Sharps Bedrooms Quotes

Isaiah coughed. "You watched Quinlan for one night." "Ten hours, to be exact. Right until her pet chimera just appeared next to me at dawn, bit me in ass for looking like I was dozing off, and then vanished again - right back into the apartment. Just as Quinlan came out of her bedroom and opened the curtains to see me grabbing my own ass like a f***ing idiot. Do you know how sharp a chimera's teeth are?

Where’d that world go, that world when you’re a kid, and now I can’t remember noticing anything, not the smell of the leaves or the sharp curl of dried maple on your ankles, walking? I live in cars now, and my own bedroom, the windows sealed shut, my mouth to my phone, hand slick around its neon jelly case, face closed to the world, heart closed to everything.

Nah, Dad, I'm good. Please leave me in this hotel bedroom with my handsome boyfriend. And several of his relatives, and a very sharp weapon." "Clearly I went badly wrong somewhere when raising you," said Dad. "Well, best to do down before Tomo gets into the vodka.

I placed a bowl of herbs and ointments in the window of my bedroom, and let the scented breeze carry him away . . .

Why, despite the blinding brightness, did everything look gray? It was as if the painfully sharp lights were helpless to dispel all the darkness the people had brought in from the night outside.

Holy cow!” I said. “You can’t go to the door like that!” “My gun’s in the kitchen.” “Yes, but your underwear’s on the floor in my bedroom!” And that wasn’t the biggest problem.

He doesn’t trust me—and I’m sorry to say he has reason.” He looked at Samuel. “I don’t think he’ll trust you either—not another male when his daughter is there.” He turned back to me. “But you have his scent all over your van, and he has a picture of you in his bedroom.” Samuel gave me a sharp look. “In his bedroom?

So with the lamps all put out, the moon sunk, and a thin rain drumming on the roof, a downpouring of immense darkness began. Nothing, it seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say, 'This is he,' or, 'This is she.

Too much—too tempting—to have my hands on it and not look at it. Quickly I slid it out, and almost immediately its glow enveloped me, something almost musical, an internal sweetness that was inexplicable beyond a deep, blood-rocking harmony of rightness, the way your heart beat slow and sure when you were with a person you felt safe with and loved. A power, a shine, came off it, a freshness like the morning light in my old bedroom in New York which was serene yet exhilarating, a light that rendered everything sharp-edged and yet more tender and lovely than it actually was, and lovelier still because it was part of the past, and irretrievable: wallpaper glowing, the old Rand McNally globe in half-shadow.

I know," I muttered as I wrapped a robe around myself. "I probably need to hit the gym more often or something, but honestly, if you're going to haunt me, we need to establish some boundaries." She threw up her hands and floated up higher, her face a mix of anger and anxiety. Something told me that whatever she was trying to say was more important than the ten pounds I could stand to lose. A sharp rap at my bedroom door made me jump, and even Elodie's head swung toward the noise. "Stay right here," I said pointing a finger at her. She resonded by flipping me off. Lovely.

We had been here often before as tourists, desperate for our annual ration of two or three weeks of true heat and sharp light. Always when we left, with peeling noses and regret, we promised ourselves that one day we would live here. We had talked about it during the long gray winters and the damp green summers, looked with an addict’s longing at photographs of village markets and vineyards, dreamed of being woken up by the sun slanting through the bedroom window.

carried me into the bedroom and tossed me onto the bed. “Five minutes,” he said, lacing his shoes.

What people had had shed and left--a pair of shoes, a shooting cap, some faded skirts and coats in wardrobes--those alone kept the human shape and in the emptiness indicated how once they were filled and animated; how once hands were busy with hooks and buttons; how once the looking-glass had held a face; had held a world hollowed out in which a figure turned, a hand flashed, the door opened, in came children rushing and tumbling; and went out again. Now, day after day, light turned, like a flower reflected in water, its sharp image on the wall opposite. Only the shadows of the trees, flourishing in the wind, made obeisance on the wall, and for a moment darkened the pool in which light reflected itself; or birds, flying, made a soft spot flutter slowly across the bedroom floor.

Happy birthday. Your thirteenth is important. Maybe your first really public day. Your thirteenth is the chance for people to recognize that important things are happening to you. Things have been happening to you for the past half year. You have seven hairs in your left armpit now. Twelve in your right. Hard dangerous spirals of brittle black hair. Crunchy, animal hair. There are now more of the hard curled hairs around your privates than you can count without losing track. Other things. Your voice is rich and scratchy and moves between octaves without any warning. Your face has begun to get shiny when you don’t wash it. And two weeks of a deep and frightening ache this past spring left you with something dropped down from inside: your sack is now full and vulnerable, a commodity to be protected. Hefted and strapped in tight supporters that stripe your buttocks red. You have grown into a new fragility. And dreams. For months there have been dreams like nothing before: moist and busy and distant, full of unyielding curves, frantic pistons, warmth and a great falling; and you have awakened through fluttering lids to a rush and a gush and a toe-curling scalp-snapping jolt of feeling from an inside deeper than you knew you had, spasms of a deep sweet hurt, the streetlights through your window blinds crackling into sharp stars against the black bedroom ceiling, and on you a dense white jam that lisps between legs, trickles and sticks, cools on you, hardens and clears until there is nothing but gnarled knots of pale solid animal hair in the morning shower, and in the wet tangle a clean sweet smell you can’t believe comes from anything you made inside you.

