“She finds tales everywhere, in grains of sand she picks up from the garden, in puffs of smoke that drift out from the chimneys of the village, in fragments of smooth timber or glass in the jetsam. She will ask them, "Where did you come from? How did you get here?" And they will answer her in voices very like her own, but with new lilts and squeaks and splashes in them that show they are their own.”

“Time’s Flying,” said Dad. He Smiled. He pointed to the air. “There it is, flying past! Catch it!” And he jumped, and caught Time in his hands, and showed it to Lizzie. She took it from him, and threw it up again.“There it goes,” she called. “Bye-bye. Bye-bye, Time!”

“She points at my chest.“And much more interestingly, what’s that?”“Blood,” I say.She gets her camera out.”

“...maybe one day we all had wings and one day we'll all have wings again." "D'you think the baby had wings?""Oh, I'm sure that one had wings. Just got to take one look at her. Sometimes I think she's never quite left Heaven and never quite made it all the way here to Earth."She smiled, but there were tears in her eyes. "Maybe that's why she has such trouble staying here," she said.”

“I said, 'Do you know what shoulder blades are for?'She giggled.'Do you not even know that?' she said.'Do you?''It's a proven fact, common knowledge. They're where your wings were, and where they'll grow again.”

“When you grow up", I said, "do you ever stop feeling little and weak?""No," she says. "There's always a little frail and tiny thing inside, no matter how grown-up you are.”

“Well, well,” she murmurs as I back away.She makes a rectangle with her index fingers and thumbs and looks at my skin through it.“You’re right,” she says. “The boy’s a living work of art.”