Tumble And Blue Quotes

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or "starlet" Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze? Why are you hiding, darling? (I Talk in a daze, I walk in a maze I cannot get out, said the starling). Where are you riding, Dolores Haze? What make is the magic carpet? Is a Cream Cougar the present craze? And where are you parked, my car pet? Who is your hero, Dolores Haze? Still one of those blue-capped star-men? Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays, And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen! Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts! Are you still dancin', darlin'? (Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts, And I, in my corner, snarlin'). Happy, happy is gnarled McFate Touring the States with a child wife, Plowing his Molly in every State Among the protected wild life. My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair, And never closed when I kissed her. Know an old perfume called Soliel Vert? Are you from Paris, mister? L'autre soir un air froid d'opera m'alita; Son fele -- bien fol est qui s'y fie! Il neige, le decor s'ecroule, Lolita! Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie? Dying, dying, Lolita Haze, Of hate and remorse, I'm dying. And again my hairy fist I raise, And again I hear you crying. Officer, officer, there they go-- In the rain, where that lighted store is! And her socks are white, and I love her so, And her name is Haze, Dolores. Officer, officer, there they are-- Dolores Haze and her lover! Whip out your gun and follow that car. Now tumble out and take cover. Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Her dream-gray gaze never flinches. Ninety pounds is all she weighs With a height of sixty inches. My car is limping, Dolores Haze, And the last long lap is the hardest, And I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust.

High Flight Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark, or even eagle flew — And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops, I fade, she was beginning. I disappear, but London would have none of it, and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry.

I’ve had a rough six months, okay?” she cried. “Little Blue was my last friend, and frankly the last time his batteries ran out I had a fleeting moment of panic that he’d been compromised!

The wind blustered in from the sea, setting the horses’ manes streaming sideways, and the gulls wheeled mewing against the blue-and-grey tumble of the sky; and Aquila, riding a little aside from the rest as usual, caught for a moment from the wind and the gulls and the wet sand and the living, leaping power of the young red mare under him, something of the joy of simply being alive that he had taken for granted in the old days.

Live or die, but don't poison everything... Well, death's been here for a long time -- it has a hell of a lot to do with hell and suspicion of the eye and the religious objects and how I mourned them when they were made obscene by my dwarf-heart's doodle. The chief ingredient is mutilation. And mud, day after day, mud like a ritual, and the baby on the platter, cooked but still human, cooked also with little maggots, sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother, the damn bitch! Even so, I kept right on going on, a sort of human statement, lugging myself as if I were a sawed-off body in the trunk, the steamer trunk. This became perjury of the soul. It became an outright lie and even though I dressed the body it was still naked, still killed. It was caught in the first place at birth, like a fish. But I play it, dressed it up, dressed it up like somebody's doll. Is life something you play? And all the time wanting to get rid of it? And further, everyone yelling at you to shut up. And no wonder! People don't like to be told that you're sick and then be forced to watch you come down with the hammer. Today life opened inside me like an egg and there inside after considerable digging I found the answer. What a bargain! There was the sun, her yolk moving feverishly, tumbling her prize -- and you realize she does this daily! I'd known she was a purifier but I hadn't thought she was solid, hadn't known she was an answer. God! It's a dream, lovers sprouting in the yard like celery stalks and better, a husband straight as a redwood, two daughters, two sea urchings, picking roses off my hackles. If I'm on fire they dance around it and cook marshmallows. And if I'm ice they simply skate on me in little ballet costumes. Here, all along, thinking I was a killer, anointing myself daily with my little poisons. But no. I'm an empress. I wear an apron. My typewriter writes. It didn't break the way it warned. Even crazy, I'm as nice as a chocolate bar. Even with the witches' gymnastics they trust my incalculable city, my corruptible bed. O dearest three, I make a soft reply. The witch comes on and you paint her pink. I come with kisses in my hood and the sun, the smart one, rolling in my arms. So I say Live and turn my shadow three times round to feed our puppies as they come, the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown, despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy! Despite the pails of water that waited, to drown them, to pull them down like stones, they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blue and fumbling for the tiny tits. Just last week, eight Dalmatians, 3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord wood each like a birch tree. I promise to love more if they come, because in spite of cruelty and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens, I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take. So I won't hang around in my hospital shift, repeating The Black Mass and all of it. I say Live, Live because of the sun, the dream, the excitable gift.

And who are you? Fire services?" "You mean you don't recognize me?" His baby blues lit up, and chuckle tumbled. "Sweetheart, I'm Superman, didn't you know?

In the halls of heaven it was now dark enough for the Aurora Borealis sisters to begin their lively dance of the veils. With an enchanting play of colors they flitted light and quick about the great stage of the heavens, in fluttering golden dresses, their tumbling pearl necklaces scattering here and there in their wild caperings.

Suddenly gator was framed in the doorway, grinning at them, his black unruly hair tumbling into his face and his piercing blue eyes bright with laughter. "Oh, I see you are most friendly with each other. And Lily was so worried." He turned his head. "Ian Tucker, come look at this. Our man has found himself a little kitty cat." "Shut up, Gator, or I'm going to shoot you." Nicholas put the gun away and looked down at dahlia. She had the covers pulled up to her chin. Here eyes were enormous and getting bigger by the moment as more Ghost Walkers crowded into the doorway to gape at the sight of Nicholas, the loner, in bed with Dahlia. "And you said he didn't know what to do with a woman," Tucker Addison accused the tallest of the group, Ian McGillicuddy. "I stand corrected." Ian gave Nicholas a small salute. Dahlia made a small distressed squeak. Nicholas picked up the gun. "I'm going to start shooting if the lot of you don't get out and close the door." "What a poor sport," Gator groused. "And this is my house.

Kell tipped his head so that his copper hair tumbled out of his eyes, revealing not only the crisp blue of the left one but the solid black of the right. A black that ran edge to edge, filling white and iris both. There was nothing human about that eye. It was pure magic. The mark of the blood magician.

Gwen smiled and asked hopefully, "Is there coffee again this morning?" Silvan put his book down and glanced absently at Gwen. His gaze dropped to her cleavage, and a single white brow shot up. He blinked several times. "There certainly is," Nell said, circling the table. She stopped behind Gwen and draped a linen cloth over her shoulders, so it tumbled from her neck like a bib. "Peel yer eyes off the lass's breasts," Nell said sweetly to Silvan. Gwen turned twenty shades of red, sneaked a hand beneath the bib, and tugged at her bodice, trying to jiggle them back down a little. Mortified, she devoted her attention to eyeing the medieval dining ware-plates and goblets made of heavy silver, a fat spoon and broad knife, and heavy blue bowls. "She's the one who fluffed them up," Silvan protested indignantly. "I didn't mean to look, but they were ... so ... there. Like trying not to see the sun in the sky." Nell arched a brow and circled round the table again. "I hardly think 'twas ye she fluffed 'em for, was it lass?" Gwen glanced up and gave an embarrassed shake of her head.

Shouldn't death , I thought, be a swandive, graceful, white-winged and smooth, leaving the surface undisturbed? Blue jeans tumbled in the dryer.

Bugs would eat the wax. Chaw the old canvas. And one day there will be a mutation, and we will have new ones that can digest concrete, dissolve steel and suck up the acid puddles, fatten on magic plastics, lick their slow way through glass. Then the cities will tumble and man will be chased back into the sea from which he came...

Something, most certainly, happens to a diver’s emotions underwater. It is not merely a side effect of the pleasing, vaguely erotic sensation of water pressure on the body. Nor is it alone the peculiar sense of weightlessness, which permits a diver to hang motionless in open water, observing sea life large as whales around him; not the ability of a diver, descending in that condition, to slowly tumble and rotate in all three spatial planes. It is not the exhilaration from disorientation that comes when one’s point of view starts to lose its “lefts” and “down” and gains instead something else, a unique perception that grows out of the ease of movement in three dimensions. It is not from the diminishment of gravity to a force little more emphatic than a suggestion. It is not solely exposure to an unfamiliar intensity of life. It is not a state of rapture with the bottomless blue world beneath one’s feet…it is some complicated mix of these emotions, together with the constant proximity of real terror.

His touch was like an electric current that ran through his fingers into my cheek and down the back of my neck. I took another step back, away from him. "Don't do that," I whispered and hated the part of myself that died for his soft touch. "Why? Why do you do things like that if you agree we shouldn't be involved? It's confusing and... and you make it so much worse." My words tumbled over each other as they poured from my mouth. He didn't reach for me again. His blue eyes were sad.

All down the stone steps on either side were periwinkles in full flower, and she could now see what it was that had caught at her the night before and brushed, wet and scented, across her face. It was wistaria. Wistaria and sunshine . . . she remembered the advertisement. Here indeed were both in profusion. The wistaria was tumbling over itself in its excess of life, its prodigality of flowering; and where the pergola ended the sun blazed on scarlet geraniums, bushes of them, and nasturtiums in great heaps, and marigolds so brilliant that they seemed to be burning, and red and pink snapdragons, all outdoing each other in bright, fierce colour. The ground behind these flaming things dropped away in terraces to the sea, each terrace a little orchard, where among the olives grew vines on trellises, and fig-trees, and peach-trees, and cherry-trees. The cherry-trees and peach-trees were in blossom--lovely showers of white and deep rose-colour among the trembling delicacy of the olives; the fig-leaves were just big enough to smell of figs, the vine-buds were only beginning to show. And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp cactuses, and the grass was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea. Colour seemed flung down anyhow, anywhere; every sort of colour piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers....