So Aunt Jillian quit her job and hitched her wagon to Brant. Lived off food stamps and her savings account in a spare bedroom at Brant's house for two years. Then she brokered their first deal and all of the Sharps moved their bank account decimals seven places to the right.

Ashley’s obliging giggle was cut off as Ronan’s bedroom door opened. A cloud like there would never be sun again crossed Declan’s face. Ronan and Declan Lynch were undeniably brothers, with the same dark brown hair and sharp nose, but Declan was solid where Ronan was brittle. Declan’s wide jaw and smile said, Vote for me while Ronan’s buzzed head and thin mouth warned that this species was poisonous. “Ronan,” Declan said. On the phone with Adam earlier, he had asked, When will Ronan not be available? “I thought you had tennis.” “I did,” Ronan replied.

In Wally’s bedroom Homer marveled at how the world was simultaneously being invented and destroyed. Nothing marvelous about that, Dr. Larch would have assured him. At St. Cloud’s, except for the irritation about sugar stamps and other aspects of the rationing, very little was changed by the war. (Or by what people once singled out as the Depression, thought Wilbur Larch.) We are an orphanage; we provide these services; we stay the same – if we’re allowed to stay the same, he thought. When he would almost despair, when the ether was too overpowering, when his own age seemed like the last obstacle and the vulnerability of his illegal enterprise was as apparent to him as the silhouettes of the fir trees against the sharp night skies of autumn, Wilbur Larch would save himself with this one thought: I love Homer Wells, and I have saved him from the war.

Once I knew Emerson was gone, I snuck in to have a peek at the child. Only, the little heathen bit me. So I bit her back. Which made her cry. She won't sink those sharp teeth into anyone else for a while, I'd bet. Although, neither the hound nor I could stomach the crying, so we picked her up, which somehow devolved into piggyback rides around the toddler's bedroom.

Her small bedroom was decorated with cheerfully embroidered samplers, which she had stitched herself, and a shelf containing an intricate shellwork tableau. In her parlor, the chimneypiece was crammed with pottery owls, sheep, and dogs, and dishes painted with blue and white Chinoiserie fruits and flowers. Along the picture rail of one wall was an array of brightly colored plates. Dotted about the other walls were half a dozen seascape engravings showing varying climactic conditions, from violent tempest to glassy calm. To the rear was an enormous closet that she used as a storeroom, packed with bottled delicacies such as greengage plums in syrup, quince marmalade, nasturtium pickles, and mushroom catsup, which infused all three rooms with the sharp but tantalizing aromas of vinegar, fruit, and spices.

We went back to our green bedroom with its insane mural, and we were conscious of being depressed. We couldn’t figure out exactly why, and then it came to us: there is very little laughter in the streets, and rarely any smiles. People walk, or rather scuttle along, with their heads down, and they don’t smile. Perhaps it is that they work too hard, that they have to walk too far to get to the work they do. There seems to be a great seriousness in the streets, and perhaps this was always so, we don’t know. We had dinner with Sweet Joe Newman, and with John Walker of Time, and we asked them if they had noticed the lack of laughter. And they said they had. And they said that after a while the lack of laughter gets under your skin and you become serious yourself. They showed us a copy of the Soviet humorous magazine, called Krokodil, and translated some of the jokes. But they were not laughing jokes, they were sharp jokes, critical jokes. They were not for laughter, there was no gaiety in them. Sweet Joe said he had heard that outside of Moscow it was different, and this we subsequently discovered to be true. There is laughter in the country, in the Ukraine, and on the steppes, and in Georgia, but Moscow is a very serious city.

He had grown used to the eyes upon him as he and his uncle traveled from their bedroom community in Brooklyn to Chinatown. When one woman dropped her purse at his feet and Shim handed it back to her with “Your handbag, m’lady,” and a flourish, she’d nearly jumped out of her seat in surprise. He mentioned none of this to Chun, because after nearly a month in Hong Kong in her steady presence, the sharp edges of being treated with suspicion were blunted by a film of nostalgia. New York was home; this trip had made him realize that.

Using the dagger next to him on the nightstand, Dante scored a fresh line on his wrist. He pressed the bleeding cut to Tess’s lips, waiting to feel her respond, wanting to curse to the rafters when her mouth remained unmoving, his blood dripping down, useless, onto her chin. “Come on, angel. Drink for me.” He stroked her cool cheek, brushed a tangle of her honey-blond hair from her forehead. “Please live, Tess . . . drink, and live.” A throat cleared awkwardly from the area near the bedroom doorjamb. “I’m sorry, the uh . . . the door was open.” Chase. Just fucking great. Dante couldn’t think of anyone he’d like to see less right now. He was too entrenched in what he was doing—in what he was feeling—to deal with another interruption, particularly one coming from the Darkhaven agent. He’d hoped the bastard was already long gone from the compound, back to where he came from—preferably with one of Lucan’s size-fourteens planted all the way up his ass. Then again, maybe Lucan was saving the privilege for Dante instead. “Get out,” he growled. “Is she drinking at all?” Dante scoffed, low under his breath. “What part of ‘get out’ did you fail to understand, Harvard? I don’t need an audience right now, and I sure as hell don’t need any more of your bullshit.” He pressed his wrist to Tess’s lips again, parting them with the fingers of his blood by mild force. It wasn’t happening. Dante’s eyes stung as he stared down at her. He felt wetness streaking his cheeks. Tasted the salt of tears gathering at the corner of his mouth. “Shit,” he muttered, wiping his face into his shoulder in a strange mix of confusion and despair. He heard footsteps coming up near the bed. Felt the air around him stir as Chase reached out his hand. “It might work much better if you tilt her head, like th—” “Don’t . . . touch her.” The words came out in a voice Dante hardly recognized as his own, it was so full of venom and deadly warning. He swiveled his head around and met the agent’s eyes, his vision burning and sharp, his fangs having stretched long in an instant. The protective urge boiling through him was fierce, utterly lethal, and Chase evidently understood at once.

