Fences Rose Quotes

Oh, hey. This looks promising. " We came to a stop before a high, barbwire fence with an enormous PRIVATE PROPERTY--NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ALLOWED sign on it. The lettering was red, apparently to emphasize how serious they were. Personally, I would have added a skull and crossbones to really drive the message home.

Piper was maybe the most impressive. She fenced with the giantess Periboia, sword against sword. Despite the fact that her opponent was five times larger, Piper seemed to be holding her own. The goddess Aphrodite floated around them on a small white cloud, strewing rose petals in the giantess's eyes and calling encouragement to Piper. 'Lovely, my dear. Yes, good. Hit her again!

The History Teacher Trying to protect his students' innocence he told them the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age, a period of a million years when everyone had to wear sweaters. And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age, named after the long driveways of the time. The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more than an outbreak of questions such as "How far is it from here to Madrid?" "What do you call the matador's hat?" The War of the Roses took place in a garden, and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan. The children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart, mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses, while he gathered up his notes and walked home past flower beds and white picket fences, wondering if they would believe that soldiers in the Boer War told long, rambling stories designed to make the enemy nod off.

The gardener uses both roses in the flowerbed and thorns in making fences.

He always knew what I would have liked to say, and with startling and increasing accuracy as we spent more time together. One time, for example, I was wondering exactly how he had lost that tooth at the back of his mouth when he saw my eyes on his waning grin and replied, "Ran into a fence when I was twelve." And then I wondered how the heck he could have missed the giant fence standing right in front of him and he said, "Shut up.

On either side the wild roses, their pink dewy faces turned to the sun, tumbled over the fences, sprawled on the ground and filled the air with their pure summery smell.

You say you love me? You have mistaken a wildflower for a rose in the palace garden; I don't belong inside a fence.

The sun was prying up the clouds and lighting the brick front of the hospital rose red. A thin breeze worked at sawing what leaves were left from the oak trees, stacking them neatly agains the wire cyclone fence. There were little brown birds occasionally on the fence: when a puff of leaves would hit the fence the birds would fly off with the wind. It looked at first like the leaves were hitting the fence and turning into birds and flying away.

Like the garlic mustard in my garden and the roses on my fence, love has a funny way of blooming after years of being buried.

You deserve everything. Wife, kids, a white picket fence.” “And I’ll have all of it. With you.” “You know that can’t happen with me.” “Then it can’t happen with anyone. There won’t be a next Rosie. And there won’t be another story like ours. This is it, Rose LeBlanc. And this is us. If there is no you, then there is no me.

They entered the wild country. Broken fences. Ruined castles. Stretches of bogland. Wooded headlands. Turfsmoke rose from cabins, thin and mean. On the muddy paths, they glimpsed moving rags. The rags seemed more animate than the bodies within. As they passed, the families regarded them. The children appeared marooned with hunger.

I’m kind of hoping it will end like this. You made me happy. Very happy. But…you deserve everything. Wife, kids, a white picket fence.” “And I’ll have all of it. With you.” “You know that can’t happen with me.” “Then it can’t happen with anyone. There won’t be a next Rosie. And there won’t be another story like ours. This is it, Rose LeBlanc. And this is us. If there is no you, then there is no me.” “You know, I always hated Romeo and Juliet . The play. The movie. The very idea. It was tragic, all right. Tragically stupid. I mean, they were what? Thirteen? Sixteen? What a waste of life, to kill yourself because your family wouldn’t let you get hitched. But Romeo and Juliet were right. I was the next eleven years killing myself slowly while I grieved for you. Then you came back, and I still thought it was just a fascination. But now that I know…” “Now that I know that it can only ever be you, you’re going to get better for me so Earth won’t explode. Can you do that, Sirius? I promise not to leave this room until you get out. Not even for a shower. Not even to get you your chocolate chip cookies. I’ll get someone to drive all the way to New York and bring them for you.” “I love you.” Rosie’s tears curtained her vision. “I love you, Baby LeBlanc,” I said. “So fucking much. You taught me how to love. How well did I do?” “A-plus,” she whispered. “You aced it. Can you promise me something?” “Anything.” “ Live .” “Not without you.” “And have kids. Lots of them. They’re fun.” “Rosie…” “I’m not afraid. I got what I wanted from this life. You .” “Rosie.” “I love you, Earth. You were good to me.” “Rose!” Her eyes closed, the door opened, the sound on her monitor went off, and my heart disintegrated. Piece. By piece. By piece.

ROSE: I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life, too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me not eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom. But I held on to you. I held you tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room...with the darkness falling in on me...I gave everything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn't the fines man in the world. And wherever you was going...I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that's the only way I was gonna survive as your wife. You always taking about what you give...and what you don't have to give. But you take too. You take...and you don't even know nobody's giving!

ROSE: I married your daddy and settled down to cooking his super and keeping clean sheets on the bed. When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave some room for me. For my part in the matter. But at that time I wanted that. I wanted a house that I could sing in. And that's what your daddy gave me. I didn't know to keep up his strength I had to give up little pieces of mine. I did that. I took on his life as mine and mixed up the pieces so that you couldn't hardly tell which was which anymore. It was my choice. It was my life and I didn't have to live it like that.But that's what life offered me in the way of being a woman and I took it. I grabbed hold of it with both hands.

Within my heart a garden grows, wild with violets and fragrant rose. Bright daffodils line the narrow path, my footsteps silent as I pass. Sweet tulips nod their heads in rest; I kneel in prayer to seek God's best. For round my garden a fence stands firm to guard my heart so I can learn who should enter, and who should wait on the other side of my locked gate. I clasp the key around my neck and wonder if the time is yet. If I unlocked the gate today, would you come in? Or run away?

ROSE: You can't be nobody but who you are, Cory. That shadow wasn't nothing but you growing into yourself. You either got to grow into it or cut it down to fit you. But that's all you got to make life with. That's all you got to measure yourself against that world out there. Your daddy wanted you to everything he wasn't...and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was. I don't know if he was right or wrong...but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm. He wasn't always right. Sometimes when he touched he bruised. And sometimes when he took me in his arms he cut.

Tell me “The Subtle Briar” again,’ she asked. She knew I would still know it by heart. I whispered to her in the dark. ‘When you cut down the hybrid rose, its blackened stump below the graft spreads furtive fingers in the dirt. It claws at life, weaving a raft of suckering roots to pierce the earth. The first thin shoot is fierce and green, a pliant whip of furious briar splitting the soil, gulping the light. You hack it down. It skulks between the flagstones of the garden path to nurse a hungry spur in shade against the porch. With iron spade you dig and drag it from the gravel and toss it living on the fire. ‘It claws up towards the light again hidden from view, avoiding battle beyond the fence. Unnoticed, then, unloved, unfed, it clings and grows in the wild hedge. The subtle briar armors itself with desperate thorns and stubborn leaves – and struggling higher, unquenchable, it now adorns itself with blossom, till the stalk is crowned with beauty, papery white fine petals thin as chips of chalk or shaven bone, drinking the light. ‘Izabela, Aniela, Alicia, Eugenia, Stefania, Rozalia, Pelagia, Irena, Alfreda, Apolonia, Janina, Leonarda, Czeslava, Stanislava, Vladyslava, Barbara, Veronika, Vaclava, Bogumila, Anna, Genovefa, Helena, Jadviga, Joanna, Kazimiera, Ursula, Vojcziecha, Maria, Wanda, Leokadia, Krystyna, Zofia. ‘When you cut down the hybrid rose to cull and plough its tender bed, trust there is life beneath your blade: the suckering briar below the graft, the wildflower stock of strength and thorn whose subtle roots are never dead.