We talk and tease and bargain with the main dish. Maniacal laughter echoes in the marble halls, sweet to my ears. There’s movement at the banquet hall’s entrance. A child with my eyes tumbles in—all wings and blue hair and giggling innocence. Holding his hand is Morpheus, wearing a ruby crown. The Red King. My king. The bubble bursts and takes the vision with it, leaving nothing but the sound of my gasp and wisps of gray smoke behind. “You see,” Ivory says, “once Morpheus knew that one day you would belong to him and he to you, that you would share a child, he was no longer willing to die to save Wonderland. But he’s insecure about your feelings for him. He feared you would refuse to help. So he made a new plan, however flawed it was.

If things have always come easily to you, you don't know how to deal with trouble when it finally catches up.

I am falling, tumbling through the air, but this time the darkness is alive around me, full of beating things, and I realize that I'm not surrounded by dark but have only had my eyes closed all this time. I open them, feeling silly, and at the same time a hundred thousand butterlies take off around me, so many of them in so many brilliant colors they are like a solid rainbow, temporarily obscuring the sun. But as they wing higher and higher they reveal a landscape below us, all green and gold and sun-drenched fields and pink-tinged clouds drifting underneath me, and the air around me is clear and blue and sweet smelling, and I'm laughing, laughing, laughing as I spin through the air because, of course, I haven't been falling all the time. I've been flying.

They turned on themselves, like a feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes. Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass.

One night he sits up. In cots around him are a few dozen sick or wounded. A warm September wind pours across the countryside and sets the walls of the tent rippling. Werner’s head swivels lightly on his neck. The wind is strong and gusting stronger, and the corners of the tent strain against their guy ropes, and where the flaps at the two ends come up, he can see trees buck and sway. Everything rustles. Werner zips his old notebook and the little house into his duffel and the man beside him murmurs questions to himself and the rest of the ruined company sleeps. Even Werner’s thirst has faded. He feels only the raw, impassive surge of the moonlight as it strikes the tent above him and scatters. Out there, through the open flaps of the tent, clouds hurtle above treetops. Toward Germany, toward home. Silver and blue, blue and silver. Sheets of paper tumble down the rows of cots, and in Werner’s chest comes a quickening. He sees Frau Elena kneel beside the coal stove and bank up the fire. Children in their beds. Baby Jutta sleeps in her cradle. His father lights a lamp, steps into an elevator, and disappears. The voice of Volkheimer: What you could be. Werner’s body seems to have gone weightless under his blanket, and beyond the flapping tent doors, the trees dance and the clouds keep up their huge billowing march, and he swings first one leg and then the other off the edge of the bed. “Ernst,” says the man beside him. “Ernst.” But there is no Ernst; the men in the cots do not reply; the American soldier at the door of the tent sleeps. Werner walks past him into the grass. The wind moves through his undershirt. He is a kite, a balloon. Once, he and Jutta built a little sailboat from scraps of wood and carried it to the river. Jutta painted the vessel in ecstatic purples and greens, and she set it on the water with great formality. But the boat sagged as soon as the current got hold of it. It floated downstream, out of reach, and the flat black water swallowed it. Jutta blinked at Werner with wet eyes, pulling at the battered loops of yarn in her sweater. “It’s all right,” he told her. “Things hardly ever work on the first try. We’ll make another, a better one.” Did they? He hopes they did. He seems to remember a little boat—a more seaworthy one—gliding down a river. It sailed around a bend and left them behind. Didn’t it? The moonlight shines and billows; the broken clouds scud above the trees. Leaves fly everywhere. But the moonlight stays unmoved by the wind, passing through clouds, through air, in what seems to Werner like impossibly slow, imperturbable rays. They hang across the buckling grass. Why doesn’t the wind move the light? Across the field, an American watches a boy leave the sick tent and move against the background of the trees. He sits up. He raises his hand. “Stop,” he calls. “Halt,” he calls. But Werner has crossed the edge of the field, where he steps on a trigger land mine set there by his own army three months before, and disappears in a fountain of earth.

It is the kind of day that farmers, when there were still farmers, would have dreamed of. The sky is brilliant blue, the plants are newly green, the air as fresh and clean as though it has been washed, tumbled dry, and neatly folded the night before. It is the kind of day you never forget.

If I take you, I’ll be making love to you. I’ll have you begging and pleading, but you’ll be coming so many times you’ll lose count. You’ll understand the difference between a quick tumble and the all-consuming power of a physical connection fueled by an emotional one.” She rapidly blinked her blue eyes in disbelief while her cheeks flushed. “Oh God, did you actually just say that?” “I did.” He gave her a teasing smile. “And you’ll be calling out my name more than his.

Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones-- dancing, leaping, striding, and mingling in unparalleled confusion. With these were intertwined snakes of green, rising and falling, and behind these was a broad mass of lesser light. From every part of the tumbling sky came a shout. ... Gabriel was almost blinded, and he could feel Bathsheba's warm arm tremble in his hand-- a sensation new and thrilling. But love, life, everything human, seemed small and trifling beside the spectacle of an infuriated universe.

Compared to everything else going on in the house, Howard drinking chocolate milk in the shower almost seemed ordinary.

Sometimes being afraid of losing is worse than actually losing. And when it gets that bad, you've got to do something different. Even if it's a little crazy.

Sometimes apologies work better after you've given people time and space to grow.

Maybe it means that some part of him realized he was going in the wrong direction, and he loved you enough to leave you behind.

I can grow another. And when I do, I'll be proud of what it represents. My own hard work and skill. Not some talent spun out of the swamp by a power I don't properly understand.

My mom always says the choice you're making right now is the only one that matters.

I think that’s how life works. Just when you think you have it all set up and perfectly arranged, someone sneezes, or God blows on it, and all the building blocks come tumbling down.

Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash was almost too novel for its inexpressibly dangerous nature to be at once realized, and they could only comprehend the magnificence of its beauty. It sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones—dancing, leaping, striding, racing around, and mingling altogether in unparalleled confusion. With these were intertwined undulating snakes of green, and behind these was a broad mass of lesser light. Simultaneously came from every part of the tumbling sky what may be called a shout; since, though no shout ever came near it, it was more of the nature of a shout than of anything else earthly.

Why the hell was she smiling like that?...Her mouth was blown so wide that the soft insides showed at the corners, like another grin was building in there. As if her laughter tumbled. Like joy was a living thing.

A partial truth. The worst kind of lie because it slides so smoothly down the gullet. Here is what actually happened that night. Swallow with care. You'll find my version has had none of its sharp edges removed...

Sometimes,” she said in a measured voice, “people would rather give you money than other, harder things.” “Like what?” “Like their time. Don’t go asking for money when what you want is something more valuable, Blue.

Sometimes," she said in a measured voice, "people would rather give you money than other, harder things." "Like what?" "Like their time, Don't go asking for money when what you want is something more valuable, Blue.

He wagged his tail, and his whole body tingled. He realized the emptiness inside was not filled with happiness. Blue felt a glow within that was a result of more than just the warm sunshine on a spring day. It was more than just the gentle tumble of the waterfall, or the wind or the sound of birds. It was much, much more he knew. He looked about him and he knew he had found what he had been looking for. He had found more than his true heart's desire... He had found a forever home!

Michael comes to the door with Frederick. ‘Lucky I was here playing Scrabble,’ Frederick says, as they take Henry off my hands. I follow with the wallet and keys that have fallen from his pocket. ‘My father,’ Henry says as they tumble through the door. ‘My son,’ his dad replies, helping him towards the fiction couch. ‘Amy’s going out with Greg Smith,’ I say to explain why Henry’s drunk. ‘I found him in the girls’ toilets.’ ‘In my defence, I was too drunk to know it was the girls’ toilets,’ Henry says. ‘Go to sleep,’ his dad tells him. ‘It’ll seem better in the morning.’ ‘No offence, Dad,’ Henry says, ‘but unrequited love is just as shit in the morning as it is at night. Possibly worse, because you have a whole day ahead of you.’ ‘No offence taken,’ Michael says. ‘You’ve got a point there.’ ‘They should just kill the victims of unrequited love,’ Henry says. ‘They should just take us out the second it happens.’ ‘That would certainly thin the population,’ Michael says, as he tucks a blanket around him.

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung.

Some people need help, but they don't need your help, Lily. At least not directly. They need help from their parents or their teachers or, heaven forbid, the authorities. When you see someone robbing a 7-Eleven, you call the police, you don't dash in yourself.

Those who visited that exhibition-room found an auto-de-fé of immense skies in ignition, globes blotted out by bleeding suns; hemorrhages of stars, flowing down in purple cataracts over tumbling tufts of clouds. Against this background of terrible din, silent women passed, nude or appareled in jeweled stuffs, like the bindings of the old Evangelists; women with hair of shaggy silk, with pale blue eyes, hard and fixed, and flesh of the frozen whiteness of milk; Salomes holding, motionless upon a platter, the head of the Baptist, which shone, soaked in phosphorus, under the quincunxes with shorn leaves, of a green that was almost black; goddesses galloping on hippogriffs and streaking, with the lapis lazuli of their wings, the agony of the clouds; feminine idols, in tiaras, upright on thrones, at the top of stairs submerged in extraordinary flowers, or seated, in rigid poses, upon the backs of elephants with green-mantled foreheads and breasts strung with pearl-ropes like cavalry bells, stamping about upon their own heavy image, reflected in a sheet of water and splashed by the columns of the ring-circled legs!