I’m going out for muffins.” “Give me five minutes to get my shoes on.” “I don’t have five minutes,” I said. “I have things to do. I’ve got the panic button. I’ll be fine. I’ll bring a muffin back for you. What do you want, zucchini, no fat, no sugar, extra bran?” I turned to go and Ranger scooped me up and carried me into the bedroom and tossed me onto the bed. “Five minutes,” he said, lacing his shoes. I lay there spread-eagle, waiting for him. “Very macho,” I said. He grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. “Sometimes you try my patience.

Nothing, it seemed, could survive the flood, the profusion of darkness which, creeping in at keyholes and crevices, stole round window blinds, came into bedrooms, swallowed up here a jug and basin, there a bowl of red and yellow dahlias, there the sharp edges and firm bulk of a chest of drawers. Not only was furniture confounded; there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say, “This is he” or “This is she.” Sometimes a hand was raised as if to clutch something or ward off something, or somebody groaned, or somebody laughed aloud as if sharing a joke with nothingness.

I walked back into the bedroom. Amar was standing by the foot of the bed, playing lazily with the cuffs of his sleeves. I tensed. That foolish disappointment was gone. “Are you frightened?” he asked. Don’t cower. I straightened my back. I would’ve stared him in the eyes if I could. “Should I be?” “I should hope there are more frightening things than sharing a bed with me,” he said. He flourished a bow. “Did I not promise you that we would be equals? Your will is where I lay my head. I will not touch you without your permission.” I moved to the bed, taking stock of the unnecessary amount of cushions. I could feel Amar’s gaze on me and rather than tossing the cushions to the ground, I stacked them in the middle of the bed. Amar followed me and slid onto the opposite side. The fire in the diyas collapsed with the faintest of sighs. “A daunting fortress,” he said lazily, prodding one of the pillows. “Have you so little faith in me?” “Yes.” He laughed and the sound was unexpectedly…musical. “The dark is a lovely thing, is it not? It lets us speak in blindness. No scowls or smiles or stares clouding our words.” I lay in bed, my body taut. Amar continued: “I spoke no falsehoods in the Night Bazaar,” he said. “I would rip the stars from the sky if you wished it. Anything for you. But remember to trust me. Remember your promise.” I fell quiet for a moment. “I remember my promise.” After that, I said nothing. The air between us could have been whittled in steel. An hour passed before I ventured a glance at Amar. His face was turned from me, leaving only dark curls half visible in the light. Moonlight had limned his silhouette silver. The longer I stared at him, the more something sharp stirred within me and I was reminded of that strange ache in my head, where forgotten dreams jostled for remembrance.

In December the first frosts came with the full moon, and then my nights of vigil held a quality harder to bear. There was a sort of beauty to them, cold and clear, that caught at the heart and made me stare in wonder. From my windows the long lawns dipped to the meadows, and the meadows to the sea, and all of them were white with frost, and white too under the moon. The trees that fringed the lawns were black and still. Rabbits came out and pricked about the grass, then scattered to their burrows; and suddenly, from the hush and stillness, I heard that high sharp bark of a vixen, with the little sob that follows it, eerie, unmistakable, unlike any other call that comes by night, and out of the woods I saw the lean low body creep and run out upon the lawn, and hide again where the trees would cover it. Later I heard the call again, away in the distance, in the open park, and now the full moon topped the trees and held the sky, and nothing stirred on the lawns beneath my window. I wondered if Rachel slept, in the blue bedroom; or if, like me, she left her curtains wide. The clock that had driven me to bed at ten struck one, struck two, and I thought that here about me was a wealth of beauty that we might have shared.

a nightmare, hope that in closing our eyes we might wake up to that other life, back on the other side of the screen, where we can watch from the safety of our couches and bedrooms, from bus and train seats, from our offices, anyplace that is not there, on the ground, playing like we’re dead so not playing at all, we’ll run like ghosts from our own dead bodies in hopes of getting away from the shots and the loud quiet of waiting for the next shot to fire, waiting for another sharp hot line to cut across a life, cut off breath, bring too quickly the heat and then cooling of too-soon death. We’ve expected the shooter to appear in our lives in the same way we know death is and always has been coming for us, with its decisive scythe, its permanent cut. We

