweetly at me, and I felt the little love plant bask in his smile and turn toward it as if it contained the nourishing rays of the sun. “Kelsey,” he brushed a hand through his hair, and his smile turned into a lopsided grin, “the fact is…I’m in love with you, and I have been for some time.” I sucked in a deep breath. He picked up my hand and played with my fingers. “I don’t want you to leave.” He began kissing my fingers while looking directly into my eyes. It was hypnotic. He took something out of his pocket. “I want to give you something.” He held out a golden chain covered with small tinkling bell charms. “It’s an anklet. They’re very popular here, and I got this one so we’d never have to search for a bell again.” He crouched down, wrapping his hand around the back of my calf, and then slid his palm down to my ankle and attached the clasp. I swayed and barely stopped myself from falling over. He trailed his warm fingers lightly over the bells before standing up. Putting his hands on my shoulders, he squeezed, and pulled me closer. “Kells . . . please.” He kissed my temple, my forehead, and my cheek. Between each kiss, he sweetly begged, “Please. Please. Please. Tell me you’ll stay with me.” When his lips brushed lightly against mine, he said, “I need you,” then crushed his lips against mine.

There's nothing worse than feeling miserable on a beautiful day. It was one of those days where the weather was so perfect it was almost painful, the sky a clean slate of blue, and the soft, warm breeze playing on my cheeks and through my hair as if to say, "Come on, it's not THAT bad.

Sometimes, I see myself standing on a beach, my bare feet buried in the wet sand. And there’s no one on the beach, just me, but I don’t feel alone. What I feel is alive. And it seems like the whole world belongs to me. The cool breeze whistles through my hair, and something tells me I have heard that song all my life. I’m watching the waves hit the sand, the ebb and flow of the waves crashing against the distant cliffs. The ocean is ever moving—​and yet there is a stillness that I envy.

Speaking of cold... I shiver. "Has the temperature dropped, or is it just me?" "Here." Etienne unwraps the black scarf that had been tied loosely around his neck,and hands it to me. I take it, gently, and wrap it around mine. It makes me dizzy.It smells like freshly scrubbed boy. It smells like him. "Your hair looks nice," he says. "You bleached it again. I touch the stripe self-consciously. "Mom helped me." "That breeze is wicked,I'm going for coffee." Josh snaps his sketchbook closed. I'd forgotten he was here again. "You coming?" Etienne looks at me, waiting to see how I answer. Coffee! I'm dying for a real cup. I smile at Josh. "Sounds perfect." And then I'm heading down the steps of the Pantheon, cool and white and glittering, in the most beautiful city in the world. I'm with two attractive, intelligent,funny boys and I'm grinning ear to ear. If Bridgette could see me now. I mean,who needs Christopher when Etienne St. Clair is in the world? But as soon as I think of Toph, I get that same stomach churching I always do when I think about him now.Shame that I ever thought he might wait. That I wasted so much time on him. Ahead of mine,Etienne laughs at something Josh said. And the sound sends me spiraling into panic as the information hits me again and again and again. What am I going to do? I'm in love with my new best friend.

And then I turn another corner, and my chest constricts so tightly, so painfully, that I can no longer breathe. Because there he is. He's engrossed in an oversize book, hunched over and completely absorbed. A breeze ruffles his dark hair, and he bites his nails. . . . Several other people are soaking up the rare sunshine, but as soon as they're registered, they're forgotten. Because of him. I grip the edge of a sidewalk café table to keep from falling. The diners stare in alarm, but I don't care. I'm reeling, and I gasp for air. How can I have been so stupid? How could I have ever for a moment believed I wasn't in love with him?

I stood for a time, overlooking the calm sea. Under the bright morning sun, it looked like hammered blue metal. A very light breeze came off it and stirred my hair. I felt as if someone had spoken words aloud to me and I echoed them. “Time for a change.” p. 103

We are working! She was fine. You could see her. What the fuck is wrong with you? This is our job, asshole. You can't go doing shit like that when we have a packed house!" Krit shoved him again. "Don't tell me what the fuck to do." I had to stop them. This was about me. I wasn't sure why Krit had come offstage, but I knew it was about me. I had to fix this. I didn't want Krit fighting his best friend. "Stop fucking shoving me, you pansy-ass motherfucker!" Green roared, and lunged for Krit. I moved fast, putting up two hands and jumping in front of Krit to stop him. The force of impact when Green didn't stop hit me directly in the chest. It was as if someone had put a vacuum in my lungs and sucked all of the oxygen from the room. Nothing was getting in, and panic gripped me when I realized I couldn't breathe. "Fuck!" Krit yelled, and his arms were around me. He was doing something to my chest as he begged me to breathe. I was trying to breathe. It wouldn't work. "Baby, please breathe," he was pleading, and I wanted nothing more than to do that, but I couldn't. It hurt, and the terror that I was about to die settled over me. "She got the air knocked out of her. She's gonna be okay," Matty said in a calmer voice. And then the vacuum left, and the air I had been fighting for filled my chest as I gasped loudly and bent over. Krit was holding me against him as me muttered sweet things over and over while he rocked me back and forth. "Take him out of here," Matty said. I couldn't look up to see who he was talking to, but I grabbed Krit's arms to hold onto him in case they were talking about him. "Not me, baby. I'm not leaving you," he said as his hand began running down my hair as if he were petting me. "Not going anywhere." "When Krit is sure she's okay, he is going to beat the motherfucking hell out of you. Go with Legend and let him calm down first.

The night air wraps around me when I step outside. It's warmer than it's been for months, and I can find the early hints of spring in our backyard. The budding roses, the sweet scent of fresh green grass, the birds rustling in the trees. A breeze snakes through my hair, ruffles my skirt. The sky is a deep, starless black, but the fairy lights twinkle over the back porch, glowing pink and blue and yellow, as if the stars have fallen down to earth instead.

I dream of a small room and a man with one eye. Blood seeps like scarlet tears from his empty socket. I turn away and the room becomes a hallway that becomes a stairway that becomes a roof. The wind tugs at my body; the sky tries to wrap me in stars. Below me, a gazebo glows with red light. A line of black cars crawls like cockroaches through the streets. An air conditioner exhaust fan chitters angrily near the roof’s edge, one of its blades bent just enough to scrape against the side of the casing. For a second I let the wind push me close enough to the fan’s razor- sharp blades that a lock of my hair gets snipped and sent out into the night. As it twists and flutters toward the gazebo, I think about just letting go, letting the breeze carry my body into the whirling blades, the wind scattering pieces of me throughout the city. Blood and flesh seeping into the cracked pavement. Flowers blooming wherever I land.

If I am defeated tomorrow, I want to die as I have lived—a shepherd boy, with the sun on my forehead and the breeze in my hair. But if I overcome, everyone must know that the One God, and not Aidan Errolson, is the Champion of Corenwald. Neither arms nor armor can deliver Corenwald—only the arm of the One God.

Destiny has chosen me for the Wind,” he said in resonant tones as he swept out his hands in a showman’s gesture, even while he winked at her. “Atmospheres, temperature, air, these are mine to beckon.” And he did, sweeping a breeze through the room just strong enough to make Legna’s gown ruffle. Suddenly, without even a flash of light or warning, Elijah’s form dissipated into thin air, becoming the air. His voice swirled all around her as he playfully lifted her hair up from her shoulders, drawing it into a banner that fluttered high above her head, making her laugh. “The weather sways to my will, the tempests and pressures of it mine to manipulate. I can infuse a place with life-giving oxygen or remove it completely. The Wind is the breath of life, and She breathes through me.

Holly helped hoist me into the saddle, then mounted her own horse, a silvery animal that took the lead as we jogged across the traffic of Central Park West and entered a riding path dappled with leaves denuding breezes danced about. 'See?' she shouted. 'It's great!' And suddenly it was. Suddenly, watching the tangled colors of Holly's hair flash in the red-yellow leaf light, I loved her enough to forget myself, my self-pitying despairs, and be content that something she thought happy was going to happen.

You know, sleeping outdoors isn’t all bad. You get to stare up at the stars and cool breezes ruffle your fur after a hot day. The grass smells sweet and,” he made eye contact with me, “so does your hair.” I blushed and grumbled, “Well, I’m glad someone enjoyed it.” He smiled smugly and said, “I did.” I had a quick flash of him as a man snuggled up next to me in the forest, imagined him resting his head on my lap while I stroked his hair, and decided to focus on the matter at hand. “Well, listen, Ren, you’re changing the subject. I don’t appreciate the way you manipulated me into being here. Mr. Kadam should’ve told me at the circus.” He shook his head. “We didn’t think you’d believe his story. He made up the trip to the tiger reserve to get you to India. We figured once you were here, I could change into a man and clarify everything.” I admitted, “You’re probably right. If you had changed to a man there, I don’t think I would have come” “Why did you come?” “I wanted to spend more time with…you. You know, the tiger. I would have missed him. I mean you.” I blushed. He grinned lopsidedly. “I would have missed you too.” I wrung the hem of my shirt between my hands. Misreading my thoughts, he said, “Kelsey. I’m truly sorry for the deception. If there’d been any other way-“ I looked up. He hung his head in a way that reminded me of the tiger. The frustration and awkwardness I felt about him dissipated. My instincts told me that I should believe him and help him. The strong emotional connection that drew me to the tiger tugged at my heart even more powerfully with the man. I felt pity for him and his situation. Softly, I asked, “When will you change into a tiger?” “Soon.” “Does it hurt?” “Not as much as it used to.” “Do you understand me when you are a tiger? Can I still speak to you?” “Yes, I’ll still be able to hear and understand you.” I took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll stay here with you until the shaman comes back. I still have a lot of questions for you though.” “I know. I’ll try to answer them as best I can, but you’ll have to save them for tomorrow when I’ll be able to speak with you again. We can stay here for the night. The shaman should be back around dusk.” “Ren?” “Yes?” “The jungle frightens me, and this situation frightens me.” He let go of the apron string and looked into my eyes. “I know.” “Ren?” “Yes?” “Don’t…leave me, okay?” His face softened into a tender expression, and his mouth turned up in a sincere smile. “Asambhava. I won’t.” I felt myself responding to his smile with one of my own when a shadow fell across his face. He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw. I saw a tremor pass through his body, and the chair fell forward as he collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees. I stood to reach out to him and was amazed to see his body morph back into the tiger form I knew so well. Ren the tiger shook himself, then approached my outstretched hand and rubbed his head against it.

The wind making my hair feel sticky, the salty sea breeze, all of it felt just right. Like it had been waiting for me to get here.

It was raining hard the evening Holly died. One of those summer rains that seem to come from nowhere and catch all but the most compulsively weather-conscious off guard. She was beautiful, Holly, and much too good for me by a long stretch. Big soulful eyes. A beautiful face framed in a flowing mane of brunette hair that would lift along the edges at the slightest breeze. Full soft lips that conveyed warmth and sunshine when she smiled, and tender sensuality when they brushed across mine in the quiet darkness of our bedroom. It is no exaggeration to say that I worshiped the ground my wife walked on — perhaps less secretly than would have been wise had it been any woman but Holly. For whatever reason, she adored me, and ours was a mutual admiration society. She thought me the finest man who’d ever walked this earth, and could not imagine going through life with anyone other than me. I thought the world a better place for her being in it, and each time she rose from our tangled sheets to dress in the morning, I was certain birds began to sing songs of joy simply because she was awake.

The creature which stood before me was no bigger than a child, yet I would have sworn she was wood nymph. With pointed ears, translucent skin and a halo of woodland flowers in her silvery hair, the small woman held a strange presence. Besides the creature's obvious beauty, I couldn't draw my gaze away from her magnificent opaque wings. They fluttered in the breeze like the leaves above us.

Alone in the wilderness, I could hear buzzing, whirring and inexplicable gusts of air that may have been faraway howls or simple breezes through the twisting piles of dark green moss. A curious sensation crawled along the back of my neck, as if the hairs were standing up in response to unseen eyes all around me. The feeling was difficult to shake, even though all my training told me to remain focused.

Omg this is like one of those sappy romance movies but I don’t care! Jake is holding my hand! I looked back up at him and we slowly rose staring into each other’s eyes. Ok, where the heck is my awesome music saying he’s the one?! What about a breeze that blows my hair in all directions making me look hot? C’mon Cupid! Give me something!!! A weak chilly breeze blew. It barely even moved my hair. Oh c’mon!!!!

Nature Boy I was just a boy when I sat down To watch the news on TV I saw some ordinary slaughter I saw some routine atrocity My father said, don't look away You got to be strong, you got to be bold, now He said, that in the end it is beauty That is going to save the world, now And she moves among the sparrows And she floats upon the breeze She moves among the flowers She moves something deep inside of me I was walking around the flower show like a leper Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair Up against the pink and purple wisteria You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me With some unrighteous intention? My knees went weak, I couldn't speak, I was having thoughts That were not in my best interests to mention And she moves among the flowers And she floats upon the smoke She moves among the shadows She moves me with just one little look You took me back to your place And dressed me up in a deep sea diver's suit You played the patriot, you raised the flag And I stood at full salute Later on we smoked a pipe that struck me dumb And made it impossible to speak As you closed in, in slow motion, Quoting Sappho, in the original Greek She moves among the shadows She floats upon the breeze She moves among the candles And we moved through the days and through the years Years passed by, we were walking by the sea Half delirious You smiled at me and said, Babe I think this thing is getting kind of serious You pointed at something and said Have you ever seen such a beautiful thing? It was then that I broke down It was then that you lifted me up again She moves among the sparrows And she walks across the sea She moves among the flowers And she moves something deep inside of me She moves among the sparrows And she floats upon the breeze She moves among the flowers And she moves right up close to me

All I want is to be assimilated into a collective, human community where someone braids my hair with flowers and white curtains sway in a warm breeze; where every morning I wake up and drink a glass of chilled iced tea, drive a car across a continent, kick the dirt, fill my nostrils with the air of the desert and move in with someone, get married, bake cookies, push a stroller, learn to play an instrument, dance a waltz.

War thoughts again. I think back to the business cards from that health shop earlier on. I think about miniature wars that individuals fight all the time. They fight against cellulite, or negative emotions, or addictions, or stress. I think about how we can now hire all different sorts of mercenaries to help us fight against ourselves…Therapists, manicurists, hairdressers, personal trainers, life coaches. But what’s it all for? What do all these little wars achieve? Although it is a part of my life too, and I want to be thin and pretty and not laughed at in the street and not so stressed and mad that I start screaming on the tube, it suddenly seems a little bit ridiculous. All the time we do these things we are trying to enlist ourselves into a bigger war. We are trying to join up, constantly, with the enemy. - Hitler tried to impose his shiny, blonde, neat, sparkling world on us all and we resisted. So how is it that when McDonald’s and Disney and The Gap and L’Oreal and all the others try to do the same thing we all just say, ‘OK’? Hitler needed marketing, that’s all. His propaganda was, of course, brilliant for its time, everyone knows that. What a great idea, to make people feel that they belong to something, that their identity makes them special. If Hilter had bee able to enlist a twenty-first-century marketing department, would he have been able to sell Nazism to everyone? Why not? You can just see a beautiful, thin woman with her long blonde hair moving softly in the breezes, and the tagline ‘Because I’m worth it’.

You’ve done something to me.” My voice was quiet, too, a ribbon of breath threading into the breeze that stirred my hair. “I feel like I’m waking from a long dream, and everything is so much more beautiful than I remembered.

You cannot look at me like that, piccola, or I am sure to go up in flames." Desari allowed her fingers to tangle in his golden mane. "Thank you for thinking of my family when I could not." Her voice was a whisper of seduction, sliding over his hot skin. Just the sound of it made every muscle in his body clench. Julian made another effort to breathe. Air.It was all around him, yet he couldn't seem to drag enough into his lungs. He took her hand in his and carried it to the warmth of his mouth. "We need to find a safe subject, cara mia, or I will not make it through these next few minutes." Desaris soft laughter was like music in the wind. She perched on a large tree trunk that lay across the forest floor. The breeze tugged at her long hair so that it shifted around her like a veil, one moment hiding the temptation of bare, gleaming skin, the next revealing it. "A safe subject," she mused aloud. "What would that be?" The air slammed out of his lungs once again at the sight of her. She looked so much a part of her surroundings. Wild. Sexy. Provocative. "You might try closing your shirt." His voice sounded hoarse and desperate even to his own ears.

steps, deep in thought. A breeze was slightly disturbing his hair. Then, as we watched, he walked very slowly up the steps. At the top, he turned and came back down, a little faster. Turning once more, my father became still again for several seconds, contemplating the steps before him. Eventually, he climbed them a second time, very deliberately. This time he continued on across the grass until he had almost reached the summerhouse, then turned and came walking slowly back, his eyes never leaving the ground. In fact, I can describe his manner at that moment no better than the way Miss Kenton puts it in her letter; it was indeed ‘as though he hoped to find some precious jewel he had dropped there’.

Say something.” I struggled to get the word out. “What?” “My name.” I wasn’t sure why he wanted me to say that, and I didn’t know how it would feel to say it again after all this time, but I drew in a deep breath. “Rider.” Another breath shuddered through me. “Rider Stark.” His throat worked and, for a heartbeat, neither of us moved as a steamy breeze tossed strands of hair across my face. Then he dropped his notebook to the pavement. I was surprised it didn’t burst into dust. His long-legged pace ate up the distance. One second there was several feet between us, and in the next breath he was right there in front of me. He was so much taller now. I barely reached his shoulders. And then his arms were around me. My heart exploded as those strong arms pulled me against his chest. There was a moment where I froze, and then my arms swept around his neck. I held on, squeezing my eyes shut as I inhaled the clean scent and the lingering trace of aftershave. This was him. His hugs were different now, stronger and tighter. He lifted me clear off my feet, one arm around my waist, the other hand buried deep in my hair, and my breasts were mushed against his surprisingly hard chest. Whoa. His hugs were most definitely different than they were when we were twelve. “Jesus, Mouse, you don’t even know...” His voice was gruff and thick as he set me back on my feet, but he didn’t let go. One arm stayed around my waist. His other hand fisted the ends of my hair. His chin grazed the top of my head as I slid my hands down his chest. “I never thought I’d see you again.” I rested my forehead between my hands, feeling his heart beat fast. I could hear people around us, and I imagined some were probably staring, but I didn’t care. Rider was warm and solid. Real. Alive.

Maybe you really are a poet," I whisper. He smiles softly. "Only a fool for you." "Pretend?" My voice is small, soft like the breeze blowing through my short hair. "Never." "None of it?" I ask quietly. "Darling"-he smiles- "I have never had to pretend to want you.

Layla, the first moment I laid eyes on you I knew I had to have you. I watched you walk across that street to the coffee house in a complete daze. You were breathtaking. Fumbling around in your purse, your hair blowing in the breeze around your face. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. In fact I was so stunned I never even noticed how close I was standing to the door when you backed your way into it. So when you asked me how I didn’t see you through that glass, I did see you. Then when you told me you worked here, oh Layla, I can’t lie, I was thrilled and worried all at the same time. It meant I would be able to see you whenever I wanted. That’s why I came in the next day and every day after that, just to see you here. When you agreed to go on a date with me, I thought my head and chest would explode from the sheer joy I felt. You were so easy to talk to and wonderfully fiery, sarcastic, yet warm and caring at the same time. I feel like I’ve known you forever. I’ve never shared a connection with anyone like the one I have with you. So no, I don’t think it’s fast

The air seeps into my pores and caresses my face, making the loose hairs peeking out of my hat float and flit in the breeze. For a moment, everything is quiet, except for the sound of the snowflakes hitting the twelve inches of beautiful, untouched blanket on the deck.

She grinned. “This is the fun part.” She didn’t even look, but a moment before the demon hit, massive wings snapped out of her back with lightning speed and a thundercrack, smacking the demon and flicking it over the rooftops like it was a…gnat. Okay, so the thesaurus in my head wasn’t cranking out the synonyms because I was too busy gawking at the enormous white wings checkered with several feathers the same brilliant blue as her hair and shirt. They fluttered with a whispering grace, sending a soft breeze to cool my sweaty skin. I blinked when she snapped her fingers in my face. “Did you hear anything I just said?” “You have wings?” She sighed. Her shoulders and wings slumped. “I need you to focus, dear, so listen up. You must stick close to the Hex Boys. They’ll protect you whilst—“ “Where did the wings come from?

I buried her like a pagan. I put deer bones in with her, for her journey; a blanket, for warmth; flowers, cedar fronds, stones from places we’d been, grouse feathers, a tidbit of raw venison hamburger, and a swatch of my own hair. A headstone, a footstone. I planted an aspen tree above the headstone, to give her shade, and to someday provide leaf-music in the breeze. It took a long time before I was worth a damn again. How to measure the eleven years of magic she brought to us? How, now, to say thank you? Too late, as usual, for these sorts of things.