As I write these lines I lift my eyes and look seaward.  I am on the beach of Waikiki on the island of Oahu.  Far, in the azure sky, the trade-wind clouds drift low over the blue-green turquoise of the deep sea.  Nearer, the sea is emerald and light olive-green.  Then comes the reef, where the water is all slaty purple flecked with red.  Still nearer are brighter greens and tans, lying in alternate stripes and showing where sandbeds lie between the living coral banks.  Through and over and out of these wonderful colours tumbles and thunders a magnificent surf.

I follow her into a storeroom at the back of the shop and catch my breath when I see the bouquets she has made for the shoot. I've seen a lot of wedding flowers, but nothing like these. There are soft apricot roses with dusty-blue delphiniums, creamy-white peonies with miniature pink alliums. Waxy green orchids with deep purple irises. A phone rings in the shop and she excuses herself and goes back outside to answer it. I bend down and pick up a pretty tumble of glossy green ivy and pale purple bells on slender stems. The flowers have a delicate scent, something elusive between hyacinth and freesia.

Last I was here, Winter was a desolate, iced landscape with drift blasting across the terrain, fogging the air white, tumbles of stone and ice and statues barely visible. Today it’s clear, if not sunny. Sun doesn’t exist in Winter; there lurks only an intermittently glimpsed frost-bitten orb of wan blue.

I don't think Gregori really knows what to do with you." Gary's heart jumped. He cleared his throat. "I hope you mean that positively." Savannah's eyes laughed at him. "Do you really think he'll harm you? He can read your mind. If you were an enemy, he would've killed you back in that warehouse." Wickedly she leaned across the table. "Of course, ie really is afully unpredictable, so you never know what he might do or where he is-" She broke off, laughing, as her arm wasflung into the air as if something had shackled her wrist and jerked her backward. Savannah was dragged by something unseen from the kitchen. She was laughing, her blue eyes dancing with mischief. Gregori tugged at her wrist, taking her out into the sanctuary of the courtyard with its dense, overgrown plants. Flowers tumbled from the overhead arbors and trailingalong his shoulders as he emerged fully into the night. "You are deliberately scaring that young man to death," he accused. She lifted her face to his, stars from the night sky in the centers of her eyes."Well,really, how could anyone doubt you?" As her palm caressed the hard line of his jaw,one fingertip touched his perfect mouth. "Stop thinking you have to protect me, Savannah. It is enough that I have you. I do not need anyone else.

Beyond the river and ten miles east of the city the Sangre Mountains began to reveal themselves in more detail as the sun rose higher, the rampart of blue shadow dissolving in the light, exposing the fissured red cliffs, the canyons and gorges a thousand feet deep, the towers leaning out from the main wall, the foothills dry and barren as old bones, and above and behind these tumbled ruins the final barrier of granite, the great horizontal crest tilted up a mile high into the frosty blue sky, sparkling with a new fall of snow. The mountains loomed over the valley like a psychical presence, a source and mirror of nervous influences, emotions, subtle and unlabeled aspirations; no man could ignore that presence; in an underground poker game, in the vaults of the First National Bank, in the realtor's office during the composition of and intricate swindle, in the heart of a sexual embrace, the emanations of mountain and sky imprinted some analogue of their nature on the evolution and shape of every soul.

Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest-fst! it was as bright as glory and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about, away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs, where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.

The summer stretch had come into the evenings: it was gone seven, but the sky was a soft clear blue and the light flooding through the open windows was pale gold. All around us the Place was humming like a beehive, shimmering with a hundred different stories unfurling. Next door Mad Johnny Malone was singing to himself, in a cheerful cracked baritone: “Where the Strawberry Beds sweep down to the Liffey, you’ll kiss away the worries from my brow . . .” Downstairs Mandy shrieked delightedly, there was a tumble of thumping noises and then an explosion of laughter; farther down, in the basement, someone yelled in pain and Shay and his mates sent up a savage cheer. In the street, two of Sallie Hearne’s young fellas were teaching themselves to ride a robbed bike and giving each other hassle—“No, you golf ball, you’ve to go fast or you’ll fall off, who cares if you hit things?”—and someone was whistling on his way home from work, putting in all the fancy, happy little trills. The smell of fish and chips came in at the windows, along with smart-arse comments from a blackbird on a rooftop and the voices of women swapping the day’s gossip while they brought in their washing from the back gardens. I knew every voice and every door-slam; I even knew the determined rhythm of Mary Halley scrubbing her front steps. If I had listened hard I could have picked out every single person woven into that summer-evening air, and told you every story.

skin. Blue sparks writhed across his hands like tiny snakes. Rain washed his face. “This is the best,” he shouted, over the roar of the storm. As if it understood him, the bird began to rise higher, every wing-beat a clap of thunder, and it swooped and dove and tumbled through the dark clouds. “In my dream, I was hunting you,” said Shadow, his words ripped away by the wind. “In my dream. I had to bring back a feather.” Yes. The word was a static crackle in the radio of his mind. They

A look passed between Recevo and Karras. They could hear the rest of them crowded outside the door. Karras cradled the Thompson gun, pressed the butt tight against his ribs. "Well," he whispered. "Come on if you're gonna come." They charged into the room. Karras saw white fire as he heard the reports, heard Joey's gun explode, saw one man fall, heard Joey scream, watched Joey's fedora tumble by as if it had been blown by a strong wind. Karras squeezed the trigger, saw men diving through the gunsmoke, the doorframe disintegrating in spark and dust. He fell back to the floor from a blunt shock that felt like a hammer blow to his chest. Karras winced, got himself up onto the balls of his feet. He leaned his face against the table, rested it there, caught his breath. He listened to the others move about the room. Swim, you Greek bastard. And he was over the table, landing on his feet as softly as if he had landed in water. And they were there, the Welshman and the others, moving toward him, emptying their guns at once, the sound deafening now and riding over their caterwauling screams and the bottomless scream coming from his own mouth. Karras went forward, humming as his finger locked down on the trigger, the Tommy gun dancing crazily in his arms, the gunmen falling before him through the smoke and ejecting shells and the white gulls gliding against the perfect blue sky. Red flowers bloomed on the chests of the men who had come to take Peter Karras to the place where he was always meant to be.

The track led into a sort of tunnel made of forest. They left daylight behind, a thousand leaves hemming them into dusky shade. As she traipsed behind Jack's torn blue jacket, he squinted into the foliage, hearkening to every cracking twig or bird-chirrup. After what seemed an age, they came out into blessed sunshine again. They were in a clearing, their ears filled with a thundering wind, the air itself trembling. A few paces further they came upon the source: above them, a waterfall tumbled from a clifftop as high as a church steeple. The water fell in milky blue strands, shooting spray in the air that danced in rainbows of gold, pink and blue. At their feet was a deep and inviting lagoon. It fair took her breath away. Jack crouched to look at the pool's edge, where a mud bank was scrabbled with marks. "We should go back," he said. "Something drinks here." She didn't care. She was spellbound. "Look, a cave!" Across the lagoon stood a dark entrance hung with pretty mosses, like a fairy grotto. "Just one peep," she whispered, for there was something powerful and secret about the place. "Then we can go back." But Jack was still peering at the tracks around the water's edge. "Whatever drinks here, it's not here now. I dare you, Jack. A quick look around the cave and then we'll be on our way." She had a notion, from some story or other, that caves were places where treasure was hidden; she reckoned pirates might have left jewels and plunder behind long ago. "It's the end of the rainbow," she laughed. "Let's find our crock of gold.

From the window, we saw a group of two dozen men in white-and-blue sweatshirts with garden hoes methodically rising in their hands and then falling to the earth. Their bodies were set against a backdrop of trees that had tumbled into autumn, draping them in a volcanic sea of red and orange. It had been one thing to see Black men laboring in the fields of Angola in photographs but it was quite different to see it in person. The parallel with chattel slavery made it feel as if time was bending in on itself. There was no need for metaphor; the land made it literal.