I Never Told You You can fill a book with everything I never said Or the lines of a poem Or an Empty pool Or an empty bedroom, the candles all blown out I never told you how the reflection of myself in your eyes Was the only mirror I could bear to look at Or how I fought every day To transfuse the girl I saw there with the girl I am I tried to breathe in the words you made me: beautiful good brave I tried to be them for you even though they were weighted with impossibility I never told you how I always feared the rough edges of myself were too sharp for you and how I fought everyday to blunt them To bring down the walls To let you in without cutting you because I could never bear to hurt you like the others did Every day a fierce pride roared in me I was so lucky to know the truth I was the beneficiary of your radiance I basked in it and felt special And if not for the pain of your solitude I would have been content to be the only one I never told you How your touch made me feel like laughing and crying and singing all at once How your hand passing over my skin where atrocities Had not yet sloughed off, Skin cells remembering the worst touches Was like a tide washing over the ruddy sand And leaving it whole and smooth You made my skin forget Gave me new memories New sensations that didn't drag the shadows from the past In your arms I could start again, Start over. There is no greater gift in all the world Than you to the wreckage that is me... I never told you How I longed to kiss away your every bruise until there was no evidence No ghosts of your own suffering To put your pieces back together Seal the cracks Vanish them like they never were And never, ever Leave a scar I never told you I would take your pain if I could I would drink it down And take my comfort In making you ache a little less For a little while Did I? I'll never know because I never told you that I loved you I love you I love you It's too lat to say it now The time has passed for words How pathetic and small and weak On the phone Or on a piece of paper Starving Without the force of my own vitality My voice My breath My blood singing n my veins for you To give them power They are lost I love you It's too late but I love you And I'm sorry I never told you.

Without thinking it through, I whirled and dashed a few steps down the hall to my bedroom. I barely made it through the door when he was on me. His arms wrapped around me from behind, one of his hands cupping my chin to tilt my head back and to the side. Conner’s lips slid up my neck to my ear. “You shouldn’t have done that, Donna. Never run from a vampire. Like any predator, if you run from one of us, we will chase you.” His voice was dark. My heart started pounding as his other hand moved up my torso to cup my breast through my bra. I gasped when I felt the sharp scrape of his fangs on my neck. Since the first night we made love, he was careful not to get his teeth near my skin. I appreciated his restraint, but I had woken the beast within tonight, and he seemed hungry. While he kissed my neck and scraped the skin with his teeth, Conner’s hands drifted down to my stomach and started pushing my jeans down. I helped him until I was standing with my back to him, clad only in my underwear. My bra loosened and the straps fell down my arms. I let it fall to the floor before I turned to face him. When I saw his face, my knees weakened. His eyes were literally two burning orbs of blue and his fangs had lengthened so that they dented his bottom lip.

For five hours, he doesn't shower or change his clothes or laugh or smile or cry. It's eight in the morning when he's finally released and told to stay in the Residence and standy for further instructions. He's handed his phone, at last, but there's no answer when he calls Henry, and no response when he texts. Nothing at all. Amy walks him through the colonnade sand up the stairs, saying nothing, and when they reach the hallway between the East and West Bedrooms, he sees them. June, her hair in a haphazard knot on the top of her head and a pink bathrobe, her eyes red-rimmed. His mom, in a sharp, no-nonsense black dress and pointed heels, jaw set. Leo, barefoot in his pajamas. And his dad, a leather duffel still hanging off one shoulder, looking harried and exhausted. They all turn to look at him, and Alex feels a wave of something so much bigger than himself sweep over him like when he was a child standing bowlegged in the Gulf of Mexico, riptide sucking at his feet. A sound escapes his throat uninvited, something that he barely even recognizes, and June has him first, then the rest of them, arms and arms and hands and hands, pullin him close and touching his face and moving him until he's on the floow, the goddamn terrible hideous antique rug that he hates, sitting on the floor and staring at the rug and the threads of the rug and hearing the Gulf rushing in his ears and thinking distantly that he's having a panic attack, and that's why he can't breathe, but he's just staring at the rug and he's having a panic attack and knowing why his lungs won't work doesn't make them work again.

It was said that the Old Folk controlled the power of fire, among other things, but that was in the Long and Long Ago. Before that, the fathers of the Old Folk caught a spark with flint and steel and their own desire to live. It was also said that the world was a great wheel, and everything came round to what it once had been, and so Steven Boughmount knelt in the snow with rocks in his hands, trying to catch a flame. He was having little luck. Just over the low hills, beyond this scrub of forest, the village was warm and sleeping behind its wall. That’s where I should be, Steven thought as he scraped the edge of one rock against the other. Not in bed, not yet, but stretched out in my chair with my feet up, a pipe smoking just right in my hand and Heather curled up beside me. The boys are all asleep, but maybe we’ll stay up for a while. Maybe we’ll move to the bedroom, maybe not. That’s where I should be, not up to my ass in snow trying to light a fire. “C’mon, bastard,” he said, and drug the sharp edge of the rock in his right hand against the flat of the one in his left. A white spark flew, and then died before it could reach the stripped branches and dried moss he had laid out on the frozen ground. Snow crunched somewhere off to the left of him. Steven heard soft, bare footsteps. They were coming, all right. And they were in a hurry, running toward a village protected by two drunks on either side of a leaning gate. That was why Steven sat in the snow. When the Guards slept, the Hunters went to work. And what sounded like a whole clan of goblins was passing him by because he couldn’t get a damn fire lit. Steven drew his sword. It was called Fangodoom, given to him by his mother just before she died. Fangodoom was a dwarf blade, of steel mined and forged deep within the Lyme Mountains centuries ago. Goblins near, the blade all but gleamed though there wasn’t any moon. Again he wondered if this would be the last time, and again he knew that if it was, it was. His hand turned into a fist on the hilt of his weapon, and he prayed. “Lord, make me Your hammer.

