“The sleeve covered its appendages well until it reached outward to Grady. Instead of a hand, several dark green and black-splotched tentacles spilled out of the sleeve. They snaked through the air toward Grady’s face. They glistened in the early morning light and long strands of a mucous-like substance dripped from them and clung like shiny webs to its robe.”

“She turned around again to see Dan approaching with a large hammer. Shane was behind him with a leaky bottle of glue. Both seemed elated over their new toy.”

“Her dreams felt so far out of reach. She’d faced one of them tonight, faced him in four-inch heels. But four-inch heels didn’t make her any younger. She couldn’t click her four-inch heels together and find her true way home. Four inches didn’t bring her any closer to happiness. Four inches didn’t erase the past.”

“So my doctor told me to watch what I'm eating - to read food labels. I'm in the store reading the Fig Newtons label: I've always liked Fig Newtons. I'm reading the label to make sure everything's fine: fat content. I looked at the serving size; two cookies. Who eats two cookies? I eat Fig Newtons by the sleeve: two sleeves is a serving size. I open them both and eat them like a tree chipper; Fig Newton shavings coming off the side.”

“‎Odd how a man who never smiled could make her feel things she didn't know existed. He held her heart in his hands. From the moment she saw him, some thread had linked them together.”

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”

“Tis a far cry from home for a poor lonely thing,O'er the deeps and wild waters of seas,Where you can't hear your dear mother's voice softly singLike a breeze gently stirring the trees.Come home, little one, wander back here someday,I'll watch for you, each evening and morn,Through all the long season 'til I'm old and greyAs the frost on the hedges at dawn.There's a lantern that shines in my window at night,I have long kept it burning for you,It glows through the dark, like a clear guiding light,And I know someday you'll see it, too.So hasten back, little one, or I will soon be gone,No more to see your dear face,But I know that I'll feel your tears fall one by one,On the flowers o'er my resting place.”