Her" By Mayim Moonchild Even from far away she was pretty With her tight jeans leather moccasins She looked like a hippie Her long & curly brown hair flew in the springtime breeze I decided to go for it I went up and gave her a squeeze on the bum My nose is still bleeding

I like the hair,” he said. In the spirit of an off-duty Friday, I wore my hair down. I mostly braided it or curled it into a bun to keep it out of the way, but today it just sort of hung there, a long dark brown wall shifting in the breeze on both sides of my face. I flexed my wrist, popping a long silver needle into my palm from the leather wrist guard, grabbed my hair, twisted it into a bun, stuck the needle into it to hold it in place, and showed him my teeth in a little smile. There. He laughed. “Cute. You ever get tired of pretending to be a hard-ass?” Cute. I think I would prefer to be stabbed in the eye rather than be called cute.

When I sit down beside my mother, she shivers. When I touch Ellie's shoulders, she smiles like she knows it's me. Maybe she does. Who could have told me that the wind was some passed-on soul stopping to touch your face, your hands, your hair. Who knew a surprising cool breeze was someone who had gone before you saying, 'You're loved.

She's probably just tired of seeing you miserable.Like we all are," I add. "I'm sure...I'm sure she's as crazy about you as ever." "Hmm." He watches me put away my own shoes and empty the contents of my pockets. "What about you?" he asks, after a minute. "What about me?" St. Clair examines his watch. "Sideburns. You'll be seeing him next month." He's reestablishing...what? The boundary line? That he's taken, and I'm spoken for? Except I'm not. Not really. But I can't bear to say this now that he's mentioned Ellie. "Yeah,I can't wait to see him again. He's a funny guy, you'd like him.I'm gonna see his band play at Christmas. Toph's a great guy, you'd really like him. Oh. I already said that,didn't I? But you would. He's really...funny." Shut up,Anna. Shut.Up. St. Clair unbuckles and rebuckles and unbuckles his watchband. "I'm beat," I say. And it's the truth. As always, our conversation has exhausted me. I crawl into bed and wonder what he'll do.Lie on my floor? Go back to his room? But he places his watch on my desk and climbs onto my bed. He slides up next to me. He's on top of the covers, and I'm underneath. We're still fully dressed,minus our shoes, and the whole situation is beyond awkward. He hops up.I'm sure he's about to leave,and I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed,but...he flips off my light.My room is pitch-black. He shuffles back toward my bed and smacks into it. "Oof," he says. "Hey,there's a bed there." "Thanks for the warning." "No problem." "It's freezing in here.Do you have a fan on or something?" "It's the wind.My window won't shut all the way.I have a towel stuffed under it, but it doesn't really help." He pats his way around the bed and slides back in. "Ow," he says. "Yes?" "My belt.Would it be weird..." I'm thankful he can't see my blush. "Of course not." And I listen to the slap of leather as he pulls it out of his belt loops.He lays it gently on my hardwood floor. "Um," he says. "Would it be weird-" "Yes." "Oh,piss off.I'm not talking trousers. I only want under the blankets. That breeze is horrible." He slides underneath,and now we're lying side by side. In my narrow bed. Funny,but I never imagined my first sleepover with a guy being,well,a sleepover. "All we need now are Sixteen Candles and a game of Truth or Dare." He coughs. "Wh-what?" "The movie,pervert.I was just thinking it's been a while since I've had a sleepover." A pause. "Oh." "..." "..." "St. Clair?" "Yeah?" "Your elbow is murdering my back." "Bollocks.Sorry." He shifts,and then shifts again,and then again,until we're comfortable.One of his legs rests against mine.Despite the two layers of pants between us,I feel naked and vulnerable. He shifts again and now my entire leg, from calf to thigh, rests against his. I smell his hair. Mmm. NO! I swallow,and it's so loud.He coughs again. I'm trying not to squirm. After what feels like hours but is surely only minutes,his breath slows and his body relaxes.I finally begin to relax, too. I want to memorize his scent and the touch of his skin-one of his arms, now against mine-and the solidness os his body.No matter what happens,I'll remember this for the rest of my life. I study his profile.His lips,his nose, his eyelashes.He's so beautiful.

I draw myself up next to her and look at her profile, making no effort to disguise my attention, here, where there is only Puck to see me. The evening sun loves her throat and her cheekbones. Her hair the color of cliff grass rises and falls over her face in the breeze. Her expression is less ferocious than usual, less guarded. I say, “Are you afraid?” Her eyes are far away on the horizon line, out to the west where the sun has gone but the glow remains. Somewhere out there are my capaill uisce, George Holly’s America, every gallon of water that every ship rides on. Puck doesn’t look away from the orange glow at the end of the world. “Tell me what it’s like. The race.” What it’s like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. It’s the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. It’s speed, if you’re lucky. It’s life and it’s death or it’s both and there’s nothing like it. Once upon a time, this moment — this last light of evening the day before the race — was the best moment of the year for me. The anticipation of the game to come. But that was when all I had to lose was my life. “There’s no one braver than you on that beach.” Her voice is dismissive. “That doesn’t matter.” “It does. I meant what I said at the festival. This island cares nothing for love but it favors the brave.” Now she looks at me. She’s fierce and red, indestructible and changeable, everything that makes Thisby what it is. She asks, “Do you feel brave?” The mare goddess had told me to make another wish. It feels thin as a thread to me now, that gift of a wish. I remember the years when it felt like a promise. “I don’t know what I feel, Puck.” Puck unfolds her arms just enough to keep her balance as she leans to me, and when we kiss, she closes her eyes. She draws back and looks into my face. I have not moved, and she barely has, but the world feels strange beneath me. “Tell me what to wish for,” I say. “Tell me what to ask the sea for.” “To be happy. Happiness.” I close my eyes. My mind is full of Corr, of the ocean, of Puck Connolly’s lips on mine. “I don’t think such a thing is had on Thisby. And if it is, I don’t know how you would keep it.” The breeze blows across my closed eyelids, scented with brine and rain and winter. I can hear the ocean rocking against the island, a constant lullaby. Puck’s voice is in my ear; her breath warms my neck inside my jacket collar. “You whisper to it. What it needs to hear. Isn’t that what you said?” I tilt my head so that her mouth is on my skin. The kiss is cold where the wind blows across my cheek. Her forehead rests against my hair. I open my eyes, and the sun has gone. I feel as if the ocean is inside me, wild and uncertain. “That’s what I said. What do I need to hear?” Puck whispers, “That tomorrow we’ll rule the Scorpio Races as king and queen of Skarmouth and I’ll save the house and you’ll have your stallion. Dove will eat golden oats for the rest of her days and you will terrorize the races each year and people will come from every island in the world to find out how it is you get horses to listen to you. The piebald will carry Mutt Malvern into the sea and Gabriel will decide to stay on the island. I will have a farm and you will bring me bread for dinner.” I say, “That is what I needed to hear.” “Do you know what to wish for now?” I swallow. I have no wishing-shell to throw into the sea when I say it, but I know that the ocean hears me nonetheless. “To get what I need.

The right guy enjoys the occasional opportunity to rescue his girl,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. The breeze ruffled his dark hair, and I couldn’t tear my gaze away from his face. My heart skittered, as I once again wondered if there was any possible way he meant those words about me. Focusing on his lips, I then found myself wondering what it would be like to feel them touching mine. I

No, Dan.” “And you want me to go.” I looked into his eyes. “No. I don’t.” He moved closer, encouraged, and put his hand on my shoulder. “Then what do you want, Elle?” “I want you not to have to settle,” I told him. “Is that what you think I’m doing?” “I know that’s what you’ll be doing. Because if you want more from me, you’re not going to get it.” He said nothing for a long time. “When I readThe Little Prince, I thought you must be the rose. You with your four thorns, convincing me you’re able to defend yourself. But now I know you hate roses. So you must be the fox instead. So maybe what you really want is for me to tame you.” From a lot of men, that speech would have made me laugh, or roll my eyes. Then again, a lot of men wouldn’t have read Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic story ofThe Little Prince, or bothered to try and understand it. I reached for his hand and held it between both of mine. “The fox tells the Little Prince he is a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. Just like the flower was like a hundred thousand other flowers.” Dan tucked a strand of hair behind my ear with the hand I wasn’t holding. “But the fox asked the prince to tame him. To make it so they’d need each other and be unique to each other. And he did it.” “And then the prince went away, Dan, and left the fox bereft.” I looked down at my hands, holding his. “Would you be sad if I left you?” He asked me, and at first I wasn’t sure how I would reply. At last the answer came on breath as tremulous as a breeze wafting curtains from an open window. “Yes. I would.” He squeezed my hand. “Then I won’t.

Wait," I said. He tilted his head in exasperation, clearly anticipating some sort of lecture. He went completely still when I strode up to him and kissed him. For one strange moment, I felt like laughing, because it was so clear that I had shocked him. I soon forgot about that, though, as well as everything else. I had not kissed him since Ljosland, and that barely counted; the first time, I had been so nervous that I barely touched him, while the second he had been in his other, oiche sidhe form. Perhaps it was the leaves rustling invisibly or the breeze that plucked at my hair, but I had the sense that I had left the mortal realm somehow, and that when I opened my eyes, I would find myself in some enchanted grove surrounded by faerie lights. This impression was so strong that I pulled away, dizzy.

Jesus must have had man hands. He was a carpenter, the Bible tells us. I know a few carpenters, and they have great hands, all muscled and worn, with nicks and callused pads from working wood together with hardware and sheer willpower. In my mind, Jesus isn't a slight man with fair hair and eyes who looks as if a strong breeze could knock him down, as he is sometimes depicted in art and film. I see him as sturdy, with a thick frame, powerful legs, and muscular arms. He has a shock of curly black hair and an untrimmed beard, his face tanned and lined from working in the sun. And his hands—hands that pounded nails, sawed lumber, drew in the dirt, and held the children he beckoned to him. Hands that washed his disciples' feet, broke bread for them, and poured their wine. Hands that hauled a heavy cross through the streets of Jerusalem and were later nailed to it. Those were some man hands.

Do you want to know my favorite?” My grip tightened on the railing. In. Out. “Andromeda.” Allister moved closer. “An autumn constellation, forty-four light-years away.” His steps were smooth and indifferent, but his voice was dry, as though he found my panic attack positively boring. His attitude brought a small rush of annoyance in, but it was suddenly swayed as my lungs contracted and wouldn’t release. I couldn’t keep a strangled gasp from escaping. “Look up.” It was an order, carrying a harsh edge. With no fight in me, I complied and tilted my head. Tears blurred my vision. Stars swam together and sparkled like diamonds. I was glad they weren’t. Humans would find a way to pluck them from the sky. “Andromeda is the dim, fuzzy star to the right. Find it.” My eyes searched it out. The stars weren’t often easy to see, hidden behind smog and the glow of city lights, but sometimes, on a lucky night like tonight, pollution cleared and they became visible. I found the star and focused on it. “Do you know her story?” he asked, his voice close behind me. A cold wind touched my cheeks, and I inhaled slowly. “Answer me.” “No,” I gritted. “Andromeda was boasted to be one of the most beautiful goddesses.” He moved closer, so close his jacket brushed my bare arm. His hands were in his pockets and his gaze was on the sky. “She was sacrificed for her beauty, tied to a rock by the sea.” I imagined her, a red-haired goddess with a heart of steel chained to a rock. The question bubbled up from the depths of me. “Did she survive?” His gaze fell to me. Down the tear tracks to the blood on my bottom lip. His eyes darkened, his jaw tightened, and he looked away. “She did.” I found the star again. Andromeda. “Ask me what her name means.” It was another rough demand, and I had the urge to refuse. To tell him to stop bossing me around. However, I wanted to know—I suddenly needed to. But he was already walking away, toward the exit. “Wait,” I breathed, turning to him. “What does her name mean?” He opened the door and a sliver of light poured onto the terrace. Black suit. Broad shoulders. Straight lines. His head turned just enough to meet my gaze. Blue. “It means ruler of men.” An icy breeze almost swallowed his words before they reached me, whipping my hair at my cheeks. And then he was gone.

Her. Her. Her. Future breezes implore me to stay. But I'm no future. I'm no past. Only ever contemporary of this path. I'll sacrifice everything for all her seasons give from losing. She, I sigh from The Mountain top. By her now. My only role. And for that freedom, spread my polar chill, reaching even the warmest times, a warning upon the back of every life that would by harming Hailey's play, ever wayward around this vegetative rush of orbit & twine, awaken among these cascading cliffs of bellicose ice me. And my Vengeance. At once. The Justice of my awful loss set free upon this crowded land. An old terror violent for the glee of ends. But to those who would tend her, harrowed by such Beauty & Fleeting Presence to do more, my cool cries will kiss their gentle foreheads and my tears will kiss their tender cheeks, and then if the Love of their Kindness, which only Kindness ever finds, spills my ear, for a while I might slip down and play amidst her canopies of gold. Solitude. Hailey's bare feet. And all her patience now assumes. Garland of Spring's Sacred Bloom. By you, ever sixteen, this World's preserved. By you, this World has everything left to lose. And I, your sentry of ice, shall allways protect what your Joy so dangerously resumes. I'll destroy no World so long it keeps turning with flurry & gush, petals & stems bending and lush, and allways our hushes returning anew. Everyone betrays the Dream but who cares for it? O Hailey no, I could never walk away from you. - Haloes! Haleskarth! Contraband! I can walk away from anything. Everyone loves the Dream but I kill it. Bald Eagles soar over me: —Reveille Rebel! I jump free this weel. On fire. Blaze a breeze. I'll devastate the World. \\ Samsara! Samarra! Grand! I can walk away from anything. Everyone loves the Dream but I kill it. Atlas Mountain Cedars gush over me: —Up Boogaloo! I leap free this spring. On fire. How my hair curls. I'll destroy the World. - Him. Him. Him. Future winds imploring me to stay. But I'm no tomorrow. I'm no yesterday. Only ever contemporary of this way. I will sacrifice everything for all his seasons miss of soaring. He, I sigh from The Mountain top. By him now. My only role. And for that freedom, spread my polar chill, reaching even the warmest climes, a warning upon the back of every life that would by harming Sam's play, ever wayward around this animal streak of orbit & wind, awaken among these cataracts of belligerent ice me. And my Justice. At once. The Vengeance of my awful loss set free upon this crowded land. An old terror violent for the delirium of ends. But to those who would protect him, frightened by such Beauty & Savage Presence to do more, my cool cries will kiss their tender foreheads and my tears will kiss their gentle cheeks, and then if the Kindness of their Love, which only Loving ever binds, spills my ear, for a while I might slip down and play among his foals so green. My barrenness. Sam's solitude. And all his patience now presumes. Luster of Spring's Sacred Brood. By you, ever sixteen, this World's reserved. By you, this World has everything left to lose. And I, your sentry of ice, shall allways protect what your Joy so terrifyingly elects. I'll destroy no World so long it keeps turning with scurry & blush, fledgling & charms beading with dews, and allways our rush returning renewed. Everyone betrays the Dream but who cares for it? O Sam no, I could never walk away from you.

The markets of my memory were city markets, London markets, crammed into narrow streets or cobbled squares, with hoarse-voiced vendors hawking their wares and all around me the relentless press of people, people everywhere. It was a pleasant change to see the bright-striped awnings gaily ringing around the weathered market cross, and the sunlight beating cheerfully down upon the market square. There were crowds here too, to be sure, but these were friendly country folk, their voices clear and plain, with honest faces scrubbed red by the wind and weather. "What do you think?" Rachel asked me. I could only gape, wide-eyed, like an entranced child, and she laughed her lovely musical laugh, grabbing my hand to lead me down into the thick of the crowd. We were jostled and bumped, but I found I did not mind it, and to my amazement I heard myself laughing as the final shreds of oppression fell away from me. The breeze lifted my hair and the sun warmed my face, and I felt suddenly, gloriously alive.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? - Ode to a Nightingale

And you’re like Wrightsville Beach. Your love comes in different waves, fracturing my boundaries, pushing and pulling me past my limits in ways that transcend me further. You’re relentless, unforgiving, and unpredictable, but smooth in the most remarkable ways, my love. Strong and unyielding. Your eyes are as blue as the water, especially during the summer when the sun shines on it just right. Your hair is as sandy as the beach, and when a sea breeze hits, I always get lost in the peaceful scent just like yours. And when the sun sets, it’s my favorite. You know why?

Love's Question " And is this all true, My ever-loving friend? That the lightning-flash of the light in my eyes Makes the clouds in your heart explode and blaze, Is this true? That my sweet lips are red as a blushing new bride, My ever-loving friend, Is this true? That a tree of paradise flowers withing me, That my foosteps ring like vinas beneath me, Is this true? That the night sheds drops of dew at the sight of me, That the dawn surrounds me with light from delight in me, Is this true? That the touch of my hot cheek intoxicates the breeze, My ever-loving friend, Is this true? That daylight hides in the dark of my hair, That my arms hold life and death in their power, Is this true? That the earth can be wrapped in the end of my sari, That my voice makes the world fall silent to hear me, Is this true? That the univrse is nothing but me and what loves me, My ever-loving friend, Is this true? That for me alone your love has been waiting Through worlds and ages awake and wandering, Is this true? That my voice, eyes, lips have brought you relief, In a trice, from the cycle of life after life, Is this true? That you read on my soft forehead inginite Truth, My ever-loving friend, Is this true?

His hands came to her wrists, squeezed reflexively, before he got quickly to his feet. "You're mixing things up." Panic arrowed straight into his heart. "I told you sex complicates things." "Yes,you did.And of course since you're the only man I've been with, how could I knew the difference between sex and love? Then again, that doesn't take into account that I'm a smart and self-aware woman, and I know the reason you're the only man I've been with is that you're the only man I've loved.Brian..." She stepped toward him, humor flashing into her eyes when he stepped back. "I've made up my mind.You know how stubborn I am." "I train your father's horses." "So what? My mother groomed them." "That's a different matter." "Why? Oh, because she's a woman.How foolish of me not to realize we can't possibly love each other, build a life with each other.Now if you owned Royal Meadows and I worked here, then it would be all right." "Stop making me sound ridiculous." "I can't." She spread her hands. "You are ridiculous.I love you anyway. Really, I tried to approach it sensibly.I like doing things in a structured order that makes a beeline for the goal.But..." She shrugged, smiled. "It just doesn't want to work that way with you.I look at you and my heart,well, it just insists on taking over.I love you so much,Brian. Can't you tell me? Can't you look at me and tell me?" He skimmed his fingertips over the bruise high on her temple. He wanted to tend to it, to her. "If I did there'd be no going back." "Coward." She watched the heat flash into his eyes,and thought how lovely it was to know him so well. "You won't push me into a corner." Now she laughed. "Watch me," she invited and proceeded to back him up against the steps. "I've figured a lot of things out today,Brian.You're scared of me-of what you feel for me. You were the one always pulling back when we were in public, shifting aside when I'd reach for you.It hurt me." The idea quite simply appalled him. "I never meant to hurt you." "No,you couldn't.How could I help but fall for you? A hard head and a soft heart.It's irresistable. Still, it did hurt. But I thought it was just the snob in you.I didn't realize it was nerves." "I'm not a snob, or a coward." "Put your arms around me.Kiss me. Tell me." "Damn it." he grabbed her shoulders, then simply held on, unable to push her back or draw her in. "It was the first time I saw you, the first instant. You walked in the room and my heart stopped. Like it had been struck by lightning.I was fine until you walked into the room." Her knees wanted to buckle.Hard head, soft heart, and here, suddenly, a staggering sweep of romance. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you make me wait?" "I thought I'd get over it." "Get over it?" Her brow arched up. "Like a head cold?" "Maybe." He set her aside, paced away to stare out at the hills. Keeley closed her eyes, let the breeze ruffle her hair, cool her cheeks. When the calm descended, she opened her eyes and smiled. "A good strong head cold's tough to shake off.

I sit on the Steps to Nowhere with my friends, and we laugh. It is spring and a breeze is ruffling our hair like loving fingers. We sit so close together that we constantly brush each other. We thouch each other with the casualness tht love allows. Noah and Alex thumb-wrestle. Angie pokes me and asks what I'm doing after school. Brooke reaches out to admire Sasha's new hair. We have sat like this for a hundred days and we think we will for another hundred and one. That is friendship, and it is love, but I already know what they have not learned yet; how dangerous friendship is, how damaging love can be.

All the time the ghosts flit past and through us, hiding in the future. We look in the mirror and see the shades of other faces looking back through the years; we see the shape of memory, standing solid in an empty doorway. By blood and by choice, we make our ghosts; we haunt ourselves. Each ghost comes unbidden from the misty grounds of dream and silence. Our rational minds say, “No, it isn’t.” But another part, an older part, echoes always softly in the dark, “Yes, but it could be.” We come and go from mystery and, in between, we try to forget. But a breeze passing in a still room stirs my hair now and then in soft affection. I think it is my mother.

