Necklace Love Quotes

My mother says that pain is hidden in everyone you see. She says try to imagine it like big bunches of flowers that everyone is carrying around with them. Think of your pain like a big bunch of red roses, a beautiful thorn necklace. Everyone has one.

Unending Love I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times... In life after life, in age after age, forever. My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs, That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms, In life after life, in age after age, forever. Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain, It's ancient tale of being apart or together. As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge, Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time. You become an image of what is remembered forever. You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount. At the heart of time, love of one for another. We have played along side millions of lovers, Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting, the distressful tears of farewell, Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever. Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you The love of all man's days both past and forever: Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life. The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours - And the songs of every poet past and forever.

...When I get you back, I’m gonna put that necklace back around your neck and pin you.” He tries to hold my eyes with his own. 'Like the 1950s.

Do you still distrust me?” “No. Take your necklace with you so you can think of me when I’m not there.”
Brown brought the necklace over to her and put it on her neck.
“I think it rather suits me,” she laughed and left.
Brown didn’t understand what had made him insist she wear the necklace. Maybe it
was the readiness with which she had made love, or her frequent disappearances lately,
he was just curious. There was no harm in checking, before he parted with the money.
Later that evening, before going to sleep he decided to have a look at her location and
he was in for a surprise. She had not left Central City at all. In fact she was at the same
friend’s address as she had been the last time.

[The] maid of honor - the unambiguous, grown-up equivalent of wearing best friend necklaces.

Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. Sometimes you catch them. They can be the hands of the people you love. They can be your pets- pups with funny names, cats with ferocious old souls. The thing that keeps you here can be your art. It can be things you have collected and invested with a certain sense of meaning. A flowered, buckled treasure chest of secrets. Shoes that make you taller and, therefore, closer to the heavens. A suit that belonged to your fairy godmother. A dress that makes you feel a little like the Goddess herself. Sometimes you keep falling; you don't catch anything. Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you here. Sometimes you catch them. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes they catch you.

And the joys I've felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It as too big for me an would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler make that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. IF I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice

She was the most beautiful thing you ever saw. She was radiant. And she was wearing this necklace... When you see the necklace in the painting, it all makes sense. He loved her. Even if she lived to one hundred and five without ever getting an answer.

For the next couple of weeks she held Peter like a secret in her heart, lying right under her necklace. I could see him written on her face, and Tik Tok, too, seemed to catch shadows of him, because he'd stop to stare at her, puzzled, as if he'd just seen the boy flit across her eyes-seen the ghost of the kiss lingering for a second on the skin of her neck before disappearing.

Anyway." I cleared my throat loudly. "Thank you again for the beautiful necklace. It's perfect, and I love it. Where did you find it? I've never seen anything like it before." It was his turn to look embarrassed and he ducked his head. "That's because I made it." He peeked up at me, and my heart melted. Am I dreaming? This has to be a dream. "You made it?" Something wet hit my cheek and I brushed it away, impatiently waiting for his answer. "Yeah," he said shyly. "I did.

He stroked Sido's cheek and bent down to kiss her, whispering what his heart had always known, what he had never said before to anyone. 'I love you, I always will.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." "I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled. "The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always.

Are you, are you Coming to the tree They strung up a man They say who murdered three. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out For his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run, So we'd both be free. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, Side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree.

I'd been making desicions for days. I picked out the dress Bailey would wear forever- a black slinky one- innapropriate- that she loved. I chose a sweater to go over it, earrings, bracelet, necklace, her most beloved strappy sandals. I collected her makeup to give to the funeral director with a recent photo- I thought it would be me that would dress her; I didn't think a strange man should see her naked touch her body shave her legs apply her lipstick but that's what happened all the same. I helped Gram pick out the casket, the plot at the cemetery. I changed a few lines in the obituary that Big composed. I wrote on a piece of paper what I thought should go on the headstone. I did all this without uttering a word. Not one word, for days, until I saw Bailey before the funeral and lost my mind. I hadn't realized that when people say so-and-so snapped that's what actually happens- I started shaking her- I thought I could wake her up and get her the hell out of that box. When she didn't wake, I screamed: Talk to me. Big swooped me up in his arms, carried me out of the room, the church, into the slamming rain, and down to the creek where we sobbed together under the black coat he held over our heads to protect us from the weather.

You look just fine." "Ah, 'just fine.' Exactly what a woman loves to hear." "I'm sorry," he said. "I meant to say that you look like a barbarian who just finished killing her seventeenth rabid tiger to make a necklace out of their incisors.

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I love you, Maddie, and I am devoted to making your life full of happiness and accomplishments, nurturing your creativity, encouraging your independence and making sure you always know what a gift you are to this world.” He kisses her forehead and she smiles up at him happily before admiring her pretty new necklace.

Consider the capacity of the human body for pleasure. Sometimes, it is pleasant to eat, to drink, to see, to touch, to smell, to hear, to make love. The mouth. The eyes. The fingertips, The nose. The ears. The genitals. Our voluptific faculties (if you will forgive me the coinage) are not exclusively concentrated here. The whole body is susceptible to pleasure, but in places there are wells from which it may be drawn up in greater quantity. But not inexhaustibly. How long is it possible to know pleasure? Rich Romans ate to satiety, and then purged their overburdened bellies and ate again. But they could not eat for ever. A rose is sweet, but the nose becomes habituated to its scent. And what of the most intense pleasures, the personality-annihilating ecstasies of sex? I am no longer a young man; even if I chose to discard my celibacy I would surely have lost my stamina, re-erecting in half-hours where once it was minutes. And yet if youth were restored to me fully, and I engaged again in what was once my greatest delight – to be fellated at stool by nymphet with mouth still blood-heavy from the necessary precautions – what then? What if my supply of anodontic premenstruals were never-ending, what then? Surely, in time, I should sicken of it. “Even if I were a woman, and could string orgasm on orgasm like beads on a necklace, in time I should sicken of it. Do you think Messalina, in that competition of hers with a courtesan, knew pleasure as much on the first occasion as the last? Impossible. “Yet consider. “Consider pain. “Give me a cubic centimeter of your flesh and I could give you pain that would swallow you as the ocean swallows a grain of salt. And you would always be ripe for it, from before the time of your birth to the moment of your death, we are always in season for the embrace of pain. To experience pain requires no intelligence, no maturity, no wisdom, no slow working of the hormones in the moist midnight of our innards. We are always ripe for it. All life is ripe for it. Always.

If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and in its place is a girl. Her hair and lashes are painted a shifting silver, and a scar crosses one side of her face. She is dressed in Sealand silk and a necklace of sapphire . Some say that, once upon a time, she had a prince, a father, a society of friends. Others say that she was once a wicked queen ,a worker of illusions, a girl who brought darkness across the lands. Stilll others say that she once had a sister, and that she loved her dearly. Perhaps all of these are true. She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen. These are only rumour,of course, and make little more than a story to tell round a fire. But it is told. And thus they live on. —“The Midnight Star,” a folktale

The most beautiful jewelry in the world is not a diamond necklace, but two hearts beating as one.

Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man they say murdered three Where the dead man called out for his love to flee Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

What can I give you, Aislinn? Shall I weave flowers into your hair?" He opened his hand, letting go of her hair. An iris blossom sat in the palm of his hand. "Shall I bring you necklaces of gold? Delicacies mortals can only dream of? I'll do all those things anyway. Don't waste your wish.

Clothing was magic. Casey believed this. She would never admit this to her classmates in any of her women's studies courses, but she felt that an article of clothing could change a person... Each skirt, blouse, necklace, or humble shoe said something - certain pieces screamed, and others whispered seductively, but no matter, she experienced each item's expression keenly, and she loved this world. every article suggested an image, a life, a kind of woman, and Casey felt drawn to them." (Free Food For Millionaires, p.41).

.."Find something that reminds you of Jack..." "Like what?" "The two of you were lovey-dovey. Didn't he ever give you.. I don't know... a heart shaped locket necklace?" "No." "A teddy? With a T-shirt that says I LOVE YOU BEARY MUCH? I rolled my eyes. "No. He wasn't like that.