Her hair is Harlow gold Her lips are sweet surprise Her hands are never cold She's got Bette Davis eyes She'll turn the music on you You won't have to think twice She's pure as New York snow She got Bette Davis eyes And she'll tease you, she'll unease you All the better just to please you She's precocious, and she knows just what it Takes to make a pro blush She got Greta Garbo's standoff sighs, she's got Bette Davis eyes She'll let you take her home It whets her appetite She'll lay you on the throne She got Bette Davis eyes She'll take a tumble on you Roll you like you were dice Until you come out blue She's got Bette Davis eyes She'll expose you, when she snows you Off your feet with the crumbs, she throws you She's ferocious and she knows just what it Takes to make a pro blush All the boys think she's a spy, she's got Bette Davis eyes And she'll tease you, she'll unease you All the better just to please you She's precocious, and she knows just what it Takes to make a pro blush All the boys think she's a spy, she's got Bette Davis eyes She'll tease you She'll unease you Just to please you She's got Bette Davis eyes She'll expose you When she snows you She knows you, she's got Bette Davis Eyes

THIS IS WHAT they want. The words tumbled through Sophie’s mind as she raced up the spiral staircase, counting her steps, trying to guess which door to take. The first handle she tried was locked. Another opened into darkness. A third revealed a path that glowed with eerie blue balefire sconces. The floor shook as she hesitated and threads of dust slipped through the ceiling, scratching her throat and making it hurt to breathe. She followed the flames. Back and forth the halls snaked—a careful maze, designed to deceive. Swallow. Separate. The tremors grew with every step, the shifting subtle but unmistakable. And too far away. No one else would feel the ripples swelling, like waves gathering speed. They were too focused on their celebration. Too caught up in their imagined victory. Too trusting. Too blind. Too late. The ground rattled harder, the first fissures crackling the stones. This is what they want. ONE THIS IS A security nightmare!” Sandor grumbled, keeping his huge gray hand poised over his enormous black sword. His squeaky voice reminded Sophie more of a talking mouse than a deadly bodyguard. Several prodigies raced past, and Sandor pulled Sophie closer as the giggling group jumped to pop the candy-filled bubbles floating near the shimmering crystal trees. All around them, kids were running through the confetti-covered atrium in their amber-gold Level Three uniforms, capes flying as they caught snacks and bottles of lushberry juice and stuffed tinsel-wrapped gifts into the long white thinking caps dangling from everyone’s lockers. The Midterms Celebration was a Foxfire Academy tradition—hardly the impending doom Sandor was imagining. And yet, Sophie understood his concern. Every parent roaming the streamer-lined halls. Every face she didn’t recognize. Any of them could be a rebel.

A recording plays from somewhere high, or low, floating up or down through the falling dust-light. It is a voice out of time, voice of quickness, voice of glass—or wind. A melody, almost—of mud. How it takes a deep blue to tumble wet stones into a songline. The music any earth makes when touched and shaped by the original green energy. The song, if translated, might feel like this: You have been made in my likeness. I am inside you—I am you / or you are me. Let us say to one another: I am yours— and know finally that we will only ever be as much as we are willing to save of one another.

The explosion was deafening; a huge cloud of fire rolled out the window after us, its immense heat brushing my face as we tumbled into the snow. We hit the ground and rolled. Flaming debris from the house came down around us; Griffin shoved me flat on my back, covering us both with his heavy coat. The echoes of the explosion reflected back across the river, then slowly dwindled away, like dying thunder. The leaping flames threw warm light onto the falling snow, turning it into a storm of sparks pouring down from the heavens. Griffin started to push himself off of me, then stoped. His hands were braced on either side of my shoulders, his legs twined with mine. Mt heart pounded, my palms sweated, and I was suddenly, acutely aware of how close his face was to mine. "You're a madman," he whispered. "An utter madman." "Perhaps," I allowed. "But it worked." The leaping light from the burning house painted his features in gold, highlighting his patrician nose and finding threads of brown and blue in his green eyes. His pupils widened, the irises contracting to silver. "Whatever am I going to do with you?" he murmured. The warmth of his breath feathered over my skin. Heat collected in my groin, my lips. My mouth was dry, my voice hoarse, and perhaps he was right and it was madness when I whispered, "Whatever you want." A shiver went through his body, perhaps because we were lying on the cold ground. But instead of getting up, he leaned closer, his overlong hair tumbling over his forehead. He paused, his mouth almost touching mine, his eyes seeming to ask a question. It was madness; it was folly; it was sheer selfishness. I was delusional, misguided, wrong, out of control. I needed to pull back, to say something sane, to re-establish mastery over myself. I could not do this. I could not take the risk. Later tonight, I'd relive this moment in my lonely bed and wonder if I'd done the right thing. But at least that would be familiar, would be something I knew how to cope with. And yet the very thought felt like dying. I surged forward, crossing the final, tiny gap and pressing my lips to his. It was awkward and desperate and frantic, but the feel of his mouth against mine sent a bolt of electricity straight down my spine. Just a moment, just this one kiss, surely that would be enough... Then he kissed me back, and it would never be enough, a thousand years of this would not be enough. His mouth was hungry and insistent, his tongue probing my lips, asking for greater intimacy. I granted it, tongues swirling together, mine followed his when it retreated and tasting him in return. There came the clanging of bells in the distance, the fire company alerted to the explosion. Griffin drew back a fraction. His breath was as raged as mine, which left me dazed with wonder. "My dear," he whispered against my lips. Then he swallowed convulsively. "We should leave, before the fire companies come." "Y-Yes." It was amazing I managed that much coherence. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling. "Will you come home with me?" Was he asking...? "Yes." Oh, God, yes. His lips curved into a smile.

Everything about the world ahead of me was color - subtle shades shared out among the tumbling fields and flashes of shoreline, the rocks, waves and sky- and that, I knew, was a glimpse of magic, too, an acknowledgement of my own feelings. because the water was blue, but not blue, it was grey, or green or kind of burnt silver that seemed far beyond the scope of something as simplified as paint. It was all of those, and none of them, and only the right sort of eye could see, and recognize, and understand. As usual, I was seeing it as I tended to see everything: in too simplified a way. As usual, I was blind to the depths and stories of the world.

Where Mountain Lion Lay Down with Deer I climb the black rock mountain Stepping from day to day, Silently, I smell the wind for my ancestors pale blue leaves crushed wild mountain smell. Returning up the gray stone cliff where I descended a thousand years ago. Returning to faded black stone Where mountain lions lay down with deer. It is better to stay up here watching wind’s reflection in tall yellow flowers. How I danced in snow-frost moonlight distant stars to the end of the Earth, How I swam away in freezing mountain water narrow mossy canyon tumbling down out of the mountain out of deep canyon stone down the memory spilling out into the world.

At one end of the vast C bitten from the castle a sin­gle great bastion-tower stood, almost intact, five kilometres high, and casting a kilometre-wide shadow across the rum­pled ground in front of the convoy. The walls had tumbled down around the tower, vanishing completely on one side and leaving only a ridge of fractured material barely five hundred metres high on the other. The plant-mass babilia, unique to the fastness and ubiquitous within it, coated all but the smoothest of vertical surfaces with tumescent hanging forests of lime-green, royal blue and pale, rusty orange; only the heights of scarred wall closest to the more actively venting fissures and fumaroles remained untouched by the tenacious vegetation.

Kami Castillo My Books Browse ▾ Community ▾ All down the stone steps on either side were periwinkles in full flower, and she could now see what it was that had caught at her the night before and brushed, wet and scented, across her face. It was wistaria. Wistaria and sunshine . . . she remembered the advertisement. Here indeed were both in profusion. The wistaria was tumbling over itself in its excess of life, its prodigality of flowering; and where the pergola ended the sun blazed on scarlet geraniums, bushes of them, and nasturtiums in great heaps, and marigolds so brilliant that they seemed to be burning, and red and pink snapdragons, all outdoing each other in bright, fierce colour. The ground behind these flaming things dropped away in terraces to the sea, each terrace a little orchard, where among the olives grew vines on trellises, and fig-trees, and peach-trees, and cherry-trees. The cherry-trees and peach-trees were in blossom--lovely showers of white and deep rose-colour among the trembling delicacy of the olives; the fig-leaves were just big enough to smell of figs, the vine-buds were only beginning to show. And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp cactuses, and the grass was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea. Colour seemed flung down anyhow, anywhere; every sort of colour piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers....

Best workout ever." Darius sat next to her and rested his back against the soft mat. She laughed and fumbled to put on her bra. He lifted the weight of her hair from her back and helped her pull down her silk shirt. For a moment, he held the length of her hair in his hand as he had the swing rope. He tugged gently to turn her face to his, and then released it. His face was open and relaxed, his pale blue eyes warm and content. His knees fell open to rest against hers. The feel of skin on skin, bone to bone, was easy, the most natural thing in the world. "Next time we should try the pommel horse." Mei laughed. "You still got pommeling on your mind?" "Oh yeah." He signed and tilted his chin to the ciling, exposing the length of his throat. "Some pommeling and tumbling would be good. We've got time to make up for.