I looked at him finally. His membranous wings were out- tucked behind him- but his hands and feet were normal, no talons in sight. 'What do you want?' It didn't come out with the snap I'd intended. Not as I remembered how he'd fought, again and again, to attack Amarantha, to save me. 'Just to say good-bye.' A warm breeze ruffled his hair, brushing tendrils of darkness off his shoulders. 'Before your beloved whisks you away forever.' 'Not forever,' I said, wiggling my tattooed fingers for him to see. 'Don't you get a week every month?' Those words, thankfully, came out frosty. Rhys smiled slightly, his wings rustling and then settling. 'How could I forget?

I stand outside Mr. Haverstrom’s door, staring at the black letters of his name stenciled on the frosted glass, listening to the murmur of voices inside. It’s not that Mr. Haverstrom is a mean boss—he’s a bit like Mr. Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights. Even though he doesn’t get much page time, his presence is strong and consequential. I take a breath, straighten my spine, and knock on the door firmly and decisively—the way Elizabeth Bennet would. Because she didn’t give a single shit about anything. Then Mr. Haverstrom opens the door, his eyes narrow, his hair and skin pale, his face lined and grouchy—like a squished marshmallow. On the outside, I nod and breeze into the office, but inside, I cringe and wilt.

A caravan from China comes; For miles it sweetens all the air With fragrant silks and dreaming gums, Attar and myrrh -- A caravan from China comes. O merchant, tell me what you bring, With music sweet of camel bells; How long have you been travelling With these sweet smells? O merchant, tell me what you bring. A lovely lady is my freight, A lock escaped of her long hair, -- That is this perfume delicate That fills the air -- A lovely lady is my freight. Her face is from another land, I think she is no mortal maid, -- Her beauty, like some ghostly hand, Makes me afraid; Her face is from another land. The little moon my cargo is, About her neck the Pleiades Clasp hands and sing; Hafiz, 't is this Perfumes the breeze -- The little moon my cargo is.

When God designed your features and joined your brows Paved my way, then trapped me with your gestures & bows The spruce and I, both rooted to the ground Fate, like a fine cloth belt, its bind endows. United the knots of my doing and of the budding heart The fragrant breeze, when to you it made its vows. Fate convinced me to be enslaved to thee Yet nothing moves unless your will allows. Like an umbilical cord, don't wrap around my heart It is your flowing lock of hair that I espouse. You were the desire of another, O breeze of union, Alas, my heart's hope and fire you douse. I said because of your infliction I shall leave my house Smilingly said go ahead Hafiz, with chained hooves and paws. Ghazaliyat Of Hafiz Shirazi Khajeh Shamseddin Mohammad Hafiz Shirazi

her power now that she had lost the hair. So when the bride had finished drinking, and would have got upon Falada again, the maid said, "I shall ride upon Falada, and you may have my horse instead;" so she was forced to give up her horse, and soon afterwards to take off her royal clothes, and put on her maid's shabby ones. At last, as they drew near the end of the journey, this treacherous servant threatened to kill her mistress if she ever told anyone what had happened. But Falada saw it all, and marked it well. Then the waiting-maid got upon Falada, and the real bride was set upon the other horse, and they went on in this way till at last they came to the royal court. There was great joy at their coming, and the prince hurried to meet them, and lifted the maid from her horse, thinking she was the one who was to be his wife; and she was led upstairs to the royal chamber, but the true princess was told to stay in the court below. However, the old king happened to be looking out of the window, and saw her in the yard below; and as she looked very pretty, and too delicate for a waiting-maid, he went into the royal chamber to ask the bride whom it was she had brought with her, that was thus left standing in the court below. "I brought her with me for the sake of her company on the road," said she. "Pray give the girl some work to do, that she may not be idle." The old king could not for some time think of any work for her, but at last he said, "I have a lad who takes care of my geese; she may go and help him." Now the name of this lad, that the real bride was to help in watching the king's geese, was Curdken. Soon after, the false bride said to the prince, "Dear husband, pray do me one piece of kindness." "That I will," said the prince. "Then tell one of your slaughterers to cut off the head of the horse I rode upon, for it was very unruly, and plagued me sadly on the road." But the truth was, she was very much afraid lest Falada should speak, and tell all she had done to the princess. She carried her point, and the faithful Falada was killed; but when the true princess heard of it she wept, and begged the man to nail up Falada's head against a large dark gate in the city through which she had to pass every morning and evening, that there she might still see him sometimes. Then the slaughterer said he would do as she wished, so he cut off the head and nailed it fast under the dark gate. Early the next morning, as the princess and Curdken went out through the gate, she said sorrowfully— "Falada, Falada, there thou art hanging!" and the head answered— "Bride, bride, there thou are ganging! Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, Sadly, sadly her heart would rue it." Then they went out of the city, driving the geese. And when they came to the meadow, the princess sat down upon a bank there and let down her waving locks of hair, which were all of pure gold; and when Curdken saw it glitter in the sun, he ran up, and would have pulled some of the locks out; but she cried— "Blow, breezes, blow! Let Curdken's hat go! Blow breezes, blow! Let him after it go! "O'er hills, dales, and rocks, Away be it whirl'd, Till the golden locks Are all comb'd and curl'd!" Then there came a wind, so strong that it blew off Curdken's hat, and away it flew over the hills, and he after it; till, by the time he came back, she had done combing and curling her hair, and put it up again safely. Then he was very angry and sulky, and would not speak to her at all; but they watched the geese until it grew dark in the evening, and then drove them homewards. The next morning, as they were going through the dark gate, the poor girl looked up at Falada's head, and cried— "Falada, Falada, there thou art hanging!" and it answered— "Bride, bride, there thou are ganging! Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, Sadly, sadly her heart would rue it." Then she drove on the geese and sat down again in the meadow, and began to comb

My hair floated out around me with the evening breeze, and Romeo caught a strand of it before he opened the door to the car. “You really do look beautiful,” he murmured, dipping his head low. “Thanks,” I said against his lips. His kiss ignited instant desire inside me. Even though I spent last night with him, and the night before, I missed him terribly. I felt like we hadn’t had enough alone time. I wanted more. I wanted so much more. He groaned and pulled back. “Let’s get this dinner over with,” he said grumpily. “I want to spend some time alone with you.” “You read my mind.” “Now that the season is over, we’ll have more time together.” “Want to just go to Taco Bell and hide at your place?” I asked when he slid into the driver’s seat. He laughed. The sound filled the interior of the car. “Why, Rimmel,”— he pressed a hand to his chest like he was scandalized—“ are you suggesting we stand up my mother?” I giggled. “I knew it,” he drawled. “Underneath that sweet exterior lies the heart of a baddie baddie.” I laughed out loud. “A baddie baddie?” “Like totally,” he said in a valley girl voice and pretended to flip the long hair he didn’t have. God, I loved him. “So what do you say?” I taunted as I smiled. “Want to play hookie?” He groaned. “I’d love to, baby, but we can’t.” I stuck out my tongue. “Watch what you do with that thing, baby girl.” “Yeah? Or what?” I challenged. “Or we might be late and I might mess up the perfect hair and makeup you got going on.” His eyes twinkled and he fake gasped as he put the car in gear. “Just what would mother say?

She'd gone and let her hair loose, he thought. Why did she have to do that? It made his hands hurt, actually hurt with wanting to slide into it. "That's good." She stepped in, shut the door. And because it seemed too perfect not to, audibly flipped the lock. Seeing a muscle twitch in his jaw was incredibly satisfying. He was a drowning man, and had just gone under the first time. "Keeley, I've had a long day here.I was just about to-" "Have a nightcap," she finished. She'd spotted the teapot and the bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter. "I wouldn't mind one myself." She breezed past him to flip off the burner under the now sputtering kettle. She'd put on different perfume, he thought viciously. Put it on fresh, too, just to torment him. He was damn sure of it.It snagged his libido like a fish-hook. "I'm not really fixed for company just now." "I don't think I qualify as company." Competently she warmed the pot, measured out the tea and poured the boiling water in. "I certainly won't be after we're lovers." He went under the second time without even the chance to gulp in air. "We're not lovers." "That's about to change." She set the lid on the pot, turned. "How long do you like it to steep?" "I like it strong, so it'll take some time. You should go on home now." "I like it strong, too." Amazing, she thought,she didn't feel nervous at all. "And if it's going to take some time, we can have it afterward." "This isn't the way for this." He said it more to himself than her. "This is backward, or twisted.I can't get my mind around it. no,just stay back over there and let me think a minute." But she was already moving toward him, a siren's smile on her lips. "If you'd rather seduce me, go ahead." "That's exactly what I'm not going to do." Thought the night was cool and his windows were open to it, he felt sweat slither down his back. "If I'd known the way things were, I'd never have started this." That mouth of his, she thought. She really had to have that mouth. "Now we both know the way things are, and I intend to finish it.It's my choice." His blood was already swimming. Hot and fast. "You don't know anything, which is the whole flaming problem." "Are you afraid of innocence?" "Damn right." "It doesn't stop you from wanting me. Put your hands on me,Brian." She took his wrist,pressed his hand to her breast. "I want your hands on me." The boots clattered to the floor as he went under for the third time.

She blew a warm breeze on his face and rustled his hair and embraced him in a warm haze and he felt her nonthreatening presence. She looked down and saw his face stained with tears, nobody could reach him in his grief but she could. He saw her and blew her a kiss goodbye. She flew down in a haze in a white dress with wings and whispered into his ear “please don’t cry I am in a better place. Marriage was forever. Love and life was forever. My body died but my soul lives on for eternity”. (Katie) “The rain stopped suddenly and the grey sky cleared into a bright blue colour and a glowing warm orange sun appeared to show her appreciation. A perfect blue sky remained on the dark winter’s day until after the ceremony and the hailstone and rain commenced again and the dark sky reappeared as the funeral car drove away

it is the end of july and the idle breeze of gentle childhood befogs my mind once more, as the foreign dull heat holds my body so close i feel it’s scarce and quiet breathing brush against my stomach. i have not written since paris and i feel true in my youth at last. the sun strips me of my fatigued masquerading while summer feeds me plump peaches and wrinkly with ripeness figs ; softly reciting the writings of sylvia plath and patti smith. my bare feet greedily absorb the coolness of the cerulean tiles carpeting the guest bathroom floor. the sea covers my ears it’s waves plaiting my hair with the pacific touch of a mother lulling me to a somnolent state as the lenient light of the afternoon blinks through my fluttering eyes and the sparse flare of wind relieves the creases between my eyebrows.

The neon orange orb sat low in the sky, slowly breaking free of the horizon like the waking memory of a dream. The salty air smelled faintly of fish, and was thick with humidity and hung like a cloak over my body. The lavender sky at the horizon faded into cerulean above and behind me. The soft breeze whispered past my face, teasing my hair on its way to tickle the sawgrass that swayed in gratitude as if laughing like a child.
 I sat on the top plank of the boardwalk rail, the wood heavy with atmosphere and was damp and cool under my left palm. The surprising warmth of the winter air and the cool of the wood reminded me that yes, I am alive! Yes, I am grateful for this morning! And yes, I am glad to be here!
 The paper in my notebook as I wrote this began to feel sticky and moist within a few minutes. The ink from my pen seemed to grip the paper faster and firmer as if to say, I’m here, I’m happy, and I don’t want to lose this moment. Like my ink, I too wanted to cling to this morning.
 The sky started turning a peachy orange at the bottom and the ocean was sea foam green. The waves were breaking quietly, as if to give my thoughts amplitude so I could record and rejoice in the sea’s majesty. 
 The sand was gray and silky like a freshly pressed pair of slacks. The smooth beach seemed paved with sunlight. A jogger ran by, his knees probably grateful for the even stride the flat surface provided. 
 Chunks of sea foam lay strewn on the beach like remnants of Poseidon’s nightly bubble bath. A seagull circled low in the air, gliding in the sky with its streamlined body as the sun lit its white wings up like an angel’s halo.

Love! What had I to love? Oh many things: there was the moonshine, and the bright stars; the breezes and the refreshing rains; there was the whole earth and the sky that covers it: all lovely forms that visited my imagination, all memories of heroism and virtue. Yet this was very unlike my early life although as then I was confined to Nature and books. Then I bounded across the fields; my spirit often seemed to ride upon the winds, and to mingle in joyful sympathy with the ambient air. Then if I wandered slowly I cheered myself with a sweet song or sweeter day dreams. I felt a holy rapture spring from all I saw. I drank in joy with life; my steps were light; my eyes clear from the love that animated them, sought the heavens, and with my long hair loosened to the winds I gave my body and my mind to sympathy and delight.

I’m watching the day through a breeze blown slice in my curtains, obscuring nothing but my hour, summer and wind making peace, moving the leaves in the trees standing guard by my window, nervous after my attempts, the sun stroking fronds but leaving others in shadows, seeing the movement of the branches but hearing nothing but the serene sound of cars beyond the garden, limbs waving to me as a bird perches, maybe scouting for a house, onto the bough scratching the glass, knocking to bring me out into contentment while tiny flies shoot in and out of view, their quick existence something I could argue as I smell the fresh air through the dour scent of a depression that hasn’t left my room in days, then swiftly feeling like I’m outside, alive and welcoming the wind to raise the hairs on my arms, a contrast that blossoms into hope.

I have bragged a lot about you here, don't let me down. Okay." I exhaled and looked at her with expectant eyes. "Okay." she came closer than required. I could almost feel her body right next to mine."Watch out. I am going to be your worst nightmare." She smiled crookedly. Freak!! there goes my heartbeat again. I struggled to fight back the wave of emotions that crowded up my heart. The moon was up in the sky, we were standing and talking where my father had proposed my mom. The breeze was light, gently swaying her hair. She was bathing in the streaming moonlight. Her gaze was on me, intense and unavoidable. I prayed not to do anything stupid, like kissing her. "Ocea-" "Orpheus, I am kidding." She cut in. Thank god she stepped away. I realized I let my breath ease away. "This is a beautiful lawn!" She exclaimed. "What do you play here? Baseball?

Tell me you hate me, and I’ll still count every heartbeat, every freckle, every shiver of your body, if only you say it with a smile.” He backs away, freeing my face from his hands. “I may be a monster, but if you cut me, I’ll bleed. And if you break my heart, Pae, you’ll break me. So, if even a sliver of your soul longs for mine, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to deserve it.” My eyes are glassy, rimmed with tears I’m too stubborn to let fall. The plea in his gaze is poetic. He flexes his hands at his side, as though it’s an effort to keep them off me. I take in his hair of petals and eyes of ice that only seem to melt when they fall on me. “Maybe you really are a poet,” I whisper. He smiles softly. “Or just a fool for you.” “Pretend?” My voice is small, soft like the breeze blowing through my short hair. “Never.” “None of it?” I ask quietly. “Darling”—he smiles—“I have never had to pretend to want you.

When I wake, it seems a little less hot than usual, so I’m worried I have a fever until light flashes behind the curtains and the sound of a detonation rolls in with a force that makes the windows rattle. As I step outside with a plastic bag over my cast, a stiff breeze pulls my hair away from my face, and I see the pregnant clouds of the monsoon hanging low over the city. The rains have finally decided to come. I sit down on the lawn, resting my back against the wall of the house, and light an aitch I’ve waited a long time to smoke. Suddenly the air is still and the trees are silent, and I can hear laughter from my neighbor’s servant quarters. A bicycle bell sounds in the street, reminding me of the green Sohrab I had as a child. Then the wind returns, bringing the smell of wet soil and a pair of orange parrots that swoop down to take shelter in the lower branches of the banyan tree, where they glow in the shadows.

I turn on my side, propping myself up on my elbow. A portion of her hair has fallen out of its entrapment of pins and curls around her neck. Reaching out a tentative finger, I brush the thick lock of hair. It’s soft to the touch, and a faint fragrance of apple and chamomile arises when I stroke the curling strand. She sucks in a quick breath when my finger brushes her chin. I stop, gauging whether to proceed or not, but Molly doesn’t protest. I see a surprised welcome in her eyes. The backs of my fingers stroke up her jawline to her cheek, on the soft, smooth side of her face. All the sounds around us still; the birds quiet, King’s yapping fades, and the breeze no longer whistles in my ear. All I can hear is the drum of my own heart. Her eyes widen, and she appears to be holding her breath, as I do mine. Of their own accord, my eyes focus on her lips, a perfect pair of petals in the midst of a half-ravaged flower. I dare to move closer; my lips hover inches above hers, the petals quiver, and our breath mingles once more.

Colin hid a grin. His stare, keen despite the deceptive softness of his lavender-gray eyes, settled on his admiral as he held the girl so tenderly in his arms. Sir Graham loved women, yes, but never had Colin seen him treat one with the sort of obsessive, worshipful devotion he’d bestowed upon Maeve Merrick from the moment he'd brought her aboard. He’d made a bed for her on the sofa tucked beside the starboard bulkhead, bathed her damp skin, and braided her hair to get the hot, heavy mass off her neck. He’d flung open all the stern windows and gone into a rare fit of temper when the tropical breezes had dimmed and the air grew sultry, hot and still. His demands had sent the harassed Dr. Ryder running for the escape of a rum bottle, a midshipman into tears, and the company into hushed and strained eagerness to obey every order relayed through the lieutenants’ speaking trumpets. And to top it all off, Sir Graham had had a blazing argument with Maeve’s formidable lieutenant, Enolia, over who would get custody of the convalescing Pirate Queen.

Old Country Longing August 9, 2024 at 8:49 AM [Verse] Old country, I miss your dusty roads, The fields where wildflowers still grow. I feel lonely when I can't see your face, Yearnin' for your warm, familiar embrace. [Verse 2] I desire to walk through your rolling hills, To hear the whisper of your creeks and rills. Obsessed, I hunger for your taste and scent, Missin' every single moment we spent. [Chorus] Old country, you fill my dreams, Your rivers and plains, your whispering streams. In your fields and farms, I long to find, The feel of your soul, touchin' mine. [Verse 3] I reminisce 'bout your moonlit nights, Your crickets singin' soft lullabies. The summer breeze that danced in my hair, In your presence, I felt no despair. [Verse 4] Your rusty barns and your forest trails, Every path tells a hundred tales. I crave the scent of your fresh cut hay, Dreamin' of home every single day. [Chorus] Old country, you fill my dreams, Your rivers and plains, your whispering streams. In your fields and farms, I long to find, The feel of your soul, touchin' mine.

His rough, cold hand grasped her chin. Her heart jolted as she gazed into his moss-gray eyes. “You owe me a forfeit,” he said. The breeze plucked at strands of his hair, curling them against his windburned cheeks. She jerked her head away. “Just what is it you want?” “I’ll have a kiss from you.” The breath left her chest in a rush. Inhaling slowly, she drew in the cold salt air. “That’s your forfeit?” “I declare to my soul, this is getting interesting,” whispered Aileen Breslin. “It’s an outrage,” Rory snapped. Caitlin challenged her prisoner with a furious stare. “I’d rather kiss a natterjack.” “You’ll have to settle for me instead.” In truth the request was modest enough. Yet her nerves rattled like dried reeds in the breeze. “Why?” His laughter flowed like warm mead from a crystal goblet. “Do you really have to ask?” “I’m asking.” “Because I want to know if the MacBride tastes like a woman, or a warrior.” Her face heated. “That’s absurd.” “It’s my request and my prerogative to be as absurd as I please. You knew the stakes. Will you have it said that the MacBride breaks her word?

I stand on a vast grass field of many gently sloping hills. It is night, yet the sky is bright. There is no sun, but a hundred blazing blue stars, each shining in a long river of nebulous cloud. The air is warm, pleasant, fragrant with the perfume of a thousand invisible flowers. In the distance a stream of people walk toward a large vessel of some type, nestled between the hills. The ship is violet, glowing; the bright rays that stab forth from it seem to reach to the stars. Somehow I know that it is about to leave and that I am supposed to be on it. Yet, before I depart, there is something I have to discuss with Lord Krishna. He stands beside me on the wide plain, his gold flute in his right hand, a red lotus slower in his left. His dress is simple, as is mine - long blue gowns that reach to the ground. Only he wears a single jewel around his neck - the brilliant Kaustubha gem, in which the destiny of every soul can be seen. He does not look at me but toward the vast ship, and the stars beyond. He seems to be waiting for me to speak, but for some reason I cannot remember what he said last. I only know that I am a special case. Because I do not know what to ask, I say what is most on my mind. "When will I see you again, my Lord?" He gestures to the vast plain, the thousands of people leaving. "The earth is a place of time and dimension. Moments here can seem like an eternity there. It all depends on your heart. When you remember me, I am there in the blink of an eye." "Even on earth?" He nods. "Especially there. It is a unique place. Even the gods pray to take birth there." "Why that, my Lord?" He smiles faintly. His smile is bewitching. It has been said, I know, that the smile of the Lord has bewildered the minds of the angels. It has bewildered mine. "One quest always leads to another question. Some things are better to wonder about." He turns toward me finally, his long black hair blowing in the soft night breeze. The stars reflect in his black pupils; the whole universe is there. The love that flows from him is the sweetest ambrosia in all the heavens. Yet it breaks my heart to feel because I know it will soon be gone. "It is all maya," he says. "Illusion." "Will I get lost in this illusion, my Lord?" "Of course. It is to be expected. You will be lost for a long time.