We built a barbed wire fence between ourselves and turned away from the suffering of others, but we forgot the immunity to pain was delusional.

Many times I have made a plea to save wildflowers along the fence rows. The sumac, the wild roses, the wisteria, the sunflowers, the gayfeathers stay in the fence rows and can be a nesting spot for quail, rabbits, birds,and other small animals.

I don't know what everybody else was fantasizing about but what I was fantasizing about was a nine-to-five existence, a house on a tree-lined block with a white picket fence, pink roses in the backyard. [...] After a while you learn that privacy is something you can sell, but you can't buy it back.

Standing in front of the white picket fence, I stared at the multitude of champagne roses weaving their hunter green vines gracefully through and around the fence. Soft hints of pink hues whispered from the centers of the blooms. Their petals covered the lush ground and rolled in a lazy dance with the warm summer breeze...

She went to the fence and sat there, watching the gold clouds fall to pieces, and go in immense, rose-coloured ruin towards the darkness. Gold flamed to scarlet, like pain in its intense brightness. Then the scarlet sank to rose, and rose to crimson, and quickly the passion went out of the sky. All the world was dark grey. Paul scrambled quickly down with his basket, tearing his shirt-sleeve as he did so.

At an overgrown garden with a weathered picket fence, I stop and lean over the fence to sniff at a pristine bright red rose bloom between hundreds of others on a lush rose bush. They all exude an intoxicating scent, which obviously also pleases the bees, who, despite the twilight, are still out and about in astonishing numbers to diligently collect pollen. I deeply inhale the sweet smell and then walk on with a dreamy smile.

At Livia's indecisive silence, Shaw abandoned the subject, and fastened his gaze on the tousled, heavily planted cottage garden ahead of them. Long banners of honeysuckle trailed over the garden fence, its fragrance making the air thick and sweet. Butterflies danced amid bright splotches of poppies and peonies. Beyond a plot of carrots, lettuce, and radishes, a rose-covered archway led to a tiny glasshouse that was shaded by a parasol-shaped sycamore.

Lucy headed home, taking Charles Avenue over to Oak Grove, where some of the loveliest gardens in town resided. She walked alen the sidewalk, lingering longer in the shady patches, admiring the rose-bushes in riotous palettes of red, pink, yellow, and mauve. They spilled out over fences, showy and untamed, perfuming the air with their spicy-sweet scent. She understood that such inflated beauty was likely the result of witchcraft, but that didn't lessen its allure.

For eight years I dreamed of fire. Trees ignited as I passed them; oceans burned. The sugary smoke settled in my hair as I slept, the scent like a cloud left on my pillow as I rose. Even so, the moment my mattress started to burn, I bolted awake. The sharp, chemical smell was nothing like the hazy syrup of my dreams; the two were as different as Carolina and Indian jasmine, separation and attachment. They could not be confused. Standing in the middle of the room, I located the source of the fire. A neat row of wooden matches lined the foot of the bed. They ignited, one after the next, a glowing picket fence across the piped edging. Watching them light, I felt a terror unequal to the size of the flickering flames, and for a paralyzing moment I was ten years old again, desperate and hopeful in a way I had never been before and never would be again. But the bare synthetic mattress did not ignite like the thistle had in late October. It smoldered, and then the fire went out. It was my eighteenth birthday.

Lesbianism and individualism don't mix. I don't believe in settling down and then drawing a little line around us.' June chops her hands in a circle like she's building a picket fence. 'We're part of a wider society. I don't want to pull the drawbridge up.

Roses climbed the shed, entwined with dark purple clematis, leaves as glossy as satin. There were no thorns. Patience's cupboard was overflowing with remedies, and the little barn was often crowded with seekers. The half acre of meadow was wild with cosmos and lupine, coreopsis, and sweet William. Basil, thyme, coriander, and broad leaf parsley grew in billowing clouds of green; the smell so fresh your mouth watered and you began to plan the next meal. Cucumbers spilled out of the raised beds, fighting for space with the peas and beans, lettuce, tomatoes, and bright yellow peppers. The cart was righted out by the road and was soon bowed under glass jars and tin pails of sunflowers, zinnias, dahlias, and salvia. Pears, apples, and out-of-season apricots sat in balsa wood baskets in the shade, and watermelons, some with pink flesh, some with yellow, all sweet and seedless, lined the willow fence.

Seiji sighed again and surrendered himself to his fate. He finished his breakfast, and then rose. “You go on to class without me. I want a word with Eugene.” Seiji hesitated. “You can save me a seat. If you insist.” Nicholas paused, then smiled. His face was a lot more tolerable when he did that. “I will.

Damask roses and white picket fences, a childhood ripe with an array of senses. Forest black against starry skies, Pink clouds dusting an early sunrise. Hundreds of days slipping through hourglass years. The sands of adolescence fading with solemn tears. Oceans of certainty ebbing away, Lessons learned regardless of one's place.

There was an open gate a little way along, and Lyra could have followed him, bit she hung back unwillingly. Pantalaimon looked at her, and then became a badger. She knew what he was doing. Dæmons could move no more than a few yards from their humans, and if she stood by the fence and he remained a bird, he wouldn't get near the bear; so he was going to pull. She felt angry and miserable. His badger claws dug into the earth and he walked forwards. It was such a strange tormenting feeling when your dæmon was pulling at the link between you; part physical pain deep in the chest, part intense sadnessmand love. And she knew it was the same for him. Everyone tested it when they were growing up: seeing how far they could apart, coming back with intense relief. He tugged a little harder. "Don't, Pan!" But he didn't stop. The bear watched motionless. The pain in Lyra's heart grew more and more unbearable, and a sob of longing rose in her throat. "Pan –" then she was through the gate, scrambling over the icy mud towards him, and he turned into a wildcat and sprang up into her arms, and then they were clinging together tightly with little shaky sounds of unhappiness coming from both. "I thought you really would –" "No –" "I couldn't belief how much it hurt–" and then she brushed away the tears angrily and sniffed hard. He nestled in her arms, and she knew she would rather die than let them be parted and face that sadness again; it would send her mad with grief and terror.

Dogs and roses. All these suburban houses bespangled with roses and bristling with dogs. A dog behind every rose bush. For people and their hellish imaginaries, dogs are as ornamental as roses. In reality, the roses are just as vicious as the dogs or an electrified fence. There are too many of them, they are too red, their carnivorous petals close on a forbidden space. The pleasantness of the residential suburbs, the pleasantness of the sarcophagi of greenery where the television aerials gleam. The pleasantness of aphanisis in the death-laden detached houses, set in a bower of lilacs and hollyhocks. The only sign of the frenzied urge to bite and fight, the only sign of the vitrified and howling passions beneath the film of plastic is the beast of the Apocalypse, barking on the horizon beyond the flower beds.