We hear them often in the night. Their wild yelping makes the hair on my neck rise, even as I am always compelled to go to the nearest window and fling it open to listen, despite the cold. You can hear them moving: nearer, nearer up the frozen creek bed, until they are just beyond the edge of the porch light, the moon a grinning wedge above the trees. And then they’re gone, racing up the valley into the dark. I can feel how they’re close now, beyond the meadow’s edge, somewhere in the woods there, maybe asleep or watching us with yellow eyes, alerted by our footsteps and the sharp, ringing singsong of my son’s eager voice. This is always the case: The line between us and the wild is slender, like the bit of thread I find coiled in my pocket. My fingers tease it, wanting to know how it’s wound. This is always the way. I always want to know. The thread is yellow and snarled and comes from the windowsill of the bedroom above the garage. I stuck it in my pocket this morning while tidying, meaning to throw it away. It was from tha same window that I saw the foxes last week. The ruckus of the chickens alerted me, and when I looked down, one was right below me in the snowy driveway, looking up. I pounded my fist on the glass and began to yell, but it didn’t run. Instead it just stared at me, not moving a muscle until I ran down and out into the snow without a hat or gloves or jacket, boots unlaced, shrieking like a madwoman. Of course it ran then, though not far at first—just to the top of the nearest field—and when I followed after, another joined it. They’d staked the chicken house out for sure. And even though they were a threat to our unwitting hens, I was sad when they disappeared among the white trunks of a stand of birches, and I can still feel the way my heart was hammering hard and raw in my chest after running through the snow, hair flyaway, clapping my hands. Their fur was rust-colored, and when they ran

Carl discreetly turned his head to the left and then the right to make sure Mom wasn’t within hearing range. “I tried to stick it in er ass once and she didn’t speak to me for a week,” he nearly whispered before belting out a slur of loose chuckles. “And gettin’ ‘er to do ya on top? Forget about it!” In ways, I morphed into Carl’s description of the ideal woman. Like Mom, physical beauty was my ultimate priority. I spent hours on end stripped naked, posing in front of my full length bedroom mirror at every angle so that each wrinkle, roll, and pinch of fat could receive sharp scrutiny before I strived for complete self annihilation. I made it a habit of studying every Teen magazine model and the skinniest cheerleaders in my middle school yearbook. I observed their arms, legs, and hips. I held their images against mine with a goal for my bones to protrude further and calves spread further apart when standing straight. However, I saw the way Carl bent his head down and lowered his voice when he spoke about Mom, as if it was our job to keep a feisty, barking puppy believing that it was our guard dog. “Ure mom can’t help she got half ure I-Q,” Carl would chuckle.

The bedroom door bursts open, bouncing off the wall with a sharp bang. Mallory and I shoot straight up. Andrew grins at us. “Are ya fuckin’?” I’m too stunned to answer or yell for him to get out. Shocked from the intrusion and the fact that he’s wearing nothing but what appears to be a black leather thong. The material seems to be having trouble containing him. Why is everyone flashing their crotch tonight? Pamela’s pussy earlier had been one thing. But I’m in no way interested in getting an eyeful of Andrew Lane’s log and berries. “What the fuck, man?” I bite out.

.. and finish my letter by telling you of Ilam's chief outdoor charm: from all parts of the garden and grounds which I have told you of, and my bedroom window has a perfect panoramic view of them. I watch them under all their changes of tint, and find each new phase the most beautiful. In the very early morning I have often stood shivering at my window to see the noble outline gradually assuming shape, and finally standing out sharp and clear against a dazzling sky, then as the sun rises, the softest rose-coloured and golden tints touch the highest peaks, the shadows deepening by contrast.

The way Bill was the other day, and with what’s happening at the farm I –’ ‘Dad talked to me about that after you left.’ Heather’s voice was sharp. ‘He said you’re imagining things, just like your mother.’ Ellie clenched her hands on her lap as anger surged through her. ‘It’s something to do with the Aboriginal council or the environmental committee, isn’t it?’ It was dark now and Ellie couldn’t see Heather’s expression. Kane reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘What happened the other day?’ ‘Bill warned me off when I asked him some questions.’ ‘Like he said, Ellie, just drop it. It was an accident.’ Heather’s voice was short. There was no more conversation until they got back to the lodge. Ellie pushed opened the door of her apartment. Kane raised his hand and stepped in first and flicked the lights on. ‘It’s okay. All good.’ ‘You can have my room. I’ve got an early start. I’ll sleep on the sofa.’ Ellie frowned as Heather nodded and walked past her into the bedroom. The door closed behind her with a loud click and Kane raised his eyebrows. Ellie crossed the living area and stood by the bedroom door. ‘Something sounded a bit off, didn’t it?’ ‘It did.’ ‘I’m not going to let it go.’ Ellie pushed open the door and sat beside her friend as she lay back on the pillow with her hand over her eyes. ‘What’s going on, Heather? I know there’s something. Why would someone do this to Bill? Has he been threatened?’ Heather’s eyes flew open and she stared at Ellie. ‘What?’ ‘I think I know what’s going on.’ Heather’s face closed. ‘You heard Dad at our place. He’s right. Just stay out of it.’ ‘For fuck’s sake, Heather. Someone tortured him tonight. They cut his finger off. What the hell is