I breezed down the hall in my towel before pausing at the door to the bathroom. Staring back at me from the door was the usual, unwelcome sign: Men. Oh. Right. The reality stung as it sunk in, burrowing its way down to my heart. That’s how this works back in the “civilized world,” isn’t it? I can’t pee without being treated as a man. I can’t brush my teeth without being treated as a man. I can’t shower without being treated as a man. Under a housing system that required every first year student to live in the gender-segregated dorms on campus, I couldn’t brush my hair in a mirror, get dressed, sit at my desk to do my homework, go to sleep after a long day, bring someone home with me, or have access to any private space without being treated as a man. The straitjacket back in place, I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the last two weeks in the woods had been for nothing; everything I’d learned about myself had been for naught. I was back to being a guy, a boy, a male, a man. I was back to square one, my identity erased by the need to sleep, to bathe, to shit, to rest. Each of my basic needs became subsumed by the gender binary, packaged as things that “men do together.

Ian saw only that the beautiful girl who had daringly come to his defense in a roomful of men, who had kissed him with tender passion, now seemed to be passionately attached not to any man, but to a pile of stones instead. Two years ago he’d been furious when he discovered she was a countess, a shallow little debutante already betrothed-to some bloodless fop, no doubt-and merely looking about for someone more exciting to warm her bed. Now, however, he felt oddly uneasy that she hadn’t married her fop. It was on the tip of his tongue to bluntly ask her why she had never married when she spoke again. “Scotland is different than I imagined it would be.” “In what way?” “More wild, more primitive. I know gentlemen keep hunting boxes here, but I rather thought they’d have the usual conveniences and servants. What was your hoe like?” “Wild and primitive,” Ian replied. While Elizabeth looked on in surprised confusion, he gathered up the remains of their snack and rolled to his feet with lithe agility. “You’re in it,” he added in a mocking voice. “In what?” Elizabeth automatically stood up, too. “My home.” Hot, embarrassed color stained Elizabeth’s smooth cheeks as they faced each other. He stood there with his dark hair blowing in the breeze, his sternly handsome face stamped with nobility and pride, his muscular body emanating raw power, and she thought he seemed as rugged and invulnerable as the cliffs of his homeland. She opened her mouth, intending to apologize; instead, she inadvertently spoke her private thoughts: “It suits you,” she said softly. Beneath his impassive gaze Elizabeth stood perfectly still, refusing to blush or look away, her delicately beautiful face framed by a halo of golden hair tossing in the restless breeze-a dainty image of fragility standing before a man who dwarfed her. Light and darkness, fragility and strength, stubborn pride and iron resolve-two opposites in almost every way. Once their differences had drawn them together; now they separated them. They were both older, wiser-and convinced they were strong enough to withstand and ignore the slow heat building between them on that grassy ledge. “It doesn’t suit you, however,” he remarked mildly. His words pulled Elizabeth from the strange spell that had seemed to enclose them. “No,” she agreed without rancor, knowing what a hothouse flower she must seem with her impractical gown and fragile slippers.

And you are forever my undoing, Paedyn Gray." My knee mes te cobblestone, and her mouth opens in a gasp. "Marry me, Pae. marady on one knee, but I'll get down on both and beg for you, if you like." I lift that ring toward her, the one Kitt pressed into my palm with dying wish. "Love each other for me." Tears well in those blue eyes above. She knows of Kitt's final moments, every word uttered, every hope laid bare. Now the sight of that familiar ring is freeing. I can see the flood of relief washing over her features, because Kitt Azer— the boy she cared so deeply for—did not hate her in the end. The hurt she felt when he aimed a sword at her chest has begun to melt away beneath the truth of his motives. "Pae," I breathe. “I'll kneel here all day, so long as your answer is yes.” A hand falls from her mouth to reveal a wide grin. Good. I quite like the sight of you beneath me." “Vicious little thing…” I murmur with all the admiration she deserves. Her voice grows choked as she spits my own words back at me. "You forgot the 'my' in front of that endearing nickname." And then she is falling to her knees before me. Her hands shake against my face before a pair of smiling lips have found mine. She kisses me like forever is fleeting in the face of this moment. My hand finds her hair, tangling in the uneven strands I'd cut in that cave. Her lips taste of love and longing, and I beg for more. "Is this—" I kiss her deeply. "Is this a yes?" She laughs against my lips. "This is inevitable." I slip Kitt's gold band onto her thumb, opposite that steel ring of her father's. "I'll get you something better—" "No," she insists. Her eyes shine as they take in the rings hugging each thumb. "It's perfect. This is perfect." "Good." My rough palms graze the sides of her neck. "Because I love you, Paedyn Gray. And I will happily spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you." "I love you," she says, suddenly stern. "And I will spend the rest of my life shouting it until even Astrum hears, because it is Death who should fear me if he ever tries to take you away." We hold each other atop that uneven cobblestone. Forget-me-nots blow in the warm breeze, encircling us in a hug that feels like our past meeting our forever. Tears sting my eyes for the bittersweetness of this moment. Paedyn Gray is finally mine. But only because my brother is no longer here. "We will love for him," she whispers in my ear. A tear slips down my cheek. "You and me.

And the endurance is undeniable too. Six hours more or less on the defensive; six hours of alert immobility while the boat drove slowly or floated arrested, according to the caprice of the wind; while the sea, calmed, slept at last; while the clouds passed above his head; while the sky from an immensity lustreless and black, diminished to a sombre and lustrous vault, scintillated with a greater brilliance, faded to the east, paled at the zenith; while the dark shapes blotting the low stars astern got outlines, relief became shoulders, heads, faces, features, — confronted him with dreary stares, had dishevelled hair, torn clothes, blinked red eyelids at the white dawn. “They looked as though they had been knocking about drunk in gutters for a week,” he described graphically; and then he muttered something about the sunrise being of a kind that foretells a calm day. You know that sailor habit of referring to the weather in every connection. And on my side his few mumbled words were enough to make me see the lower limb of the sun clearing the line of the horizon, the tremble of a vast ripple running over all the visible expanse of the sea, as if the waters had shuddered, giving birth to the globe of light, while the last puff of the breeze would stir the air in a sigh of relief.

Its wooliness is gone and it would be an exaggeration, even a presumption, to describe this scrawny half-eroded object as a blanket. A “blan,” possibly; even a “ket,” but a full-blown “blanket,” no. However, my master holds, or at least appears to hold, that anything which one has kept for a year, two years, five years, and eventually for a decade, must then be kept for the rest of one’s natural life. One would think he were a gypsy. Anyway, what’s he doing, sprawled belly-down on that remnant of the past? He lies with his chin stuck out, its jut supported on a crotch of hands, with a lighted cigarette projecting from his right-hand fingers. And that is all he’s doing. Of course inside his skull, deep below the dandruff, universal truths may be spinning around in a shower of fiery sparks like so many Catherine Wheels. It’s possible but, judging from his external appearance, not likely even in one’s wildest imaginings. The cigarette’s lit tip is steadily burning down and an inch of ash, like some gray caddis-case, plopped down onto the blanket. My master, ignoring that declension, stares intently at the rising smoke. Stirred by the light spring breeze, the smoke floats up in loops and vortices, finally to gather in a kind of clinging haze around the ends of his wife’s just-washed black hair.

It's taken me no time to see, just how much you really mean to me. [Name], it's taken less than a week to realize i want you in my life, And not just as a friend, I don't want to watch as another guys wanders into your life and sweeps you off your feet,Call me selfish, but I'm the only boy I want to see you with, I don't want another boy to hold you in his arms, and push your hair behind your ear, and call you beautiful, I don't want another boy to kiss you gently on the forhead and tell you his feelings about you are indescribable through words. I don't want another boy to hold your hand. I want to be the boy who gets to do all of those things. I want to be the boy who gets to call you his, more than anything. I'm not perfect, I'm far from it. but i know that im going to treat you as perfect as possible, and i knowi'm never once going to let you down. I'm going to give you everything you deserve, and im going to make you the happiest girl in the world, Because, to me you're so much more than just every other girl. You're perfect. There's many girls in the world but none of them are you, And you're the only one I've fallen for so fast, and you're the only one i know for a fact i want to call mine. There's just so much about you that has pushed me off the edge, and made me fall harder than I have before. Your eyes for example those beautiful eys of yours, I have never seen anthing as beautiful in my life as your eyes. That gorgeous,color that just makes illuminates beauty, and makes my heart stop, And youre smile, I have no idea why you dont show it off to everyone. You told me you don't like your smile, but i have no idea how you couldn't, It's pefect. I could look at that smile all day long, and i mean it. I never want to see your face without it, because that smile is absolutely beautiful. There's so much about you, that's unique to you, that makes you who you are, and makes you so perfect. There's no other girl on this entire planet that has the same eyes, and smile, you do, And that's reason enough for me to want you, and no toher girl, And that's why defines you from every other girl, how beautiful you really are.I understand, any guy could tell you you're beautiful, but I'm not any guy. I'm me, and im not just telling you you're beautiful, [Name], I'm telling you you're the most beautiful girl in the whole world, and I want you to believe me when i tell you that, I want you to see youself as beautiful as I see you, I want to look you in the eyes, face to face, and tell you you're the most beautiful girl in the whole world, then hold you close to me, and never let you go, I don't want you to think I'm another guy who's going to lie to you, and break your heart. I want you to believe I really do mean all of this, because I do, with all of my heart, I want to spend nights with you in my arms, i want to kiss you on the forhead every night before bed, I want to try and put my feelings for you into words, just to see that beautiful smile of yours, I want to call you mine, and no one else's, I want you, and no one else, and I can't stress how much i really mean that. Imagine laying in the snow, on a calm winter night, looking up at a clear, starry, full moon night, holding hands, not speaking a word, just laying beside one another, listening, to a gentle breeze, taking in how beautiful stars, and the moon are, Feeling completely at peace with everything, like we're in a land far away from everything, and nothing could possibly take that away that feeling of safety , and complete inner happiness. That's howw I'd describe my feelings for you are. Absolutely perfect in every way. If I am lucky enough to see you tomorrow, I'm going to take your breath away, and prove to you I really am the boy who you deserve. I'm going to make you the happiest girl in the entire world. I feel like I may be falling for you way to fast, and way to soon, but I don't care. not one bit, I've never been so sure of anything.

Like drops of water that fall on the rocks of the jungle, the silence is full of tenderness. Whisper softly my poetry unraveling your admiration. In the name of night. Everything I see is simplicity in your beautiful body Like an incandescent light that dispels the darkness Then it bounced on the rose petals in the dim moonlight. Blushing reconciles the anxiety of the soul Comforting a sore heart Your beauty is a flower that unites to dazzle the majesty of the universe. Ahhh love... Your beauty is like a waterfall from the height of a cliff that is so sensual, showing the magic of a perfect panorama. How seductive and alluring is your soft skin..... As gentle as the twilight wind blew the dandelions scattered under the night sky. As soft as a lump of cotton that lay white on the heart rug. As gentle as the caress of the night breeze, flaking your shiny black hair. Ahhh. Let my breath rest for a moment Here, Between two seas of wine flowing red I find on your lips. How beautiful is love When the stalks of a kiss fall lying down Tickling spoiled and whispering intimately about the love that is heaven behind your ear with a warm whisper blowing slowly And Slowly... caressing your face in a long soft moan Lull a thousand touches and then cast your body into a pleasure that you have not found. In the name of my chest. Let our restless tantrums grapple in the flames of burning love. Until our passion quells the passion, Wet and subside. ️

Thank-You Notes Under the vigilant eye of my mother I had to demonstrate my best penmanship By thanking Uncle Gerry for the toy soldiers– Little red members of the Coldstream Guards– And thanking Aunt Helen for the pistol and holster, But now I am writing other notes Alone at a small cherry desk with a breeze coming in an open window, thanking everyone I happen to see on my long walk to the post office today and anyone who ever gave me directions or placed a hand on my shoulder, or cut my hair or fixed my car. And while I am at it, thanks to everyone who happened to die on the same day that I was born. Thank you for stepping aside to make room for me, for giving up you seat, getting out of the way, to be blunt. I waited until midnight on that day in March before I appeared, all slimy and squinting, in order to leave time for enough of the living to drive off a bridge or collapse in a hallway so that I could enter without causing a stir. So I am writing now to thank everyone who drifted off that day like smoke from a row of blown-out candles– for giving up your only flame. One day, I will follow your example and step politely out of the path of an oncoming infant, but not right now with the subtropical sun warming this page and the wind stirring the fronds of the palmettos, and me about to begin another note on my very best stationary to the ones who are making room today for the daily host of babies, descending like bees with their wings and stingers, ready to get busy with all their earthly joys and tasks.

I crept through the trees and brush for no more than an hour before I felt a presence behind me- coming ever closer, sending the animals running for cover. I smiled to myself, and twenty minutes later, I settled in the crook of a towering elm and waited. Brush rustled- hardly more than a breeze's passing, but I knew what to expect, knew the signs. A snap and a roar of fury echoed across the lands, scattering the birds. When I climbed out of the tree and walked in to the little clearing, I merely crossed my arms and looked up at the High Lord, dangling by his legs from the snare I'd laid. Even upside down, he smiled lazily at me as I approached. 'Cruel human.' He chuckled, and I came close enough to dare stroke a finger along the silken golden hair dangling just above my face, admiring the many colours within it- the hues of yellow and brown and wheat. My heart thundered, and I knew he could probably hear it. But he leaned his head toward me, a silent invitation, and I ran my fingers through his hair- gently, carefully. He purred, the sound rumbling through my fingers, arms, legs, and core. I wondered how that sound would feel if he were fully pressed up against me, skin-to-skin. I stepped back. He curled upward in a smooth, powerful motion and swiped with a single claw at the creeping vine I'd use for rope. I took a breath to shout, but he flipped as he fell, landing smoothly on his feet. It would be impossible for me to ever forget what he was, and what he was capable of. He took a step closer to me, the laughter still dancing on his face.

Come when you should. All this will have been passing through me for you to breathe. I have gazed at it for so long, for your sake, namelessly, with the gaze of poverty, and have loved it, as if already you drank it in. And yet: when I recall that all this- myself, stars, flowers, the sharp flight of a bird out of gesturing brushwood, the clouds' haughtiness and what the wind could do to me at night, whisking me out of one being into next,-that all this, in endless succession (for I am all this, am what the potion's roar left behind in my ear, am the exquisite taste which once a ripe fruit expended on my lips),- that all this, when once you're really here, all, even back to the boy's low gaze into the chalices of high-grown flower fields, even back to one of my mother's smiles which I perhaps, thronged with your being, shall think of as something stolen-, that all this I then shall have to inexhaustibly outgive, night and day, so much unsparingly assimilated nature-, never knowing if what begins to glow in you is mine: perhaps you'll grow more beautiful entirely from your own beauty, from the profusion of restedness in your limbs, from what is sweetest in your blood,-for all I know, because there is awareness even in your hand, because your hair flatters your shoulders, because something in the dark breeze is one with you, because your forget me totally, because you don't strain to hear, because you are a woman: when I recall how I've thrust tenderness into that blood I'd never startled, the voiceless heartstream of things held dear Toledo, November 1912

You grow sleepy,cara mia," Julian whispered, leaning down to kiss her forehea. "We should go to your brother's chamber. I will check him once more before we go to ground." Desari refused to open her eyes. She made a soft purring sound, completely contented to lie in his arms. "Not yet, Julian," she protested softly. "I do not want to leave this place for a little while longer." "I can feel how tired you are, my love. I can do no other than-" "Do not say it!" Deasri thumped his chest. "Just lie there and hold me. That is what I want. Men are such difficult creatures,Julian. I am beginning to realize this." He rubbed his chin on the top of her head, her hair catching in the shadow along his jaw. "Men are not difficult. They are logical and methodical." She laughed softly. "You wish it wree so. I must tell you,although I am taking a huge cance that you might become impossible to live with, tha you are an extraordinary lover." "Keep talking,lifemate. I am listening," he responded with a deep satisfaction. "Magnificent was only a starting place. Extraordinary lover is the perfect description. I see that now." Her soft laughter washed over him, as gentle as a breeze. Touching him. Just like that. She could touch him with her breath. Julian wrapped his arms around her tightly and buried his face in her ebony hair. "Why is it you always smell so good?" "Would you want me to smell like a cavewoman?" "I do not know,cara. I do not know what a cavewoman smells like." She opened her eyes at that, her long lashes fluttering in the sexy,flirty little way she had. "You'd better not want me smelling like any other, Julian, or you will find out what a real ancient woman can do when she is enraged.

He opened an eye and smiled lazily at me. 'That willow's singing always puts me to sleep.' 'The what of what?' I said, propping myself on my elbows to stare at the tree above us.' Tamlin pointed toward the willow. The branches sighed as they moved in the breeze. 'It sings.' 'I suppose it sings war-camp limericks, too?' He smiled and half sat up, twisting to look at me. 'You're human,' he said and I rolled my eyes. 'Your senses are still sealed off from everything.' I made a face. 'Just another of my many shortcomings.' But the word- shortcomings- had somehow stopped finding its mark. He plucked a strand of grass from my hair. Heat radiated from my face as his fingers grazed my cheek. 'I could make you able to see it,' he said. His fingers lingered at the end of my braid, twirling the curl of hair around. 'See my world- hear it, smell it.' My breathing became shallow as he sat up. 'Taste it.' His eyes flicked to the fading bruise on my neck. 'How?' I asked, heat blooming as he crouched before me. 'Every gift comes with a price.' I frowned, and he grinned. 'A kiss.' 'Absolutely not!' But my blood raced, and I had to clench my hands in the grass to keep from touching him. 'Don't you think it puts me at a disadvantage to not be able to see all this?' 'I'm one of the High Fae- we don't give anything without gaining something from it.' To my own surprise, I said, 'Fine.' He blinked, probably expecting me to have fought a little harder. I hid my smile and sat up so that I faced him, our knees touching as we knelt in the grass. I licked my lips, my heart fluttering so quickly it felt as if I had a hummingbird inside my chest. 'Close your eyes,' he said, and I obeyed, my fingers grappling onto the grass. The birds chattered, and the willow branches sighed. The grass crunched as Tamlin rose up on his knees. I braced myself at the brush of his mouth on one of my eyelids, then on the other. He pulled away, and I was left breathless, the kisses still lingering on my skin.

Orion threw a grin back at me as headed to the bar, ducking behind it. “What would madam like?” he asked in a formal tone which was a damn good impression of the Acruxes' butler. I giggled hurrying over to take a stool in front of the bar and placing my clutch down, relishing the cool breeze against my burning neck. “Hmm...a Manhattan?” I teased and he cocked his head. “I'm afraid we're fresh out of bullshit, how about a white wine spritzer with a tiny umbrella in it?” I laughed, nodding eagerly as he made up my drink then poured himself a measure of bourbon. He held it out for me and I leaned across the bar to take it. As I took hold of the glass, he didn't let go and I gazed up at him under my lashes questioning why. “Have I told you have exceptionally beautiful you look tonight, Darcy?” Darcy. He'd said my name. For the first time ever. And why did it sound like so much more than a name when he spoke it? It was like he'd fired an arrow and it had punctured a flesh wound in me at the exact same moment. Hell. I needed to get over this guy. Why was I so caught up on him? Unavailable, that's what it was. We always want what we can't have and Professor Orion was off limits. Simple as that. And those muscles. And the beard. And the dark eyes. And the dimple. But that was it. “That's the first I've heard of it, Professor,” I whispered, unable to make my voice rise any louder. “Don't do that,” he grunted, releasing the drink. I eyed him curiously as he walked around the bar with his bourbon in hand. He took the stool beside mine, his arm butting up against me. “Do what?” I asked, swivelling around to face the pool and taking a sip of my spritzer. It fizzed on my tongue and sent a deep kick of heat through my chest. “You know what.” “You're very presumptuous, Orion. You think I'm far more aware of your chaotic way of thinking than I really am.” I sipped my drink again, spying on him from the corner of my eye. He took a swig of his own drink and the familiar waft of bourbon drifted over me, tingling my senses. It was becoming a trigger, like the moment I walked into his office and he uncorked a bottle, it made me want to taste it on his mouth. And then that led to me wondering whether his fangs would brush my tongue when we kissed, and that always led to me mentally undressing him, then me conjuring an image of what those muscles looked like beneath that shirt... “I have something for you,” he said and I turned, blinking out of my dark fantasy. “You do?” He nodded, reaching into his inside pocket and taking out my coil of blue hair. My heart combusted and a choked noise escaped me. I reached for it and he slid it onto my wrist. He kept my hand in his, his eyes downcast as they remained on the band of hair. “I want you to know, I believe you would have gotten this back yourself when you were ready. But I took a lot of pleasure in retrieving it for you all the same.” I stared at him in complete shock, unsure what to say, my tongue tied in knots. “But Fae don't fight battles for other Fae,” I blurted, completely astonished that his actions that day had been to take this back from Seth. For me. And nothing else. He finished his drink and planted the glass on the bar, rising to his feet. He didn't reply to what I'd said and I barely even remembered what it was as he started pulling his clothes off. “Err, what are you doing?” I half laughed as he shed his jacket and kicked off his shoes, pulling off his socks. Oh my god. “I hate parties, but I like swimming.” He started undoing the buttons of his shirt and thought his back was to me, I was still captivated as he dropped it to the floor like a silken sheet. My eyes scraped down his skin to where his muscles etched an upside down v into his lower back, disappearing beneath his waistband. His shoulders were tanned and heavenly broad, making me long to explore all of those muscles with my hands.(Darcy)

The ocean breeze blew her flimsy gown against her body. Hip bones jutted out on either side of her concave stomach. I’d once seen a picture of sacred cows on the Ganges. Starving. “What’s with the outfit?” I asked. “No time to change,” she said. “Had to make a quick getaway.” She kicked the pumps off, pulled the dress over her head. There she stood in a lacy bra and butt-floss thong. Some yacht dads gazed our way. “Evie!” stage-whispered Jack to me. “She’s naked!” “Listen, kid,” said Alycia. “What was your name again?” “Jack?” said Jack. “Right, right. Well, Jack, I can show you naked if you want. But this isn’t it. See this piece of fabric? They call it underwear.” “But I can see your regina.” “Jack, it’s your lucky day.” She turned from us, splashed through the shallows, and dove. Graceful as a dolphin. The yacht dads rubbernecked. She front-crawled out past the breakers. “Why is my day lucky?” asked Jack. I tousled his hair.