Without asking, he moved behind her and brushed her hair over her shoulder. Drawing the necklace around her neck, he fastened the clasp. The amber felt cool against her sweltering skin. Lifting it, she rotated the pendant, watching as it caught the light. "It's lovely." Before she could change her mind, she dug into her pocket and shoved the rest of the coins into his hand.

When you kill someone, something from that person passes to you - a sigh, a smell or a gesture. I call it "the curse of the victim." It clings to your body and seeps into your skin, going all the way into your heart, and thus continues to live within you. I carry with me the traces of all the men I have killed. I wear them around my neck like invisible necklaces, feeling their presence against my flesh, tight and heavy. In every murderer breathes the man he murdered.

Lily looks back down at the necklace in her hand that Kavita had given her. "It must have cost a fortune." "It did." He confirms. "Though not nearly as much as you're worth." Lily looks up at him. "Don't say that. You hurt me everytime you speak.

There had been a computer he had also built himself on the farthest corner of the room, but he had sold that a couple of months ago to buy me a necklace. I wore it then, it was two silver hearts linked as one. That’s what he and I were, we we’re one.

So that you will hear me my words sometimes grow thin as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches. Necklace, drunken bell for your hands smooth as grapes. And I watch my words from a long way off. They are more yours than mine. They climb on my old suffering like ivy. It climbs the same way on damp walls. You are to blame for this cruel sport. They are fleeing from my dark lair. You fill everything, you fill everything. Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy, and they are more used to my sadness than you are. Now I want them to say what I want to say to you to make you hear as I want you to hear me. The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual. Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over. You listen to other voices in my painful voice. Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications. Love me, companion. Don't forsake me. Follow me. Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish. But my words become stained with your love. You occupy everything, you occupy everything. I am making them into an endless necklace for your white hands, smooth as grapes.

He pulled out the circle necklace and handed it to her. "I want you to have it." "No," Lilly said. "that's just a tragic reminder that we can't be together." "No, it's not. This is proof that I will never love anyone else.

Do the lovers know that when they whisper these poems they are commemorating our love? Do they ever think of you and me or only of themselves? Do they know that I once found a strand of your hair and wore it around my neck like a necklace? That I kiss your hands more than I kiss your lips? Do they realise that our love and their love are drops in the universe’s ocean of love and that without any of these drops, the ocean would be less?

Now I’ll just have to do without.” She raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry?” Then Maximus did something very strange: he went on one knee before her. “This isn’t right at all,” he said, continuing to glare as if he found it all her fault. She sat up. “What are you doing?” “Artemis Greaves, will you do me the honor of —” “Are you insane?” she demanded. “What of your father? Your conviction that you must marry for the dukedom?” “My father is dead,” he said softly. “And I’ve decided the dukedom can go hang.” “But —” “Hush,” he snapped. “I’m trying to propose to you properly even without my mother’s necklace.” “But why?” she asked... “I know that this is rather disappointing,” he said. “But I intend to make you respectable.

... a necklace of pearls on a white neck. We had lost the sense of discovery which had infused the anarchy of our first year. I began to settle down. ... the old house in the foreground, the rest of the world abandoned and forgotten; a world of its own of peace and love and beauty...

When I was a child growing up in Salinas we called San Francisco “the City”. Of course it was the only city we knew, but I still think of it as the City, and so does everyone else who has ever associated with it. A strange and exclusive work is “city”. Besides San Francisco, only small sections of London and Rome stay in the mind as the City. New Yorkers say they are going to town. Paris has no title but Paris. Mexico City is the Capital. Once I knew the City very well, spent my attic days there, while others were being a lost generation in Paris. I fledged in San Francisco, climbed its hills, slept in its parks, worked on its docks, marched and shouted in its revolts. In a way I felt I owned the City as much as it owned me. San Francisco put on a show for me. I saw her across the bay, from the great road that bypasses Sausalito and enters the Golden Gate Bridge. The afternoon sun painted her white and gold---rising on her hills like a noble city in a happy dream. A city on hills has it over flat-land places. New York makes its own hills with craning buildings, but this gold and white acropolis rising wave on wave against the blue of the Pacific sky was a stunning thing, a painted thing like a picture of a medieval Italian city which can never have existed. I stopped in a parking place to look at her and the necklace bridge over the entrance from the sea that led to her. Over the green higher hills to the south, the evening fog rolled like herds of sheep coming to cote in the golden city. I’ve never seen her more lovely. When I was a child and we were going to the City, I couldn’t sleep for several nights before, out of busting excitement. She leaves a mark.

Why was fabulousness important? The world was a scary, sad place and adornment was one of the only ways she knew to make herself and the people around her forget their troubles. That was why she had opened her store almost five years ago. Everyone who entered the little square white house with miniature Corinthian columns, cherub statues, and French windows seemed to leave carrying armloads of newly handmade and well spruced-up recycled vintage clothing, humming sixties girl-group songs, seventies glam and punk, eighties New Wave one-hit wonders, or nineties grunge, doing silly dances, and not caring what anyone thought. Weetzie loved the old dresses she found and sold, because they had their own secret histories. She always wondered where, when, and how they had been worn. What they had seen. Old dresses were like old ladies.

I turn, concentrating on Jeb. “No matter what you think happened between the two of us, I love you. We share battle scars and hearts. I don’t want to lose that.” He studies my necklaces and the soldered clump of metal at my neck. “Yeah, I see how well you took care of my heart.”

I was waiting at table tonight, on account of it being such a big party, and just as I was coming round with the savoury, one of the ladies went and broke her necklace by fidgeting with it at the ta ble. She thought she picked 'em all up but this one rolled under my foot and I stood on it tight until all the ladies went upstairs. I wanted to give it to you. You're a black pearl, Bertha, that's what you are and it's only right that you should have it.

Touching the copper of the ankh reminded me of another necklace, a necklace long since lost under the dust of time. That necklace had been simpler: only a string of beads etched with tiny ankhs. But my husband had brought it to me the morning of our wedding, sneaking up to our house just after dawn in a gesture uncharacteristically bold for him. I had chastised him for the indiscretion. "What are you doing? You're going to see me this afternoon... and then every day after that!" "I had to give you these before the wedding." He held up the string of beads. "They were my mother's. I want you to have them, to wear them today.” He leaned forward, placing the beads around my neck. As his fingers brushed my skin, I felt something warm and tingly run through my body. At the tender age of fifteen, I hadn't exactly understood such sensations, though I was eager to explore them. My wiser self today recognized them as the early stirrings of lust, and . . . well, there had been something else there too. Something else that I still didn't quite comprehend. An electric connection, a feeling that we were bound into something bigger than ourselves. That our being together was inevitable. "There," he'd said, once the beads were secure and my hair brushed back into place. "Perfect.” He said nothing else after that. He didn't need to. His eyes told me all I needed to know, and I shivered. Until Kyriakos, no man had ever given me a second glance. I was Marthanes' too-tall daughter after all, the one with the sharp tongue who didn't think before speaking. (Shape-shifting would eventually take care of one of those problems but not the other.) But Kyriakos had always listened to me and watched me like I was someone more, someone tempting and desirable, like the beautiful priestesses of Aphrodite who still carried on their rituals away from the Christian priests. I wanted him to touch me then, not realizing just how much until I caught his hand suddenly and unexpectedly. Taking it, I placed it around my waist and pulled him to me. His eyes widened in surprise, but he didn't pull back. We were almost the same height, making it easy for his mouth to seek mine out in a crushing kiss. I leaned against the warm stone wall behind me so that I was pressed between it and him. I could feel every part of his body against mine, but we still weren't close enough. Not nearly enough. Our kissing grew more ardent, as though our lips alone might close whatever aching distance lay between us. I moved his hand again, this time to push up my skirt along the side of one leg. His hand stroked the smooth flesh there and, without further urging, slid over to my inner thigh. I arched my lower body toward his, nearly writhing against him now, needing him to touch me everywhere. "Letha? Where are you at?” My sister's voice carried over the wind; she wasn't nearby but was close enough to be here soon. Kyriakos and I broke apart, both gasping, pulses racing. He was looking at me like he'd never seen me before. Heat burned in his gaze. "Have you ever been with anyone before?" he asked wonderingly. I shook my head. "How did you ... I never imagined you doing that...” "I learn fast.” He grinned and pressed my hand to his lips. "Tonight," he breathed. "Tonight we ...” "Tonight," I agreed. He backed away then, eyes still smoldering. "I love you. You are my life.” "I love you too." I smiled and watched him go.