One day, Elva visited, as she often did from Brooklyn. Lily and Normon were chasing one another, tripping over their younger brother and all falling into a heap onto the floor. Chun grabbed the two by the arms and gave both a swift rap to the head with a sharp knuckle. Lily swiftly burst into tears. Normon bit his lip, nostrils flaring, refusing to cry. Chun flew into a rage—the eldest needed to model good behavior for the youngest children, and here was the toddler Johnny on the floor, bawling. If Normon was going to be so hard-necked obstinate, then both Lily and Normon, as the oldest children in the pecking order, needed to be punished. With a harder rap to the head, they were soon both crying—Normon’s face breaking open like a floodgate. Before she knew it, at the sight of them, Chun was herself in tears. It’s unclear if Elva put her hand on Chun’s shoulder or cleared her throat and said, Okay, enough, but once she’d ushered the children into their bedroom, she returned to find Chun sitting on a chair. They hate me, Chun said. They love you—they’re just being children. Not them, Chun said. The women—in this building. Why? They know that I am different, Chun said, attempting to explain, but knowing it was no use. For Elva, they were all Chinese at 37 Mott, but Chun was distinctly aware of the divisions. It was embarrassing to talk about such things to her aunt, her only true friend aside from Doshim, and a lofan. Elva was truly puzzled. “Shouldn’t that no longer matter here? You’re in a new country! This is America, after all.” Chun’s natural inclination to try to please Elva, to pretend that things were fine even when things were so bad that mo’ paa, mo’ waa—you can’t crawl, can’t scratch—made Elva’s misunderstanding feel like an anvil pressing down on her chest. “Don’t give up,” Elva finally said, her hand on Chun’s small shoulders, so bony like a little bird, now shaking as the tears began to flow. “I know it seems impossible, but there is always a way.” • • •

Darius slid his hand from my thigh, running it up my side over the fabric of the t-shirt until he found my hair where he began twisting it through his fingers. This was too damn weird. Why was he touching me like that? What the hell had we done last night to make him think he could? And why the hell was I letting him? I still hadn’t moved, my head still lay over his pounding heart, my fingers still rested on the edge of his waistband. “Please tell me we didn’t...” I couldn’t actually bear to say it but I had to know because my memory was turning up blanks. “I prefer my girls a little less blind drunk and a little more eagerly responsive,” he replied. “Besides, you wouldn’t forget it if I’d fucked you.” Heat rose along my spine at that insinuation but I ignored it in favour of focusing on the relief his words provided. “Thank heaven for small miracles,” I sighed but for some reason I still hadn’t moved. “No need to sound so pleased about it,” Darius muttered but he sounded kind of amused at the same time. “So why am I here?” I asked because this still made no damn sense to me and for some unknown reason I seemed to be frozen in place. “You got yourself so wasted that you passed out and started using magic in your sleep.” I frowned at that. I’d been drunk, yeah, but I could handle my alcohol. Passing out in a public place was pretty full on even for me and I was fairly sure I wouldn’t have drunk that much… would I? Darius kept explaining when I didn’t respond. “I had to use my power to bring yours back under control and then I brought you back here so that I could make sure you didn’t set your bedroom alight in the night or anything.” At his words, I noticed the feeling of his magic coiling around mine where it had obviously been all night. He hadn’t actually pushed it to merge with mine but it was dancing along the edges of my power as if it was asking to join it. On instinct I let the barrier around my power drop, welcoming his in. Darius sucked in a sharp breath as his magic tumbled into mine and a breathy moan escaped my lips before I could stop it as the thrill of his magic caused every muscle in my body to tighten for a moment. The ecstasy of our magic combining was kind of addictive, like I could feel the heat of his power filling every dark space in my body and I had to fight to make sure it didn’t burn me. I pushed his magic back out before I could get lost in the feeling of it and we lay in silence for a few long seconds, neither of us commenting on what I’d just done. I was glad he didn’t ask me about it because I really didn’t know why I’d done it. But now every inch of my skin was alive with the memory of his magic filling me. His fingers kept moving in my hair and I frowned, wondering why he was doing that. And why the hell I still hadn’t moved. It was like we were under some spell where peace existed between us and we both knew it would be broken if either of us made any sudden movements. “Did you undress me?” I asked slowly, heat clawing along my spine at the idea of that. Darius released a breath of laughter and I inched back a little, moving so that my head was on the pillow beside his instead of resting on his chest. He rolled towards me, moving onto his side and shifting so that his hand rested on my bare thigh. He didn’t move his hand once it landed there but the heat of his touch was burning through me like magma. (Darius POV)