Tessana, you are by far the most exquisite sight I have ever beheld. I believe I will never forget you on that cliff. I will never lose the image of your hair blowing in the breeze, your cape stretched out behind you, your arms flung to the side. I am afraid you have so imprinted this image in my mind that I will compare all other beauty to you. You stole my breath, my reason. You are enchanting. Beyond anything I could have imagined you would become.

On a field of white, Minna has appliqued pieces of fabric that together paint a scene. A young girl sits by a tree-lined brook. If I'd had more time, I think I might have imagined my way inside, my sore feet dangling in the calm water, the breeze braiding through my hair. It is as pretty as a picture on a penny postcard.

Να μην αλλάξεις! Να 'σαι πάντα η πρωινή αύρα μέσα στης αυγής την ώρια κόμη! Να είσαι πάντα ο εαυτός σου! Αφιερωμένο ειδικά για τους μικρούς μου φίλους... Ειρήνη Ντούρα - Καββαδία Do not change! Always be the morning breeze gently brushing the dawn's beautiful hair! Always be yourself! Dedicated especially to my little friends ... Quote and translation Irene Doura-Kavadia

We’re the most powerful Fae in this kingdom!” Tory shouted, her voice filled with power as it was amplified by Orion’s magic and her hair swirling around her in a wild breeze, making her look fierce as hell. “And we may have been hurt, beaten, bruised, drowned.” She glared down at the Heirs. “But we’re never going to stay down.” The Heirs shared anxious looks and my heart swelled as I met Orion’s gaze, his eyes brimming with pride. I loved him fiercely in that moment. Truly. Madly. Always. “So we intend to claim our rightful place in the kingdom!” I announced. “Bring on the press, the photoshoots, the interviews, we’re ready to step out and be the real princesses that we are.” Tory caught my hand and I lifted her arm into the air on instinct. “We’re going to fight for our throne!” she cried. “And we’re going to win it!” I finished.

His scales were smooth and hot beneath my palms but I managed to gain purchase by grabbing hold of his wing and hoisting myself higher. His body was trembling beneath me and he bellowed in pain again, urging me on faster. I reached up, grabbing a thick spine which ran down the centre of his neck before coming face to face with the creature from my nightmares. The Nymph shrieked, lunging at me faster than should have been possible and I almost lost my grip on Darius as I fell back. My heart lurched violently but I managed to catch the top of his wing, swinging myself around as that paralysing rattle juddered through my core, halting my magic in its tracks and stealing my energy from me. Fear shot through me as the Nymph pounced, its probes aimed right for my chest. I screamed, throwing my fist out even though I knew it was no good. As my knuckles connected with the bony ridges of its face, pain exploded through my hand swiftly followed by a flood of red and blue flames. The Nymph shrieked so loudly that I threw my hands over my ears as the flames consumed it, a wisp of black smoke sweeping up towards the sky where it had been moments before. I fell forwards, my palms meeting the warmth of Darius’s blood as I braced myself against him. More Nymphs were running straight for us and with an echoing roar which vibrated right through my body, Darius destroyed all five of them with a torrent of Dragon Fire. His head fell forward as he used the last of his energy and I cried out, grabbing hold of his wing as he tilted sideways beneath me. He crashed to the ground on his side and through some miracle, I managed to keep hold of his wing before falling against his neck. I wrapped my arms around him, scrunching my eyes closed as a tremor tore through his body and the golden colour of his scales seemed to shine with inner power and heat. My stomach lurched and I released a scream as I found myself falling over ten foot down to the ground as Darius retreated into his Fae form. I kept hold of him as I fell, crashing down into the mud of the Pitball pitch on top of him with a cry of fear. All around us the fight raged on but beneath my hands, blood was pulsing from his chest and he was lying deathly still. “Darius?” I demanded, shaking him while still trying to press down on his wounds. It wouldn’t be enough though, his back and legs were bleeding too. A bloody gouge shone wetly on his neck and his breaths were far too shallow. “Help!” I shouted, though my eyes stayed fixed on Darius’s face and my heart was pounding the rhythm of a war drum in my chest. The hairs were rising along the back of my neck, a strange sensation prickling in my chest. This moment felt eternal and fleeting all at once, like we were hanging between two great points and everything could change on the turn of a coin. “Wake up!” I demanded, pushing my magic towards him in hopes of being able to do something. Instead of stopping the blood or healing him, my magic spilled into his body, merging with his in the reverse of what we’d been doing when he helped me with my fire magic. His power welcomed mine instantly, drawing it in, blending with it completely like it had been waiting for this moment. The feeling took my breath away and though it didn’t slow the blood, I felt the tension ease from his muscles and the fear loosen its grip on his heart. My hands were shaking as they ran slick with Darius’s blood and silent tears tracked down my cheeks. His heart was slowing down, his power flickering like a candle in a breeze. If someone didn’t get to us soon, Darius Acrux was going to die. And though it seemed like he should have been the last person in the world for me to care about after everything he’d done to me, I wasn’t sure I could bear it if I lost him here.(tory)

My childhood crush moved in slow motion, with tiny blue birds chirping and flitting their wings around his head as his golden hair blew in a sparkling breeze. I think my heart might have stopped.

I’m gonna pull my hair out,” I say, “and I don’t have much left.” I run my hand through the remnants of my curls, and then it happens: I have one of those all-too-rare epiphany moments. It seems like everything happens at once: The sun comes out of the clouds, and it stops drizzling. The sand truck wheezes to life and merges into the proper lane, and traffic starts to move. It feels like I can see for miles, down into the clogged heart of San Jose: houses, office buildings, treetops waving in the breeze. We pick up speed, and the redwoods fall away behind us, and in the distance I see Mount Hamilton, its crest sparkling with fresh snow. And then it comes to me. The idea that will finally work. “Personalized shampoo by mail,” I say.

She and the star The feeling was fair, It felt like a perfect pair, There appeared to be no room for any despair, As my imagination got caught in her beautiful eyes and her long hair, Well, the sun had finally risen, My heart too had eventually chosen, Her, and her beautiful eyes where I wished to awaken, Every morning and every day, because in them I did not feel forsaken, So I waited at the crossing of life where I had met her sometime ago, Where I just felt an existence without an ego, Yes, it was many years and many months ago, I am there at the same crossing now, wondering where to go, For it is uncertain which way she took, Whether she went towards the mountain tall or there where flows the brook, Or there, where the summer breeze, a few leaves had tenderly shook, Or maybe there, from where she had left while offering me that strange parting look, But then it is true too, few things shine like stars, For those who believe in love without bars, And those who deal with emotional battles and feeling induced wars, Realise that in order to shine one must burn, and that is the fate of all stars, So I seek her in the sky instead, assuming she is the star I can see, From anywhere, from everywhere, or wherever I might be, And this has made me fall in love with the night, where it creates a world just for me, The starry world, where finally, in the stars those eyes and that smile, I can see, And during the day I lie asleep because the sky means nothing, It just has the burning sun, the bright light and perhaps everything, But it is not the sky that shines with that fairest thing, Those beautiful eyes, that subtle smile, and her shimmer that is so charming, And here I am witnessing another night, Looking at the star that is in the sight, Seeking from it a pseudo delight, Because what burns may not always create the beauty’s eternal light, But that is not the star’s fault nor the skies folly, For the munificent star burns for me willingly, So that I think of her lovingly, And that I accept silently, that my heart too loved what I loved with my mind finally!

I sit on the Steps to Nowhere with my friends, and we laugh. It is spring and a breeze is ruffling our hair like loving fingers. We sit so close together that we constantly brush each other. We touch each other with the casualness that love allows. Noah and Alex thumb-wrestle. Angie pokes me and asks what I'm doing after school. Brooke reaches out to admire Sasha's new hair. We have sat like this for a hundred days and we think we will for another hundred and one. That is friendship, and it is love, but I already know what they have not learned yet; how dangerous friendship is, how damaging love can be.

I turn in that direction catching a flash of Cecelia’s hair in my peripheral. Ripping my eyes from the vacant street, I glance over to see her head resting against the seat, head tilted toward the breeze, gaze trained up at the sky. This is happy. Sensing my stare, she looks back at me, a smile cracking her face, and with it, she steals the last unchartered piece of me.

want to roll the windows down and let my gray hair fly in the breeze and listen to the music of the world humming by.

Sometimes, I lean out my split-pane window that seems to be high off the ground, and I can hear the whistling wind stream through the leaves of the growth of trees, sometimes this reminds me about being in the garden and golden fields when my eyes are closed. But, when my eyes were open, I realized that it is just the wind rushing through the various hills and valleys of ‘The Land of Many Steeples.’ I do not know what it is… but there is just something about letting your hair blow in the breeze, which feels so amazing. I feel that it is just one of the amazing moments in time, which I have experienced. Oh, just the same can be said, about me standing in the rain, freely and naturally on a warm spring day, while I am filling the ground squish under my toes. Yes, likewise can be said for the winters when I come home from the hellhole, and see the fireplace with its warm glow, from outside the frost chilled arched windows of the tort section of the house that is part of the dwelling. ‘It is amazing also because I know that I will soon be warm and comfortable, and out of this uniform that labels me as one of them.’ In the wintertime, the snowdrifts, the pointed part of the roof along with the weathervane are covered in a blanket of white, ‘The Land of Many Steeples’ sparkles, and soft with an almost spooky light blue cast in the moonlight. The trees down the lane drip with ice like a crystal cave, but- yet we all carve a pathway down the road that leads to the hell and then back to the emptiness. Snow days are rare, but that does not matter to me either way because I cannot truly share it with anyone it seems, as you all know. So, would you be my friend if I asked you? Would you spend some time with me? Can I depend on you; I would be there for you! So, on any day in any weather condition, unless the fog is rising from the valley, I can see in the distance ‘The Land of Many Steeples’, a far cry from this country land, where the dwelling of lost and lonely dreams is upon. Then there are some days there are thunderstorms outside my window, and it takes me back to the past, like when I was in that dark room. I do not think anyone gets over their past, the past that haunts me, and a past that the tower uses against me. Yes, you can change your name. Change your hair, and change your style, but the words of slander will remain. The only thing I can do is find someone that does not care about what the words mean or say, or just plainly pray for it to all go away.

He’d parked in the very corner of the lot, far, far away from the lights and other cars. As I approached, I heard the telltale sign of glass breaking. Through the shadows, I spotted a figure standing on the hood, swinging something down on the windshield. A skateboard. My feet stopped moving, stupefied at the sight of Helen, on top of my car, her long hair flowing behind her in the breeze, looking like an angel of vengeance. She swung her skateboard high, bringing it down on the windshield with a crash. It was so crazy, such a ridiculously glorious scene, I barked a loud laugh. She whirled, eyes wide, but not panicked. Our gazes locked, and that got me moving toward her. Why, I didn’t know yet. The second I moved, she did too, running to the edge of the hood. She was a step away from jumping off when I lunged, hooking my arms around her before she could escape. “What’s going on, Little Tiger? Are you getting into trouble again?

But then the breeze blew a strand of hair across her face, and I without thinking reached up and brushed it back behind her ear, and her eyes drifted closed at my touch, and fuck fuck fuck, what had I been about to say?

Love,” he said, “is carrying her around the castle on my back. It is the way she bites her lip when thinking. It’s her tangle of blonde hair blowing lazily in the breeze as she skips stones on the lake. It is in the way she steals my leather jacket and gives it back each time she claims that it no longer smells like me. It is how her hand is always covered in ink and papercuts. It is the instinct I have to protect her at all costs.

I doubt you will find me so amusing when you’re gasping for the last of your breaths.” He became still again, and…good gods, the water coursing down his chest froze. The droplets ceased. “I’m already gasping,” he whispered, his voice rougher, deeper. Confusion rippled along the flood of rage. Did he have some sort of breathing ailment? Could gods have health issues? If so, I doubted these cold waters would be good for his lungs. Not that I remotely cared for the condition of his lungs. Nor did I even know why I was wondering about their condition. A warm breeze lifted the strands of my wet hair and slipped over the chilled skin of my bare shoulders and my… Oh. The water only reached my waist here. "In case you're wondering,"- his voice was a kiss against my skin- "this me intentionally staring

she asked again, this time more hesitantly, her voice barely a whisper. “Yeah?” I murmured sleepily, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair. “I love you.” The words hung in the air, stopping time and my heart along with it. I felt like a kid who’d caught a soapy swirling bubble on the tip of my finger, afraid the slightest breeze might cause it to burst. Elation brighter than pure sunshine filled my chest. “I love you, too, Lina. More than you could ever comprehend.

Little Lamby might be a snob. Thinks she’s too good to hang out at the Palisades.” “I don’t think that,” I whispered. Tristan’s arm pressed on my chest like an iron bar as his hand inched down to the curve of my breast. My nails dug into my thighs, my mind racing with ideas of how to get out of here. If I could get my voice to work, I’d scream, but my throat was too tight from fear. At the same time Tristan squeezed my breast, the screen door flew open. Helen stood in the doorway like an avenging angel, her hair flowing in the breeze, tapping a bat against her palm. “Knock, knock, boys. I seem to have a problem. I have batting practice, but I don’t have a ball.” Her red lips fell open, and she pointed to each of the guys with her bat. “Oh, wait, I see three pairs of balls my bat would just love to smash. Who volunteers to go first?

I’m not sure what exploits those are,” I tell her, a light breeze teasing my rose gold hair around my face. “But regardless, what right does that give you to harass me? You should probably take a women’s studies class or something, and read up on internalized misogyny.

Paul went to pick him up at the train station, but they must have failed to meet because Rimbaud came on his own, on foot. I expected him to be similar to my beloved romantic poets. Beautiful and childishly pure like Alfred de Musset. Or divinely handsome like Lamartine, with the appearance of a Greek god. Or manly and strikingly comely like Chateaubriand, gazing at the sea as the breeze blows his long curls of hair. As a young girl, I was in love with the poetry of our bards and their portraits. Meanwhile, here in front of our well-kept house, I saw a sloppy rascal in tattered clothes, with disheveled hair, a sweaty face, and no luggage! I was itching to ask: and where is your Sunday garb? A change of underwear? Toothbrush, clothes brush, shoe brush, handkerchief, comb? Well, call me overly idealistic, but I genuinely believed that a normal person couldn’t do without these things.

He wakes to blinding light and a shockingly verdant landscape: flooded paddy fields with narrow mud bunds snaking between them, barely containing the water whose still surface mirrors the sky; coconut palms that are as abundant as leaves of grass; tangled cucumber vines on the side of a canal; a lake crowded with canoes; and a stately barge parting the smaller vessels like a processional down a church aisle. His nostrils register jackfruit, dried fish, mango, and water. Even before his brain digests these sights, his body—skin, nerve endings, lungs, heart—recognizes the geography of his birth. He never understood how much it mattered. Every bit of this lush landscape is his; its every atom contains him. On this blessed strip of coast where Malayalam is spoken, the flesh and bones of his ancestors have leached into the soil, made their way into the trees, into the iridescent plumage of the parrots on swaying branches, and dispersed themselves into the breeze. He knows the names of the forty-two rivers running down from the mountains, one thousand two hundred miles of waterways, feeding the rich soil in between, and he is one with every atom of it. I’m the seedling in your hand, he thinks, as he gazes on Muslim women in colorful long-sleeved blouses and mundus, with cloths loosely covering their hair, bent over at the waist like paper creased down the middle, moving as one line through the paddy fields, poking new life into the soil. Whatever is next for me, whatever the story of my life, the roots that must nourish it are here. He feels transformed as though by a religious experience, but it has nothing to do with religion.

We were halfway to the docks when Vivian, one of my two Syrizen guards, stopped short, her face to the horizon. “What?” the other said. “Do you feel that, Merah?” Merah frowned and shook her head. “No.” But the hair prickled at the back of my neck. Something shivered in the air, like the suspended tension before a lightning strike. The three of us stood in silence for a moment. The soldiers still hurried about, continuing their clean-up. Birds sang. The breeze rustled the leaves. Vivian turned away. “I just thought—” The words became a wet crunch. Vivian was no longer standing there. She was in two pieces, clutched in the grasp of a creature of shadow, her head dangling from one spindly-fingered hand, and her body from the other. As if they had just stepped from the air, the monsters were everywhere.

Movement catches my attention across the park, and I jerk my head up. It’s him. My heart batters my rib cage as Jake gets closer. The sun sets behind him, and his thick, dark hair blows in the breeze. He’s wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and his letterman jacket. He looks so handsome, and I’ve missed him so much. It takes everything in me not to jump up and run to him. When he reaches me, I smile hesitantly. “Great game today.” The words are barely out of my mouth when he grabs me by the lapels of my coat and yanks me up into a fierce kiss. Everything I’d planned to say to him blows away in the crisp breeze. I toss my arms around his neck and hold on as he threads his fingers in my hair and holds me to him. His tongue battles with mine, but after a minute, he slows down until he’s pressing tender kisses to my lips. “I fucking love you, Charlotte. Please don’t be upset with me anymore.” I open my mouth, but he places a finger over my lips. “Hear me out.” I nod and reluctantly let go of him. We sit side by side on the swings, but he swivels around to face me, and I do the same. He exhales. “I’m sorry for how I reacted when I found out you might be pregnant. I can’t explain why I had an out-of-body experience. I think one of the biggest shocks was hearing it from Dakota instead of you.” “I’m guessing she used the bathroom before I got there?” I ask. Nodding, he reaches over to grab my hand. “She obviously saw them in the trash.” “I just felt really fucking overwhelmed. I thought, ‘I’m stretched so thin as it is with Asher. I never get enough time with him. Every moment with you feels stolen. Some days I’m barely awake in class. Football consumes all of my energy. And I have a mountain of laundry and no time to do it.’” I squeeze his hand. “I get it. I’m sorry you misunderstood. Only one of those tests was mine. The negative one.” I explain the situation with Roxy. She’s given me permission to tell Jake what’s going on with her. “Jesus. I feel dumb.” He lets go of my hand to scrub his face.

The windows had been thrown open to the summer breezes, and as Brisbane pressed me down onto the bed, I smelled the roses at the casement surrendering their perfume at the end of the long day. He put his hands through my hair and the lavender wreath, broken to bits by the exertions of dancing, scattered like so much confetti across the sheets. What followed...well, there are words to describe such a thing, but they are known only to poets. I believed I loved him before that night; I believed I understood what passes between a man and a woman before that night. I believed I knew all there was of intimacy and pleasure and passion and perfect satisfaction. I was wrong. I went into the room the woman I had always been, but I emerged the next day exactly as Marigold had described—a new creation. I mourned the loss of the beautiful pale violet corset Brisbane had destroyed in his haste, but it was the only casualty of his loss of control, and as I stared mournfully at the shreds of French lace, I marvelled that I had driven him to take it apart with his bare hands. There was power in him, but gentleness as well, and he had given me both.