Were I a man,” she struck a fencing pose and swept her hand before her as if it held a razor-sharp rapier, “I’d fix him thus!” She stabbed once, twice, thrice, then whipped the imaginary tip across her victim’s throat. Delicately she wiped the phantom blade and restored it to an equally airy scabbard. “Were I a man,” she straightened to stare pensively through the window, “I’d assure myself that braggart knew the error of his ways and henceforth would bend to seek his fortune in some other corner of the world.” She caught her reflection in the crystal panes and folding her hands, struck a demure pose. “Alas, a brawling lad I am not, but a mere woman.” She turned her head from side to side to inspect the carefully arranged raven tresses, then smiled wisely at her image. “Thus my weapons must be my wit and tongue.” -Erienne

A morning-flowered dalliance demured and dulcet-sweet with ebullience and efflorescence admiring, cozy cottages and elixirs of eloquence lie waiting at our feet - We'll dance through fetching pleasantries as we walk ephemeral roads evocative epiphanies ethereal, though we know our hearts are linked with gossamer halcyon our day a harbinger of pretty things infused with whispers longing still and gamboling in sultry ways to feelings, all ineffable screaming with insouciance masking labyrinthine paths where, in our nonchalance, we walk through the lilt of love’s new morning rays. Mellifluous murmurings from a babbling brook that soothes our heated passion-songs and panoplies perplexed with thought of shadows carried off with clouds in stormy summer rains… My dear, and that I can call you 'dear' after ripples turned to crashing waves after pyrrhic wins, emotions drained we find our palace sunned and rayed with quintessential moments lit with wildflower lanterns arrayed on verandahs lush with mutual love, the softest love – our preferred décor of life's lilly-blossom gate in white-fenced serendipity… Twilight sunlit heavens cross our gardens, graced with perseverance, bliss, and thee, and thou, so splendid, delicate as a morning dove of charm and mirth – at least with me; our misty mornings glide through air... So with whippoorwill’d sweet poetry - of moonstones, triumphs, wonder-woven in chandliers of winglet cherubs wrought with time immemorial, crafted with innocence, stowed away and brought to light upon our day in hallelujah tapestries of ocean-windswept galleries in breaths of ballet kisses, light, skipping to the breakfast room cascading chrysalis's love in diaphanous imaginings delightful, fleeting, celestial-viewed as in our eyes which come to rest evocative, exuberant on one another’s moon-stowed dreams idyllic, in quiescent ways, peaceful in their radiance resplendent with a myriad of thought soothing muse, rhapsodic song until the somnolence of night spreads out again its shaded truss of luminescent fantasies waiting to be loved by us… Oh, love! Your sincerest pardons begged! I’ve gone too long, I’ve rambled, dear, and on and on and on and on - as if our hours were endless here… A morning toast, with orange-juiced lips exalting transcendent minds suffused with sunrise symphonies organic-born tranquilities sublimed sonorous assemblages with scintillas of eternity beating at our breasts – their embraces but a blushing, longing glance away… I’ll end my charms this enraptured morn' before cacophony and chafe coarse in crude and rough abrade when cynical distrust is laid by hoarse and leeching parasites, distaste fraught with smug disgust by hairy, smelly maladroit mediocrities born of poisoned wells grotesque with selfish lies - shrill and shrieking, biting, creeping around our love, as if they rose from Edgar Allen’s own immortal rumpled decomposing clothes… Oh me, oh my! I am so sorry! can you forgive me? I gone and kissed you for so long, in my morning imaginings, through these words, through this song - ‘twas supposed to be "a trifle treat," but little treats do sometimes last a little longer; and, oh, but oh, but if I could, I surly would keep you just a little longer tarrying here, tarrying here with me this pleasant morn

So the great waves of fear rose yet higher and higher, and all his strength was drained out of his body, and his face was white as death, so that it would have been God's mercy for him to die. He was afraid he might stumble and fall there in the street, so he went into our little park, which is no park at all but only a piece of the grass country fenced in and planted with trees, and there he sat on a seat and said, God have mercy upon me, O Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me. And all the people went by in the street, and saw only the lieutenant taking a few moments from his duty to sit on a seat in the park, and did not know it was a man in agony, calling on God for mercy. For to them the sun was shining, and the doves were calling in the trees, and they had no trouble greater than General Smuts or the Government, or the rumor that the black people were planning a great strike and procession in Johannesburg.

Somehow, what they'd had was already over, and she hadn't even been aware of the end. This happened with roses: it was possible to take them for granted all summer as they wound along fences and gates, and then in September, when they faded, how beautiful they'd once been suddenly took hold. That was when people began to yearn for them, and all winter long they'd watch the bare branches for buds, vowing that this time they'd be grateful for all that they had.

My name is Lev," said Lev. "My name is Lydia," said the woman. And they shook hands, Lev's hand holding the scrunched-up kerchief and Lydia's hand rough with salt and smelling of egg, and then Lev asked, "What are you planning to do in En gland?" and Lydia said, "I have some interviews in London for jobs as a translator." "That sounds promising." "I hope so. I was a teacher of English at School 237 in Yarbl, so my language is very colloquial." Lev looked at Lydia. It wasn't difficult to imagine her standing in front of a class and writing words on a blackboard. He said, "I wonder why you're leaving our country when you had a good job at School 237 in Yarbl?" "Well," said Lydia, "I became very tired of the view from my window. Every day, summer and winter, I looked out at the schoolyard and the high fence and the apartment block beyond, and I began to imagine I would die seeing these things, and I didn't want this. I expect you understand what I mean?

The Sparrow Sisters' roses still bloomed on New Year's Day, their scent rich and warm even when snow weighted their petals closed. When customers came down the rutted road to the small eighteenth-century barn where the sisters worked, they marveled at the jasmine that twined through the split-rail fence, the perfume so intense they could feel it in their mouths. As they paid for their purchases, they wondered (vaguely, it must be said, for the people of Granite Point knew not to think too hard about the Sisters) how it was that clematis and honeysuckle climbed the barn in November and the morning glories bloomed all day. The fruit trees were so fecund that the peaches hung on the low branches, surrounded by more blossoms, apples and pears ripened in June and stayed sweet and fresh into December. Their Italian fig trees were heavy with purple teardrop fruit only weeks after they were planted. If you wanted a tomato so ripe the juice seemed to move beneath the skin, you needed only to pick up a punnet at the Nursery.

--I despise that bird, Ada said. He tried to flog me. Ruby said, I'd not keep a flogging rooster. --Then how might we run it off? Ada said. Ruby looked at her with a great deal of puzzlement. She rose and stepped off the porch and in one swift motion snatched up the rooster, tucked his body under her left arm, and with her right hand pulled off his head. He struggled under her arm for a minute and then fell still. Ruby threw the head off into a barberry bush by the fence. --He'll be stringy, so we'd best stew him awhile, Ruby said.

Enough of the lessons,” Mauvin said, clearly irritated at being the illustration of a fencing mistake. “Let’s show him a real demonstration.” “Looking for a rematch?” Hadrian asked. “Curious if it was luck.” Hadrian smiled and muttered, “Pickerings.” He took off his shirt and, wiping his face and hands, threw it on the grass and raised his sword to ready position. Mauvin lunged and immediately the two began to fight. The swords sang as they cut the air so fast their movements blurred. Hadrian and Mauvin danced around on the balls of their feet, shuffling in the dirt so briskly that a small cloud rose to knee height. “By Mar!” the old farmer exclaimed. Then abruptly they stopped, both panting from the exertion. Mauvin glared at Hadrian with a look that was both amazed and irritated. “You’re playing with me.” “I thought that was the point. You don’t really want me to kill you?” “Well no, but—well, like he said—by Mar! I’ve never seen anyone fight like you do; you’re amazing.” “I thought you both were pretty amazing,” Theron remarked. “I’ve never seen anything like that.

