Brenna Yovanoff

“The fear of God is nothing compared to the fear of tragedy and loss." -The Lady”

“Don’t you ever just have those days where even if you don’t really like someone, you might as well hang out with them because right then, it’s better than being alone?”

“The tone of his voice is like he expects a fight, like he’s challenging me to disagree, and I want to tell him that I don’t care one way or the other. That her blood-relative status makes no difference as long as she loves him. And she does. She wears it, beaming it around like a neon sign.”

“I’d laughed this high-pitched, witchy laugh, and looked right at him. Mostly, I remember feeling vital and untouchable, like I was free and separate from him. I would never be him, and because of that, I would never be lonely or laughed at, and I would never have to worry about anything.”

“People do that sometimes. Change.”

“I walk the three blocks to the school slowly, like if I’m not careful of every step, every tiny movement, I will lose my grip on gravity and go flying up into the stratosphere.”

“God, I hate her!” Kelly shouts as soon as Connor and his mom are out of the store. “How did that wretched, wretched woman ever even find someone to procreate with?”

“Lillian was always so good at treating everything like a test, like some kind of game where the prize was shiny and untouchable. Perfection. She wanted me to back off, butt out, stop trying to control her life. And she wanted me to save her.”

“Why?” I say, so quietly that it comes out sounding like a tiny, tired sigh. “Nobody wants to be mediocre.” Her shadow on the ceiling is monstrous, a witch in profile.”

“Lillian is humming to herself, stretched out on top of my bookcase like she doesn’t mind the heat, and of course she doesn’t. Even when she was alive, she could never seem to get warm. The tune she’s humming is thin and tight with anxiety. It’s the opposite of carefree.”

“The way Lillian says it is hungry, like she’s waiting for something to be revealed, and I wonder if maybe that’s the real difference between us—that when she pulls back the curtain and stares into the blackness behind it, it’s just one more way of testing herself. Like some game you can never win, because even if you face all the shocking realities and the horrors of the world, once you’ve seen that kind of awfulness, you can never un-see it. You have to carry it around with you forever.”

“Lillian laughs and rolls her eyes. “Do I look like I know the answer to that? I always just locked on to the target and then followed it all the way down.”

“I never told her, but the Queen of Hearts charm always reminded me of her, even when she was alive. The way that all ways were Lillian’s ways, and how in the story the queen is unpredictable and kind of scary, but even when she throws a tantrum or threatens to cut off Alice’s head, she never really means it.”

“I get out my hairbrush and wish for her—the real Lillian, and not the worst, most selfish parts of her. I wish for a warm, true best friend, one who didn’t die.”

“For the first time in maybe my whole life, I feel dangerous and magical, like a dragon or a mermaid. A fury, standing there with my half-gone grape slush and my jaw clenched, ready for whatever comes next.”

“Did you ever think about boys?' I say, staring up into the dark. 'There wasn't room,' she whispers, and her voice is unbelievably sad. 'At first, after Connor, I was just waiting. I was going to get a new boyfriend soon- as soon as I was prettier or better, more perfect. But after a while there was no room for anything else. If I though about kissing or sex, I just started feeling ugly, too awful for anything good.”

“I couldn't work out what she actually wanted. Whether being dead happened in a pretty box on Welsh Street or someplace else, it didn't make a difference. Dead was irreversible. It was permanent. You couldn't do anything about it, and still, Tate seemed determined to take it back, like with the right answer, she could fix everything.”

“What's up?' he said, like the church was always burning down and I always called him on a school night, telling him to come over after dark and bring a shovel.”

“And that's all it takes to make you happy? You kill little kids, then go home and wait until it's time to do it all again? What the hell kind of existence is that?”

“You presume to name those who have no name. We are pandemonium and disaster. We are the dancing, gibbering horror of the world.”

“Her voice was like loneliness. It was regret. She sang about a past you couldn't get out of and didn't want.”

“She was the purest, biggest truth.”

“Take your necklace off.""Why?""Because if you don't, I can't kiss you.”

“I looked at the ground and the dark, drizzling sky and pretty much anyplace that wasn't her. "I like you. A lot." When I finally glanced at her, my face was hot and it was hard to keep looking.She squinted up at me. Then she crossed her arms. "This is a really inappropriate place to be having this conversation.""I know. I like you anyway."Saying it a third time was like breaking some kind of spell. Her face went soft and far away."Don't say that unless you mean it.""I don't say anything I don't mean.”

“So, are you just going to stand there looking like a piece of furniture?”