Good evening.” He gazed down at her lying in her hammock and realized she had already changed into her bedclothes. Well, well, well… “Is there room for two in that hammock?” he asked, still not quite sure of his welcome. “I don’t know, but let’s try it, and if we end up on the ground, we’ll know there isn’t.” Not exactly a rousing cheer, but the boys had said she was in a mood today. Val hopped around, pulling off his boots and stockings, and surveyed the challenge before him. “You roll up that way and hold to the edge, and I’ll climb aboard.” The hammock dipped significantly, and it took some nimbleness on Val’s part, but he was soon ensconced wonderfully close to Ellen, the hammock pitching them together by design. “We need a rope,” Val murmured into Ellen’s ear, “attached to one of the trees, so I can set this thing to swinging for you.” “There’s a breeze tonight.” She turned so her cheek rested on Val’s arm. “I wasn’t sure you were coming.” “Why wouldn’t I?” Val nuzzled her hair, loving the scent and softness of it. “Because the boys are still making a racket at the pond?” “I hoped it was our boys and not those other rotten little brats. You shoo them away, and they’re like flies. They just come buzzing back.” “Are they truly rotten?” He worked an arm under her neck, drawing her closer. “I was a boy once. I hesitate to think all regarded me as an insect merely on the strength of my puerile status.” “You were a good boy.” Ellen’s voice held the first hint of a smile.

Sir!" he called out. "The Great Chaffalo! My name's Touch, and I brought a bundle of straw. I'd be much obliged if you'd turn it into a horse." Nearby, the tall weeds rasped a little in the breeze. But that was all. He picked up the straw and hurried past broken windows to the rear of the house. "You there, Mr. Chaffalo? It's me, Touch, and I'm in a dreadful hurry. My great-uncle aims to cart me off to the orphan house, but that don't take my fancy. I ain't asking for a fine, high-stepping horse, sir. Just any four legs'll do, as long as one ain't lame. I'd be proper grateful, Mr. Great Chaffalo." Undiscouraged, Touch moved his bundle of straw back to the front of the house to try again. And he noticed the rocking chair was pitching as if someone had just got up. Touch's hair went stiff as needles. But he was determined not to be scared off. He caught his breath. "If you were dozing, I don't mean to rile you up, sir. Maybe you heard of my great-uncle. Judge Wigglesforth? Crosscut saws don't come any meaner. I know I don't amount to much, for a boy, but I'm not shifty-eyed, the way he says. I hope you can see that, Great Chaffalo." Suddenly, Touch thought he could feel a pair of eyes watching him. The eyes in the poster! he thought. His hopes took a leap. "I aim to ride through the woods until I'm long out of reach, sir. He won't know where to look. I'll thank you everlastingly if you'll oblige me with a horse." A snarl burst out of the tall weeds. It wasn't a horse. It was a scruffy wild dog, its teeth looking like rusty nails. And it was coming straight for Touch. Touch began to shinny up a porch column, but he knew that hound was going to get its rusty teeth into his leg. Then he heard a snap of fingers and a voice in the air. "Hey! Hey!" The bundle of straw changed into a horse.

Your wooden walls are far away, Yellow Hair. If you try to slip away, this Comanche will find you.” Until that moment, the thought of swimming off hadn’t occurred to her. She shot a glance over her shoulder at the swift current. If only she had clothes… “You do not make like a fish so good. Save this Comanche much trouble, eh?” She thought she detected laughter in his voice, but when she looked back at him, his gaze, blue-black and piercing, was as unreadable as ever. He studied her for several endless seconds. She wondered what he was thinking and decided, from the gleam in his eye, that she didn’t want to find out. “Your eyes say I lie when I call you my woman. This is not good. It is our bargain, eh?” He plucked a wisp of grass and ran it slowly between his fingers, watching her in a way that suggested he would soon touch her--just as slowly. “It was a promise you made for me, and now you make a lie of it? This is the way of your people, to say empty words. Penende taquoip, honey talk, eh? But it is not the way of the Comanche. If you make a lie, I will carve out your tongue and feed it to the crows.” The breeze caught his hair, draping strands of it across his chiseled features. For an instant, the knife slash that marred his cheek was hidden, and he seemed less formidable. Her attention was drawn to his lips, full and sharply defined, yet somehow hard, perhaps because of the rigid expression he always wore. Deep crevices bracketed his mouth--laugh lines, surely. Ah, yes, she could imagine him cutting out her tongue and smiling while he did it.

Your eyes say I lie when I call you my woman. This is not good. It is our bargain, eh?” He plucked a wisp of grass and ran it slowly between his fingers, watching her in a way that suggested he would soon touch her--just as slowly. “It was a promise you made for me, and now you make a lie of it? This is the way of your people, to say empty words. Penende taquoip, honey talk, eh? But it is not the way of the Comanche. If you make a lie, I will carve out your tongue and feed it to the crows.” The breeze caught his hair, draping strands of it across his chiseled features. For an instant, the knife slash that marred his cheek was hidden, and he seemed less formidable. Her attention was drawn to his lips, full and sharply defined, yet somehow hard, perhaps because of the rigid expression he always wore. Deep crevices bracketed his mouth--laugh lines, surely. Ah, yes, she could imagine him cutting out her tongue and smiling while he did it. “You do not like me too good. This is a sad thing, eh?” With a sweep of his hand, he indicated the world around them. “The sky is up, the earth is down. The sun shows its face, only to be chased away by Mother Moon. These things are for always, eh? Just as you are my woman. The song was sung long ago, and the song must come to pass. You must accept, Blue Eyes.” Loretta yearned to break eye contact but found she couldn’t. The silken threads of his deep voice wove a spell around her. She must accept? Already he was planning to give her away to his horrible cousin. She sank lower in the water, keeping her arms crossed to hide her breasts. Could he see through the ripples? Still studying her with the same unnerving intensity, he said, “When the wind blows, the sapling bends, the flowers lie low against the earth, the grass is flattened.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I am your wind, Blue Eyes. Bend or break.

Swift Antelope caught Hunter’s arm before he could go inside his mother’s lodge. “Hunter, about the little yellow-hair.” “Yes, what about her?” Swift Antelope glanced uneasily at Bright Star, then plunged ahead. “I would like to make arrangements with you--to take her as my wife. Not right away, of course. When she grows old enough.” The young warrior straightened his shoulders. “I will pay a fine bride price, fifty horses and ten blankets.” Hunter smothered a grin. After a year of raiding, Swift Antelope had only ten horses. How much horse stealing did he plan to do? “Swift Antelope, I don’t think she even likes you.” “Your yellow-hair doesn’t like you too well, either.” He had a point. Hunter stroked his chin, acutely aware of a sparrow singing nearby, of cottonwood leaves rustling in the gentle breeze. Such a peaceful sound. He had enough problems without Swift Antelope adding to them. “Can we discuss this another time?” “No! I mean…well, I’ve heard some other warriors talking. I’m not the only one who wants her. If I wait, you may accept the suit of another. She is very fine, is she not?” Hunter wondered if they were talking about the same skinny girl. Then he focused on Swift Antelope, who was only a few years Amy’s senior. He supposed a younger man might find Amy’s coltish prettiness appealing. “I can see your concern. But you forget one thing, Swift Antelope. You have proven yourself my loyal friend. I will not accept the suit of another. Does that ease your mind?” Swift Antelope still gripped Hunter’s arm. “May I visit with her?” “I don’t know about that. She’s been through a terrible time. Having a young man around might upset her.” “Old Man told me what happened to her. But someone must help her walk back to the sunshine, eh?” Again, Hunter had to concede the point. A difficult path lay ahead of Amy, and her way would be made easier if she had a good friend, a young man who could teach her to trust again. “You will take great care with her?” Swift Antelope grinned. “I will protect her with my life. Your mother says she will be strong enough to go on a walk tomorrow. May I take her?” Hunter placed a heavy hand on the boy’s shoulder. “She won’t want to go. You do realize that?” Swift Antelope nodded. “I can handle her until she gets used to me.” “She’s a fighter.” “And I am twice her size.” Hunter almost wished he could go on this walk. It might prove interesting. Little did Swift Antelope know how useless strength could be when tussling with a frightened female. “Come to my lodge late tomorrow afternoon.” Swift Antelope beamed. “I think we should change her name. Aye-mee? It sounds like a sheep baaing. Golden One. That is a good name for her.

The Dark Night One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings - ah, the sheer grace! - I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, - ah, the sheer grace! - in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled. On that glad night in secret, for no one saw me, nor did I look at anything with no other light or guide than the One that burned in my heart. This guided me more surely than the light of noon to where he was awaiting me - him I knew so well - there in a place where no one appeared. O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the Beloved into his Lover. Upon my flowering breast, which I kept wholly for him alone, there he lay sleeping, and I caressing him there in a breeze from the fanning cedars. When the breeze blew from the turret, as I parted his hair, it wounded my neck with its gentle hand, suspending all my senses. I abandoned and forgot myself, laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from myself, leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.

It was mid-day when you went away. The sun was strong in the sky. I had done my work and sat alone on my balcony when you went away. Fitful gusts came winnowing through the smells of many distant fields. The doves cooed tireless in the shade, and a bee strayed in my room humming the news of many distant fields. The village slept in the noonday heat. The road lay deserted. In sudden fits the rustling of the leaves rose and died. I glazed at the sky and wove in the blue the letters of a name I had known, while the village slept in the noonday heat. I had forgotten to braid my hair. The languid breeze played with it upon my cheek. The river ran unruffled under the shady bank. The lazy white clouds did not move. I had forgotten to braid my hair. It was mid-day when you went away. The dust of the road was hot and the fields panting. The doves cooed among the dense leaves. I was alone in my balcony when you went away.

Austin, fuck. Yeah. Right. There. Like. That,” Judge said, between deep-seated thrusts. “Mmm, yes,” Michaels whispered. He spread his legs and flexed his hips harder, pulling more words from Judge. “I remember when you wouldn’t talk for me. Made me fuck the hell out of you to hear you moan my name. Now listen to those pretty fuckin’ words. All for me.” Michaels pried Judge’s mouth open wider, pulling the thick hairs on his chin. He speared his tongue in Judge’s sexy mouth. “Louder. Yell louder,” Michaels demanded. He pulled out to the tip, slammed back into Judge’s ass, and Judge called out into the night air. His moans floated away on the breezes drifting off the lake. Michaels pistoned his hips four, five more times and then slowed his movements back down. Let Judge catch his breath. “Oh, my fuckin’ god,” Judge panted. “That’s what I like. Talk to me, lover.” He eased his hands under Judge’s body, resting his splayed palms over Judge’s hard pecs. He squeezed them, smashed Judge to him while he rested his cheek on Judge’s spine. His hips just barely moving up and down, wanting to stay connected. He pinched Judge’s nipples and bit his neck. Seduced Judge every way he knew how. Michaels

The curtain billows gently in the breeze behind him as he steps out to meet me, his hair jet-black by contrast with the translucent white fabric. I jump, gasp, and nearly swallow the grip that I’m still holding between my lips; quickly, I pull it out before it goes down my throat and chokes me. It’s wet with drool. Lovely, Violet. Really attractive. I shove it into my hair, anywhere, praying it will stay and not fall on the floor, still dripping with spit. Luca’s smiling down at me. His face is half in light, half in shade, from the spots playing across the dance floor, his blue eyes gleaming. “You like to dance,” he observes conversationally. “Yes…” Safe question, safe answer. Well, at least I didn’t babble. But he doesn’t say anything else; he’s just looking me up and down, and I feel incredibly awkward under his scrutiny. I’m sweaty, catching my breath; my eyeliner’s probably running. I desperately need to escape into the dark night beyond the dance floor, where the breeze will cool me down and the shadows will hide my shiny face. “I want to get some fresh air,” I say, and move around him, stepping off onto the stone slabs and promptly sinking with one heel into the narrow space between them. “Oops!” I say idiotically, ignoring the hand that Luca is stretching out to help me. The last thing I need right now is to touch him, for all sorts of reasons. I keep walking, pulling my heel out from between the paving stones; mercifully, it comes out without catching or ripping off. I honestly think that even if it did, I would keep going; I’d walk on a sandal without a heel all night, balance on my toes, pretend nothing had happened, and think it a fair price to pay for my flight into the comparative darkness of the chill-out area, where Luca can’t see the sweat on my face.

The breeze carried my hair off my shoulder, a shiver ran down my spine, and goose bumps unraveled across my arms when I sensed a presence nearby. I turned to spy a man as pale as ash with a beard as white as snow watching me. Black veins stretched throughout his exposed flesh. His eyes nothing but two black pieces of coal.

I knew you forever and you were always old, soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold me for sitting up late, reading your letters, as if these foreign postmarks were meant for me. You posted them first in London, wearing furs and a new dress in the winter of eighteen-ninety. I read how London is dull on Lord Mayor's Day, where you guided past groups of robbers, the sad holes of Whitechapel, clutching your pocketbook, on the way to Jack the Ripper dissecting his famous bones. This Wednesday in Berlin, you say, you will go to a bazaar at Bismarck's house. And I see you as a young girl in a good world still, writing three generations before mine. I try to reach into your page and breathe it back… but life is a trick, life is a kitten in a sack. This is the sack of time your death vacates. How distant your are on your nickel-plated skates in the skating park in Berlin, gliding past me with your Count, while a military band plays a Strauss waltz. I loved you last, a pleated old lady with a crooked hand. Once you read Lohengrin and every goose hung high while you practiced castle life in Hanover. Tonight your letters reduce history to a guess. The count had a wife. You were the old maid aunt who lived with us. Tonight I read how the winter howled around the towers of Schloss Schwobber, how the tedious language grew in your jaw, how you loved the sound of the music of the rats tapping on the stone floors. When you were mine you wore an earphone. This is Wednesday, May 9th, near Lucerne, Switzerland, sixty-nine years ago. I learn your first climb up Mount San Salvatore; this is the rocky path, the hole in your shoes, the yankee girl, the iron interior of her sweet body. You let the Count choose your next climb. You went together, armed with alpine stocks, with ham sandwiches and seltzer wasser. You were not alarmed by the thick woods of briars and bushes, nor the rugged cliff, nor the first vertigo up over Lake Lucerne. The Count sweated with his coat off as you waded through top snow. He held your hand and kissed you. You rattled down on the train to catch a steam boat for home; or other postmarks: Paris, verona, Rome. This is Italy. You learn its mother tongue. I read how you walked on the Palatine among the ruins of the palace of the Caesars; alone in the Roman autumn, alone since July. When you were mine they wrapped you out of here with your best hat over your face. I cried because I was seventeen. I am older now. I read how your student ticket admitted you into the private chapel of the Vatican and how you cheered with the others, as we used to do on the fourth of July. One Wednesday in November you watched a balloon, painted like a silver abll, float up over the Forum, up over the lost emperors, to shiver its little modern cage in an occasional breeze. You worked your New England conscience out beside artisans, chestnut vendors and the devout. Tonight I will learn to love you twice; learn your first days, your mid-Victorian face. Tonight I will speak up and interrupt your letters, warning you that wars are coming, that the Count will die, that you will accept your America back to live like a prim thing on the farm in Maine. I tell you, you will come here, to the suburbs of Boston, to see the blue-nose world go drunk each night, to see the handsome children jitterbug, to feel your left ear close one Friday at Symphony. And I tell you, you will tip your boot feet out of that hall, rocking from its sour sound, out onto the crowded street, letting your spectacles fall and your hair net tangle as you stop passers-by to mumble your guilty love while your ears die.

Near my feet is a glowing archway. The light is white and shimmery, like iridescent glitter, and it’s so tall the top nearly brushes the ceiling. Inside, instead of seeing the cement wall of the basement, I’m looking at evenly spaced wooden pillars and a reed-mat floor. Standing on that mat is a woman with curves that would make a Playboy model jealous. She’s wearing a long, butter yellow dress, and her white hair hangs down to her waist. She looks like an angel when she smiles at me, holding out her hands. “Hudson, come with me.” Her voice reminds me of the breeze rustling through the trees near the lake. Soft and subtle and calming. “Let me help you.” Did I die? Maybe the scratch on my side got infected. Maybe I’ve been slowly bleeding to death from internal injuries for the past week. Who knows? If this is death, if she’s what’s waiting for me on the other side, then fuck it. I’m letting go.

Even with Debbie Schultz on the scene, it was hard to get worked up about the tragic plight of a few whales, when poor Disheveled Dexter was in such terrible straits. I turned off the TV. Of course, it meant that I would never get to admire Debbie’s hair. It might even be riffled by a light breeze, and that was always a marvelous news moment. But perhaps I could comb my own hair instead. Besides, the coffee was ready. As I sipped it, I tried very hard not to gloat, but I admit a few sly smirks snuck out anyway. Kraunauer had done a wonderful job. He was worth every penny I wasn’t paying him. He even made me believe I was a poor innocent victim of an evil corrupt police force. And of course I was, at least in this one case, but I would never have dared to suggest it if not for Kraunauer.

arisaid. A night breeze brushed a strand of hair across my face.

The trees harbored a clearing where a multitude of white daisies with centers as yellow as pirate’s doubloons rippled in the breeze. Looking at them, Emma forgot her troubles. “There must be one for every angel in heaven,” she breathed. Steven, who had been spreading the picnic blanket on the ground, came to stand behind her. His hands rested lightly on her shoulders, and he bent to plant the lightest of kisses on her nape. “Today they all belong to just one angel—you.” She turned to look up at him, and his arms slipped naturally around her waist. He’d tossed his hat onto the picnic blanket, but the imprint of the band showed in his glossy brown hair, and Emma couldn’t resist touching it with the fingers of one hand. “Why did you have to go and get yourself blown up in Whitneyville?” she asked softly. “Life was so simple before I met you—I knew what I thought about everything.” A trace of a smile touched his lips. “And now?” “I’m confused, Steven. I’ve spent all my time with one man over the last few months and now here I am, standing in an ocean of daisies with quite another.” He brushed her mouth with his own. “If it helps, Miss Emma, I’m as muddled up as you are. A few weeks ago I just wanted to keep on moving. Now it’s like I’ve got lead in my boots.” Emma

He turned his face my way, not having very far to lean in, and kissed me once, sweet and slow—a breeze off the ocean—almost like he was asking permission. He opened his eyes to look at me. Permission granted, Lieutenant. When we kissed again, it was totally different. He scooted closer, his warm hands on either side of my neck. The pressure of his fingers under my hair was solid and strong, yet always gentle. When his lips parted, I got dizzy, like he might positively absorb me. For a second I feared I might be swooning like those silly ladies in Jane Austen novels. “That was rude of me to interrupt,” he whispered, his lips on the corner of my mouth. “But I’m not about to make this decision easy for you.” How he managed to string together so many coherent words was beyond me; I couldn’t even remember what day it was. His fingers combed through my hair, and I caught a flash of his green eyes as they flickered open.

When the music stopped and he set her down, Lily swayed and almost fell before Cade could catch her. Looking down at her suddenly pale face and glazed look, Cade swore under his breath and discreetly led her toward the door, supporting her with his arm as he practically carried her out. He saw her father bearing down on them, but he gave the old man a look that scared him off before hauling Lily through the barn door and into the brisk breeze of a December night. "Stand here, out of the wind." Cade leaned her against the barn behind the open door, blocking her from view with his bulk. "I'm all right. It's just the punch. I'd better go back in," Lily whispered unconvincingly as she pushed upright and avoided Cade's eyes. She had never felt like this in her life. Her head was spinning and she wasn't at all certain she could continue standing. She wasn't given to queasiness or the vapors. She wasn't even wearing a corset, for heaven's sake. It had to be the punch. "I only gave you the kind without whiskey," Cade replied, blocking her path with the barrier of his arm. Irrelevantly, he added, "The moon is full tonight." Lily leaned against the wall to ease her spinning head and met Cade's gaze. She was beginning to understand his mind too well, and it frightened her. A shock of black hair fell over his brow and she let her thoughts wander to how it would look if Cade grew just the one long braid of hair down the right side of his head and shaved the left like his father did. She thought he would look very good with feathers and beads in that braid. She wondered if he had tattoos like most Indians were said to have. She didn't even know what his body looked like beneath his shirt. "I'm fine, Cade. Really I am. I'd better go inside before my father comes after us." She tried to stand, but he was too close for her to get far. "It's been two moons, Lily. There's been time to know if there's a child." She had known that was what he was after. She looked over his shoulder at the blue-black night sky. "I'm not that regular, Cade. I can't count the times I thought Jim and I..." She stopped, unwilling to reveal any more of the embarrassing details of her intimate life. Her face was pale against the dark backdrop of the barn, and Cade lifted his hand to touch her cheek. Noting the difference between dark and light, he dropped it again. "In the eyes of my father, you are my wife. We will go to the alcalde to please your father. You have only to say when." He didn't mean to abandon her as Travis had. That was small consolation. Lily closed her eyes and tried to imagine Cade's hand on her cheek, but imagination failed her. He wasn't a tender man. She had evidence enough of that. She wasn't certain she wanted a tender man. She wasn't certain she wanted a man at all. But if a child existed... "I'll hold you to that," she murmured. He

...My niece Peggy is at camp in the Adirondacks so I am staying in her room. It's essence of teenage girl: soft lilac walls, colored photographs of rock stars, nosegays of artificial flowers, signs on the door: THIS ROOM IS A DISASTER AREA, and GARBAGEDUMP. 'Some ashcan at the world's end...' But this is not my family's story, nor is it Molly's: the coon hound pleading silently for table scraps. The temperature last night dipped into the forties: a record for August 14th. There is a German down pouff on the bed and I was glad to wriggle under it and sleep the sleep of the just. Today is a perfection of blue: the leaves go lisp in the breeze. I wish I were a better traveler; I love new places, the arrival in station after the ennui of a trip. On the train across the aisle from me there was a young couple. He read while she stroked the flank of his chest in a circular motion, motherly, covetous. They kissed. What is lovelier than young love? Will it only lead to barren years of a sour marriage? They were perfect together. I wish them well. This coffee is cold. The eighteen-cup pot like most inventions doesn't work so well. A few days: how to celebrate them? It's today I want to memorialize but how can I? What is there to it? Cold coffee and a ham-salad sandwich? A skinny peach tree holds no peaches. Molly howls at the children who come to the door. What did they want? It's the wrong time of year for Girl Scout cookies. My mother can't find her hair net. She nurses a cup of coffee substitute, since her religion (Christian Science) forbids the use of stimulants. On this desk, a vase of dried blue flowers, a vase of artificial roses, a bottle with a dog for a stopper, a lamp, two plush lions that hug affectionately, a bright red travel clock, a Remington Rand, my Olivetti, the ashtray and the coffee cup....

