Eowyn Ivey

“For en tragisk historie! Jeg fatter ikke hvorfor slike eventyr for barn alltid må ende med forferdelse. Jeg tror at hvis jeg noen gang skal fortelle barnebarna mine det eventyret, skal jeg forandre slutten og la dem leve lykkelig alle sine dager. Vi har lov til det, vel, Mabel? Å dikte vår egen slutt og snu sorg til glede?”

“You did not have to understand miracles to believe in them, and in fact Mabel had come to suspect the opposite. To believe, perhaps you had to cease looking for explanations and instead hold the little thing in your hands as long as you were able before it slipped like water between your fingers.”

“You’ll drive yourself crazy looking for something that’s not there.”

“I don’t know why, precisely. I believe we were in need of a change. We needed to do things for ourselves. Does that make any sense? To break your own ground and know it’s yours, free and clear. Nothing taken for granted.”

“He put one foot in front of the other and walked without seeing or feeling.”

“You start seeing things that you’re afraid of… or things you’ve always wished for.”

“..she expected to drown before she reached it.”

“All her life she had believed in something more, in the mystery that shape-shifted at the edge of her senses.”

“All those sounds of her failure and regret would be left behind, and in their place there would be silence.”

“Following the pattern offered a kind of comfort, a quiet balance to working in the field during the day. The farmwork was coarse, exhausting, and largely a matter of faith - a farmer threw everything he had into the earth, but ultimately it wasn't up to him whether it rained or not. Sewing was different. Mabel knew if she was patient and meticulous, if she carefully followed the rules, that in the end when it was turned right-side out, it would be just how it was meant to be. A small miracle in itself, and one that life so rarely offered.”

“Sometimes these things happen. Life doesn't go the way we plan or hope, but we don't have to be so angry, do we?”

“As the glow of the cabin windows turned to flickers through the trees and then to black, her eyes adjusted and the starlight alone on the pure white snow was enough to light her way. The cold scorched her cheeks and her lungs, but she was warm in her fox hat and wool. An owl swooped through the spruce boughs, a slow-flying shadow, but she was not frightened. She felt old and strong, like the mountains and the river. She would find her way home.”

“We are allowed to do that, are we not Mabel? To invent our own endings and choose joy over sorrow?”

“Like a rainbow trout in a stream, the girl sometimes flashed her true self to him.”

“She might be curt and ungrateful, but by God she could bake.”

“When she had the strength, she began to fold the tiny clothes and blankets and cloth diapers and put them into plain brown boxes. She didn't stop working, but the sobs came and distorted her face, bleared her eyes, made her nose run. She didn't hear Jack come to the door. When she looked up he was watching her silently, and then he turned away, uncomfortable, embarrassed by her unharnessed grief. He didn't put his hand on her shoulder. Didn't hold her. Didn't say a word. Even these many years later, she was unable to forgive him that.”

“...the child's arms around her, hugging her as a daughter hugs her mother. Joyfully. Spontaneously. The most beautiful of all. The most beautiful of all.”

“What a tragic tale! Why these stories for children always have to turn out so dreadfully is beyond me. I think if I ever tell it to my grandchildren, I will change the ending and have everyone live happily ever after. We are allowed to do that, are we not Mabel? To invent our own endings and choose joy over sorrow?”

“He thought Mabel would cry, and he wanted to be anywhere else. It was wrong and cowardly, and he'd done it before--when Mabel lost the baby and shook with grief...But it was like the need to take a breath. The urge was too strong, and without saying another word, Jack left the cabin.”

“...did fear drive her? Fear of the gray, not just in the strands of her hair and her wilting cheeks, but the gray that ran deeper, to the bone, so that she thought she might turn into a fine dust and simply sift away in the wind.....She cooked and cleaned, and cooked and cleaned, and found herself further consumed by the gray, until even her vision was muted and the world around her drained of color.”

“Doubt crouched over his shoulder, ready to take him by the throat, whispering in his ear, You are an old man. An old, old man.”

“We never know what is going to happen, do we? Life is always throwing us this way and that. That’s where the adventure is. Not knowing where you’ll end up or how you’ll fare. It’s all a mystery, and when we say any different, we’re just lying to ourselves. Tell me, when have you felt most alive?”

“She had thought often of Ada's words about inventing new endings to stories and choosing joy over sorrow. In recent years she had decided her sister had been in part wrong. Suffering and death and loss were inescapable. And yet, what Ada had written about joy was entirely true. When she stands before you with her long, naked limbs and her mysterious smile, you must embrace her while you can.”

“In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.”

“To believe, perhaps you had to cease looking for explanations and instead hold the little thing in your hands as long as your were able before it slipped like water between your fingers.”

“She slid her boot soles onto the surface and nearly laughed at her own absurdity - to be careful not to slip even as she prayed to fall through.”

“As Jack knelt in the bloody snow, he wondered if that was how a man held up his end of the bargain, by learning and taking into his heart this strange wilderness—guarded and naked, violent and meek, tremulous in its greatness.”

“It would be a hard life, but it would be theirs alone. Here at the world's edge, far from everything familiar and safe, they would build a new home in the wilderness and do it as partners.”

“She knew the snow and it carried her gently... She knew the land by heart.”

“She and Jack had formed her of snow and birch boughs and frosty wild grass.”

“It was beautiful, Mabel knew, but it was a beauty that ripped you open and scored you clean so that you were left helpless and exposed, if you lived at all.”

“In my old age, I see that life is often more fantastic and terrible than stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.”

“After all these years, still a spot within her fluttered at his touch, and his voice, throaty and hushed in her ear, tickled along her spine. Naked, they walked to the bedroom. Beneath the covers, they fumbled with each other’s bodies, arms and legs, backbones and hip bones, until they found the familiar, tender lines like the creases in an old map that has been folded and refolded over the years.”

“When she first fell in love with Jack, she had dreamed she could fly, that on a warm, inky black night she had pushed off the grass with her bare feet to float among the leafy treetops and stars in her nightgown. The sensation had returned. Through the window, the night air appeared dense, each snowflake slowed in its long, tumbling fall through the black. It was the kind of snow that brought children running out their doors, made them turn their faces skyward, and spin in circles with their arms outstretched. She stood spellbound in her apron, a washrag in her hand. Perhaps it was the recollection of that dream, or the hypnotic nature of the spinning snow. Maybe it was Esther in her overalls and flowered blouse, shooting bears and laughing out loud. Mabel set down the rag and untied her apron. She slipped her feet into her boots, put on one of Jack’s wool coats, and found a hat and some mittens.”

“She could not fathom the hexagonal miracle of snowflakes formed from clouds, crystallized fern and feather that tumble down to light on a coat sleeve, white stars melting even as they strike. How did such force and beauty come to be in something so small and fleeting and unknowable? You did not have to understand miracles to believe in them, and in fact Mabel had come to suspect the opposite. To believe, perhaps you had to cease looking for explanations and instead hold the little thing in your hands as long as you were able before it slipped like water between your fingers. (kindle location 2950)”

“She had watched other women with infants and eventually understood what she craved: the boundless permission-no, the absolute necessity- to hold and kiss and stroke this tiny person. Cradling a swaddled infant in their arms, mothers would distractedly touch their lips to their babies' foreheads. Passing their toddlers in a hall, mothers would tousle their hair even sweep them up in their arms and kiss them hard along their chins and necks until the children squealed with glee. Where else in life, Mabel wondered, could a woman love so openly and with such abandon?”

“She looked directly up into the northern lights and she wondered if those cold-burning spectres might not draw her breath, her very soul, out of her chest and into the stars.”