“Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.”

“Once upon a time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet, and the other a fool, which visitation, all the neighbourhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft.”

“Once upon a time there was a lady. She had no children, and no happiness either. And at first she cried for a long time, but then she became wicked...”

“She had discovered with surprise and pleasure that as she turned each page, the book was written, as if for the first time, all over again.”

“Judith Rey watches the young woman. Once upon a time, I had a baby daughter. I dressed her in frilly frocks, enrolled her for ballet classes, and sent her to horse-riding camp five summers in a row. But look at her. She turned into Lester anyway. She kisses Luisa’s forehead. Luisa frowns, suspiciously, like a teenager. “What?”

“Once again she shuddered with the evidence that time was not passing, as she had just admitted, but that it was turning in a circle.”