Years before I met you, a friend introduced me to kink. She showed me shibari models online, and I thought I would very much like to feel the sharp of my teeth against their flesh. I wanted someone both to tie up and to tie me up. Then I met a woman who was a live-in sub for a dom couple. Her name was Lily—she was a switch. Every fall, she went to a leather and kink festival. I don’t know what I’m doing, I said. It’s okay, I’ll show you, she said. We hung the set of rules in her bedroom and recited them into each other’s mouths. It was a beautiful initiation. Every time we went out to the bar, her goal was to make me jealous with other women; my goal was to hide my jealousy, to avoid interfering with her flirtations. If I pulled her away from a conversation, to kiss her, to bite her, to mark my territory, I would be punished later, which I frequently was. I lived for the sting of the flogger, the rip from and return to my body. I felt good as long as I knew what was expected of me. Within the realm of kink, I felt unstoppable and invincible, like a teenager drag racing on an icy road. Outside of it, though, responsibility felt wrong, heavy—something I couldn’t wait to dispose

Ten hours, to be exact. Right until her pet chimera just appeared next to me at dawn, bit me in the ass for looking like I was dozing off, and then vanished again—right back into the apartment. Just as Quinlan came out of her bedroom and opened the curtains to see me grabbing my own ass like a fucking idiot. Do you know how sharp a chimera’s teeth are?

Anxious to defend his adopted city—especially his side of town, the less fashionable west end—Eli considered giving Veronica a condensed lecture on the history of Asheville, North Carolina. 1880: the Western North Carolina Railroad completed a line from Salisbury to Asheville, which later enabled George Washington Vanderbilt to construct the Biltmore Estate, the largest private residence in America. Over time, that 179,000 square foot house transitioned into a multi- million dollar company. Which lured in tourists. Who created thousands of jobs. Which caused the sprawl flashing by Eli’s window at fifty-five miles per hour. But Eli refrained from being the Local Know-It-All, remembering all the times he’d traveled to new cities and some cabbie wanted to play docent, wanted to tell him about the real Cleveland or the hidden Miami. Instead, he let the air conditioner chase away the remnants of his jet lag and thought about Almario “Go Go” Gato. He waited for Veronica to say something about the Blue Ridge Mountains, which stood alongside the highway, hovering over the valley below like stoic parents waiting for their kids to clean up their messy bedrooms. Eli gave her points for her silence. And for ditching the phone, even if she kept glancing anxiously toward the glove compartment every time it buzzed. The car rode smooth, hardly a bump. For a resident of Los Angeles, she drove cautiously, obeying all traffic laws. Eli had a perfect driving record. Well, almost perfect. There was that time he drove the Durham Bulls’ chartered Greyhound into the right field fence during the seventh inning stretch. But that was history. Almost ancient.

Of course, different people focus on different aspects of the private. For example, in America, conservatives often try to keep the government’s hand out of citizens’ pockets, while at the same time – in the case of moral conservatives – wanting it to get into people’s bedrooms; whereas liberals, on the other hand, strive to keep the government’s hand out of people’s bedrooms, while urging it to dip into people’s pockets. In spite of their different foci, both the Republic and many modern Western thinkers concentrate almost exclusively on conflicting aspects between the private and the public. Early Confucians also saw these, but they understood that the division between the two realms is not sharp, and that aspects of the private can be constructive in relation to the public interest. In particular, the family belongs to the private realm if we compare it to the community, but it belongs to the public realm when held against the mere self. Thus, to cultivate familial relations does not necessarily lead to the dominance of private interests over public. With this fundamental insight, the early Confucians’ solution to the conflict between the private and the public was not to suppress the private completely, but to cultivate its constructive aspects so as to overcome the ones in conflict with the public. The remedy for familialism is not abolition of the family, as the Republic appears to suggest, but cultivation of familial care, thereby extending the familial boundary and turning familial care into fully fledged compassion. It is interesting to note that the apparent ideal in the Republic is to make the whole city-state a big family by, paradoxically, abolishing the traditional family; in this big family, everyone is ‘a brother, or a sister, or a father, or a mother, or a son, or a daughter or their descendants or ancestors’ (Republic 463c; Bloom 1991: 143). But it is in China that this ideal has been realized. A sense of community and the perception of the state as a big family are deep in the Chinese psyche, due in large part to Confucian thought.

Age: 10 Height: 5’3 Favourite animal: Osprey   Clara once had a dream that she was a bird, flying high over hills, cliffs and the ocean. She dreamt she flew down towards the waves with her powerful wings and used her sharp talons to snatch a fish out of the water to eat. When Clara woke up, she looked on the internet to find out if there were any real birds that ate fish. She realised that she had dreamed of being an osprey, which is a rare ‘eagle of the sea’, and ever since then Clara has wondered whether there is such a thing as the supernatural: dreams that have special meanings, spirits walking the world, and magical creatures that may or may not have existed many centuries ago, like dragons, fairies and unicorns.   Because of this interest, she can often be found surfing the internet whilst she researches interesting animals and the habitats they live in. Like Benjamin, she loves nature and likes to spend as much time as possible outdoors. Also like Ben, her goals for the future include travelling around the world. She would like to visit the countries of India and South-East Asia. She would especially like to see wild orang-utans in the forests of Indonesia.   She also hopes to one day be a real life detective, so that she can help people. She says, “Helping people is the most important thing in the world. Without that desire, there would be no Cluefinders Club to help the people who need it!” She loves to read books, especially mystery stories. Clara is considered the founder of the Cluefinders Club, and her bedroom is the place they like to meet most evenings to talk about detective stories and mysteries they might be able to solve.  

