Franny Billingsley

“You could write your way into happiness. It might not be the happiness you'd experience if Eldric pushed Leanne from a cliff, but there's a firefly glimmer in writing something that would please Rose.”

“Our parents teach us the very first things we learn. They teach us about hearts.”

“There are two distinct aspects to Communion wine: one aspect is the wine itself, the other is the idea of communion. Wine is certainly warming, but communion is a great deal more so.”

“That's what stories do. They connect the random dots of life into a picture. But it's all an illusion. Just try to connect the dots of life. You'll end up with a lunatic scribble.”

“There is a lump of desolation beneath the bony dip at my throat. It is no bigger than a coin, this spot, a peculiarly small place to hold such a feeling. I try to shove it to some deeper region, but there it sticks, a fragile skin-thickness from the outside world.”

“A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.”

“I may be wicked, but I'm not bad.”

“The only right memory, is the one that first comes to you.”

“The problem I have telling my secret', said Eldric, 'is that it's a secret.”

“Some secrets are wrong and ought to be told.”

“That’s where proper stories begin, don’t they, when the handsome stranger arrives and everything goes wrong?”

“You mind your tongue!” “Oh, I do,” I said. “I sharpen it every evening on your name.”

“Guess what it is that turns plants to coal.Pressure.Guess what it is that turns limestone to marble.Pressure.Guess what it is that turns Briony's heart to stone.Pressure.Pressure is uncomfortable, but so are the gallows. Keep your secrets, wolfgirl. Dance your fists with Eldric's, snatch lightning from the gods. Howl at the moon, at the blood-red moon. Let your mouth be a cavern of stars.”

“Should I ever again sink into illness, I'm sure I'll remember Eldric. I'll remember he cared for me. I'll remember that someone had at least taken the time to touch my face.”

“The handkerchief dabbed at my forehead. 'Ouch! You'll have a fine-looking bruise tomorrow.''Then you'll be able to distinguish me from Rose.'The handkerchief paused. 'I could tell you apart from the beginning. You're quite different to each other, you know.'Perhaps he could tell, in the obvious ways. The odd one was Rose; the other odd one was Briony.”

“The boy shall have a proper beating,' said Cecil.'But I beat him already,' I said, 'and don't tell me I didn't do it properly. I'm touchy about these things.”

“Wearing a cloak is on Rose's list of the thousand things she hates most. The problem is that each of the thousand problems is ranked number one.'But Dr. Rannigan says you must and anyway, it hardly weighs a thing, it's so full of holes.' I swung mine round my shoulders. Rose hates any bit of clothing that constricts, but I say Chin up and bear it. Life is just one great constriction.'Ventilated,' I said, 'that's the word. Our cloaks are terrifically ventilated.”

“I don't like my shoes,' said Rose.'I'm wearing my shoes and you don't see me complain.''You only hear a person complain,' said Rose. 'Not see.'How has Rose lived for seventeen years and no one has killed her, not once?”

“Once we got to eating, the idea of happiness returned to me. Not the feeling, the idea. Would a regular girl be happy simply eating a hot meal with a great deal of chew to it? Maybe happiness is a simple thing. Maybe it's as simple as the salty taste of pork, and the vast deal of chewing in it, and how, when the chew is gone, you can still scrape at the bone with your bottom teeth and suck at the marrow.”

“I still can't understand how Cecil and my old tutor, Fitz, got along so well, when we often called Fitz 'the Genius' and avoided calling Cecil anything at all, so as not to be rude.”

“When Rose takes to screaming, she starts loud, continues loud, and ends loud. Rose has a very good ear and always screams on the same note. I'd tested her before I burnt the library, and our piano along with it.Rose screams on the note B flat.We don't need a piano anymore now that we have a human tuning fork.”

“I explained we lost the porch to the flood. 'Father hasn't gotten around to rebuilding it, although he's quite a good carpenter. He says if Jesus was a carpenter, it's good enough for a clergyman. But I don't remember that Jesus let his house fall down.”

“Are those paper clips?' I'd seen them in catalogs, but the pictures don't do them justice. They're beautiful, in an industrial sort of way.Eldric poured a clinking waterfall into my palm. 'Aren't they lovely! I can't keep my hands off them. But I give you fair warning: It was a box of paper clips that got me expelled.''Expelled?''A box of thousand paper clips,' he said, his long fingers curling, coiling, twisting. 'And a sack of colored glass.''Expelled!' I might be a wicked girl who'd think nothing of eating a baby for breakfast, but I'd never allow myself to get expelled. It's far too public.”