The letter was destroyed, but its final paragraph is inside of me. She wrote, I wish I could be a girl again, with the chance to live my life again. I have suffered so much more than I needed to. And the joys I have felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my grandfather gought me a ruby bracelet. It was too big for me and would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler to make it that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. If I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice.

I have a lock of his hair, a handful of his ashes, a box of his letters, a goatskin tambourine. And in the folds of faded violet tissue a necklace, two violet plaques etched in Arabic, strung with black and silver threads, given to me by the boy who loved Michelangelo.

There was a necklace inside. A thin silver chain with a small pendant, a silver pansy.

Thats right my lovely bride to be. In language you might understand, your pawn has been captured and you my queen will also be in danger if you think to gain-way me again.

Isabel's relations with her mother and sister were like those knots you get in necklaces. You try to tease them out and end up putting the chain back in the jewelry box.

The pretty landlady was desolate. She would have taken D'Artagnan not only as her husband, but as her God, he was so handsome and had so fierce a mustache.

He took the necklace out of the box and carefully fastened it around her neck. Just like he'd imagined himself doing when he bought it. That might even be why he bought it - so he'd have this moment, under her hair. He ran his fingertips along the chain and settled the pendant on her throat.

A young woman stood in the hallway, a suitcase at her feet, a cardboard carton in her hands. She wore a yellow cotton dress with a white flower print. The silver dragonfly on her necklace hung in the hollow of her collarbone and her thick red hair cascaded past her sunburned shoulders. She will tell you that she hadn't chosen that dress with any care, or the necklace, that she hadn't washed her hair or scrubbed her face, put a little red on her lips. Don't believe it. No one looks that good by accident.

I cross the street and walk into the Printemps. I go to the counter with necklaces and bracelets and earrings, which dazzle me always. I stand like a fascinated savage. Glitter. Amethyst. Turquoise. Shell pink. Irish green. I would like to be naked and cover myself in cold crystal jewelry. Jewelry and perfume.

You have to take this with you too,” she said, opening a box and holding up a silver necklace with the Syriac cross (a crucifix with a budding flower shape on each tip) dangling from it. “My mother gave it to me mother, who passed it to me. Now is the right time to give it to you. Not just because you’re leaving and will need something that always connects you to your roots, but also because tonight we remember her.

She wrote, I wish I could be a girl again, with the chance to live my life again. I have suffered so much more than I needed to. And the joys I have felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently. When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It was too big for me and would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler to make it that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. If I were to give a bracelet to you, now, I would measure your wrist twice. With love, Your grandmother

The tale is told by royalty and vagabonds alike, nobles and peasants, hunters and farmers, the old and the young. The tale comes from ever corner of the world, but no matter where it is told, it is always the same story, A boy on horseback, wandering at night, in the woods or on the plains or along the shores. The sound of a lute drifts in the evening air. Over head are the stars of a clear sky, a sheet of light so bright that he reaches up, trying to touch them. He stops and descends from his horse. Then he waits. He waits until exactly midnight, when the newest constellation in the sky blinks into existence. If you are very quiet and do not look away, you may see the brightest star in the constellation glow steadily brighter. It brightens until it overwhelms every other star in the sky, brightens until it seems to touch the ground, and then the glow is gone, and it its place is a girl. Her hair and lashes are painted a shifting silver, and a scar crosses one side of her face. She is dressed in Sealand silks and a necklace of sapphire. Some say that, once upon a time, she had a prince, a father, a society of friends. Other say that she was once a wicked queen, a worker of illusions, a girl who brought darkness across the lands. Still others say that she once had a sister, and that she loved her dearly. Perhaps all of these are true. She walks to the boy, tilts her head up at him, and smiles. He bends down to kiss her. Then he helps her onto the horse, and she rides away with him to a faraway place, until they can no longer be seen. These are only rumors, of course, and make little more than a story to tell around the fire. But it is told. And thus they live on. --"The Midnight Star", a folktale

George Burns tells a wonderful story about the one time in his life (so he says) he cheated on his beloved Gracie. He was so disgusted and ashamed of himself that he went out and bought her the most beautiful diamond necklace he could find. Gracie was pretty sure she knew what was wrong, but she accepted the necklace and said nothing. Several years passed. One night, she and George were out to dinner and an acquaintance complimented her on her lovely necklace. As George stood there, aghast, she replied, 'Thank you. I wish George would cheat on me again so I could get the matching earrings.

Sparkling…? I bent close, frowning. It was only then that I saw the beautiful golden necklace curled on the papers, with the sapphire glinting at its heart. Lockwood had taken it out of the old crushed box that his mother had kept it in. Even in the dusk, the gem was glorious, undying and undimmed. It was as if all the light and love it had gathered in the past was shining out on me. I stood gazing at it for a long time. Slowly, carefully, I picked up the necklace and hung it around my neck. Then I put on my jacket and ran for the stairs.

She's wearing a purple jumpsuit and heart-shaped sunglasses, , and her hair is pulled over her shoulder into a fishtail braid that reaches her ribcage. Her purse is shaped like a watermelon, and her necklace is a pink flower with the letter K in its middle. I want to be her.

He bit his lip, feeling guilty for looking at her tits. He imagined ripping the bra's flimsy material , it was a travesty to cover those beauties. He loved burying his cock between her tits, using them to sandwich it as he rubbed himself to orgasm, giving her the only pearl necklace he could afford.~ Dante

He had not stopped looking into her eyes, and she showed no signs of faltering. He gave a deep sigh and recited: "O sweet treasures, discovered to my sorrow." She did not understand. "It is a verse by the grandfather of my great-great-grandmother," he explained. "He wrote three eclogues, two elegies, five songs, and forty sonnets. Most of them for a Portuguese lady of very ordinary charms who was never his, first because he was married, and then because she married another man and died before he did." "Was he a priest too?" "A soldier," he said. Something stirred in the heart of Sierva María, for she wanted to hear the verse again. He repeated it, and this time he continued, in an intense, well-articulated voice, until he had recited the last of the forty sonnets by the cavalier of amours and arms Don Garcilaso de la Vega, killed in his prime by a stone hurled in battle.When he had finished, Cayetano took Sierva María's hand and placed it over his heart. She felt the internal clamor of his suffering. "I am always in this state," he said. And without giving his panic an opportunity, he unburdened himself of the dark truth that did not permit him to live. He confessed that every moment was filled with thoughts of her, that everything he ate and drank tasted of her, that she was his life, always and everywhere, as only God had the right and power to be, and that the supreme joy of his heart would be to die with her. He continued to speak without looking at her, with the same fluidity and passion as when he recited poetry, until it seemed to him that Sierva María was sleeping. But she was awake, her eyes, like those of a startled deer, fixed on him. She almost did not dare to ask: "And now?" "And now nothing," he said. "It is enough for me that you know." He could not go on. Weeping in silence, he slipped his arm beneath her head to serve as a pillow, and she curled up at his side. And so they remained, not sleeping, not talking, until the roosters began to crow and he had to hurry to arrive in time for five-o'clock Mass. Before he left, Sierva María gave him the beautiful necklace of Oddúa: eighteen inches of mother-of-pearl and coral beads. Panic had been replaced by the yearning in his heart. Delaura knew no peace, he carried out his tasks in a haphazard way, he floated until the joyous hour when he escaped the hospital to see Sierva María. He would reach the cell gasping for breath, soaked by the perpetual rains, and she would wait for him with so much longing that only his smile allowed her to breathe again. One night she took the initiative with the verses she had learned after hearing them so often. 'When I stand and contemplate my fate and see the path along which you have led me," she recited. And asked with a certain slyness: "What's the rest of it?" "I reach my end, for artless I surrendered to one who is my undoing and my end," he said. She repeated the lines with the same tenderness, and so they continued until the end of the book, omitting verses, corrupting and twisting the sonnets to suit themselves, toying with them with the skill of masters. They fell asleep exhausted. At five the warder brought in breakfast, to the uproarious crowing of the roosters, and they awoke in alarm. Life stopped for them.