I'm sorry," Gansey said, not looking at her as she leaned on the car beside him. "That was very rude." Blue thought of a few things to reply, but couldn't say any of them out loud. She felt like one of the night birds had gotten inside her. It tumbled and fumbled every time she breathed. He's going to die; this is going to hurt-- But she touched his neck, right where his hair was cut evenly above the collar of his shirt. He was very still. His skin was hot, and she could very, very faintly feel his pulse beneath her thumb. It wasn't like when she was with Adam. She didn't have to guess what to do with her hands. They knew. This was what it should have felt like with Adam. Less like playacting and more like a foregone conclusion. He closed his eyes and leaned, just a little, so that her palm was flat on his neck, fingers sprawled from his ear to his shoulder. Everything in Blue was charged. Say something. Say something. Gansey lifted her hand gently from his skin, holding it as formally as a dance. He put it against his mouth. Blue froze. Absolutely still. Her heart didn't beat. She didn't blink. She couldn't say don't kiss me. She couldn't even form don't. He just leaned his cheek and the edge of his mouth against her knuckles, and then set her hand back. "I know," he said. "I wouldn't." Her skin burned with the memory of his mouth. The thrashing bird of her heart shivered and shivered again. "Thank's for remembering." He looked back over the valley. "Oh, Jane." "Oh, Jane, what?" "He didn't want me to, did you know? He told me not to try to get you to come to the table that night at Nino's. I had to talk him into it. And then I made such an idiot of myself--" He turned back to her. "What are you thinking?" She just looked at him. That I went out with the wrong boy. That I destroyed Adam tonight for no reason at all. That I'm not sensible at all--"I thought you were an asshole." Gallantly, he said, "Thank God for past tense." Then: "I can't--we can't do this to him." It was jagged inside her. "I'm not a thing. To have." "No. Jesus. Of course you're not. But you know what I mean." She did. And he was right. They couldn't do this to him. She shouldn't do it to herself, anyway. But how it made a disaster of her chest and her mouth and her head. "I wish you could be kissed, Jane," he said. "Because I would beg one off you. Under all this." He flailed an arm toward the stars. "And then we'd never say anything about it again.

You, my dear, do not know how to have fun." "I do, too!" "You do not. You are as bad as Lucien. And do you know something? I think it's time someone showed you how to have fun. Namely, me. You can worry all you like about our situation tomorrow, but tonight ... tonight I'm going to make you laugh so hard that you'll forget all about how afraid of me you are." "I am not afraid of you!" "You are." And with that, he pushed his chair back, stalked around the table, and in a single easy movement, swept her right out of her chair and into his arms. "Gareth!  Put me down!" He only laughed, easily carrying her toward the bed. "Gareth, I am a grown woman!" "You are a grown woman who behaves in a manner far too old for her years," he countered, still striding toward the bed. "As the wife of a Den member, that just will not do." "Gareth, I don't want — I mean, I'm not ready for that!" "That? Who said anything about that?"  He tossed her lightly onto the bed. "Oh, no, my dear Juliet. I'm not going to do that —" She tried to scoot away. "Then what are you going to do?" "Why, I'm going to wipe that sadness out of your eyes if only for tonight. I'm going to make you forget your troubles, forget your fears, forget everything but me. And you know how I'm going to do that, O dearest wife?"  He grabbed a fistful of her petticoats as she tried to escape. "I'm going to tickle you until you giggle ... until you laugh ... until you're hooting so loudly that all of London hears you!" He fell upon the bed like a swooping hawk, and Juliet let out a helpless shriek as his fingers found her ribs and began tickling her madly. "Stop!  We just ate!  You'll make me sick!" "What's this? Your husband makes you sick?" "No, it's just that — aaaoooooo!" He tickled her harder. She flailed and giggled and cried out, embarrassed about each loud shriek but helpless to prevent them. He was laughing as hard as she. Catching one thrashing leg, he unlaced her boot and deftly removed it. She yelped as his fingers found the sensitive instep, and she kicked out reflexively. He neatly ducked just in time to avoid having his nose broken, catching her by the ankle and tickling her toes, her soles, her arch through her stockings. "Stop, Gareth!"  She was laughing so hard, tears were streaming from her eyes. "Stop it, damn it!" Thank goodness Charlotte, worn out by her earlier tantrum, was such a sound sleeper! The tickling continued. Juliet kicked and fought, her struggles tossing the heavy, ruffled petticoats and skirts of her lovely blue gown halfway up her thigh to reveal a long, slender calf sheathed in silk. She saw his gaze taking it all in, even as he made a grab for her other foot. "No!  Gareth, I shall lose my supper if you keep this up, I swear it I will — oooahhhhh!" He seized her other ankle, yanked off the remaining boot, and began torturing that foot as well, until Juliet was writhing and shrieking on the bed in a fit of laughter. The tears streamed down her cheeks, and her stomach ached with the force of her mirth. And when, at last, he let up and she lay exhausted across the bed in a twisted tangle of skirts, petticoats, and chemise, her chest heaving and her hair in a hopeless tumbled-down flood of silken mahogany beneath her head, she looked up to see him grinning down at her, his own hair hanging over his brow in tousled, seductive disarray.

One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops. I fade, she was beginning, I disappear, but London would have none of it, and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry.

My mother rebelled, cautiously and craftily, as thwarted women will. She gave me lessons in the stolen time while Father was away at business. I remember her standing before me in a bluebell-striped dress, her tired face suddenly shining as she opened A Ladies Instructor For Painting Diverse Delights, so we might copy its hand-colored plates. "Grace, you have a fine eye," Mother said. I wanted to dissect the heart of my subjects, to catch the shadow of the wilting rose in cadmium red, and conjure the snow tumbling like thistledown outside the window in washes of cerulean blue. One day, when painting the gleaming sphere of an apple, a black wriggling creature punctured the skin from the inside. Mother was bemused that I carried on painting, recording the creature's ugly pointed head and shiny segments. "That is the truth," I insisted, proud of my picture.

They joined in nervously for “two” and “three.” There was a flash of blue, then a final crack as the door came down and the police tumbled inside. Then all at once, the lights came up again. But the speakeasy was gone. All the patrons found in front of them were porcelain teapots and cups of tea. The jazz band had been replaced by a string quartet, who immediately began playing soothing music. The bottles behind the bar were gone, replaced by a well-stocked bookshelf. Even the décor had changed—the walls were lined with bookshelves and velvet draperies, all concealing the bar and the stock of alcohol. “Gentlemen!” Magnus threw open his arms. “Welcome to our tea and book circle. We were just about to discuss tonight’s book, Jude the Obscure. You’re just in time! I may have to ask you to pay for the door, but I understand the impulse. One simply mustn’t be late to the discussion!

Sara noticed that his white teeth were slightly snaggled, giving his smile the appearance of a friendly snarl. It was then that she understood why so many women had been seduced by him. His grin held a wickedly irresistible appeal. She stared at his chest as he untied the laces and positioned her cap correctly. "Thank you," she murmured, and tried to take the strings of the cap from his fingers. But he didn't let go. He held the laces at her chin, his fingers tightening. Glancing up at him in confusion, Sara saw that his smile had vanished. In a decisive motion he pulled the concealing lace from her hair and let it fall. The cap fluttered to a patch of mud and rested there limply. Sara lifted her hand to the loose braided coil of her hair, which threatened to tumble from its pins. The chestnut locks gleamed with fiery highlights, escaping in delicate wisps around her face and throat. "Mr. Craven," she scolded breathlessly. "I find your behavior untoward and a-and offensive, not to mention-oh!" She stammered in astonishment as he reached for her spectacles and plucked them from her face. "Mr. Craven, h-how dare you..." She fumbled to retrieve them. "I... I need those..." Derek held them out of reach as he stared at her uncovered face. This was what she had kept hidden beneath the old-maid disguise... pale, luminous skin, a mouth shaped with surprising lushness, a pert little nose, marked at the delicate bridge where the edge of her spectacles had pressed. Angel-blue eyes, pure and beguiling, surmounted by dark winged brows. She was beautiful. He could have devoured her in a few bites, like a fragrant red apple. He wanted to touch her, take her somewhere and pull her beneath him, as if he could somehow erase a lifetime of sin and shame within the sweetness of her body.

cabin for a long moment. Just looking at it made her smile. It was tiny and whimsical – a cedar sided A-frame with a bright green roof and purple trim, complete with a purple star at the point of the A-frame. It sat in a small open area amongst spruce and alder. The hill tumbled down behind it, offering a wide-open view of Kachemak Bay. She’d been in Diamond Creek, Alaska for almost three years. The sun was rising behind the mountains across the bay, streaks of gold and pink reaching into the sky and filtering through the wispy clouds that sat above the mountains this morning. The air was cool and crisp, typical for an Alaskan summer morning. When the sun was high, the chill would dissipate. A faded blue Subaru pulled into the driveway. Susie climbed out of her car, grabbed some fishing gear and walked to Emma’s truck. “Morning! Sorry I’m late,” Susie said. Emma reached over and took a fishing rod out of Susie’s hands.

At low tide, much of the sea changes to land, and then more than seven hundred islands can be counted. People come here to hide, to find something they can’t find on the mainland, to get religion through solitude. From June till September, nearly every day is perfect, with the 10,778-foot volcano of Mount Baker rising from the tumble of the Cascades to the west, blue herons and bald eagles crowding the skies, killer whales breaching offshore. The water is exceptionally clear, the result of a twice-daily shift-change in tide, when it sweeps north toward the Strait of Georgia, then back south toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In some places, the rip tides create white water like rapids on a foaming river. Being is bliss. But then the winters come and the tourists all go home and clouds hang on the horizon and unemployment doubles and the island dweller is left with whatever it is that led him to escape the rest of the world.