Word from the outside, whether it arrived in a mail sack or a news report, seldom overshadowed the facts of our lives. We talked in facts -- work and weather, the logistics of this fence, that field -- but stories were how we spoke. A good story rose to the surface of a conversation like heavy cream, a thing to be savored and served artfully. Stored in dry wit, wrapped in dark humor, tied together with strings of anecdote, these stories told the chronology of a family, the history of a piece of land, the hardships of a certain year or a span of years, a series of events that led without pause to the present. If the stories were recent, they filtered through the door to my room late at night, voices hushed around the kitchen table as they sorted out this day and held it against others, their laughter sharp and sad and slow to come. Time was the key. Remember the time...and something in the air caught like a whisper. Back when. Back before a summer too fresh and real to talk about, a year's work stripped in a twenty-minute hailstorm; a man's right hand mangled in the belts of a combine, first day of harvest; an only son buried alive in a grain bin, suffocated in a red avalanche of wheat.

You’re a very good dancer,” I say. “Thank you. It’s one of the few skills my father forced on me as a youth that I’m actually grateful to know how to do.” “Oh? What other skills did you learn?” “The usual. Horseback riding, fencing, archery…Like I said, useless.” “Those sound like a very useful skills to me.” He raises a brow. “When is a forger ever going to need to know how to nock an arrow?” “When he needs to shoot someone with said arrow, of course.” “Who am I going to shoot?” His eyes glint. “An evil warlord. Or maybe a bandit?” He lets out a full belly laugh. “Of course, how could I forget about all the bandits after me?” “Careless of you, really.

A lesson from my earliest memories of my grandmother Dilsey, who was true-blood Iron Lake Ojibwe: Land is not insentient; it is possessed of spirit. Gazing down, I couldn’t help feeling that the fence and all it represented was a great violation of the spirit of the land. The mind-set that gave rise to the fence was a great folly, the idea that a thin wall of steel and the imaginary line it demarcated could stand against the tide that swept across the desert, which was the tide of time and changing circumstance. Politics were of a moment. Sentiments shifted. Nations rose and fell. Steel rusted and crumbled. But the desert and the flow of life across it would continue after that fence was nothing but scattered rubble among the cacti and the fear that built it was long forgotten.

My eye keeps escaping towards the big blue lacquered door that I've had painted in a trompe-l'oeil on the back wall. I would like to call Mrs. Cohen back and tell her there's no problem for her son's bar mitzvah, everything's ready: I would like to go through that door and disappear into the garden my mind's eye has painted behind it. The grass there is soft and sweet, there are bulrushes bowing along the banks of a river. I put lime trees in it, hornbeams, weeping elms, blossoming cherries and liquidambars. I plant it with ancient roses, daffodils, dahlias with their melancholy heavy heads, and flowerbeds of forget-me-nots. Pimpernels, armed with all the courage peculiar to such tiny entities, follow the twists and turns between the stones of a rockery. Triumphant artichokes raise their astonished arrows towards the sky. Apple trees and lilacs blossom at the same time as hellebores and winter magnolias. My garden knows no seasons. It is both hot and cool. Frost goes hand in hand with a shimmering heat haze. The leaves fall and grow again. row and fall again. Wisteria climbs voraciously over tumbledown walls and ancient porches leading to a boxwood alley with a poignant fragrance. The heady smell of fruit hangs in the air. Huge peaches, chubby-cheeked apricots, jewel-like cherries, redcurrants, raspberries, spanking red tomatoes and bristly cardoons feast on sunlight and water, because between the sunbeams it rains in rainbow-colored droplets. At the very end, beyond a painted wooden fence, is a woodland path strewn with brown leaves, protected from the heat of the skies by a wide parasol of foliage fluttering in the breeze. You can't see the end of it, just keep walking, and breathe.

The headlights of parked cars shone through the rain, and the sidewalks extended, empty, into the darkness. Underground, the sewers surged like rivers, and a few blocks away, sirens blared. He was no longer aware of his heart or thoughts, only the image of a sunken face staring up from a well, the paleness rising through the water like polished bone. A ringed hand reached toward it, but as the fingers approached, the face would sink away, its eyes opening, closing, and the droplets of red falling like leaves. He was a child running through an autumn cemetery, leaping over cast iron fences, the rain bleeding into the tombstones and the roofs of the mausoleums, his legs following the wings of a crow, flapping to the north. A hedge of withered roses stood between him and his childhood house. He tripped and grazed his cheek on a manhole, his red blooming in the water. The sun set behind the hill; the house turned black—abandoned and derelict—and Chris knew he had to keep running, ahead, into the unknown.

She gazed out at the seductive vista. The countryside was dressed in its prettiest May garb- everything budding or blooming or bursting out in the exuberance of late spring. For Laura, the landscape at thirteen hundred feet up a Welsh mountain was the perfect mix of reassuringly tamed and excitingly wild. In front of the house were lush, high meadows filled with sheep, the lambs plump from their mother's grass-rich milk. Their creamy little shapes bright and clean against the background of pea green. A stream tumbled down the hillside, disappearing into the dense oak woods at the far end of the fields, the ocher trunks fuzzy with moss. On either side of the narrow valley, the land rose steeply to meet the open mountain on the other side of the fence. Here young bracken was springing up sharp and tough to claim the hills for another season. Beyond, in the distance, more mountains rose and fell as far as the eye could see. Laura undid the latch and pushed open the window. She closed her eyes. A warm sigh of the wind carried the scent of hawthorn blossom from the hedgerow.

Jamie was sidling cautiously up along one side of the mare, who was watching his approach with considerable suspicion. He placed his one free arm lightly on her back, talking softly, ready to pull back if the mare objected. She rolled her eyes and snorted, but didn’t move. Moving slowly, he leaned across the blanket, still muttering to the mare, and very gradually rested his weight on her back. She reared slightly and shuffled, but he persisted, raising his voice just a trifle. Just then the mare turned her head and saw me and the boy approaching. Scenting some threat, she reared, whinnying, and swung to face us, crushing Jamie against the paddock fence. Snorting and bucking, she leapt and kicked against the restraining tether. Jamie rolled under the fence, out of the way of the flailing hooves. He rose painfully to his feet, swearing in Gaelic, and turned to see what had caused this setback to his work. When he saw who it was, his thunderous expression changed at once to one of courteous welcome, though I gathered our appearance was still not as opportune as might have been wished. The basket of lunch, thoughtfully provided by Mrs. Fitz, who did in fact know young men, did a good deal to restore his temper. “Ahh, settle then, ye blasted beastie,” he remarked to the mare, still snorting and dancing on her tether.

These days, the Lowe brothers knew better than to tempt the town’s wrath, but that didn’t stop them from sneaking over the fence in the throes of night, relishing the taste of some reckless thrill. “Do you hear that?” The older one, Hendry Lowe, stood up, brushed the forest floor off his gray T-shirt, and cracked each of his knuckles, one by one. “That’s the sound of rules breaking.” Hendry Lowe was too pretty to worry about rules. His nose was freckled from afternoons napping in sunshine. His dark curls kissed his ears and cheekbones, overgrown from months between haircuts. His clothes smelled sweet from morning pastries often stuffed in his pockets. Hendry Lowe was also too charming to play a villain. The younger brother, Alistair, leapt from the fence and crashed gracelessly to the ground. He didn’t like forgoing the use of magick, because without it he was never very good at anything—even an action as simple as landing. But tonight he had no magick to waste. “Do you hear that?” Alistair echoed, smirking as he rose to his feet. “That’s the sound of bones breaking.” Although the two brothers looked alike, Alistair wore the Lowe features far differently than Hendry. Pale skin from a lifetime spent indoors, eyes the color of cigarette ashes, a widow’s peak as sharp as a blade. He wore a wool sweater in September because he was perpetually cold. He carried the Sunday crossword in his pocket because he was perpetually bored. He was one year younger than Hendry, a good deal more powerful, and a great deal more wicked. Alistair Lowe played the perfect villain. Not because he was instinctively cruel or openly proud, but because, sometimes, he liked to.