A moment passed before he peeked at my necklace, and his eyes became tender. “You know, Leen . . . love isn’t always a crazy, obsessive emotion. Love is understanding and respecting each other, and giving space to grow and sacrifice and compromise. It’s about being there for each other, not running away. And it certainly isn’t treason.

I was nodding. I took the necklace from him. "I'm sorry for screwing everything up. I hurt you again, and for that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don't want to do that anymore. So ... I'm not going to stay for the wedding. I'm just going to take off now. I won't see you again. Not for a long time. Probably for the best. Being near you like this, it hurts. And Jere" - Conrad cleared his throat and stepped backward, making the space between us - "he's the one who needs you." I bit my lip to keep from crying. Hoarsely, he said, "I need you to know that no matter what happens, it was worth it to me. Being with you, loving you. It was all worth it." Then he said, "I wish you both the best. Take good care of each other." ... He came up and kissed me on my forehead, and before he stepped away, I closed my eyes and tried to memorize this moment ... Then he was gone.

On an impulse he cannot explain, he buys himself a one-way ticket - and the evening of that very same day finds him wandering the streets of the old colonial quarter of the Colombian town. Girls in love with boys on scooters, screeching birds, tropical flowers on winding vines, saudade, and solitude, One Hundred Years of it; and then, as the tropical dusk darkens the corners of the Plaza de la Adana, he sees a woman, her fingers toying with a necklace of lapis lazuli, and they stand still as the world eddies about them.

Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man They say murdered three. Strange things have happened here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out For his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run, So we'd both be free. Strange things have happened here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of hope, Side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run, So we'd both be free. Strange things have happened here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man They say murdered three. Strange things have happened here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out For his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree

If there's anything romcoms have taught us about spontaneous gifting, it's that the big expensive presents are often a sign of guilt. But not the small, sort of rubbish presents. It seems to me that a cheap bag of crisps says a whole lot more than a gold necklace. It says 'You occupy such a vast space in my mind, I think of you so constantly, that my day-to-day life throws up constant reminders of you.' That person is, subconsciously or not, considered in everything you do and everywhere you go. Even in somewhere as mundane as the supermarket snack aisle.

Not a dandelion in sight here, the lawns are picked clean. I long for one, just one, rubbishy and insolently random and hard to get rid of and perennially yellow as the sun. Cheerful and plebeian, shining for all alike. Rings, we would make from them, and crowns and necklaces, stains from the bitter milk on our fingers. Or I'd hold one under her chin: Do you like butter? Smelling them, she'd get pollen on her nose. Or was that buttercups? Or gone to seed: I can see her, running across the lawn, that lawn there just in front of me, at two, three years old, waving one like a sparkler, a small wand of white fire, the air filling with tiny parachutes. Blow, and you tell the time. All that time, blowing away in the summer breeze. It was daisies for love though, and we did that too. ***

Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child's. She has no guile in her. And she never speaks. And if she does I have to bend my head to hear what she says. And in the pause I can hear my heart. Her little bits of embroidery, her scraps of silk, her halcyon sleeves, she cut out of the cloth some admirer gave her once, some poor boy struck with love for her...and yet she has never succumbed. Her little sleeves, her seed pearl necklace...she has nothing...she expects nothing...' A tear at last sneaks from Henry's eye, meanders down his cheek and vanishes into the mottled grey and ginger of his beard.

The avengers outside are the worst kind, the ones in silver cross necklaces, baseball caps, and Life is Good T-shirts. The ones who stay up until midnight to build their first-graders’ Alamo projects out of sugar cubes, cancel a Thanksgiving cruise to bring Grandma some turkey in the hospital, spend a full paycheck on ACL surgery for the family dog. Their love for God and family is just as manic as their hate.

Never was there so much magic over things as when you spoke, and never were words so powerful. You could make speech flare up, become muddled or mighty. You did everything with words and sentences, came to an understanding with them or transmuted them, gave things a new name; and objects which understand neither the straight nor the crooked words, almost took their being from your words. Oh, nobody was ever able to play so well, you monsters! You invented all games, number games and word games, dream games and love games. Never did anyone speak of himself like that. Almost truthfully. Almost murderously truthfully. Bent over the water, almost abandoned. The world is already dark and I cannot put on the necklace of shells. There will be no clearing. You different from all the others. I am under water. Am under water. And now someone is walking up above and hates water and hates green and does not understand, will never understand. As I have never understood. Almost mute, almost still hearing the call. Come. Just once. Come.

She's saying something. My mother's words found me, there in the black. I pinched my eyes closed, her face coming into perfect view One long, dark red braid over her shoulder. Pale gray eyes the color of morning fog and the sea-dragon necklace around her neck as she looked up into the clouds above us. Isolde loved the storms. That night, the bell rang out and my father came for me, pulling me from my hammock bleary-eyed and confused. and when he put me in the rowboat, I screamed for my mother until my throat was raw. The Lark was already half-sunk, disappearing in the water behind us. My mother called it touching the soul of the storm. When she came upon us like that, she was taking us into her hart and letting us see her. She was saying something. And only then would we know what lay within her. Only then would we know who she was.

You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens…the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her…a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them; she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes, cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little…little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it’s fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day.

The necklace, Marcos,” she said firmly, leveling the gun at his heart once more. “I’ll take it now.” “It’s not here, querida. You waste your time.” Francesca lowered the gun to point at his groin. “Killing you would be too good. Perhaps I will simply have to deprive the female world of your ability to make love ever again. I am quite a good shot, I assure you.” She’d learned out of necessity. And though she never wanted to harm another human being, she had no compunction about making this man think she would do so if it meant she could save Jacques. His voice dropped to a growl. A hateful, angry growl. “You won’t get away with this. Whoever you are, Frankie, I will find you. I will find you and make you wish you’d never met me.” Her heart flipped in her chest. She ignored it. “I already wish that. Now give me the jewel before you lose the ability to ever have children.” Bitterness twisted inside her as she said those words. Ironic to threaten someone with something she would never wish on another soul. But she had to be hard, cold, ruthless – just like he was. He stared at her in impotent fury, his jaw grinding, his beautiful black eyes flashing daggers at her. Very slowly, he reached up with one hand and slipped his bowtie free of its knot. Then he jerked it loose and let it fall.

She’d been given gifts before. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets. Weekend trips to the Bahamas or a day at the spa. Expensive—but meaningless—trinkets that showed Dax didn’t have a clue what to give her, that he didn’t listen to her. Things that could be meant for any woman. Nothing that said she was special, that what she thought and wanted mattered. A set of aluminum bleachers full of teenage boys meant more than any of those things combined.

Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man they say murdered three. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” The mockingjays begin to alter their songs as they become aware of my new offering. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out for his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” I have the birds’ attention now. In one more verse, surely they will have captured the melody, as it’s simple and repeats four times with little variation. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” A hush in the trees. Just the rustle of leaves in the breeze. But no birds, mockingjay or other. Peeta’s right. They do fall silent when I sing. Just as they did for my father. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be

Down the rusty bars of ladders to the undergrounds of the night propitious to the first man and woman at the beginning of the world. where there were no words by which to possess each other, no music for serenades, no presents to court with, no tournaments to impress and force a yielding, no secondary instruments, no adornments, necklaces, crowns to subdue, but only one ritual, a joyous, joyous, joyous, joyous, impaling of a woman on a man´s sensual mast

I need to ask, are you afraid of spiders?" Nicholas blinked, suddenly caught off guard, "Yes, I'm afraid of spiders." "Were you always?" "What are you, a psychiatrist?" Pritam took a breath. He could feel Laine's eyes on him, appraising his line of questioning. "Is it possible that the trauma of losing your best friend as a child and the trauma of losing your wife as an adult and the trauma of seeing Laine's husband take his life in front of you just recently..." Pritam shrugged and raised his palms, "You see where I'm going?" Nicholas looked at Laine. She watched back. Her gray eyes missed nothing. "Sure," agreed Nicholas, standing. "And my sister's nuts, too, and we both like imagining that little white dogs are big nasty spiders because our daddy died and we never got enough cuddles." "Your father died?" asked Laine. "When?" "Who cares?" Pritam sighed. "You must see this from our point of - " "I'd love to!" snapped Nicholas. "I'd love to see it from your point of view, because mine is not that much fun! It's insane! It's insane that I see dead people, Pritam! It's insane that this," he flicked out the sardonyx necklace,"stopped me from kidnapping a little girl!" "That's what you believe," Pritam said carefully. "That's what I fucking believe!" Nicholas stabbed his finger through the air at the dead bird talisman lying slack on the coffee table.

i said, so what do you want to do? you said paint the sky black, break pearl necklaces and watch the beads dance on the wooden floor, open a bakery and only serve pecan pies, take my dog to church, open windows in the middle of winter, burn the taste of your tongue off of my skin, ask strangers for their laughter, open your neighbors mail, tip the waitress way too much, fly myself to anywhere but here, open doors for all kinds of people, bleed my secrets into your soul, cancel credit cards, watch old couples, young couples, say things like i love you and mean it

This time, I sat next to a pixie girl called Takara, who had pinkish hair and wore a bright pink dress to match. She was the first forest-dweller I had seen wearing jewellery: she was wearing a necklace and bracelet of finely worked crystal beads. When she noticed my interest, she removed her bracelet and held it out to me. “Sophiel, I would be so pleased if you would wear this!” I was surprised by this kind and very selfless gesture; after all, I had not been admiring her jewels with any intention of asking her to part with them! “You’re very kind, Takara, but I was merely admiring your handiwork!” I said, trying politely to refuse her gift. “Mitsuko told me that you make your jewellery yourself. You’re very talented, they’re really lovely pieces, but I wouldn’t want to take them away from you. It’s you that makes these jewels really beautiful!

There is, of course, the misconception that straight men universally love tall, thin women. Being such a woman, I can debunk this. Many men are too insecure to date a tall woman. Many of those who aren’t are assholes looking for a trophy. It has less to do with attraction than status. Which is only effective if the tall person is a model. If you’re dating someone taller than you and she’s a model, then you must be hot and interesting. If you’re dating someone taller than you and she’s a literary agent, cue the jokes about her wearing your balls on a silver necklace.

After a while I noticed that the pendant heart-shaped I wore around my neck, as every angel does, had begun to pulsate with blue light. I knew that this was thanks to Raphael and that he was sending healing energy for Joshua. I took my necklace off and gently put it round his neck so as not to wake him. The blue light grew stronger and started to flicker – then, drawing circles on the sick boy’s skin, it vanished around the level of his heart chakras. As blue light pervaded his entire body from head to toe, I could feel his burning skin slowly cool and his breathing became even.

Between them all the poor little Rabbit was made to feel himself very insignificant and commonplace, and the only person who was kind to him at all was the Skin Horse. The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." "I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

Oh, don'tleave now, little bird," Sarren crooned, licking blood from one long bony finger. "It's just getting interesting. You can't fly away just yet." "I wasn't leaving," I snarled. "I'm not about to let you spread your superplague or virus or whatever you want to call it. You might have given up on this world, but I'm not ready to die yet. I don't need your brand of salvation." The katana shook as I raised it in front of me, but I gripped the hilt and forced my arms to be steady. "So, come on, you psycopath. Let's do this. I'm not tied to a table anymore." Sarren's grin widened, making him even more frightening. " I still owe you for this, love," he said, gesturing to his left eye, cloudy and blind. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth. Perhaps, I will pluck out both your eyes, then remove all your teeth, and make a necklace from them. Or maybe a wind chime. I do love wind chimes, don't you, little bird?

Her little hands, Crumb. Her little paws, like a child's. She has no guile in her. And she never speaks. And if she does I hate to bend my head to hear what she says. And in the pause I can hear my heart. Her little bits of embroidery, her scraps of silk, her halcyon sleeves, she cut out of the cloth some admirer gave her once, some poor boy struck with love for her...and yet she has never succumbed. Her little sleeves, her seed pearl necklace...she has nothing...she expects nothing...' A tear at last sneaks from Henry's eye, meanders down his cheek and vanishes into the mottled grey and ginger of his beard.

You could simply tell them you prefer silver." For this is the customary offering in Ireland, at least for the courtly fae. Almost every species of Folk disdains human metals, yet the Irish fae are unique in their ability to tolerate---and, indeed, to love---silver. It is said that they fill their vast, dark forests with silver mirrors like jewels, which drink in the little sun and starlight that penetrates the boughs and reflect it back at the will of the Folk; it is also said that they use silver to construct fantastical staircases that wind up and up those vast trunks, and bridges that hang between them like delicate necklaces.

Right after Matt died, I was afraid to do basically everything. I couldn’t even bite my nails or sniff my shirt to see if I needed deodorant without feeling like he was watching me. I willed and prayed and begged him to give me a sign that he was watching, that he was with me, so I would know. But he never did. Time moved on. And I stopped being afraid. Until right now, vulnerable and insecure and a little bit drunk. Lying in the sand and falling in crazy love with someone I just met. Matt is watching me. Observing. Possibly judging. And the worst part of it is, I don’t want to wake up under his landslide of sad rocks anymore. I don’t want to taste the marzipan frosting and the clove cigarettes. I don’t want to think about the blue glass necklace or the books he read to me on his bed or the piles of college stuff or some random boy in the grocery store wearing his donated clothes. I don’t want to be the dead boy’s best-friend-turned-something-else. Or the really supportive neighbor friend. Or the lifelong keeper of broken-hearted secrets.

Molly touches Vivian’s shoulder, frail and bony under her thin silk cardigan. She half turns, half smiles, her eyes brimming with tears. Her hand flutters to her clavicle, to the silver chain around her neck, the claddagh charm—those tiny hands clasping a crowned heart: love, loyalty, friendship—a never-ending path that leads away from home and circles back. What a journey Vivian and this necklace have taken, Molly thinks: from a cobblestoned village on the coast of Ireland to a tenement in New York to a train filled with children, steaming westward through farmland, to a lifetime in Minnesota. And now to this moment, nearly a hundred years after it all began, on the porch of an old house in Maine

How happily we explored our shiny new world! We lived like characters from the great books I curled up with in the big Draylon armchair. Like Jack Kerouak, like Gatsby, we created ourselves as we went along, a raggle-taggle of gypsies in old army overcoats and bell-bottoms, straggling through the fields that surrounded our granite farmhouse in search of firewood, which we dragged home and stacked in the living room. Ignorant and innocent, we acted as if the world belonged to us, as though we would ever have taken the time to hang the regency wallpaper we damaged so casually with half-rotten firewood, or would have known how to hang it straight, or smooth the seams. We broke logs against the massive tiled hearth and piled them against the sooty fire back, like the logs were tradition and we were burning it, like chimney fires could never happen, like the house didn't really belong to the poor divorcee who paid the rates and mortgage even as we sat around the flames like hunter gatherers, smoking Lebanese gold, chanting and playing the drums, dancing to the tortured music of Luke's guitar. Impelled by the rhythm, fortified by poorly digested scraps of Lao Tzu, we got up to dance, regardless of the coffee we knocked over onto the shag carpet. We sopped it up carelessly, or let it sit there as it would; later was time enough. We were committed to the moment. Everything was easy and beautiful if you looked at it right. If someone was angry, we walked down the other side of the street, sorry and amused at their loss of cool. We avoided newspapers and television. They were full of lies, and we knew all the stuff we needed. We spent our government grants on books, dope, acid, jug wine, and cheap food from the supermarket--variegated cheese scraps bundled roughly together, white cabbage and bacon ends, dented tins of tomatoes from the bargain bin. Everything was beautiful, the stars and the sunsets, the mold that someone discovered at the back of the fridge, the cows in the fields that kicked their giddy heels up in the air and fled as we ranged through the Yorkshire woods decked in daisy chains, necklaces made of melon seeds and tie-dye T-shirts whose colors stained the bath tub forever--an eternal reminder of the rainbow generation. [81-82]

