“The kitten was six weeks old. It was enchanting, a delicate fairy-tale cat, whose Siamese genes showed in the shape of the face, ears, tail, and the subtle lines of its body. [...] She sat, a tiny thing, in the middle of a yellow carpet, surrounded by five worshipppers, not at all afraid of us. Then she stalked around that floor of the house, inspecting every inch of it, climbed up on to my bed, crept under the fold of a sheet, and was at home.”

“They were still all beautiful and there was still enchantment and wonder, but she had crossed a line and now the fairy tale was green with corruption and evil.”

“Rob opened the door, and a tiny kitten ran out. It stopped to sniff Rob‟s ankle and arched its back, spitting tiny kitty defiance at him. Rob scooped it up. The tiny black bundle barely filled his palm. Dark as ink, the only mark on it was a tiny white spot between its eyes. Rob looked up from the kitten to meet Jamie‟s wide-eyed attempt at innocence. "There was a cat in my closet.""I can explain," Jamie offered.Rob returned to the bed. He dropped the kitten in Jamie‟s lap, causing it to poke unfortunate things with tiny needle claws."Damn!" Jamie yelped, grabbing the kitten and putting a sheet between his delicate parts and danger. "I took out the trash yesterday, and there she was almost buried in a snow bank shivering.""It was ninety degrees yesterday, and there is no snow." Rob sat down on the edge of the bed. "Aren‟t you supposed to hate cats?"Jamie cuddled the tiny creature in his hands. It wrestled with his fingers. "That‟s dogs. I‟m not a dog, I‟m a wolf. There might not have been a snow bank, but it was dirty and hungry and very sad.”

“... even though two decades and several years had gone by since [she] first decided to be a fairy, even though Lizabeth Kane now stood five feet six inches tall in her stocking feet, even though she was thirty two years old - she still had aspirations of growing up to be a fairy.”

“She unwrapped the blanket when she came in my door. You were inside it. She set you down on the floor and you started ranging around, picking things up, pulling my cat's tail—you screamed like a banshee when the cat scratched you, so I asked your mother if you were part banshee. She didn't laugh.”

“It's a bummer in some ways, since she never surprises me by making up my sheets anymore, or leaving folded laundry or a new sundress on my bed like she did when I was in middle school. But at least I know she's not rooting through my drawers while I'm at school, looking for drugs or sex toys or whatever.”