Liz Kessler

“Maybe superficial is exactly what I want right now. If you don't talk about anything that matters, no one can say anything that'll hurt you--and you don't have to talk about the things that are eating away at you from the inside.”

“I try to imagine keeping something like that a secret for my whole life. It would be like always wearing a mask over your face, which everyone believed was the real you. You would be the only person who knew it wasn't--and who knew that you could never take it off.”

“Well, the old Autumn didn't know anything about reality. The old Autumn was quite happy living in a childish make-believe world where bad things didn't happen and where you could make up whatever silly story you liked and tell yourself it was true.”

“The tail of Emily Windsnap"everyone has a secret . mines alittle different. i figured out i am a mermaid.”

“But there would be no confrontation the next day. And for Tommy Williams, there would be no school, either. Because the moment he walked through the gap in the stones to leave the circle, something quiet unexpected happened.Tommy, holding tightly on to his rock, took the step that divided the inside of the circle from the outside - and disappeared.The woods suddenly felt colder than usual. The darkness hung more heavily.The amber was gone - and now nothing would ever be the same.”

“The woods were deserted that day.The stones stood still and silent, as though they were waiting for something. At the center of them all, a jagged piece of amber glowed in the growing darkness. Lights fizzed softly around it, turning pink, orange, purple, blue.No one saw it. No one ever did. Why would they? No one knoew about its magic, not anymore. They had forgotten all about such magic a long, long time ago. About the same time they stopped believing in faries.How foolish.”