Erin. “No matter what else has happened, you’re water and your element is welcome in our circle, but we don’t need any negative energy here—this is too important.” I nodded to the spiders. Erin’s gaze followed mine and she gasped. “What the hell is that?” I opened my mouth to evade her question, but my gut stopped me. I met Erin’s blue eyes. “I think it’s what’s left of Neferet. I know it’s evil and it doesn’t belong at our school. Will you help us kick it out?” “Spiders are disgusting,” she began, but her voice faltered as she glanced at Shaunee. She lifted her chin and cleared her throat. “Disgusting things should go.” Resolutely, she walked to Shaunee and paused. “This is my school, too.” I thought Erin’s voice sounded weird and kinda raspy. I hoped that meant that her emotions were unfreezing and that, maybe, she was coming back around to being the kid we used to know. Shaunee held out her hand. Erin took it. “I’m glad you’re here,” I heard Shaunee whisper. Erin said nothing. “Be discreet,” I told her. Erin nodded tightly. “Water, come to me.” I could smell the sea and spring rains. “Make them wet,” she continued. Water beaded the cages and a puddle began to form under them. A fist-sized clump of spiders lost their hold on the metal and splashed into the waiting wetness. “Stevie Rae.” I held my hand out to her. She took mine, then Erin’s, completing the circle. “Earth, come to me,” she said. The scents and sounds of a meadow surrounded us. “Don’t let this pollute our campus.” Ever so slightly, the earth beneath us trembled. More spiders tumbled from the cages and fell into the pooling water, making it churn. Finally, it was my turn. “Spirit, come to me. Support the elements in expelling this Darkness that does not belong at our school.” There was a whooshing sound and all of the spiders dropped from the cages, falling into the waiting pool of water. The water quivered and began to change form, elongating—expanding. I focused, feeling the indwelling of spirit, the element for which I had the greatest affinity, and in my mind I pictured the pool of spiders being thrown out of our campus, like someone had emptied a pot of disgusting toilet water. Keeping that image in mind, I commanded: “Now get out!” “Out!” Damien echoed. “Go!” Shaunee said. “Leave!” Erin said. “Bye-bye now!” Stevie Rae said. Then, just like in my imagination, the pool of spiders lifted up, like they were going to be hurled from the earth. But in the space of a single breath the dark image reformed again into a familiar silhouette—curvaceous, beautiful, deadly. Neferet! Her features weren’t fully formed, but I recognized her and the malicious energy she radiated. “No!” I shouted. “Spirit! Strengthen each of the elements with the power of our love and loyalty! Air! Fire! Water! Earth! I call on thee, so mote it be!” There was a terrible shriek, and the Neferet apparition rushed forward. It surged from our circle, breaking over Erin

One more question.” Henry waited until Faith put her finger down before continuing. “Do you ever remember your father wearing a baseball hat?” Like a kid flipping through the pages of a scrapbook, she ran through images of her father in her mind. No baseball cap. But it didn’t matter. Faith just wanted to stop seeing the man the world believed killed her sister. Yet the tighter she closed her eyes, the faster the images came. Her father at her horse show, sitting in the stands at Kim’s soccer game, his smiling face as he pushed her on the swing . . . Faith pressed her palms against the sides of her head and started screaming. The office door flew open. Dr. Rodgers, Titus, and two men in navy-blue suits rushed into the room. Like a boxer against the ropes, the images rained down on Faith like blows, but she was helpless to stop them. Each one sent her head reeling until she felt like she was falling—tumbling into oblivion, welcoming the darkness and an end to the pain. She felt Titus’s strong arms around her, carrying her back to her room.

system. At 12:04:03, every screen in the building strobed for eighteen seconds in a frequency that produced seizures in a susceptible segment of Sense/Net employees. Then something only vaguely like a human face filled the screens, its features stretched across asymmetrical expanses of bone like some obscene Mercator projection. Blue lips parted wetly as the twisted, elongated jaw moved. Something, perhaps a hand, a thing like a reddish clump of gnarled roots, fumbled toward the camera, blurred, and vanished. Subliminally rapid images of contamination: graphics of the building’s water supply system, gloved hands manipulating laboratory glassware, something tumbling down into darkness, a pale splash. . . . The audio track, its pitch adjusted to run at just less than twice the standard playback speed, was part of a month-old newscast detailing potential military uses of a substance known as HsG, a biochemical governing the human skeletal growth factor. Overdoses of HsG threw certain bone cells into overdrive, accelerating growth by factors as high as one thousand percent.

Flour on the floor makes my sandals slip and I tumble into your arms. Too hot to bake this morning but blueberries begged me to fold them into moist muffins. Sticks of rhubarb plotted a whole pie. The windows are blown open and a thickfruit tang sneaks through the wire screen and into the home of the scowly lady who lives next door. Yesterday, a man in the city was rescued from his apartment which was filled with a thousand rats. Something about being angry because his pet python refused to eat. He let the bloom of fur rise, rise over the little gnarly blue rug, over the coffee table, the kitchen countertops and pip through each cabinet, snip at the stumpy bags of sugar, the cylinders of salt. Our kitchen is a riot of pots, wooden spoons, melted butter. So be it. Maybe all this baking will quiet the angry voices next door, if only for a brief whiff. I want our summers to always be like this—a kitchen wrecked with love, a table overflowing with baked goods warming the already warm air. After all the pots are stacked, the goodies cooled, and all the counters wiped clean—let us never be rescued from this mess.

Yes. I'm going to talk to her. Maybe." Kristoff huffed. "You, Bulda, Grand Pabbie... you act like this is so easy! They may be so-called love experts, but they've never left the valley." Sven snorted. "Hi," Anna interrupted, feeling funny. She was suddenly very aware of how she looked, and how he did, too. Kristoff had on a bright blue dress shirt and clean pants. She was wearing a green dress under a flour-and-icing-covered apron. Her braids, which she'd had in for two days, needed refreshing. "Were you looking for me? I mean, not actually looking, but you're here, so maybe... you're hungry?" He immediately blushed. "What? Yes. I mean, no. I..." He pressed a bunch of carrots into her hands. "I just wanted to give you what I owed you." "Oh." Anna looked down. "You didn't have to bring me back- oof!" Sven had bumped into Anna, sending her flying into Kristoff's arms. The two tumbled backward, falling onto several stacks of flour Anna's parents hadn't had a chance to bring into the shop yet. "This is awkward," Anna said, struggling to get up. 'Not because you're awkward. Because we're... I'm... awkward." She stood up. "You're gorgeous. Wait, what?

The Highest Octaves of Light Sands, in wild winds of surging waves Over the desert dunes, sing with the tones Of tiny pebbles moving all together, a shifting Of dust grains humming and moaning Over the growing and diminishing dunes. His body in the mirror is the color Of sands. The song he sings in the voice Of light shining like waves of wind Passing over his body inside the glass. The mirror sings with the color of sand In the highest octaves of light. Have you ever listened to sands sing With gold light as they fall in threads Through the needle-eye opening At the center of a hour-glass globe? Why not arrange such globes in rows Before a window of sun, each globe A different width, a different height Of refined or rudimentary glass, clear Amber rose, a tinted blue of noon sky, And listen to the chorus? And then why not turn the globes Upside down and over again to hear Sands sing one more time? The desert dunes are singing, wind-risen Voices from a primeval earth, haunting, Pacific, pining and irate. we listen For the repeating message we remember. The songs are only tumbling pebble grains; Their words are only notes of swirling dust, Sings the eternal light, Emanuel.

Tresses of lustrous, snow-white hair tumbled from their cloth-bound imprisonment, streaming like a waterfall down the young woman’s back. In an effort to make his student more at ease, Alexi did his best to appear wholly disinterested as she carefully removed her protections with delicate, private ceremony. But then she turned to face him, clutching those items that had held her unusual features in mystery : glasses, gloves, long scarf. "As you would have it so, Professor, here is your pupil in all her ghastliness." Though Miss Parker's hands clearly trembled, her voice did not. Luminous crystal eyes held streaks of pale blue shooting from tiny black pupils. A face youthful but devoid of color, smooth and unblemished like porcelain, had graceful lines as well-defined and proportioned as a marble statue. Her long, blanched locks shimmered in the candlelight like spider silk. Upon high cheekbones lay hints of rouge : any more would have appeared garish against her blindingly white skin, but she had been artful in her application. Her rosebud lips were tinted in the same manner. "You see, Professor, even you, so stern and stoic, cannot hide your shock, surprise, distaste-" "Distaste ?" he interrupted quietly. "Is that what you see ?

Steve pulled the sword blade out of the dead zombie's skull just as the mob's body disappeared in a puff of smoke. "Great job, Steve!" KittyPaws30 exclaimed with a sweet, high voice from up on the balcony. "You're such an amazing swordsman!" In the bright light of her balcony torches and the glow shining from inside her house, Steve could clearly see KittyPaws30's bright, blue eyes and bold, pink hair. She was wearing her typical white hoodie and three cats surrounded her, padding around on the balcony rail, swishing their white and black tails. Steve almost felt himself blush. He grinned from ear to ear and flipped around the sword in his hand. As several more zombies slowly plodded in at him from all around, Steve forgot all about Alex and Jack's work nearby and smiled up at his Minecraftian friend. "Oh, you like that?" he said. "Then watch this!" Steve spun around and beckoned all of the zombies toward him. "Come on, you filthy mobs! Come at me!" Four or five zombies closed in, moaning and snarling. Steve took aim and threw Alex's sword at the nearest mob as they all closed in and surrounded him. The sword flew through the air, tumbling end over end, and its blade sunk into the zombie's face. KittyPaws30 clapped her hands and laughed. "Delightful!" she exclaimed from above.