Well,” I said, trying to keep my tone light as I walked over to put my arms around his neck, though I had to stand on my toes to do so. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You told me something about yourself that I didn’t know before-that you didn’t, er, care for your family, except for your mother. But that didn’t make me hate you…it made me love you a bit more, because now I know we have even more in common.” He stared down at him, a wary look in his eyes. “If you knew the truth,” he said, “you wouldn’t be saying that. You’d be running.” “Where would I go?” I asked, with a laugh I hoped didn’t sound as nervous to him as it did to me. “You bolted all the doors, remember? Now, since you shared something I didn’t know about you, may I share something you don’t know about me?” Those dark eyebrows rose as he pulled me close. “I can’t even begin to imagine what this could be.” “It’s just,” I said, “that I’m a little worried about rushing into this consort thing…especially the cohabitation part.” “Cohabitation?” he echoed. He was clearly unfamiliar with the word. “Cohabitation means living together,” I explained, feeling my cheeks heat up. “Like married people.” “You said last night that these days no one your age thinks of getting married,” he said, holding me even closer and suddenly looking much more eager to stick around for the conversation, even though I heard the marina horn blow again. “And that your father would never approve it. But if you’ve changed your mind, I’m sure I could convince Mr. Smith to perform the ceremony-“ “No,” I said hastily. Of course Mr. Smith was somehow authorized to marry people in the state of Florida. Why not? I decided not to think about that right now, or how John had come across this piece of information. “That isn’t what I meant. My mom would kill me if I got married before I graduated from high school.” Not, of course, that my mom was going to know about any of this. Which was probably just as well, since her head would explode at the idea of my moving in with a guy before I’d even applied to college, let alone at the fact that I most likely wasn’t going to college. Not that there was any school that would have accepted me with my grades, not to mention my disciplinary record. “What I meant was that maybe we should take it more slowly,” I explained. “The past couple years, while all my friends were going out with boys, I was home, trying to figure out how this necklace you gave me worked. I wasn’t exactly dating.” “Pierce,” he said. He wore a slightly quizzical expression on his face. “Is this the thing you think I didn’t know about you? Because for one thing, I do know it, and for another, I don’t understand why you think I’d have a problem with it.” I’d forgotten he’d been born in the eighteen hundreds, when the only time proper ladies and gentlemen ever spent together before they were married was at heavily chaperoned balls…and that for most of the past two centuries, he’d been hanging out in a cemetery. Did he even know that these days, a lot of people hooked up on first dates, or that the average age at which girls-and boys as well-lost their virginity in the United States was seventeen…my age? Apparently not. “What I’m trying to say,” I said, my cheeks burning brighter, “is that I’m not very experienced with men. So this morning when I woke up and found you in bed beside me, while it was really, super nice-don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it very much-it kind of freaked me out. Because I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of thing yet.” Or maybe the problem was that I wasn’t prepared for how ready I was…

VISIONS OF GRANDEUR I'm walking through a sheet of glass instead of the door, Flying over a giant candlestick lighting up Central Park, Repeating two courses at Hard Knock's College, And swimming through the Red Sea with silky jelly fish. I'm hopping over an empty row house in Philadelphia, Getting a seventy dollar manicure on a gondola in Venice, Wearing a white pearl necklace stolen from Goodwill, And running my first New York City marathon. I'm discussing the meaning of life with my late cat Charlie. Dating John Doe- the thirty-third chef at the White House, Running non-stop on a broken leg through a bomb-blasted city, And keeping a multi-lingual monkey named Alfredo as my pet. I'm spying on two hundred and twenty-two homegrown terrorists from Iowa, Worshiped by a red-headed gorilla named Salamander, Sleeping with a giant teddy bear dressed in black leather, And wearing hot pink lipstick over a shade of midnight blue.

Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man they say murdered three. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” The mockingjays begin to alter their songs as they become aware of my new offering. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out for his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” I have the birds’ attention now. In one more verse, surely they will have captured the melody, as it’s simple and repeats four times with little variation. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” A hush in the trees. Just the rustle of leaves in the breeze. But no birds, mockingjay or other. Peeta’s right. They do fall silent when I sing. Just as they did for my father. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” The

I felt the stupidity rising in my throat and bit down harder, staring at his collarbone and the small piece of blue sea glass he wore on a leather cord around his neck, rising and falling. Rising. Falling. Seconds? Hours? I didn’t know. He’d made the necklace the year before from a triangular piece of glass he’d found during their family vacation to Zanzibar Bay, right behind the California beach house they rented for three weeks every summer. According to Matt, red glass was the rarest, followed by purple, then dark blue. To date he’d found only one red piece, which he’d made into a bracelet for Frankie a few months earlier. She never took it off. I loved all the colors – dark greens, baby blues, aquas, and whites. Frankie and Matt brought them back for me in mason jars every summer. They lived silently on my bookshelf, like frozen pieces of the ocean I had never seen. “Come here,” he whispered, his hand still stuck in my wild curls, blond hair winding around his fingers. “I still can’t believe you made that,” I said, not for the first time. “It’s so – cool.” Matt looked down at the glass, his hair falling in front of his eyes. “Maybe I’ll give it to you,” he said. “If you’re lucky.

I have not sung “The Hanging Tree” out loud for ten years, because it’s forbidden, but I remember every word. I begin softly, sweetly, as my father did. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man they say murdered three. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” The mockingjays begin to alter their songs as they become aware of my new offering. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out for his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” I have the birds’ attention now. In one more verse, surely they will have captured the melody, as it’s simple and repeats four times with little variation. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.” A hush in the trees. Just the rustle of leaves in the breeze. But no birds, mockingjay or other. Peeta’s right. They do fall silent when I sing. Just as they did for my father. “Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.

we will pay those proud survivors 3000 for slaughter of kin killed in their homeland when young Swede-warriors strike once again learn that Beowulf our beloved warleader lies lifeless now his last breath-moment vanished into time a tale for mead-benches songs for a king who crushed hell-monsters stepped up to a throne served his people there held high his promise. Now haste will be best that we go to find him guide him at last from that fire-black field where he fell deathwards 3010 to his final bedrest. Those fine gold-treasures will melt with his heart that mighty dragon-hoard shall all go with him grimly purchased with his own lifeblood—for the last time now he has paid for goldrings. Pyre-flames shall eat them flame-roof shall thatch them no thane shall wear them treasures so dear no dressed hall-maidens shall wear on their bosoms wound-gold necklaces but grief will adorn them of gold-love bereft as they wander in exile through alien domains 3020 now that our lord has laid down his laughter songs and hall-joys. Now spears will be lifted grim and morning-cold gripped in anguish with frost-numbing hands. No harp’s sweet sounding will waken bench-warriors but the black-gleaming raven circling with fate will say many things describe to the eagle ample corpse-banquets how he shared with the wolf wondrous slaughter-meals.” So that grim messenger gave his report his unfrivolous news nor did he lie much 3030 in words or warnings.

I can't believe this." Temper still high, she planted her hands on her hips. "For weeks, I have imagined you making love to me.I even tried to seduce you." So he had been right about that. "Now-when we are in the middle of the Duke of Sheffield's ball-you decide you want me." "I've never stopped wanting you,Grace." She started to back away. "You made me look like a fool." Ethan stalked to her, matching her step for step. Now that his mind was made up,he intended to have her and soon. "You didn't look the least like a fool. You looked like a woman whose husband desired her." Her back came up against the door."You...you are still the pirate you were aboard your ship!" "That's right.And I intend to plunder the treasure I acquired the day we were wed.