“I was asking about lust, wasnʼt I? I was fairly certain of it. But isnʼt love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.”

“Death had no lips, but it was smiling”

“I think about the Old Ones, that they have a past but no history. I think about the inevitability of death, and whether it’s not that very inevitability that inspires us to take photographs and make scrapbooks and tell stories. That that’s how we humans find our way to immortality. This is not a new thought; I’ve had such thoughts before. But I have a new thought now. That that’s how we find our way toward meaning. Meaning. If you’re going to die, you want to find meaning in life. You want to connect the dots.”

“You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.”

“It’s one thing if a person learns you’re a witch. It’s quite another if he learns you’re a murderer. I almost forget I’m a witch now that I know I’m a murderer—murderess, actually. Murderess sounds so much worse.”

“Witches don’t look like anything. Witches are. Witches do.”

“Darling! Had they darlinged each other when they were here? I imagined them, magnificent on horseback, tossing darlings to and fro.”

“I hope you don’t mind my joining you,” said Leanne. I minded. After all, she’d tried to kill me. A girl in a novel would say it was hard to believe, but it wasn’t.”

“A toast at your wedding, perhaps?” said Eldric. “I shall never get married,” I said. “But I do like champagne.”

“Thoughts are strange creatures. They lead you from one thing to another. Sometimes you don’t know how you got from one to the next.”

“Blast Cecil!” said Eldric. “You have my permission,” I said.”

“Smash the table, why don’t you? Kick things about. It’s ever so nice to see you embrace the true spirit of the Fraternitus.”

“Perhaps you should put your head down.” I knew this was the thing to do, although I’ve never fainted and I don’t intend to.”

“My, my,” said Eldric. “You are full of surprises.”

“Boxing’s not that straightforward,” said Eldric. “You can practice and practice, but the real experience will always be different. Lots of things are like that, actually.”

“I am entirely well,” said Eldric, “which has Dr. Rannigan exploring first one theory, then another, trying to understand. But not being a man of science, I don’t care about understanding. I simply want to go outside and break a few windows.”

“If there were such a thing as a vampire-puppy-dog, it would be Cecil. Big pleading eyes, asking for an ear-scratch and a nice warm bowl of blood.”

“I can.” He rent his dark tresses, Resulting in messes, Thus prompting his L.I. to flee till, she reached the end of the world and jumped off.Perhaps I have untapped potential.”

“Poor Cecil, consumed by a grande passion, only to be told to compress his love manifesto into a haiku. “I won’t try to excuse my behavior,” he said. “It was despicable.” Or a limerick. There once was a rotter named Cecil, Whose Love Interest wished he could be still. Oh well. Unlike some, at least, I’ve never pretended to be a poet.”

“Soon the Boggy Mun would open up shop. I wore no cloak and had no pockets. I carried my knife and salt in a basket. Little Red Riding Hood, skipping off into the woods. And whom will she meet? Why, her own self, of course: the wolf.”

“Eldric wore his lazy lion’s smile. He didn’t mind what he was called. He was a sticks-and-stones sort of person.”

“He scooped up my arm, swung me round. “Let go, Cecil,” I said. “I’ve a strange dislike of being forced.” “But Briony,” he said, “I’m so full of good spirits. I could walk to London, I think!” Why didn’t he?”

“This is the difference between Eldric and me. Had it been my job to transform the garden, I would have removed the clothesline. Clotheslines always make me think of undergarments, and although I’ve never been to Japan, I don’t imagine a memory-whiff of undergarments is at all À la Japonaise.”

“We laughed a lot and I grew warmer still, lovely and warm. I do realize that some of that warmth was due to the wine, but there was much more to it than that. There are two distinct aspects to Communion wine: one aspect is the wine itself, the other is the idea of communion. Wine is certainly warming, but communion is a great deal more so.”

“There’s such a thing as being irritatingly ethical,” said Eldric. “That’s you, right now.” That’s a pleasant change. Witches are rarely accused of being irritatingly ethical.“I’ve swigged.” I handed the bottle to Eldric. “Or is it swug?” “Swug,” said Eldric. “It is in bad-boy circles, at least.” He swug. “It tastes much better outside church.” “It’s the picnic principle,” I said. “Things taste better outdoors. And if it’s a forbidden thing, so much the better.”

“Sometimes, of course, the sister’s the wicked one, not the stepmother.”

“Life and stories are alike in one way: They are full of hollows. The king and queen have no children: They have a child hollow. The girl has a wicked stepmother: She has a mother hollow. In a story, a baby comes along to fill the child hollow. But in life, the hollows continue empty.”