She goes to the window, curious to look out, and her senses awaken. It was only a moment ago (for sleep knows no time) that the flat horizon was a loamy gray swell merging into the fog behind the icy glass. But now rocky, powerful mountains are massing out of the ground (where have they come from?), a vast, strange overwhelming sight. This is her first glimpse of the unimaginable majesty of the Alps, and she sways with surprise. Just now a first ray of sun through the pass to the east is shattering into a million reflections on the ice field covering the highest peak. The white purity of this unfiltered light is so dazzling and sharp that she has to close her eyes for a moment, but now she's wide awake. One push and the window bangs down, to bring this marvel closer, and fresh air - ice-cold, glass-sharp, and with a bracing dash of snow - streams through her lips, parted in astonishment, and into her lungs, the deepest, purest breath of her life. She spreads her arms to take in this first reckless gulp, and immediately, her chest expanding, feels a luxurious warmth rise through her veins - marvelous, marvelous. Inflamed with cold, she takes in the scene to the left and the right; her eyes (thawed out now) follow each of the granite slops up to the icy epaulet at the top, discovering, with growing excitement, new magnificence everywhere - here a white waterfall tumbling headlong into a valley, there neat little stone houses tucked into crevices like birds' nests, farther off an eagle circling proudly over the very highest heights, and above it all a wonderfully pure, sumptuous blue whose lush, exhilarating power she would never have thought possible. Again and again she returns to these Alps sprung overnight from her sleep, an incredible sight to someone leaving her narrow world for the first time. These immense granite mountains must have been here for thousands of years; they'll probably still be here millions and millions of years from now, every one of them immovably where it's always been, and if not for the accident of this journey, she herself would have died, rotted away, and turned to dust with no inkling of their glory, She's been living as though all this didn't exist, never saw it, hardly cared to; like a fool she dozed off in this tiny room, hardly longer than her arm, hardly wide enough for her feet, just a night away, a day away from this infinitude, these manifold immensities! Indifferent and without desires before, now she's beginning to realize what she's been missing. This contact with the overpowering is her first encounter with travel's disconcerting ability to strip the hard shell of habit from the heart, leaving only the bare, fertile kernel.

I panted as he pulled me back through the entryway, hands on my waist, kissing the whole way, and collapsed backward onto the gray leather couch, which felt softer than my skin. I fell on top of him, straddling his lap. He kissed his way down my neck and across the collar of my blouse, leaving a trail of fire behind. "Enough of that," I panted, ripping my shirt over my head. Thank goodness I'd worn a decent bra today---blue satin with a bow in the middle, not frayed or torn anywhere. He eyed it with a growl of approval, but maybe it wasn't a growl for the bra at all, because a moment of fumbling over my back and---pop---I shook off my now unfastened bra. "And to think you didn't like me at first." He drank me in unabashedly, his eyes roaming from belly to breasts to nose to eyes, and each inch his eyes traveled made me feel more and more powerful. Like I could go anywhere, do anything. Except all I wanted to do was right here. I ground against him, feeling his cock already hard and strong under his zipper. "Who says I like you now?" He gasped and pulled me tighter onto him. "If this is what you do to people you don't like, what do you do to people you do like?" I silenced him with another kiss as I rubbed up and down him again. Now my own sex was throbbing, and I sucked in a breath with every movement. I kept moving up and down as he kissed my breasts, tongue tracing lightly over each nipple. When I couldn't take it anymore, I tumbled to the side, lying down on the couch and pulling him on top of me. Because his was an expensive couch and not the cheap one my old roommate had bought at Ikea, there was plenty of room for us to writhe without making me feel like I might topple off the edge. He went down to kiss my breasts again... and kept going. His tongue slid down my stomach, did a lazy circle around my belly button. I clenched my teeth, holding back a beg for more as he slowly, slowly, way too slowly unzipped my skirt and tugged it down. I kicked it off, along with my underwear, when he reached my knees, nearly clipping him on the ear. When I felt close to the edge, I reached down and pulled him up. My hand moved down and took over, zeroing in on just the right spot on my clit. It didn't take long. I shuddered against his shoulder, biting back a cry, then wondered why I was biting it back and let it out. Breathing hard, my head collapsed back into the cushion. I was a little worried that now post-orgasm clarity would descend upon me and be like, What the hell are you doing, Julie? but the post-orgasm clarity seemed to approve. With a wink and a nudge, it made me pull away, and the desire roared back inside me. "That's why it's great to have a clitoris," I told Bennett. "Multiple orgasms.

against the velvet rope force fields that kept everyone without an invitation at bay. As I walked toward the entrance, the crowd bombarded me with a mix of insults, autograph requests, death threats, and tearful declarations of undying love. I had my body shield activated, but surprisingly, no one took a shot at me. I flashed the cyborg doorman my invitation, then mounted the long crystal staircase leading up into the club. Entering the Distracted Globe was more than a little disorienting. The inside of the giant sphere was completely hollow, and its curved interior surface served as the club’s bar and lounge area. The moment you passed through the entrance, the laws of gravity changed. No matter where you walked, your avatar’s feet always adhered to the interior of the sphere, so you could walk in a straight line, up to the “top” of the club, then back down the other side, ending up right back where you started. The huge open space in the center of the sphere served as the club’s zero-gravity “dance floor.” You reached it simply by jumping off the ground, like Superman taking flight, and then swimming through the air, into the spherical zero-g “groove zone.” As I stepped through the entrance, I glanced up—or in the direction that was currently “up” to me at the moment—and took a long look around. The place was packed. Hundreds of avatars milled around like ants crawling around the inside of a giant balloon. Others were already out on the dance floor—spinning, flying, twisting, and tumbling in time with the music, which thumped out of floating spherical speakers that drifted throughout the club. In the middle of all the dancers, a large clear bubble was suspended in space, at the absolute center of the club. This was the “booth” where the DJ stood, surrounded by turntables, mixers, decks, and dials. At the center of all that gear was the opening DJ, R2-D2, hard at work, using his various robotic arms to work the turntables. I recognized the tune he was playing: the ’88 remix of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” with a lot of Star Wars droid sound samples mixed in. As I made my way to the nearest bar, the avatars I passed all stopped to stare and point in

It was a charming and delightful day at Lord's as Ford and Arthur tumbled haphazardly out of a space-time anomaly and hit the immaculate turf rather hard. The applause of the crowd was tremendous. It wasn't for them, but instinctively they bowed anyway, which was fortunate because the small red heavy ball which the crowd actually had been applauding whistled mere millimetres over Arthur's head. In the crowd a man collapsed. They threw themselves back to the ground which seemed to spin hideously around them. "What was that?" hissed Arthur. "Something red," hissed Ford back at him. "Where are we?" "Er, somewhere green." "Shapes," muttered Arthur. "I need shapes." The applause of the crowd had been rapidly succeeded by gasps of astonishment, and the awkward titters of hundreds of people who could not yet make up their minds about whether to believe what they had just seen or not. "This your sofa?" said a voice. "What was that?" whispered Ford. Arthur looked up. "Something blue," he said. "Shape?" said Ford. Arthur looked again. "It is shaped," he hissed at Ford, with his brow savagely furrowing, "like a policeman." They remained crouched there for a few moments, frowning deeply. The blue thing shaped like a policeman tapped them both on the shoulders. "Come on, you two," the shape said, "let's be having you." These words had an electrifying effect on Arthur. He leapt to his feet like an author hearing the phone ring and shot a series of startled glanced at the panorama around him which had suddenly settled down into something of quite terrifying ordinariness. "Where did you get this from?" he yelled at the policeman shape. "What did you say?" said the startled shape. "This is Lord's Cricket Ground, isn't it?" snapped Arthur. "Where did you find it, how did you get it here? I think," he added, clasping his hand to his brow, "that I had better calm down." He squatted down abruptly in front of Ford. "It is a policeman," he said, "What do we do?" Ford shrugged. "What do you want to do?" he said. "I want you," said Arthur, "to tell me that I have been dreaming for the last five years." Ford shrugged again, and obliged. "You've been dreaming for the last five years," he said. Arthur got to his feet. "It's all right, officer," he said. "I've been dreaming for the last five years. Ask him," he added, pointing at Ford, "he was in it.