The stench of the pigpens made him take shallow breaths. Michael desperately wanted another drink to drown his sorrows…or, more aptly, his angers. He promised himself that once he found the source of the problem, he’d head to Rigsby’s and let alcohol smooth the edge off his ire. Maybe with a few drinks in him, he could better handle Prudence. Nothing else I’ve tried has worked. “Michael!” At the sound of his wife’s voice, he stiffened. Speak of the devil. Is there a word for female devil? He couldn’t think of one. He nodded good-bye to Hong and was stepping away when--- “Michael, I want to talk to you!” Her voice rose until the timbre was almost a shriek. She ploughed pell-mell for him, her face red with anger. Hong ducked into his tent. Out of sight, maybe, but not out of earshot. The Guans’ should stuff cotton in their ears to block out the worst of Prudence’s screeches. “I need a drink,” he said, beginning to turn away. “Oh, dear Lord. Don’t tell me you’re a drunkard like that Obadiah Kettering. Is that another thing you omitted to tell me about your character?” He swung back. She was inches away, arms flung wide. “You omitted telling me I’d be marrying a shrew,” he said. “You should have written the word at the top of your fancy stationary in big block letters.” He sketched the word in the air and stated each letter. “S-H-R-E-W.” “Why…why I never!” Her mouth opened and closed as if she sought just the right words to hurl at him. “As for being a drunkard. Up until today, I only occasionally sought refuge in the bottle. But I think being married to you, my dear wife, will make me a frequent patron of Rigsbys Saloon. In fact, I might as well take up residence in the place.” Stepping forward, she brought up her hand to slap him. He leaped out of the way. Prudence missed, and her hand sailed past, making her off balance. Sure she was going to try again, Michael moved away, putting more space between them. Prudence slipped on a slimy rock and lost her balance, rotating and stepping sideways only to catch her heel in the hem of her skirt. She teetered backward toward the pigpen. Her legs hit the low fence, catching her at knee-height. Oh, no! Michael leaped to catch her. With a horrified expression, Prudence windmilled her arms in an effort to right herself. Michael missed, grabbing only a fold of her skirt. He yanked back, hoping to pull her upright, but instead, with a ripping sound, the fabric tore. The momentum toppled Prudence backwards into the pigpen, where she landed on her rump in the mire. “Grrrrrr!” She scooped up two handfuls of mud and flung them at him. Shocked, Michael didn’t dodge until the last minute, and the stinking mud went splat against his chest and face.

It was dark enough that I couldn't make out their features, but I could see that someone was cutting through the links of the fence. There was a sense of urgency about those that watched him, some of them turning to peer over their shoulders into the brush and foliage that edged the fence. I watched them in horror, a sense of dread washing over me. What kind of horrors had they led to our very doorstep?

was early evening—the fields receding into a pink invisibility as they rose back into the horizon. Colin felt his heart slamming in his chest. He wondered if she even wanted to see him. He’d taken “sleeping over at Janet’s” as a hint, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she really was sleeping at Janet’s, whoever that was—which would mean a lot of hiking for naught. After five minutes of driving, he reached the fenced-in field that had once been home to Hobbit the horse. He climbed over the tri-logged fence and jogged across the field. Colin, of course, did not

YOU'RE that new girl. Edwina, right?" Linda climbed onto the fence to better have a look at the supposed monster that everyone in her class was talking about. She wasn't disappointed. The girl on the other side was disgusting, even more than she had heard she would be. Her head was weird and repulsing and almost hairless.

Servants entered with soup and bread, no doubt delicious, but neither Grayden nor I had much of an appetite. We didn’t speak, either. This, ironically, Steldor found interesting. His eyes flicked to me several times during the meal, and he made no effort to hide his mirth. Finally, my suitor managed to ask, “How have you been?” “Well.” The awful silence recommenced, and I started counting the seconds, hoping Steldor would interrupt and take me home. He didn’t; he was enjoying our plight. “How h-have you been?” I stuttered. “Oh, I’ve been well, as well.” I laughed. “’Well, as well.’ How very…articulate.” I paled, for he could consider my comment an insult. I needed to win him over in a hurry if I were to salvage our time together. Grayden chuckled, rescuing me from embarrassment. “I thought I heard your uncle say that you have been ill. Is that true?” And here I thought the situation could not get any more awkward. “My uncle is an honest man,” I said, trying to dodge the topic. “Of course! I certainly didn’t mean to imply otherwise.” “And I didn’t mean to imply that you meant to imply…anything.” We stared at each other, and I could see that Grayden was on the verge of laughing. I probably would have laughed myself, but the spatter of freckles across his nose forced me to look down at my napkin. My eyes welled at the powerful recollections sweeping through me, and at the images of handsome, strong, charismatic Saadi that rose unbidden in my mind. “Are you all right?” Grayden asked. I raised my gaze to his and forced my tone to brighten. “Yes, I’m sorry, just a speck of dust in my eye.” “I understand. Perhaps some fresh air would help.” He was unexpectedly astute, but at least was not asking any more questions. He glanced at Steldor, who motioned us from the room with but one piece of advice for me. “You’ll have to scream more loudly from out there.” Grayden escorted me into the corridor and through a back door that I anticipated would open upon a garden. But what I saw instead was my version of Eden--a row of paddocks beside a large stable, all filled with beautiful horses. “I’m afraid it’s not exactly fresh air,” Grayden jested, walking to lean against the nearest fence, leaving me to follow. “It’s fresh enough.” I gaped at the well-bred animals, not even aware of Grayden’s eyes on me. “Your uncle told me of your love for horses, Shaselle,” he said, startling me out of my trance.

I had a beautiful dream the other day. I was coming home from work and you were standing behind white picket fence trimming roses. You were dressed up all in white. We saw each other from afar and smiled. We kissed, got inside our home where our two beautiful children were playing and waiting for us. We all hugged and I kissed your belly because that’s where our third child was. You were pregnant. Than all got blurry and white... I was awake. I was sad because my dream has ended but I was happy at the same time because that was the most beautiful and purest dream I have ever had.

Move quickly and don’t say anything,” Wesley ordered as he pushed me forward. The steel wire fence of the Death Camps rose up sharply in the light of the moon. I stopped, whirling around to face him. “How can you live with yourself, working for this army?” I asked in a trembling voice, staring deep into his eyes. “If you’re going to kill me, go ahead and do it now.” He pushed me forward. “Didn’t you hear me?” he hissed. “I said, don’t speak. Keep walking.” The moonlight fell across his angular cheekbones and lit up the dark hollows of his eyes. We had passed the camps and were now walking down the dark field toward a windowless brick building. “Where are you taking me?” I said through clenched teeth. He pulled me to a stop and began to untie the rope binding my wrists. “You’re not taking me to the camps?” My voice was filled with confusion. He took a second gun from his uniform and placed it in my palm. “Do you know how to shoot?” “Yes.” “There’s a full round in there. Don’t let go of it. If we get separated, if the Roamers get you, just shoot them. Don’t hesitate or they’ll kill you first.” I nodded mechanically and wrapped my fingers around the grip, wincing at the pain as I placed my finger experimentally on the trigger. “I’m taking you somewhere safe, but we have to go through the woods to get there,” Wesley went on. “And we need to be quiet and careful. If I’m caught helping you, we’ll both be killed.” I raised my eyes to his. I wanted to trust him, but what if this was just an elaborate trap? “Why are you helping me?” I asked. He looked toward the Death Camps in the distance. “You’re not the only person here with something to hide, Eliza.