Nestled into a bed of shiny cream satin lay a heart-shaped pendant on a simple gold chain. The heart itself was created from over a dozen delicate round amethyst stones, while the center held a miniature painted on porcelain. Done in a series of fine, delicate strokes, the artist's rendering depicted a tiny garden, alive with masses of yellow and white hollyhocks. Right away, they reminded her of the flowers she'd been drawing that long-ago day in Bath. The day of her and Jack's very first kiss. Her gaze went to his, breath stilled in her chest. "Oh, Jack. It's Sydney Gardens, isn't it?" "That's right, with those stalky, puff-headed flowers." He gave her a gentle smile. "Do you like it?" "I love it." "I chose amethyst, since you said it's your favorite stone. I hope I remembered right?" "You did. It's so lovely. Thank you. I'll wear it each and every day," she promised. "Your heart tucked against my own." A peculiar shadow flickered momentarily across his eyes before he reached for the necklace. "Here, let me help you put it on." "Yes. Please," she said, relieved he'd offered. Her hands were trembling with so much emotion that she doubted she could have managed the task on her own. Turning slightly, she angled herself so he could place the chain around her neck and fasten the clasp. The slight weight of the gold and stones grew instantly warm against her skin. "There. How does it look?" she asked as she moved to face him again. "Beautiful," he said. But when she glanced up, she realized he wasn't looking at the pendant. Instead, he was looking at her.

Althea leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms stubbornly. ‘I can’t help it. That’s what I want.’ When Amber said nothing, Althea asked, almost angrily, ‘Don’t try to tell me that that is what love is, giving it all up for someone else!’ ‘But for some people, it is,’ Amber pointed out inexorably. She bound another bead into the necklace, then held it up to look at it critically. ‘Others are like two horses in harness, pulling together towards a goal.’ ‘I suppose that wouldn’t be so bad,’ Althea conceded. Her knitted brows said she did not entirely believe it. ‘Why can’t people love one another and still remain free?’ she demanded suddenly. Amber paused to rub her eyes, then tug thoughtfully at her earring. ‘One can love that way,’ she conceded regretfully. ‘But the price on that kind of love may be the highest of all.’ She strung her words together as carefully as she strung her beads. ‘To love another person like that, you have to admit that his life is as important as yours. Harder still, you have to admit to yourself that perhaps he has needs you cannot fill, and that you have tasks that will take you far away from him. It costs loneliness and longing and doubt and –’ ‘Why must love cost anything? Why does need have to be mixed up with love? Why can’t people be like butterflies, coming together in bright sunshine and parting while the day is still bright?’ ‘Because they are people, not butterflies. To pretend that people can come together, love, and then part with no pain or consequences is more false a role than pretending to be a proper Trader’s daughter.

Perhaps a necklace of tears to weep so that she won't have to? A pin of teeth to bite annoying husbands? No.' He continues to walk through the small space. He lifts a ring. 'To bring on a child?' And then, seeing my face, lifts a pair of earrings, one in the shape of a crescent moon and the other in the shape of a star. 'Ah, yes. Here. This is what you want.' 'What do they do?' I ask. He laughs. 'They are beautiful- isn't that enough?' I give him a skeptical look. 'It would be enough, considering how exquisite they are, but I bet it isn't all.' He enjoys that. 'Clever girl. They are not only beautiful, but they add to beauty. They make someone more lovely than they were, painfully lovely. Her husband will not leave her side for quite some time.' The look on his face is a challenge. He believes I am too vain to give such a gift to my sister. How well he knows the selfish human heart. Taryn will be a beautiful bride. How much more do I, her twin, want to put myself in her shadow? How lovely can I bear her to be? And yet, what better gift for a human girl wedded to the beauty of the Folk? 'What would you take for them?' I ask. 'Oh, any number of little things. A year of your life. The luster of your hair. The sound of your laugh.' 'My laugh is not such a sweet sound as all that.' 'Not sweet, but I bet it's rare,' he says, and I wonder at his knowing that. 'What about my tears?' I ask. 'You could make another necklace.' He looks at me, as though evaluating how often I weep. 'I will take a single tear,' he says finally. 'And you will take an offer to the High King for me.

Nobody has ever felt pain but you, agony is yours, make a necklace from it. Chew it. Never spit it out. You are the only one your age not having fun. You are puzzled by life because you were born one Sunday too early. You will die on the wrong day too. Try to drown more than once, preferably in the same place. Fall in love. Cut your tongue on him so many times your language starts to bleed out at the root. Reserve speech only for begging. You are supposed to want to dress like the girl at school who pulled your hair. Hating yourself is the diet for success. Let it bloat you. Be the river that is always threatening to burst. You are not special. There is no pearl under your tongue. Your heart has you by the throat. However hard you try you will never fall back in love with your life.

I pull back and tell him, “You’re amazing.” He gives me a soft smirk. “That is the general consensus.” I smile. “And I love you.” He sets my feet on the floor but keeps his arms around my waist. “Good. Then you’re going to let me put three locks on the door of whatever apartment you decide to move into. And a chain. And a dead bolt.” I smile wider. “Okay.” Drew slowly steps forward, backing me up toward the bed. “And you’re not going to bitch when I have a security system installed.” “Wouldn’t dream of it.” We take another step together, almost like we’re dancing. “I’m thinking about buying you one of those ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ necklaces too.” My eyes squint as I pretend to think about the idea. “We’ll talk about it.” “And . . . you’re going to let me walk you home from work every night.” “Yes.” The back of my legs make contact with the bed frame. “I’m also going to come to every doctor’s appointment with you.” “I didn’t for a second imagine you wouldn’t.” Drew cups my face in his hands. “And one day, I’m going to ask you to marry me. And you’re going to know it’s not because you’re pregnant, or because of some misguided attempt to keep you.” Tears spring into my eyes as we gaze at each other. In a rough voice, he continues, “You’re going to know I’m asking because nothing would make me prouder than to be able to say, ‘This is my wife, Kate.’ And when I do ask, you’re going to say yes.” When I nod, one tear trails down my cheek. Drew wipes it away with his thumb as I promise, “It’s a sure thing.” And then he’s kissing me, with all the passion and desire he’s held in check the last two days. Drew cradles my head as we fall on the bed together.

I remembered the malangs of Shah Jamal, the dirty, shirtless renouncers with ratty beards and dreads and bare chests covered in necklaces of prayer beads, throwing around their arms in Charlie Manson dances and whipping out their old ID cards to say look, I used to be someone and now I'm no one, I'm so lost in Allah that I've thrown away the whole world. Would that qualify them as Sufis? I didin't know how to measure it. Whether the malangs were Sufi saints or just drugged-out bums didn't really matter. The lesson I took from them was that you're never disqualified from loving Allah, never. And I could see again that what I went through was nothing new, not even anything special in the history of Islam, not a clashing of East and West; it was always there. And that made me feel more Muslim than ever, because fuck it all, CNN, this is Islam too.

Neliss, why is this rug wet?” Legna peeked around the corner to glance at the rug in question, looking as if she had never seen it before. “We have a rug there?” “Did you or did you not promise me you were not going to practice extending how long you can hold your invisible bowls of water in the house? And what on earth is that noise?” “Okay, I confess to the water thing, which was an honest mistake, I swear it. But as for a noise, I have no idea what you are talking about.” “You cannot hear that? It has been driving me crazy for days now. It just repeats over and over again, a sort of clicking sound.” “Well, it took a millennium, but you have finally gone completely senile. Listen, this is a house built by Lycanthropes. It is more a cave than a house, to be honest. I have yet to decorate to my satisfaction. There is probably some gizmo of some kind lying around, and I will come across it eventually or it will quit working the longer it is exposed to our influence. Even though I do not hear anything, I will start looking for it. Is this satisfactory?” “I swear, Magdelegna, I am never letting you visit that Druid ever again.” “Oh, stop it. You do not intimidate me, as much as you would love to think you do. Now, I will come over there if you promise not to yell at me anymore. You have been quite moody lately.” “I would be a hell of a lot less moody if I could figure out what that damn noise is.” Legna came around the corner, moving into his embrace with her hands behind her back. He immediately tried to see what she had in them. “What is that?” “Remember when you asked me why I cut my hair?” “Ah yes, the surprise. Took you long enough to get to it.” “If you do not stop, I am not going to give it to you.” “Okay. I am stopping. What is it?” She held out the box tied with a ribbon to him and he accepted it with a lopsided smile. “I do not think I even remember the last time I received a gift,” he said, leaning to kiss her cheek warmly. He changed his mind, though, and opted to go for her mouth next. She smiled beneath the cling of their lips and pushed away. “Open it.” He reached for the ribbon and soon was pulling the top off the box. “What is this?” “Gideon, what does it look like?” He picked up the woven circlet with a finger and inspected it closely. It was an intricately and meticulously fashioned necklace, clearly made strand by strand from the coffee-colored locks of his mate’s hair. In the center of the choker was a silver oval with the smallest writing he had ever seen filling it from top to bottom. “What does it say?” “It is the medics’ code of ethics,” she said softly, taking it from him and slipping behind him to link the piece around his neck beneath his hair. “And it fits perfectly.” She came around to look at it, smiling. “I knew it would look handsome on you.” “I do not usually wear jewelry or ornamentation, but . . . it feels nice. How on earth did they make this?” “Well, it took forever, if you want to know why it took so long for me to make good on the surprise. But I wanted you to have something that was a little bit of me and a little bit of you.” “I already have something like that. It is you. And . . . and me, I guess,” he laughed. “We are a little bit of each other for the rest of our lives.” “See, that makes this a perfect symbol of our love,” she said smartly, reaching up on her toes to kiss him. “Well, thank you, sweet. It is a great present and an excellent surprise. Now, if you really want to surprise me, help me find out what that noise is.