Take your hands off him.' She did. 'Unshackle him.' Lucien's skin drained of colour as Ianthe obeyed me, her face queerly vacant, pliant. The blue stone shackles thumped to the mossy ground. Lucien's shirt was askew, the top button on his pants already undone. The roaring that filled my mind was so loud I could barely hear myself as I said, 'Pick up that rock.' Lucien remained pressed against that tree. And he watched in silence as Ianthe stopped to pick up a grey, rough rock about the size of an apple. 'Put your right hand on that boulder.' She obeyed, though a tremor went down her spine. Her mind thrashed and struggled against me, like a fish snared on a line. I dug my mental talons in deeper, and some inner voice of hers began screaming. 'Smash your hand with the rock as hard as you can until I tell you to stop.' The hand she'd put on him, on so many others. Ianthe brought the stone up. The first impact was a muffled, wet thud. The second was an actual crack. The third drew blood. Her arm rose and fell, her body shuddering with the agony. And I said to her very clearly, 'You will never touch another person against their will. You will never convince yourself that they truly want your advances; that they're playing games. You will never know another's touch unless they initiate, unless it's desired by both sides.' Thwack; crack; thud. 'You will not remember what happened here. You will tell the others that you fell.' Her ring finger had shifted in the wrong direction. 'You are allowed to see a healer to set the bones. But not to erase the scarring. And every time you look at that hand, you are going to remember that touching people against their will has consequences, and if you do it again, everything you are will cease to exist. You will live with that terror every day, and never know where it originates. Only the fear of something chasing you, hunting you, waiting for you the instant you let your guard down.' Silent tears of pain flowed down her face. 'You can stop now.' The bloodied rock tumbled onto the grass. Her hand was little more than cracked bones wrapped in shredded skin. 'Kneel here until someone finds you.' Ianthe fell to her knees, her ruined hand leaking blood onto her pale robes. 'I debated slitting your throat this morning,' I told her. 'I debated it all last night while you slept beside me. I've debated it every single day since I learned you sold out my sisters to Hybern.' I smiled a bit. 'But I think this is a better punishment. And I hope you live a long, long life, Ianthe, and never know a moment's peace.' I stared down at her for a moment longer, tying off the tapestry of words and commands I'd woven into her mind, and turned to Lucien. He'd fixed his pants, his shirt. His wide eyes slid from her to me, then to the bloodied stone. 'The word you're looking for, Lucien,' crooned a deceptively light female voice, 'is daemati.

Then she pointed her spoon at Tumble and Blue. "I'm in if Ida's in," she said. "But if my gerbils get hurt, I'll make sure every animal in the Okefenokee knows I don't like you.

Ida sighed. "What do you two want to do about it? We're already spying on them and plotting against them. Are we supposed to poison the groceries, too?" She was joking, but Howard and Jenna didn't laugh.

His grandmother was chopping up the ham with a fury that implied the pig had done something to offend her.

It wasn't just that she didn't think alligators hid in the swamp waiting to jinx people. It was that the idea of a world where a person could literally be cursed, no matter what he did or how hard he tried, offended every last bit of her.

Does this kind of thing happen a lot around here? Deer just tackling people for no good reason?" "I don't think so." He winced. "I think I'm just lucky.

⭐Smart people, thought Blue, stay away when you tell them you're cursed. Normal people think you've lost your marbles.

This girl was weird even by Montgomery standards

My toenails are fine," Blue said.

Her parents had taken her life and given it a good hard shake, but that didn't mean Tumble was going to fall to pieces. Heroing was an everyday business after all.

And Tumble would roll her eyes, because honestly, her dad need some new jokes.

Granny Eve had kindly not told the nurse that the UFO in question was a tiddlywink.

Does this kind of thing happen a lot around here? Deer just tackling people for no good reason?" "I don't think so." Blue pressed at the gaping edges of his wound. He winced. " I think I'm just lucky.

I don't think you're supposed to call him Mr. Goat" Tumble's dad replied "I think it's just Goat. Like Cher! But less well know." "I refuse to call a grown man Goat." "Well, I'm going to call home Goat," said Tumble. " He told me to." The name wasn't exactly classy like Tumble or Maximal Star, but it showed an individual nature.

...the RV was fire engine red. If that didn't show feistiness, she didn't know what did.

The first time he saw her she was wearing a blue khaki uniform and a pair of shabby pigskin shoes - like those worn by high school students - under a pair of baggy pants. He would have sworn that she had come from the police department to check their residence permits. He was even more surprised when she opened her mouth - half the words that tumbled out were political phrases lifted straight from the newspaper. He had heard Wang Qiyao mention Jiang Lili and knew about her family background, but the woman before him did not conform to the description at all: he couldn't figure out which side of her was real and which was merely a show.

I think they secretly like each other,” Beatrix had said mildly. Poppy had been so astonished by the idea, she had laughed. “They war with each other whenever they’re in the same room, which, thank heavens, isn’t often. Why would you suggest such a thing?” “Well, if you consider the mating habits of certain animals—ferrets, for example—it can be quite a rough-and-tumble business—” “Bea, please don’t talk about mating habits,” Poppy said, trying to suppress a grin. Her nineteen-year-old sister had a perpetual and cheerful disregard for propriety. “I’m sure it’s vulgar, and . . . how do you know about mating habits?” “Veterinary books, mostly. But also from occasional glimpses. Animals aren’t very discreet, are they?” “I suppose not. But do keep such thoughts to yourself, Bea. If Miss Marks heard you, she would write another poem for us to memorize.” Bea looked at her for a moment, her blue eyes innocent. “Young ladies never contemplate . . . the ways that creatures procreate . . .” “Or their companion will be irate,” Poppy finished for her.

Ode to Bees Multitude of bees! in and out of the crimson, the blue, the yellow, of the softest softness in the world; you tumble headlong into a corolla to conduct your business, and emerge wearing a golden suit and quantities of yellow boots. The waist, perfect, the abdomen striped with dark bars, the tiny, ever-busy head, the wings, newly made of water; you enter every sweet-scented window, open silken doors, penetrate the bridal chamber of the most fragrant love, discover a drop of diamond dew, and from every house you visit you remove honey, mysterious, rich and heavy honey, thick aroma, liquid, guttering light, until you return to your communal palace and on its gothic parapets deposit the product of flower and flight, the seraphic and secret nuptial sun! Multitude of bees! Sacred elevation of unity, seething schoolhouse. Buzzing, noisy workers process the nectar, swiftly exchanging drops of ambrosia; it is summer siesta in the green solitudes of Osorno. High above, the sun casts its spears into the snow, volcanoes glisten, land stretches endless as the sea, space is blue, but something trembles, it is the fiery, heart of summer, the honeyed heart multiplied, the buzzing bee, the crackling honeycomb of flight and gold! Bees, purest laborers, ogival workers fine, flashing proletariat, perfect, daring militia that in combat attack with suicidal sting; buzz, buzz above the earth's endowments, family of gold, multitude of the wind, shake the fire from the flowers, thirst from the stamens, the sharp, aromatic thread that stitches together the days, and propagate honey, passing over humid continents, the most distant islands of the western sky. Yes: let the wax erect green statues, let honey spill in infinite tongues, let the ocean be a beehive, the earth tower and tunic of flowers, and the world a waterfall, a comet's tail, a never-ending wealth of honeycombs! Pablo Neruda, Odes to Common Things. (Bulfinch; Illustrated edition, May 1, 1994)

Stop doubting my amazing stripping skills, dude,” Roxy teased as she continued to struggle with her buttons. I was about to force my eyes away from her when she cursed and yanked on her shirt hard enough to rip every button off of it. Beneath it she was wearing a gold push up bra which accentuated her perfect tits and made her look like something out of a Dragon’s wet dream. She tossed her head back with laughter, taking a playful bow for her friends but her foot slipped and she tumbled off of the table instead. I took a few running steps towards her before I could stop myself but the guy had leapt up to catch her before she could hit the ground. “Tory?” he asked as she slumped against him, seeming to have fallen unconscious. “Oh, shit! Help me.” The girl Roxy had called Sofia scrambled to help him with her and they struggled to move her towards one of the cushioned chairs close to where they’d been sitting. I shook my head to clear it of the image of her in that gold bra and spun on my heel, striding towards the exit and quite possibly a cold shower. Just as I made it to the door, a loud scream halted me. I turned back to see Roxy’s friends backing away from her in a panic as a thick sheet of ice spread across the ground away from her, tinting everything in its path a frosty blue. “Wake up, Tory!” Sofia yelled desperately. “Maybe you should run for a teacher,” the boy said. “I’ll try to get through to her.” Sofia turned to run for the exit and her eyes widened in panic as she found me striding towards her instead. “What’s wrong with her?” I asked, my tone clipped. “She err...” Sofia hesitated, clearly not wanting to trust me with her friend’s condition while battling against the inclination to do whatever I told her. “She passed out and now she’s using magic in her sleep and we can’t get close to help her.” Roxy whimpered behind her and I stepped around Sofia to inspect the damage for myself. I’d dealt with this kind of thing with the other Heirs once or twice when our powers had first been Awakened. We were just so powerful that if we got too drunk, sometimes we’d lose control over our magic in our sleep and Roxy had seemed wasted to me. “It’s fine, we’ll look after her,” the boy said firmly but I ignored him as I walked closer to Roxy where she was slumped in the chair. Ice crunched loudly beneath my boots while the temperature around me plummeted and I hadn’t even gotten close to her yet. I drew on my fire magic, pushing it against the ice and melting some of it but Roxy’s power fought back as she whimpered again. “Roxy,” I growled as I made it to stand before her. The ice was still spreading and thickening. She was trembling in the chair and I noticed a few tears sailing down her cheeks. “Not again,” she breathed, her fists balling as she curled in on herself. “Roxy, wake up!” I snapped, moving forward to grab her arm and shake her. She didn’t wake but the ice around me thickened even more and her friends cried out as they were forced to back up again. My breath rose before me and I dropped the six pack beside her chair, crouching down before her so that I could shake her more firmly. She started coughing and water burst from her mouth like she’d been drowning. I pulled her forward, slapping her back to help her get it all up and the tremors rocking her body reverberated through mine as she pressed against my chest. More cold water flooded from her, drenching her as she cried out in panic and I pulled her against me more firmly. (Darius POV)