Retra pressed her fingers to her thigh. The intense pain from her obedience strip had receded to a steady throb and nausea. Perhaps that was the worst it would get, now that she’d left the compound. She glanced back. No shout came. No lights followed her. The rust-mesh fence that segregated the Seal enclave from the rest of Grave rose like a grey fortress in the dark. And she’d climbed it. Pain can be dismissed. Her brother Joel had said that to her after Father had beat him one time. Retra remembered that more clearly than anything after he ran away to Ixion. It was the thing that gave her hope. She could control pain. And she could follow him. So she’d practised. Hours with her arm twisted, or something sharp pressed into her skin; practised thinking and acting, despite hurt. And now was the time. The barge would be waiting at

Slow down.” Sheriff Jeffries put a hand on the steering wheel. “I can do it.” I yanked in the opposite direction. White pickets glowing beneath the full moon appeared closer and larger. My foot missed the brake. Wood splintered. A headlamp went dark. The engine died without a sputter. Sheriff Jeffries practically sat in the same seat with me now, his foot hard on the brake. I looked up. A shadowy figure rose from a chair on the porch and walked toward us. Frank. I pushed open my door and stood on shaky legs, straightening my hat. The sheriff inspected his car. Frank kept his eyes on me. I refused to turn from his reproachful gaze. “I’m so sorry, Sheriff. I hope I didn’t hurt anything.” “Only my fence,” Frank grumbled. I gave him my most coquettish smile. “Nothing that can’t be repaired, right?” The sheriff cleared his throat. I turned to him. “I do thank you for the ride.” When did I start sounding so much like Mama? “My . . . pleasure. I’ll see you on Sunday?” I looked to Frank, then back to the sheriff. “Of course. And I am sorry about your car.” “No harm done. At least, not much.

April 21, 1897, by one of the most prominent citizens in Kansas, Alexander Hamilton. In an affidavit quoted in several recent UFO books and journals, Hamilton states that he was awakened by a noise among the cattle and went out with two other men. He then saw an airship descend gently toward the ground and hover within fifty yards of it. It consisted of a great cigar-shaped portion, possibly three hundred feet long, with a carriage underneath. The carriage was made of glass or some other transparent substance alternating with a narrow strip of some material. It was brilliantly lighted within and everything was plainly visible—it was occupied by six of the strangest beings I ever saw. They were jabbering together, but we could not understand a word they said. Upon seeing the witnesses, the pilots of the strange ship turned on some unknown power, and the ship rose about three hundred feet above them: It seemed to pause and hover directly over a two-year-old heifer, which was bawling and jumping, apparently fast in the fence. Going to her, we found a cable about a half-inch in thickness made of some red material, fastened in a slip knot around her neck, one end passing up to the vessel, and the heifer tangled in the wire fence. We tried to get it off but could not, so we cut the wire loose and stood in amazement to see the ship, heifer and all, rise slowly, disappearing in the northwest. Hamilton was so frightened he could not sleep that night: Rising early Tuesday, I started out by horse, hoping to find some trace of my cow. This I failed to do, but coming back in the evening found that Link Thomas, about three or four miles west of Leroy, had found the hide, legs and head in his field that day. He, thinking someone had butchered a stolen beast, had brought the hide to town for identification, but was greatly mystified in not being able to find any tracks in the soft ground. After identifying the hide by my brand, I went home. But every time I would drop to sleep I would see the cursed thing, with its big lights and hideous people. I don’t know whether they are devils or angels, or what; but we all saw them, and my whole family saw the ship, and I don’t want any more to do with them.

15. Nature and her Lesson. Nature offers us nectar and ambrosia every day, and everywhere we go the rose and lily await us. "Spring visits us men," says Gu-do,[FN#277] "her mercy is great. Every blossom holds out the image of Tathagata." "What is the spiritual body of Buddha who is immortal and divine?" asked a man to Ta Lun (Dai-ryu), who instantly replied: "The flowers cover the mountain with golden brocade. The waters tinge the rivulets with heavenly blue." "Universe is the whole body of Tathagata; observed Do-gen. "The worlds in ten directions, the earth, grass, trees, walls, fences, tiles, pebbles-in a word, all the animated and inanimate objects partake of the Buddha-nature. Thereby, those who partake in the benefit of the Wind and Water that rise out of them are, all of them, helped by the mysterious influence of Buddha, and show forth Enlightenment."[FN#278]

As they wended their way from room to room, Anna noted that the earl, away from his townhouse at least, was a toucher. She’d seen the same tendency when he was with his brother. He laid a hand on Val’s sleeve, straightened Val’s collar, patted his back, and otherwise treated his brother with affection. It was the same with Nanny Fran, whom he kissed on the cheek, hugged, and allowed to treat him with similar familiarity. With Anna, he took her hand, offered his arm, put his hand on the small of her back, brushed aside her hair, and otherwise kept up a steady campaign of casual touches. Casual to him, Anna thought, knowing she was being sillier than any woman of five and twenty had a right to be. To her, these little gestures were sweet and attractive, that is, they fascinated her and made her want to stand too close to him. Outside, he assisted her over stiles and fences, picked her a daisy and positioned it behind her ear, stole a little kiss under the rose arbor, and tucked her against his side while they explored the garden walks.

She seemed to have a sort of map of the farm inside her head, a picture of how things out to be. Whenever something was wrong or out of place – an animal sick, a fence down, an unwelcome intruder – she knew it instantly, and called attention to it, sniffing, barking, circling. She constantly updated the map, it seemed to Sam. Occasionally her map failed her – but that was rare. Sam saw to it that Rose was always with him, that she was appraised of everything that came and went – every animal, every machine – so she could keep her mental inventory.

Three of the leading opponents of behavioral genetics collaborated on a book that set out to deconstruct the new science and reverse the biological tide. The book was Not in Our Genes, and the authors were three of the most vigilant critics of the genetic view: Richard Lewontin, a population geneticist at Harvard; the indefatigable Leon Kamin, who was then at Princeton’s psychology department; and Steven Rose, a neurobiologist at England’s Open University. Although the book had slight impact, it is worth examining as a compendium of the arguments and methods of the opponents of behavioral genetics, arguments that these critics, and their shrinking band of allies, continue to make despite repeated refutations. Throughout the text the authors, with admirable candor, proclaim their Marxist perspective and their “commitment to … a more socially just—a socialist—society.” Few pages go by without references to “dialectics,” “bourgeois society,” and “capitalist values.” The authors’ apparently feel their clean breast about their politics permitted wholesale assumptions about those of their opponents. We are leftists is their implicit claim; but you on the other side of the scientific fence are reactionaries. Liberals, they appeared to be saying, can have only one scientific view, theirs; any other must be right-wing and antiliberal. “Biological determinist ideas,” they say, “are part of the attempt to preserve the inequalities of our society and to shape human nature in its own image.” It must surely have come as unpleasant news to Sandra Scarr, Jerome Kagan, and other liberal psychologists to learn that they were striving to preserve society’s inequalities. In addition, the authors’ nasty assumptions of their opponents’ motives must have been an eye-opener to the hundreds of microbiologists, lab technicians, DNA scanners, rat-runners, statistical analysts, and all the others engaged in behavioral genetics research who learned from the book that they were going to work each day “to preserve the interests of the dominant class, gender, and race.” But the falsity of the authors’ premise goes well beyond slandering a few individuals. Throughout the text, the writers deny the possibility that scientists could exist who place their curiosity about the world ahead of their political agendas. Lewontin, Kamin, and Rose deny as well the possibility of any man or woman, including themselves, separating science from politics. (“Science is not and cannot be above ‘mere’ politics.”) They leave no room for the scientist who is so intrigued by new information, in this case gene-behavior discoveries, that he or she is oblivious to alleged political consequences. For the authors, all scientists who seek out biological influences on behavior, from Darwin to Robert Plomin, are willing servants of the status quo, if not promoters of a return to feudalism.