“Kissing him is like the wildest, most thrilling thing that has ever happened to me. It's like diving into the deep end over and over. He touches the curve of my lip with his tongue, just once, so softly, and I think the whole world is ending, the sudden warmth of his mouth jolting through me like a shock. I hold on like I'm falling off the top of a tall cliff or I'm lost at sea, like he's the only thing solid in the whole tilting world.”

“There are all kinds of things that can scare you every day. What if someone you know gets cancer? What if something happens to you sister or your friends or your parents? And what if you get hit by a car crossing the street or the kids at school find out what an unnatural freak you are and what if you go too far out in the lake and the water is over your head and what if there's a fire or a war?And you can lie awake at night and worry about these things because it's scary and unpredictable, but it's REAL. It's possible."-Mackie Doyle, The Replacement”

“Is it hypocritical to love a person and still find fault with their actions?"-The Morrigan”

“When I press my forehead to his back, the shape of his pain is alluring, almost visible. It forms him, tells him to protect himself, makes him everything he is. He needs to keep it.”

“I just want that, the way I feel when you kiss me. Just having it makes all the bad things better.”

“You're terribly selfish, you know. I've loved you so long, and it was never dear or precious to you. I might as well have not loved you at all.”

“how awful to never be allowed to fail”

“The fact is, the contest has always been invulnerability, and even when you win, you still lose.”

“On the opposite page, there was a poem. It described how beauty and truth mattered more than anything else. They were the same thing. But it didn't matter how pretty you painted the world.”

“Are you waiting for someone to come and get you?” I whisper. I sound small and thirsty. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he bends his head and kisses me, just once, then let’s me go. When Connor would kiss Angelie in the halls last spring, he did it like he was trying to suck the chocolate off the outside of a Klondike bar. It could last for hours. This is more like seeing a star fall - thrilling and soundless and then over.”

“It was completely unshocking that there were monsters in the world, secretrituals and underground burrows filled with the dead, when in my own way, I was secret and sort of monstrous too. It just didn’t show in the same way.”

“You can't keep acting like this," Lillian says, and for the first time in months, it's like she's actually trying to be nice. "Tragedy isn't this evil thing that came from outer space. It's just there, you know. Along with everything else.”

“Goodbye," she said.When I didn't say it back, she rested her hand on the top of my head. The weight was strange and gentle. "I love you," she said. "And when I tell you goodbye, I don't mean forever or for long. Just that I'm going home now, and so are you.”

“It’s not the wisest thing - love - but when it happens, there’s not a lot you can do to stop it. Sometimes you just have to soldier on through.”

“Yo no sé nada de Dios (...), pero sí sé algo de la tradición. Tú y yo somos gente literal. Sea cual sea la interpretación más obvia, ésa es nuestra verdad. Cuando las iglesias antiguas proclamaron sus leyes, sentaron un precedente. Ellos creen que la tierra consagrada rechaza nuestras almas y, puesto que su convicción es tan fuerte, nuestros cuerpos sienten dolor.”

“La verdad es que no nos gustan los nombres. Cuando le pones nombre a algo, le quitas parte de su poder. Se vuelve algo conocido. Nos han llamado muchísimas cosas: los buenos vecinos, los seres mágicos. Los grises, los antiguos, los otros. Espíritus y fantasmas y demonios. En Gentry nunca nos han dado un nombre. Aquí no somos nada.”

“Emma, la maestra de la mentira. La reina del "Mi hermano es normal", "Mi hermano es tímido". Mi hermano es muy enfermizo, tiene alergias, mononucleosis, intoxicación alimentaria, la gripe. Y la mentira más grande y más turbia de tods: "Mi hermano".”

“It wasn't like the other songs. There was no story, no conversation. This was just the feeling, without words or pictures, and it had nothing to do with Luther or his clean, stinging guitar. It was the sound of being outside, of being alien. It was the pulse that ran under everything and never let you forget that you were strange, that the world hurt just to touch.”

“People make decisions, and maybe you don't always agree, but those choices are still their own.”

“He smiles an honest smile for the first time, and the difference is hard to describe but easy to recognize.”

“Her smile doesn't look any more real than mine. I wonder if she has to practice too.”

“Suddenly, I understand what Petra has always been trying to tell me. The whole time she was mumbling her litany of stories, she was always only telling me one thing. Love is when you care more about something else than you do about yourself.”

“You asked me about love. I don't know about love, Daphne. I just know I don't want anything but you. I don't want to be anywhere but with you.”

“The world is full of unused corners.”

“We sat on the picnic bench, not talking, not looking at each other, but being quiet and okay. The rain was almost gone, nothing but a thin chilly fog. For now, I just wanted to sit on the picnic bench with him and not be anything but fine and uncomplicated.”