If there's an opposite of seasick, I think that's what the bay does to me. Everything stills the moment the scents of salt hits me. Ocean breeze wrapped around my exposed waist, wind exacerbating the knots in my hair. It ain't that I feel free, but I feel home. Probably more home than I do anywhere else.

It’s not really a story about handsomeness,” I say. “Or a lion’s den.” “Isn’t it? Christ, I hate the Bible.” He catches sight of the inside cover of my book and sits up. “Oh my God, did you make a list of questions for me?” “What?” I snap the book shut so hard the breeze ruffles my hair. “No.” “That’s adorable. Can I see it?” He snatches Tom Jones before I can stop him, then props it open against his knee. “No, don’t—” I start, but he’s already reading them aloud. “‘What’s your favorite book?’ Well, not the Bible. ‘What was your favorite thing about Cheshire?’ Leaving it. ‘Are you married to . . .’” He stops, his eyes scanning the rest of the list.

People wait to go by the shore and wait for the sun to shine and the sky to be clear and the ocean breeze to be playing with their hair and the salty smell of the ocean to fill up their noses and their loved ones to be around them so they can feel absolute joy and happiness summer time ,,,, in my case I don’t need all of these to be happy I have you in my heart and you are joyful dreams , I love my Life cause it Has You

People wait to go by the shore and wait for the sun to shine and the sky to be clear and the ocean breeze to be playing with their hair and the salty smile of the ocean to fill up their noses and their loved ones to be around them so the can feel absolute joy and happiness summer time ,,,, in my case I don’t need all of this to be happy I have you in my heart and you are joyful dreams

swallowed and stepped a little closer to it, my mother crying out to me, in tears. "Catherine! Please!" I could hear their shouts, but it wasn't going to stop me. I was going to face that storm... face that breeze. As the tornado began to approach all I could hear was infant crying. I ignored it and stepped closer to my doom... our doom. I had never liked my parents... taking me away from my boyfriend, making me give up the baby... They should pay the price. I walked a little forward in a bit of a harder struggle, as there was something in my hands trying to escape. The infant cries soon became infant screams, screeching in my ears and I would cover them if I could, but my hands were busy carrying something. Carrying... someone. My baby sister was screaming in my arms, only just turning one and I could hear my mother's screams and yells of horror soaked in tears as I stepped closer and closer to the spiraling tornado, taking my little sister with me. She had red hair like me... and had reminded me of what my own child would've been like. Except he would've been half cast. And my father had held a gun to my boyfriend's head, yelling. "Never come back." Now I was never coming back... and I was taking their precious little baby with me. Away from them. Into the storm. I took two last steps, before I was near the very gusts and wood and decapitated cows and sheep. In a second the two of us were yanked into the tornado. Gone.

A summer breeze blew through my wavy chestnut-colored hair as I leaned against the hood of my 1985 Alfa Romeo Spider.

He grazed a fang across my collarbone and I shivered. The building pressure had me on the edge and teetering. It was absolutely ridiculous that I was so close to orgasm with only a few strokes of his fingers, but Devin managed to pull it out of me as I grabbed the sheets at my side and pressed the side of my face into the bed. The heat slammed into me in waves. It was all I could do to hold on for the ride, letting out a senseless sound of pleasure. He pulled his hand away slowly, kissing my forehead. "More?" "No," I breathed. "You, now, please." I pulled him down and kissed him deeply. He shifted how he was leaning over me, scooting up the bed as he did it. As he pressed himself firmly against my entrance, I was ready to beg for it if I had to. I wanted Devin. Now. He slid himself just inside. A sharp breath, my eyes widened. The nostalgia pinch of being stretched open surprised me. "I'm all right," I breathed. "It's just been a while." He pressed in a little farther. I dug my nails lightly into his back, and he growled in approval. He grazed my neck with his fangs and a soft noise escaped my lips; he licked and kissed my skin on his way back up to my mouth. An ice-cold breeze whipped past us. I held on tighter as Devin thrust deep inside. I screamed as the waves of pleasure hit again, somehow even harder than before. I removed my nails from his back when I realized how deeply I had dug them into his skin, but he didn't seem to notice. Everything felt like jelly. Content, unwound jelly. I rolled on my side, catching my breath as Devin curled me into his body, one hand lazily stroking my stomach. "How do you feel?" "That was intense," I breathed. "Is it always like that with fae?" "Too much?" He nuzzled into my hair.

Nevertheless, it also means that someone would be passing on. One day later, we were married at the small red brick church, which she went to as a young girl. It was the day at last; it was here; there she was walking down the aisle. With the flower pedals, everywhere. I remember seeing the angel oak trees with their leaves blowing in the breeze; it was the perfect heartwarming day. As I walked into the church. At that time, there were daisy and lily flowers all over the place on the floor, with the colors of white and pink in her bouquet, and some were even in her lovely hair, around the white lace veil, and of course next to the glittery silver princess tiara, which she wore. However, there was no one to give her away, but right before the ceremony, this older gentleman walked up to Kristen, he could barely stand or speak, yet he got up on his own two feet, he was very weak, he said that he was living with lung cancer. Yet he said- ‘I’ll do it for the little lady.’ That gentleman’s name was Greg; he said that he knew Nevaeh, and he knew Kristen’s mom, from way back when, so we both said okay, we all thought that was sweet of him to do. We said our vows, ‘I take you, to be my soul mate, to love what I know of you, and trusting what I do not yet know.’ ‘To love and hold and to grow old, as one soul. To get to be with you all the days of my life. While falling even more in love with you every day, as we pray. To keep you in my life.’ ‘I promise to love, and cherish you through whatever life may bring our way, as we become- us!’ We both quoted a remarkable saying by an astonishing person. ‘Love it is like the cupid's arrow, that hits at the most unlikely times. We chose to be as one forever and ever to never- ever forget that bond… now and forever!’ (We all said –Amen! in the house of the Lord.) You may kiss the bride! Brandon- and I did! Kristen- The kiss was magnificent and sweet. Then we walked out of the church together off into the sunset. Nevaeh- I am glad that I got to be there to see them be married!

My mind emptied of thought, my lips parting. She floated just above the ground, delicate bare feet pointed to the sand. Her hair was long and black, tendrils of night floating around her as if carried by an ever-present breeze. Stars glinted in its darkness—no, not just stars, but every infinite shade of the sky. Dappled streaks of distant worlds. Purples and blues of galaxies. It was nearly to her knees, a curtain of night around her. Her skin was ice-white, her eyes midnight-black. Her naked body looked to have been dipped in melted silver, a thousand shades of platinum playing across every dip of her form. Shadows caressed her curves with dancing fragments of darkness. Her mouth was bright red. As she smiled, a drop of blood dripped down her elegant pointed chin.

Tell me something beautiful,” you said. I opened my mouth and out came the only thing that I had ever known to be as beautiful as it was true: that I had once met a woman who knew how to fly. You clasped my chilled hand in yours and lowered your gaze to our fingers. I hoped I’d said the right thing. My mother always used to say that people in mourning prefer not to talk about the earth. “What a wonderful thing,” you said, “for just one instant, to be so close to God.” The breeze tugged your hair across your lips. When my father had been injured in the revolt, I’d dreamed a flock of starlings had passed over our village, and their tears turned to pomegranate seeds. The seeds fell to the ground, but the earth was weary, and the seeds wouldn’t take. The starlings circled, coaxing the earth toward fruitfulness. As they passed, the birds sang a psalm my mother had quoted to me many times, a line from the Song of Songs. I thought of it then, standing on the corniche so close to you that I could feel you breathing. You are altogether beautiful, my darling. There is no flaw in you.

I could feel my face heating up, especially when I got a good look at this random guy sitting on my couch. He had a very chisled jaw, bright blue eyes and his brown hair flopped in a way as if there was always an ocean breeze around him as he moved. He was gorgeous. And his hands, they were big as it wrapped around my suddenly tiny hands shaking it.

Bittersweet" A little light looks through her bedroom window. She dances and I dream, she's not so far as she seems, Of brighter meadows, melting sunsets, Her hair blowing in the breeze. And she can't see me watching. And I'm thinking love... Love... Love... Love... It's bittersweet More sweet than bitter, Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender. It's bittersweet More sweet than bitter, Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender. I'm older now. I work in the city. We live together. But it's different than my dream. Morning light fills the room. I rise. She pretends she's sleeping. Are we everything we wanted? And I'm thinking love... Love... Love... Love... It's bittersweet More sweet than bitter, Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender. It's bittersweet More sweet than bitter, Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender. I know we don't talk about it. We don't tell each other. All the little things that we need. We work our way around each other. As we tremble and we As we tremble and we bleed. As we tremble and we As we tremble and we bleed. It's bittersweet More sweet than bitter, Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender. It's bittersweet More sweet than bitter, Bitter than sweet. It's a bittersweet surrender. Big Head Todd & The Monsters, Sister Sweetly (1993)

In pre-air conditioning days, even a little cooling breeze felt good. On this particular evening the dining room was filled to capacity, as the French Hotel was still one of the best places to eat in Monrovia. The overflow extended out under the cover of the verandah and was also filled with people. With so few places to dine in Monrovia, eating here under the corrugated fiberglass roof was a treat for the expats. I had already eaten aboard ship and was hoping that some of my friends would come around and join me for a few drinks but that evening it didn't happen and I didn’t recognize many people. It did however give me the opportunity to talk to Monique. After some two hours of talking to her between drinks I learned that she came from the Left Bank of Paris. Her parents lived above an antique shop on the Rue de las Halles and were adamantly against her coming to Africa. Because of an argument she had left her boyfriend behind, and now I think was sorry for that, although she wouldn’t admit it. It was obvious that she was homesick and I believe that she thinking about him. Monique couldn’t believe what she got herself into, and now was stuck with a two year contract in this hell hole. She mentioned that although the constant advances from the men was flattering, it was beginning to become wearing. She said that some of the people in Monrovia scared her and I understood exactly what she meant. Just being in Liberia was a challenge…. Was it my imagination, or was I making headway with this dark-haired, French beauty? With each drink I became more convinced of this, and at the same time was feeling less pain. The night was still young and I was in no rush to leave. Surely there was some hope and I was trying my best…. Then, suddenly without warning Monique told me that she had to go. “Je dois y aller maintenant.” What… She’s leaving? I’ve been told that it’s a thing the French do… but leaving me at the bar for no apparent reason? Monique however assured me that her partner, Claudine, would continue serving me and perhaps, “Who knows?” Monique said with a twinkle in her eyes... I shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew what it was that I was angling for. Hell, I thought that I was one of the good guys, besides whom was she sleeping with? A white girl in Liberia would never go it alone…. there had to be someone! What happened that Monique suddenly had to leave? Poof and she was gone! In her stead now was Claudine who was rough around the edges and knew her way around. It never occurred to me that Monique’s shift would be over before the closing hour!

As he began to strum his harp, he filled his mind with images of earth. Old crumbling stones and tangled grasses and wildflowers and weeds and saplings that put down deep roots, growing into mighty trees. The color of dirt, the scent of it. How it felt clutched in the hollow of one’s palm. The voice of branches swaying in the breeze, and the slope of the earth as it rose and fell, faithful and steady. Jack closed his eyes and began to sing. He didn’t want to see the spirits manifest, but he heard the grass hissing near his knees, and he heard the tree boughs groaning above him, and he heard the scratch of stone, as if two were being rubbed together. When he heard Adaira’s soft gasp, Jack opened his eyes. The spirits were forming themselves, gathering around him to listen. He played and sang and watched as the trees became maidens with long arms and hair made of leaves. The grass and pennywort knotted themselves into what looked to be mortal lads, small and green. The stones found their faces like old men waking from a long dream. The wildflowers broke their stems and gathered into the shape of a woman with long dark hair and eyes the color of honeysuckle, her skin purple as the heather that bloomed on the hills. Yellow gorse crowned her, and she waited beside the Earie Stone, whose face was still forming, craggy and ancient. As Jack played Lorna’s ballad he felt as if he was slowly sinking into the earth. His limbs were becoming heavy, and he drooped like a flower wilting beneath a fierce sun. It was like the sensation of falling asleep. He swore he saw daisies blooming from his fingertips, and every time he plucked his strings the petals broke away but regrew just as swiftly. And his ankles…he couldn’t move them, the tree roots had begun to take hold of him. His hair was turning into grass, green and long and tangled, and as the song ended he struggled to remember who he was, that he was mortal, a man. Someone was coming to him, bright as a fallen star, and he felt her hands on his face, blissfully cold. “Please,” the woman said, but not to him. She beseeched the wildflower spirit with her long dark hair and crown of vibrant gorse. “Please, this man belongs to me. You cannot claim him.” “Why, mortal woman,” one of the pennywort lads said from the ground, his words raspy as summer hay falling to a scythe. “Why did you sit so far away from him? We thought he sang to be taken by us.” Jack snapped out of the haze. Adaira was kneeling beside him, her hand shifting to his arm. He was stricken to see that he had truly been turning into the earth—grass, flowers, and roots. His harp clattered from his tingling hands; he struggled to breathe as he watched his body return to him. “He is mine, and he played to bring you forth by my command,” Adaira said calmly. “I long to speak to you, spirits of the earth.

Being with him had been exciting and dangerous, like speeding on a bike without a helmet, letting your hair fly in the breeze. He gave me courage when I had none and the strength to walk out of the hell that was my uncle’s house.

I rolled down the window and took it all in. The air tasted just the same, smelled just the same. The wind making my hair feel sticky, the salty sea breeze, all of it felt just right. Like it had been waiting for me to get there.

Don’t trouble yourself with me.” The thought of a heavy meal for breakfast made Lily’s stomach churn. “I’ll be happy enough with a cup of coffee—if you have any to spare.” Vera stopped in midswirl and took in Lily’s appearance. “Coffee? My, my, my. You need more meat on your bones, girl. You’ll blow away with the slightest breeze. Don’t you agree, Connell?” Lily glanced to the corner spot, only to find the young man she’d met the previous evening staring at her above spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He quickly looked back at the open book in front of him, but the slight reddish tint creeping up his neck above his collar was evidence that he’d been paying more attention to her than to his books. “I’m sure Miss Young would appreciate whatever you’re willing to provide.” The young man pulled out his pocket watch and peered at it. “Especially considering the fact that breakfast has been over for exactly one hour and twelve minutes.” His hair was neatly combed, except for one sun-bleached streak that fell across his forehead. He’d shaven the scruff from his face, revealing skin that was rough and bronzed from long days outdoors. “Connell McCormick.” Vera thumped her hands onto her hips. “You sure don’t seem to mind when I sneak you an extra doughnut or two. I think half the reason you loiter here in the mornings is because you hope I’ll feed you more.” The faint red streaks climbed up to the base of his cheeks. He didn’t say anything and instead dipped his head and scribbled something into one of his books, as if there were nothing more important at that moment than the page in front of him.

I sat listening to the soulful mourning dove. Summer breezes stirred my hair. The drifting fragrance of lavender filled my head with long-forgotten thoughts.

The bright moon reflects your radiant face Your snowcapped cheekbones supply water of grace My heavy heart desires an audience with your face Come forward or must return, your command I will embrace. Nobody for good measures girded your fields Such trades no one in their right mind would chase. Our dormant fate will never awake, unless You wash its face and shout brace, brace! Send a bouquet of your face with morning breeze Perhaps inhaling your scent, your fields we envision & trace. May you live fulfilled and long, O wine-bearer of this feast Though our cup was never filled from your jug or your vase. My heart is reckless, please, let Beloved know Beware my friend, my soul your soul replace. O God, when will my fate and desires hand in hand Bring me to my Beloved hair, in one place? Step above the ground, when you decide to pass us by On this path lie bloody, the martyrs of human race. Hafiz says a prayer, listen, and say amen May your sweet wine daily pour upon my lips and my face. O breeze tell us about the inhabitants of city of Yazd May the heads of unworthy roll as a ball in your polo race. Though we are far from friends, kinship is near We praise your goodness and majestic mace. O Majesty, may we be touched by your grace I kiss and touch the ground that is your base

I wasn’t sure what was happening, but the hairs on my arms stood on end and it was as though he suffused the air with electricity. Maybe it had something to do with adrenaline. There was no way was it because of…him. Right? We stood, orbiting each other, not speaking—as usual. I was a mere foot from his broad frame, the late day sun hitting his bronzed skin just so and the breeze carried his spiced scent right to me, warming the muscles low in my belly, speeding up my traitorous pulse. Ah, hell. It was totally because of Mason Scott. I should just punch myself in the lady parts or start banging my head against the wall because Jamey was right. There was no denying what he could do to me. For weeks, I’d fallen asleep to those green eyes. For weeks, I’d taken those memorized photographs of him and built him up in my head, imagined things I had no business dreaming about. I was physically attracted to Mason Scott. And now that I knew him, the kind of man he was, how cruel he could be, I couldn’t turn it off. I had let the fantasy go on for too long.

A Dream Of Sunshine - Excerpt I'm weary of this weather and I hanker for the ways Which people read of in the psalms and preachers paraphrase-- The grassy fields, the leafy woods, the banks where I can lie And listen to the music of the brook that flutters by, Or, by the pond out yonder, hear the redwing blackbird's call Where he makes believe he has a nest, but hasn't one at all; And by my side should be a friend--a trusty, genial friend, With plenteous store of tales galore and natural leaf to lend; Oh, how I pine and hanker for the gracious boon of spring-- For _then_ I'm going a-fishing with John Lyle King! How like to pigmies will appear creation, as we float Upon the bosom of the tide in a three-by-thirteen boat-- Forgotten all vexations and all vanities shall be, As we cast our cares to windward and our anchor to the lee; Anon the minnow-bucket will emit batrachian sobs, And the devil's darning-needles shall come wooing of our bobs; The sun shall kiss our noses and the breezes toss our hair (This latter metaphoric--we've no fimbriae to spare!); And I--transported by the bliss--shan't do a plaguey thing But cut the bait and string the fish for John Lyle King! Or, if I angle, it will be for bullheads and the like, While he shall fish for gamey bass, for pickerel, and for pike; I really do not care a rap for all the fish that swim-- But it's worth the wealth of Indies just to be along with him In grassy fields, in leafy woods, beside the water-brooks, And hear him tell of things he's seen or read of in his books-- To hear the sweet philosophy that trickles in and out The while he is discoursing of the things we talk about; A fountain-head refreshing--a clear, perennial spring Is the genial conversation of John Lyle King!

I stand on a vast grass field of many gently sloping hills. It is night, yet the sky is bright. There is no sun, but a hundred blazing blue stars, each shining in a long river of nebulous cloud. The air is warm, pleasant, fragrant with the perfume of a thousand invisible flowers. In the distance a stream of people walk toward a large vessel of some type, nestled between the hills. The ship is violet, glowing; the bright rays that stab forth from it seem to reach to the stars. Somehow I know that it is about to leave and that I am supposed to be on it. Yet, before I depart, there is something I have to discuss with Lord Krishna. He stands beside me on the wide plain, his gold flute in his right hand, a red lotus slower in his left. His dress is simple, as is mine - long blue gowns that reach to the ground. Only he wears a single jewel around his neck - the brilliant Kaustubha gem, in which the destiny of every soul can be seen. He does not look at me but toward the vast ship, and the stars beyond. He seems to be waiting for me to speak, but for some reason I cannot remember what he said last. I only know that I am a special case. Because I do not know what to ask, I say what is most on my mind. "When will I see you again, my Lord?" He gestures to the vast plain, the thousands of people leaving. "The earth is a place of time and dimension. Moments here can seem like an eternity there. It all depends on your heart. When you remember me, I am there in the blink of an eye." "Even on earth?" He nods. "Especially there. It is a unique place. Even the gods pray to take birth there." "Why that, my Lord?" He smiles faintly. His smile is bewitching. It has been said, I know, that the smile of the Lord has bewildered the minds of the angels. It has bewildered mine. "One question always leads to another question. Some things are better to wonder about." He turns toward me finally, his long black hair blowing in the soft night breeze. The stars reflect in his black pupils; the whole universe is there. The love that flows from him is the sweetest ambrosia in all the heavens. Yet it breaks my heart to feel because I know it will soon be gone. "It is all maya," he says. "Illusion." "Will I get lost in this illusion, my Lord?" "Of course. It is to be expected. You will be lost for a long time.