Certain moments in one’s life would always be returned to, even years, decades, later. Some of them were painful—heartbreak, mortification, loss—but there were others that held the clarity and perfection of cut gems, to sparkle against the velvet drape of memory. And, as the years progressed and unfolded in their relentless march, again and again would the mind revisit those moments. Eating a plum, the juices running down your hand, as you walked an esplanade along the shore. The day that the weather cleared and the ground was finally firm enough to be ridden upon, and the leap of your heart as your horse took the first fence. A new old book being delivered and unwrapped from its brown paper, sitting upon your desk, full of possibility, and the musty, rich smell of its pages as you opened it. You returned to these moments, sometimes to ease a current suffering, and sometimes for the simple pleasure of revisiting a past joy, but they were there, and held and treasured in the cupped palms of your mind.

In life I'd heard of dogs like her, cheap burglar alarms. Solitary, lonely, they bark at passerby and garbage trucks from behind high fences in exchange for water and kibble when the people remember to feed and water them. They bark out of fear. And to remind themselves that they in fact exist.

Cassian stepped in Nesta's path when she tried to walk past him. Put a tan, callused hand on her forehead. She shook off the touch, but he gripped her wrist, forcing her to meet his stare. 'Any one of those human pricks makes a move to hurt you,' he breathed, 'and you kill them.' ... Cassian pressed one of his knives into Nesta's hand. 'Ash can kill you now,' he said with lethal quiet as she stared down at the blade. 'A scratch can make you queasy enough to be vulnerable. Remember where the exits are in every room, every fence and courtyard- mark them when you go in, and mark how many men are around you. Mark where Rhys and the others are. Don't forget that you're stronger and faster. Aim for the soft parts,' he added, folding her fingers around the hilt. 'And if someone gets you into a hold...' My sister said nothing as Cassian showed her the sensitive areas on a man. Not just the groin, but the inside of the foot, pinching the thigh, using her elbow like a weapon. When he finished, he stepped back, his hazel eyes churning with some emotion I couldn't place. Nesta surveyed the fine dagger in her hand. Then lifted her head to look at him. 'I told you to come to training,' Cassian said with a cocky grin, and strode off. I studied Nesta, the dagger, her quiet, still face. 'Don't even start,' she warned me, and headed for the stairs.

surrounding the courtyard, an old iron fence quite overgrown with roses. From his study window Reynie might easily have been looking out upon that tree or those flowers, or he might have lifted his gaze to the sky, which on this fine spring morning was a lovely shade of cobalt blue. Instead, he sat at his desk in an attitude of attention, staring at the door, wondering who in the world could be standing on the other side. For a stranger to be lurking in the hallway should have been impossible, given the fact of locked doors, security codes, and a trustworthy guard. Yet Reynie’s ears had detected an unfamiliar tread. His ears were not particularly sharp; indeed, his hearing, like almost everything else about him, was perfectly average: He had average brown eyes and hair, an average fair complexion, an average tendency to sing in the shower, and so on. But when it came to noticing things—noticing things, understanding things, and figuring things out—“average” could hardly describe him. He had been aware, for the last thirty seconds or so, of something different in the house. Preoccupied as he’d been with urgent matters, however, Reynie had given the signs little thought. The shriek and clang of the courtyard gate had raised no suspicions, for not a minute earlier he had spied Captain Plugg, the diligent guard, leaving through that gate to make one of her rounds about the neighborhood. Hearing the sounds again after he’d turned from the window, Reynie had simply assumed the guard forgot something, or was struck by a need for the bathroom. The sudden draft in his study, which always accompanied the opening of the front door downstairs, he had naturally attributed to the return of Captain Plugg as well. He had wondered, vaguely, at the absence of her heavy footsteps below, but his mind had quickly conjured an image of that powerfully built woman taking a seat near the entrance to remove something from her boot. Too quickly, Reynie realized, when he heard that unfamiliar tread in the hallway. And now he sat staring at the door with a great intensity of focus. A knock sounded—a light, tentative tapping—and in an instant Reynie’s apprehension left him. There were people in Stonetown right now who would very much like to hurt him, but this, he could tell, was not one of them. “Come in?” said Reynie, his tone inquisitive.

Almost every day a beautiful woman wearing a ball gown made of grey parachute silk and a broad-brimmed hat trimmed with grey roses visits me. Hardly have I sat down in my armchair, tired from work, but I hear her steps outside on the pavement. She sweeps in at the gate, past the almond tree, and there she is, on the threshold of my workshop. Hastily she comes over to me, like a doctor afraid that she may be too late to save a sinking patient. She takes off her hat and her hair tumbles about her shoulders, she strips off her fencing gloves and tosses them onto this little table, and she bends down towards me. I close my eyes in a swoon – and how it goes on after that point, I do not know. One thing is certain: we never say a word. The scene is always a silent one. I think the grey lady understands only her mother tongue, German, which I have not once spoken since I parted from my parents at Oberwiesenfeld airport in Munich in 1939, and which survives in me as no more than an echo, a muted and incomprehensible murmur. It may possibly have something to do with this loss of language, this oblivion, Ferber went on, that my memories reach no further back than my ninth or eighth year, and that I recall little of the Munich years after 1933 other than processions, marches and parades.

Look, girls, the Easter bunny is here at the mall," I said. "Do you want to go say hello?” Rose peeked over the picket fence around the photo area. She cocked an eyebrow. “Mom,” she said, “Why is the Easter Bunny hiding inside that scary costume?

Still, his heart raced, and he felt the same anticipation one feels before pushing their horse to jump over a fence for the first time. He was part dread, part elation.

Two eyes rose up before him. Bronze, they were, brighter than polished shields, glowing with their own heat, burning behind a veil of smoke rising from the dragon's nostrils. The light of Quentyn's torch washed over scales of dark green, the green of moss in the deep woods at dusk, just before the last light fades. Then the dragon opened its mouth, and light and heat washed over them. Behind a fence of sharp black teeth he glimpsed the furnace glow, the shimmer of a sleeping fire a hundred times brighter than his torch.

Maybe it was the smell of spring in the air; the field of four-leaf clovers we pass. Red roses against a fence. Leather seats and Josh’s skin.

How strange we humans were. We built a barbed wire fence between ourselves and turned away from the suffering of others, but we forgot the immunity to pain was delusional. For though salt and sugar we might be, we all had blood in the veins and a heart in the chest, and we all died when hit by a bomb.