I’d go with him. We’d be old enough. We’d make a whole new life together, a normal one. Ever since that bus ride, I’d been carrying my love for him around in my pocket. I should have handed it to him then and there in exchange for the gloves, but the briars and brickles of shame had been too sharp. By the time they receded, it felt stupid to bring it up. Then that faded, and all I could do was wait for an opening, some situation where he and I were hanging out and shooting love darts at each other. When it arrived, I’d say, all joshing, Hey, you remember when you thought I needed gloves? Yeah, he’d laugh. I’ve wanted to give you my paper airplane necklace ever since. And our relationship would bloom from there. Every day, I looked for this opening. It could be tomorrow. “Time to go,” Dad said, finally. His face was glistening. Me and Sephie’s pops and quarters were long gone and our stomachs were growling. We’d been sitting near the door, wishing Dad would take the hint and leave, but he’d kept up at that hot conversation with Bauer. We followed him outside. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Dad said when we finally slid inside the van, his voice full of bravado. Except I could tell he was scared. Mom wasn’t going to be happy that we were out so late on a school night and that Dad was driving drunk, but that wasn’t it. No, he looked jumping-ghost scared, and that made me uneasy. It did even worse to Sephie. It must have. That’s the only explanation for why she broke the rule about inviting conversation with Dad when he’d been drinking. “Are you okay, Daddy?” She hardly ever called him that anymore. I didn’t think he was going to respond, but he finally did, his voice all bluster. “As okay as a man can be in a country where nothing’s sacred.” I wondered what he meant. He and Bauer had talked about so many things. Well, I wasn’t going to

Ethan's gaze returned to the swell of her breast above the top of her gown. "Cord once mentioned a room here at Sheffield House on the second floor, rather out of the way,I understand, and rarely used.I don't think anyone would miss us if we disappeared for a while, do you?" Her pulse quickened. She couldn't look away from the smoky heat in his eyes or the sensual curve of his lips. They were equally matched, she thought, and perfectly mated,her mind slipping ahead to what would happen in that room. "No,I don't believe they would miss us in the least." His look burned hotter. He glanced at the crush of people surrounding them, spoke just loudly enough for them to hear. "Come,my love.It's a bit warm in here.Why don't we take a stroll in the garden?" Grace bit back a smile. "That is a very good notion,my lord.I believe the night is clear enough for us to see the stars.The Great Bear and the Little Lion should be visible tonight and I am ever so eager to see them." Ethan's smile held a trace of amusement that disappeared beneath a look of sensual heat.

Ethan! What on earth are you doing?" "Excuse us,please.It is very warm in here and my wife has begun to feel a little faint." With a smile fixed on his face,giving a series of the same brief explanation,he carried her through the crush,out the front door of the mansion,along the gravel drive to where his carriage was parked. "Home,Jennings," he said to the coachman as a footman opened the door. "And don't spare the horses." Setting her swiftly on the carriage seat, he climbed in and took a place beside her. "Are you insane?" Grace stared at him with disbelief as the matched pair of grays stepped into their traces and the coach jolted forward. "We can't just leave. We're the guests of honor! What will people think?" "They will thank that I am ravenous for my wife's lovely body,and I am." "But-" "Another word,Grace, and I swear I will take you right here." Her eyes widened for an instant, then she sat back on the seat of the carriage, careful to keep facing forward, casting him only an occasional sideways glance. If his body hadn't been throbbing with such urgent need,he might have smiled.

The front door is locked—what’s up with that?” “Logan fixed the lock,” I tell her. Her bright red, heart-shaped mouth smiles. “Good job, Kevin Costner. You should staple the key to Ellie’s forehead, though, or she’ll lose it.” She has names for the other guys too and when her favorite guard, Tommy Sullivan, walks in a few minutes later, Marlow uses his. “Hello, Delicious.” She twirls her honey-colored, bouncy hair around her finger, cocking her hip and tilting her head like a vintage pinup girl. Tommy, the fun-loving super-flirt, winks. “Hello, pretty, underage lass.” Then he nods to Logan and smiles at me. “Lo . . . Good morning, Miss Ellie.” “Hey, Tommy.” Marlow struts forward. “Three months, Tommy. Three months until I’m a legal adult—then I’m going to use you, abuse you and throw you away.” The dark-haired devil grins. “That’s my idea of a good date.” Then he gestures toward the back door. “Now, are we ready for a fun day of learning?” One of the security guys has been walking me to school ever since the public and press lost their minds over Nicholas and Olivia’s still-technically-unconfirmed relationship. They make sure no one messes with me and they drive me in the tinted, bulletproof SUV when it rains—it’s a pretty sweet deal. I grab my ten-thousand-pound messenger bag from the corner. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. Elle—you should have a huge banger here tonight!” says Marlow. Tommy and Logan couldn’t have synced up better if they’d practiced: “No fucking way.” Marlow holds up her hands, palms out. “Did I say banger?” “Huge banger,” Tommy corrects. “No—no fucking way. I meant, we should have a few friends over to . . . hang out. Very few. Very mature. Like . . . almost a study group.” I toy with my necklace and say, “That actually sounds like a good idea.” Throwing a party when your parents are away is a rite-of-high-school passage. And after this summer, Liv will most likely never be away again. It’s now or never. “It’s a terrible idea.” Logan scowls. He looks kinda scary when he scowls. But still hot. Possibly, hotter. Marlow steps forward, her brass balls hanging out and proud. “You can’t stop her—that’s not your job. It’s like when the Bush twins got busted in that bar with fake IDs or Malia was snapped smoking pot at Coachella. Secret Service couldn’t stop them; they just had to make sure they didn’t get killed.” Tommy slips his hands in his pockets, laid back even when he’s being a hardass. “We could call her sister. Even from an ocean away, I’d bet she’d stop her.” “No!” I jump a little. “No, don’t bother Liv. I don’t want her worrying.” “We could board up the fucking doors and windows,” Logan suggests. ’Cause that’s not overkill or anything. I move in front of the two security guards and plead my case. “I get why you’re concerned, okay? But I have this thing—it’s like my motto. I want to suck the lemon.” Tommy’s eyes bulge. “Suck what?” I laugh, shaking my head. Boys are stupid. “You know that saying, ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’?—well, I want to suck the lemon dry.” Neither of them seems particularly impressed. “I want to live every bit of life, experience everything it has to offer, good and bad.” I lift my jeans to show my ankle—and the little lemon I’ve drawn there. “See? When I’m eighteen, I’m going to get this tattooed on for real. As a reminder to live as much and as hard and as awesome as I can—to not take anything for granted. And having my friends over tonight is part of that.” I look back and forth between them. Tommy’s weakening—I can feel it. Logan’s still a brick wall. “It’ll be small. And quiet—I swear. Totally controlled. And besides, you guys will be here with me. What could go wrong?” Everything. Everything goes fucking wrong.