Muffled voices filtered through the closed door as Edmund greeted his wife. When less than a minute later, a very male groan accompanied the rhythmic creaking of a piece of furniture, she gaped. Not much for preliminaries, sixteenth century Scotsmen. Ignoring the sharp grunts of a male engaged in intercourse and the unsurprising lack of happy female noises, she retreated to the farthest place in the cottage from that door, which happened to be the workbench and raised stone hearth that formed the kitchen. She wasn’t about to waste an opportunity to study a late-medieval Scottish cottage. Just as she held up to the lantern light a sharp cleaver with a wooden handle polished from years of regular use, Darcy ducked in the front door. At the same time, Edmund shouted, “Aye! Christ, Fran, take my seed, lass. Take it. Aaarrghhhhh!” Then barely audible, “Glorious, woman. Ye’re glorious.” Darcy paled as his wide eyes jumped from the closed bedroom door to her. “If I had to listen to them go at it for another second, I was going to put myself out of my misery,” she quipped, wagging the cleaver. When his eyes went even wider, she said, “Joking, Darcy. I was joking.” She put down the cleaver and raised her hands. His eyes relaxed and the corner of his mouth lifted. He came to the workbench and picked up the enormous blade. “Well, so long as ye arena using it, mayhap I’ll carve the roast.

Penny’s house was a standard three-bedroom postwar suburban home. The décor wasn’t what I would call gaudy, but it was definitely froofy. Kind of like a ten-year-old had been allowed to order anything she wanted from the Sears catalog. Everything had a damn ruffle on it. It didn’t suit my idea of Penny. When we got to the doorway of her room, I noticed how dramatically different it was from the rest of the house. Her bed was covered in a simple black comforter, and everything projected a modern aesthetic—sharp angles, cold, and minimalist. “Do you live in here with a vampire?” “Ha-ha, very funny. You can sit there and wait for me.” I sat at her glass desk in an office-style chair as she tossed clothes out of her bag and into a hamper. “Some of this furniture is from my dad’s old office, so it’s pretty sterile.” “Seems like you have different tastes from the rest of your family. No ruffles and flowers?” “I like flowers,” she said absently. “What, like Venus flytraps?” “If you grew up with all this frilly shit, you’d be over it, too. I mean, do you know any other families who still use doilies? Every surface is literally covered in them.

Just come back before it gets dark, okay?” “Yes, ma’am. I’ll handle this as fast as I can.” “Thank you, Doc.” Doc stood and smiled at Rhonda before leaving the kitchen and heading out to the barn to harness the mules. Before he did, though, he swung by the bunkhouse and picked up his Winchester ’73 and the Sharps along with a box of cartridges for each. He may not have expected that any visitors to arrive at the ranch, at least not anyone from the Double L, but it never hurt to be prepared. He walked back out to the barn, set the two carbines in the wagon’s footwell, then pulled an axe from the wall, checked its edge and found it acceptable, although it would need sharpening when he returned. He set it on the wagon’s bed then began harnessing the mules. After the mules were in harness, he stepped up, released the wagon’s hand brake and drove the team out of the barn and headed northeast to the stand of cottonwoods that he had seen near the creek. What made his job easier was that two of the trees were already down and were devoid of leaves meaning that they had been down for a while, and if they’d been down long enough, the wood would already be seasoned. _____ Rhonda finished cleaning up after lunch, still savoring the lingering taste of Doc’s choice in food. She entered her bedroom, took out her sewing

My hands read a Braille map hewn from bone, starting with my hollow breasts threaded with blue-vein rivers thick with ice. I count my ribs like rosary beads, muttering incantations, fingers curling under the bony cage. They can almost touch what’s hiding inside. My skin slopes down over the empty belly, then around the inside sharp curve of my hip bones, bowls carved out of stone and painted with fading pink razor scars. I twist in the glass. My vertebrae are wet marbles piled one on top of the other. My winged shoulder blades look ready to sprout feathers. I pick up the knife. The tendons on the back of my hand tense, ropes holding down a tent while the wind blows. Thin scars etch the inside of my wrist, widening to the ribbons in the crook of my elbow where I cut too deep in ninth grade. I win, I won.   I’m lost.     The music from my bedroom shrieks so loud against the mirror it’s making my ears ring. I stare at the ghost-girl on the other side, her corset bones waiting to be laced even tighter so she can fold in on herself over and over until she disappears past zero.

Copper colored eyes, set beneath long, black lashes and a naturally stern brow, stared back at me. The shift of his jaw dragged my attention toward the perfection of his profile, sharp and angular and shadowed in a light stubble. A shivering warmth scattered beneath my skin and fluttered in my chest, as he gave an aloof blink of his bedroom eyes before turning back toward the voice.