The words looped in my head. Download it for free. Cheerful, triumphant. Download it for free! What a freaking bargain. “I’m sorry,” I said. “She found what?” "That website. Meems, what was the name again? Bongo or something?” Mimi looked up from her iPad. “What are you talking about?” “That website where you found Sarah’s book.” "Oh,” she said. “Bingo. Haven’t you heard of it? It’s like an online library. You can download almost anything for free. It’s amazing.” My hands were shaking. I set down Jen’s phone, and then I set down the wineglass next to it. Without a coaster. "You mean a pirate site,” I said. “Oh God, no! I would never. It’s an online library.” "That’s what they call it. But they’re just stealing. They’re fencing stolen goods. Easy to do with electronic copies.” "No. That’s not true.” Mimi’s voice rose a little. Sharpened a little. “Libraries lend out e-books.” “Real libraries do. They buy them from the publisher. Sites like Bingo just upload unauthorized copies to sell advertising or put cookies on your phone or whatever else. They’re pirates.” There was a small, shrill silence. I lifted my wineglass and took a long drink, even though my fingers were trembling so badly, I knew everyone could see the vibration. "Well,” said Mimi. “It’s not like it matters. I mean, the book’s been out for years and everything, it’s like public domain.” I put down the wineglass and picked up my tote bag. “So I don’t have time to lecture you about copyright law or anything. Basically, if publishers don’t get paid, authors don’t get paid. That’s kind of how it works.” "Oh, come on,” said Mimi. “You got paid for this book.” "Not as much as you think. Definitely not as much as your husband gets paid to short derivatives or whatever he does that buys all this stuff.” I waved my hand at the walls. “And you know, fine, maybe it’s not the big sellers who suffer. It’s the midlist authors, the great names you never hear of, where every sale counts … What am I saying? You don’t care. None of you actually cares. Sitting here in your palaces in the sky. You never had to earn a penny of your own. Why the hell should you care about royalties?” I climbed out of my silver chair and hoisted my tote bag over my shoulder. “It’s about a dollar a book, by the way. Paid out every six months. So I walked all the way over here, gave up an evening of my life, and even if every single one of you had actually bought a legitimate copy, I would have earned about a dozen bucks for my trouble. Twelve dollars and a glass of cheap wine. I’ll see myself out.

Dawn was breaking over everything in colours at once clear and timid; as if Nature made a first attempt at yellow and a first attempt at rose. A breeze blew so clean and sweet, that one could not think that it blew from the sky; it blew rather through some hole in the sky. Syme felt a simple surprise when he saw rising all round him on both sides of the road the red, irregular buildings of Saffron Park. He had no idea that he had walked so near London. He walked by instinct along one white road, on which early birds hopped and sang, and found himself outside a fenced garden. There he saw the sister of Gregory, the girl with the gold-red hair, cutting lilac before breakfast, with the great unconscious gravity of a girl.

keeping his eyes moving as he looked ahead for any surprises that might be waiting for him. The camera drone rose up above and then moved away, and Roscoe continued his purposeful walk. He reached the center after a few minutes and looked around, but he was alone. That was normal, he knew; the other person within the fenced arena would be doing his best to stay out of sight until the last possible moment. That was completely understandable, Roscoe felt. After all, there weren’t very

Stop.” She turned her face away. Slipping out from between him and the wall, Cass walked along a path of stepping-stones toward a bronze fountain at the back of the garden. Beyond the fountain was a wrought-iron fence, and beyond the fence was an alley. She rested one hand on the iron bars, feeling a bit like the caged bird Falco had once accused her of being. He took her hand and led her back to the edge of the fountain, where she sat. Sitting beside her, he pressed his leg against her hip. “What is it?” he asked. “We came out here to talk, remember?” she said. “We can talk later.” He squeezed her hand, his fingers massaging the middle of her palm. Mannaggia. Why did every single touch have to make her want things? “When you’re not dressed like that,” he added.

At the twenty-second house, which was right next door to Willie’s, the elderly widow, Mrs. Lima, answered the door. Yes, she would hire them to do both the walk and the driveway, she said, and she nodded at the price when Jackson mentioned it. “She’s not poor, is she?” Jackson asked uneasily after Mrs. Lima went back inside. “I don’t think so. Her husband owned the department store in the mall. She’s pretty crabby, though. We better do a good job.” They did a fine job, getting every bit of snow off right to the edges of the walk and driveway. When they finished they rang the doorbell, sweaty but pleased with themselves. Casually Mrs. Lima glanced at the driveway and sighted along the walk. “Just a minute,” she said. She dipped back inside her house. “Maybe she’ll give us a tip,” Jackson said. “Twelve dollars isn’t much for the ton of snow we shoveled.” “I don’t know,” Willie said doubtfully. “She had a big fight with my mom for cutting some roses off a bush that was growing over the fence into our yard. Mom says Mrs. Lima’s stingy.” How stingy they found out when Mrs. Lima returned and handed them each a five-dollar bill.

Maybe she’ll give us a tip,” Jackson said. “Twelve dollars isn’t much for the ton of snow we shoveled.” “I don’t know,” Willie said doubtfully. “She had a big fight with my mom for cutting some roses off a bush that was growing over the fence into our yard. Mom says Mrs. Lima’s stingy.” How stingy they found out when Mrs. Lima returned and handed them each a five-dollar bill. “It was ten for the driveway and two for the walk, that’s twelve,” Jackson said. “You owe us two more.” “I never said I’d pay you for cleaning my walk.” “Yes, you did,” Jackson said. “I certainly did not, and ten is all you’ll get from me.” Mrs. Lima shut the door. Period. End of discussion. Willie rang the bell. The door whipped open. “You better be on your way, young man, or I’ll call your parents and tell them you’re harassing me,” she said. Before he could get a word out, she shut the door again. Jackson scowled. He stood there with his arms folded and his big brown eyes glaring. “Know what we should do, Willie? We should do what Milton did; put the snow back.” Willie groaned. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” “Come on, Willie. We can’t let that mean old lady get away with cheating us.

The glare of the green landscape and the air, the air that was everywhere, in us and making way for us, and we rode and were aware only of each other and ourselves for those couple of miles, and for those couple of miles I was myself, back in the neighborhood of Chacarita, where I moved with my mom after we realized my dad was never going to move out first, that we would have to leave him, and I saw on either side of me the big ugly high-rises and squat goldenrod houses and fuchsia and blue and inscrutable notes scrawled on the walls, graffiti intermingling with the shimmering, shadowing little leaves of the tipas, and as I rode I slowed at the oleander at Facultad de Medicina, those delicate pink flowers that rose over the fence in utter opulence and the lush stiff leaves that reached out through the bars that were freshly painted bright green. Then there it was: the Great Mamamushi. I slowed, and Freddie slowed. We parked our bikes. I was out of breath and all the air on Earth was in my blood, and we kissed again, and I turned around, and he put his arms around my waist, and I leaned into him, and we beheld it: a tree that was almost too much to be true, that truly was incredible, with its trunk that was almost eight meters around, a staggering circumference, glittered over by dragonflies, heavy, petite, iridescent incarnations of Irena's genius, when suddenly a flock of impossible parrots exploded out of the alders, and we looked up to see them shattering the sky. "All the oaks on this trail have their own names," I explained to Freddie. "This one is my favorite. Can you believe it's still growing?" He put his face against mine. He didn't say anything. For a while we just stood like that, together, watching the Great Mamamushi grow.