Lynetta bared her wickedly sharp pointed canines and hissed. Her long black hair hung wildly to her hips, tangled and teased by the breeze. She was petite like me but as strong as a male body builder. Her grip on Dominic remained iron tight. Her soul-less black eyes, vacant and without a care, really ate away at my heart. I surveyed the yard for any kind of weapon I could use against the vampire. My heart surged when I spied a colorful whirligig attached to a wooden stake embedded in my mother's pampered pansy garden nearby. Without a second's hesitation, I dashed for it and yanked it out. Running at the vampire, I screamed at the top of my lungs, "Death to the blood sucky vampire!" which gave me some courage. It wasn't every day I had to beat one vampire off of another when they didn't even really exist!

and carefree. It is so good to have Greg back with us again, breathing the salty air, experiencing the breeze on his face. We spend at least an hour on that beach. Almost back at the car, Greg stops at a wooden bench that looks out onto the strand. ‘Let’s sit for a while.’ My stomach tightens. Greg settles at one end of the bench, Toby on his lap, Rachel next to them. I’m at the other. Bookends. ‘Guys,’ Greg says. ‘I want to explain why I’m in hospital.’ ‘It’s OK, Dad. We know,’ says Toby. ‘You’re exhausted.’ ‘Well, it’s a little more than that.’ He takes a breath. ‘I have a sickness that makes me sad sometimes. Other times it makes me very excited.’ They take time to digest that. Toby is first to speak. ‘But it’s OK to be sad, Dad. You said.’ He looks at Greg for confirmation. ‘I did. And it’s OK to cry when something happens to make you sad.’ ‘Yeah, you’re always telling us that.’ ‘It’s just that if there’s no reason to be sad and you’re sad anyway – all the time – well, that’s not good, is it?’ Toby shakes his head wildly. ‘No, that’d be…sad.’ ‘And not good,’ says Greg. ‘No,’ agrees Toby. Rachel’s quiet. Taking it all in. ‘And it’s OK to get excited too,’ continues Greg. ‘Lots of things are exciting…’ ‘Like Christmas and birthdays and fireworks and when you get onto the next level in a game.’ ‘Exactly.’ Greg smiles. ‘But being hyper isn’t good.’ ‘No.’ Toby shakes his head again. ‘When you have Coke or Skittles or something you get hyper. And that’s not good ‘cause you go bananas. Isn’t that right, Dad?’ ‘Yes, son.’ Greg kisses the top of his head. ‘But you eventually go back to normal, don’t you?’ ‘Yeah.’ Rachel, eyes fixed on her father, is oblivious to the breeze whipping her hair across her face. ‘Well,’ says Greg. ‘I have a sickness that makes me hyper for weeks. And that’s not good.’ ‘No.’ Toby squints. ‘Why not, again?’ ‘Well, it can make me do silly things, and can make

If anything's to be praised, it's most likely how the west wind becomes the east wind, when a frozen bough sways leftward, voicing its creaking protests, and your cough flies across the Great Plains to Dakota's forests. At noon, shouldering a shotgun, fire at what may well be a rabbit in snowfields, so that a shell widens the breach between the pen that puts up these limping awkward lines and the creature leaving real tracks in the white. On occasion the head combines its existence with that of a hand, not to fetch more lines but to cup an ear under the pouring slur of their common voice. Like a new centaur. There is always a possibility left to let yourself out to the street whose brown length will soothe the eye with doorways, the slender forking of willows, the patchwork puddles, with simply walking. The hair on my gourd is stirred by a breeze and the street, in distance, tapering to a V, is like a face to a chin; and a barking puppy flies out of a gateway like crumpled paper. A street. Some houses, let's say, are better than others. To take one item, some have richer windows. What's more, if you go insane, it won't happen, at least, inside them. ... and when 'the future' is uttered, swarms of mice rush out of the Russian language and gnaw a piece of ripened memory which is twice as hole-ridden as real cheese. After all these years it hardly matters who or what stands in the corner, hidden by heavy drapes, and your mind resounds not with a seraphic 'do', only their rustle. Life, that no one dares to appraise, like that gift horse's mouth, bares its teeth in a grin at each encounter. What gets left of a man amounts to a part. To his spoken part. To a part of speech. Not that I am losing my grip; I am just tired of summer. You reach for a shirt in a drawer and the day is wasted. If only winter were here for snow to smother all these streets, these humans; but first, the blasted green. I would sleep in my clothes or just pluck a borrowed book, while what's left of the year's slack rhythm, like a dog abandoning its blind owner, crosses the road at the usual zebra. Freedom is when you forget the spelling of the tyrant's name and your mouth's saliva is sweeter than Persian pie, and though your brain is wrung tight as the horn of a ram nothing drops from your pale-blue eye.

I reach up to my hair, lifting it, squeezing water out of it down my back, and I know that the movement summons Luca’s attention back to me. I can feel his eyes on me now as I move closer to Evan on the lounger, looking at his hands moving on the strings, the typical girl admiring a boy playing a guitar. Evan flashes me a smile and keeps strumming away, quite unaware of the little drama being enacted around him. “Don’t forget, Vio-let,” he croons softly. And though I can’t really sing, not properly, I know the tune now, and my head leans in toward his as I join in on the last two words: “Dive in!” He finishes on a last, rising chord and lifts his head, our faces close now. The sunshine beats down on us; the blue water of the swimming pool glints brightly in the heat, the breeze raising tiny ripples on the surface. Evan’s eyes are as clear and blue as the water, with no hidden currents, no unexpected, dangerous undertow. The rosemary and lavender bushes planted around the verge are wafting a lovely, sun-warmed scent, bees buzzing in the lavender. It’s paradise. It should be paradise. In the parking lot below, tires screech. We all jump. Luca must be executing the tightest, sharpest three-point turn in history: the car scrapes, churns, tears up the gravel, and shoots out of the lot and down the drive so fast we wince. It snaps back and forth like Road Runner as he speeds downhill. Only a very good driver could make those switchback turns so fast without crashing--and he’s very lucky he didn’t meet anyone coming up. “Wow! I guess they have somewhere they really need to be,” Paige observes. “More like someone to get away from,” Kelly says dryly under her breath, so only I can hear her.

I’ve never been afraid of ghosts. I live with them daily, after all. When I look in a mirror, my mother’s eyes look back at me; my mouth curls with the smile that lured my great-grandfather to the fate that was me. No, how should I fear the touch of those vanished hands, laid on me in love unknowing? How could I be afraid of those that molded my flesh, leaving their remnants to live long past the grave? Still less could I be afraid of those ghosts who touch my thoughts in passing. Any library is filled with them. I can take a book from dusty shelves, and be haunted by the thoughts of one long dead, still lively as ever in their winding sheet of words. Of course it isn’t these homely and accustomed ghosts that trouble sleep and curdle wakefulness. Look back, hold a torch to light the recesses of the dark. Listen to the footsteps that echo behind, when you walk alone. All the time the ghosts flit past and through us, hiding in the future. We look in the mirror and see the shades of other faces looking back through the years; we see the shape of memory, standing solid in an empty doorway. By blood and by choice, we make our ghosts; we haunt ourselves. Each ghost comes unbidden from the misty grounds of dream and silence. Our rational minds say, “No, it isn’t.” But another part, an older part, echoes always softly in the dark, “Yes, but it could be.” We come and go from mystery and, in between, we try to forget. But a breeze passing in a still room stirs my hair now and then in soft affection. I think it is my mother. PART ONE

There’s a dead girl in there who’s not supposed to be, and another girl murdered, and you don’t care. You don’t care about them, or me.” She turned and walked away from him, blinking back tears. “I refuse to be lied to any longer.” What an idiot she was. “Cassandra, wait.” Falco ran after her, grabbing her arm just before she reached the edge of Agnese’s garden. “I do care. Give me two days. That’s all I need. And then I will tell you everything you want to know.” He stared at her. “Please. I’m asking you to trust me.” “Why should I?” Cass asked, her voice barely above a whisper. The breeze rustled through the ivy. Cass watched one leaf whip back and forth. “Last night you told me not to trust you, and tonight you tell me I should. What’s changed?” “What’s changed is that I…” Falco reached for her face, his fingertips caressing her cheekbones. “I’m falling in love with you,” he said, brushing a strand of hair back from her eyes. “For the longest time I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want to see it. So impossible. But I can’t deny my feelings any longer. You’re more than a muse, Cass. I want you to be more. I want you to be mine.” “But you know--” Cass could barely stutter out a sentence; Falco’s words were so unexpected, she could hardly breathe. “But I’m engaged…” “Forget the engagement. Forget what you’re supposed to do. What do you want to do, Cass? What do you need?” Cass felt her resolve melting away. His fingertips were ten individual spots of heat on her cool skin. She was tired of being cold. All she had to do was lean in and let the warmth engulf her. She thought of their bodies pressed together in the old batèla, her hands caressing his bare skin as their mouths met over and over. She realized she was crying. Falco kissed away her tears one at a time. Each time his lips touched her skin, she felt a brightness, like he was making flowers bloom inside of her. “I want to believe you, but it’s not that simple. I--” “It is that simple.” Falco tilted her face upward and pressed his mouth to hers, gently, then harder. Cass didn’t even try to resist. The wind whipped his hair around, and hers, tickling her skin as Falco pressed her against the framework of the trellis that lined the back of her aunt’s garden. Falco leaned into her and Cass could feel their hearts beating against each other. This was what a kiss should feel like. This was real.

I longed for Paul to notice me, for I believed that if I could only catch his eye, his heart would be shaken by the brave and lonely portrait I made there in my flowered maxi dress, my long hair blowing in the ocean breeze. Someone did notice me, but it was not Paul. And I did not find out about it until much later. Some months after my father died, in December of that same year, my mother told me, “Your Daddy was just heartbroken when he saw how hurt you were this past summer. He'd watch you out the window of our hotel room, sitting there alone, writing in your notebook, and it was almost more than he could bear.

Angeline says that we’re not doing very well. Apparently they expected the Japs from the south, by the sea, but they came from the north instead and just breezed right through the defenses there. And it’s really awful outside.” Her voice hiccups. “I saw a dead baby on a pile of rubbish this morning as I came here. It’s all around, the rubbish and the corpses, I mean, and they’re burning it so it smells like what I imagine hell smells like. And I saw a woman being beaten with bamboo poles and then dragged off by her hair. She was half being dragged, half crawling along, and screaming like the end of the world. Her skin was coming off in ribbons. You’re supposed to wear sanitary pads so that . . . you know . . . if a soldier tries to . . . Well, you know. The locals and the Japanese both are looting anything that’s not locked down, and thieving and generally being impossible. They’re all over the place in Kowloon, running amok. We’re thinking about moving out to one of the hotels, just so we’re more in the middle of things, and we can see people and get more information. The Gloucester is packed to the rafters but my old friend Delia Ho has a room at the Repulse Bay and says we can have it because she’s leaving to go to China. We can share the room with Angeline, don’t you think? And apparently, the American Club has cots out and people are staying there as well. They have a lot of supplies, I suppose. Americans always do. Everyone wants to be around other people.

I tell her of the varieties of silence in a language she does not understand. There is silence where hath been no sound, There is silence where no sound may be, In the cold wave—under the deep, deep sea, Or in wide desert where no life is found, Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound; No voice is hushed—no life treads silently, But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, That never spoke, over the idle ground: But in green ruins, in the desolate walls, Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, Though the dun fox or wild hyaena calls, And owls, that flit continually between, Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan- These true silence is, self-conscious and alone. The evening stars shine in the grey sky. A soft breeze begins to blow. After the hot wind it feels cool, soporific. My eyes are heavy with sleep. I ruffle Bhagmati’s hair. She has fallen asleep. I shut my eyes and am lost to the world. I waken with a feeling of someone looking at me. It is the full moon shining in my face. A papeeha comes out of the grey sky and settles on a crag a few feet away. It raises its head to the moon and fills the haunted landscape with its plaintive cries pee ooh, pee ooh. ‘Listen Eugenia!’ Her name is not Eugenia but Bhagmati. The bird is not the nightingale but a Hawk Cuckoo. Nevertheless its full-throated bursts come crowding through the moonlight. Eternal passion! Eternal pain! *

Daybreak" At dawn she lay with her profile at that angle Which, when she sleeps, seems the carved face of an angel. Her hair a harp, the hand of breeze follows And plays, against the white cloud of the pillows. Then, in a flush of rose, she woke, and here eyes that opened Swam in blue through her rose flesh that dawned. ‘My dream becomes my dream,’ she said, ‘come true. I waken from you to my dream of you.’ Oh, my own wakened dream then dared assume The audacity of her sleep. Our dreams Poured into each other’s arms, like streams.

Jacob!” I call, not minding when my voice echoes off the library building, so loud he and his friends turn to me. For once, Jacob doesn’t look sure what he wants to do, whether he wants to stop or keep going. But I do. I know. I shut the car door behind me and venture into the Unknown. His walls are up, fortified by days and days of silence. To my relief, while his face is carefully blank, he doesn’t turn away when I near. I feel his friends, both guys and girls, watching me. And I realize this might be a colossal mistake, a public humiliation. Maybe Jacob is seeing someone else now. Maybe he’ll never forgive me. His friends draw behind him like bodyguards. I have no words, just myself and this piece of used paper, which I hold out to him. Jacob takes my note silently and reads the two coordinates. “What’s this?” he asks gruffly. This is what I want, I tell myself. He, of all people, is worth this risk of being transparent, of letting him know how I feel, what I want. So despite his friends who are watching, I straighten, throw my hair over my shoulder, and stand before him, utterly vulnerable. “A geocache,” I say. “A geocache.” “If you’ve got the guts to find it.” For the first time, his eyes glint with something like amusement, something like curiosity. “Well,” he drawls, “that depends on the cache.” I shrug and shake my head. “It’s a new one. No one has ever found it.” “So tell me more.” “It’d take . . . oh, gosh, an entire day at least to tell you all about it.” “I’ve got time,” he says easily. “Give me a clue.” “You?” I ask in mock horror. “You, an expert geocacher, are asking for a clue?” “For especially gnarly caches, I make exceptions.” “Gnarly?” I frown. “Complicated,” he amends. The beginning of his crooked smile begins to form, and the murky Unknown solidifies into familiar terrain. “So what’s the cache called?” That, I hadn’t prepped for. So I improvise: “I’m a Moron and I’m So Sorry. But then really good geocachers know it by its nickname: I’ve Missed You So Much.” A breeze tangles my hair, and when Jacob reaches out to brush a strand off my cheek, the tension releases in me.

I caught a big whiff of Sea Breeze cologne as my brother Poseidon came striding toward me, his mane of blue hair streaming out behind him.

Several strands of my long hair were cut. I watched the strands as they fluttered to the ground before being blown away by a breeze. Turning while still keeping low to the ground, I found a pair of legs directly in front of my face. I looked up to see another cloaked individual. “Hup!” Using the strength of my legs to push off the ground, I leapt up at a speed that was too fast for this person to keep up with. His foot missed as I moved backward. I came back in and swung my fist upward. A satisfying cracking noise echoed around the empty street as my fist slammed into the underside of this person’s chin. A garbled cry of pain emerged from the cloaked figure’s mouth as my attack sent the guy into the air. Blood and a tooth shot out of the cloaked person’s hood. My opponent flew backward in a parabolic arc, struck the ground hard, bounced several times, and rolled to a stop several meters away. “ALF!” a cry came from the first cloaked individual who attacked me. “You bastard!!” “It’s rich calling someone a bastard for fighting back after you attack him,” I muttered, though it seemed my attacker wasn’t paying any attention to what I said.

The sun was shining, a gentle breeze was ruffling my hair, and I could feel my whole body relaxing, as if the warm sunshine was melting something hard and cold that had been there inside me for so long I barely even noticed it was there any more.

If you hurl outside?” From his far-off hidey-hole, Dave was directing, not asking. “Shovel it up and put it in the trash. I don’t want my dogs to get to it because it’s whatever you ate plus the shrooms and they’ll gobble it all up and freak the fuck out.” “I promise you. I won’t throw up,” Flynn heard Allison groan before her vomit hit the kitchen sink. “Outside.” “It’s cold out there, honey,” LA Tina said with a deep, soothing voice. “Someone grab up all that pretty blonde hair so it don’t get puked on.” As Flynn fully immersed himself in the music, the merry-go-round in the song was spinning sound and vision around him. Mushrooms were coming on quickly, powerfully, puckering his saliva glands and twisting his stomach into knots. Unsure if he’d actually made it to the bathroom, he was relieved when he saw his emesis kaleidoscopically stewing in the sink. Opening the spigot to wash the corruption down the drain, he splashed cold water on his face as he watched his eyes lit like fires from faraway camps, lips pushing the folds of his cheeks into reiterative grins. A timeless face reminded him of who he was and what resided within him as water drizzled down his chin and swirled into the drain. Emerging back into the rest of the world, a melodic hum hung just above his head. He found his way back to where the notes fully unfurled the song’s motif. Throwing himself into an air-guitar stance, he grimaced as he acted bending out the first, bluesy guitar note. Sparking and glowing like a welding rod, the room around him blazed with his light. Emma leered and licked her lips after glugging down a huge swig of Flynn pretending to be Pink Floyd. Tall, thin, somewhat handsome and exotic in his urbanity, Flynn was poised in a way Pogoner boys could never be. Something about him prickled wildly on her skin and excited her. Gliding from the kitchen to where he rocked, arms raised to reveal her Venus form, she sashayed with dabs of riffing blues, synthesizers scaling the air while guitars and bass vibrated through shabby carpet. As she joined him to take the music within, two objects in space edged closer and closer, gravity pulling both to an inevitable collision. In the gentle light of Christmas bulbs and uncountable candles, they circled round in time to the music, watching each other as neon Nazca-line insects scrambled across the walls. “Remember when you were young?” Emma crooned deep and soft. “You shone like the sun…” Flynn picked up before they both continued with the chorus. “Now there’s a look in your eyes,” she watched him draw closer. “Like black holes in the sky…” “Shine! On! You! Crazy… DIAMOND!” they both shouted, him with uncertainty, her full-throated and stepping into her own, reminding the house why no band playing in town turned down her offer to stand on stage and belt one out. Continuing to spin toward one another, trading lyrics and leers, the two ground their desire like peppercorns, seasoning the diminishing space between them. Whisper came out of the kitchen after a few verses, singing loudly and a bit off-key, Ra-Ra and LA Tina in tow. “You wore out your welcome, with random precision…” “Blown on the steel… breeze…” the followers continued as a chorus. Emma and Flynn unraveled from one another and gave the group a look of, Really? Now? “Come on you raver,” all a chorus, “you seer of visions. Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner and shine….” Everyone then fell out, shaking to various degrees as though they’d just been brought to tongues by some tent-preacher’s sermon.

I’d always jogged along the beach. I loved the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the shore and the warm salty breeze rushing through my hair. There was nothing more soothing than watching the morning light shimmer over the waves or seeing the water devour footprints in the sand.

I’m not!” My voice wobbles slightly on the last word, and my cheeks are blazing red. I make myself stop talking after that since I clearly can’t control my tone or words. To my relief, he doesn’t say anything else, and a few minutes later we’re finally pulling back up the driveway to the cabin. I stand next to the quad bike after I dismount, rubbing my face and composing myself. The breeze from the drive pulled half my hair out of my braid since I didn’t get it very tight this morning. With a sigh, I slip off the tie and undo the braid. Mack straightens up after grabbing the bag of provisions from the cargo compartment. He stares at me. Then bites out, “You dumped me.” It takes only a few seconds to catch up to what he’s saying. He’s back to my being jealous and making it clear I have no right to be. My shoulders stiffen. “What does that have to do with anything?” “You dumped me. You don’t get to be jealous now.” I’m so outraged by his terseness and his words that I sputter briefly. “You know exactly why I ended things with you, and it had nothing to do with how I feel about you. My feelings have never changed. How exactly am I supposed to stop myself from being jealous?” He’s angry in a clipped, grumpy way, but it also looks like he’s confused. “You were never jealous before. When I was seeing other women.