“The pain would not leave him. It came to him like the tide that hits the sea.”

“I found a tiny starfishIn a tide pool by the sand.I found a tiny starfishAnd I put him in my hand.An itty-bitty starfishNo bigger than my thumb,A wet and golden starfishBelonging to no one.I thought that I would take himFrom the tidepool by the sea,And bring him home to give youA loving gift from me.But as I held my starfish,His skin began to dry.Without his special seaside home,My gift for you would die.I found a tiny starfishIn a tide pool by the sea.I hope whoever finds him nextWill leave him there, like me!And the gift I've saved for you?The best that I can give:I found a tiny starfish,And for you, I let him live.”

“She looked at him then, but his image blurred behind tears that swelled into her eyes. She must leave. She must leave this room, because she wanted to hit him, as she had sworn she never would do. She wanted to cause him pain for taking a place in her heart that she wouldn't have given him if she'd known the truth. "You lied to me," she said.She turned and ran from the room.”

“A slightly crazed expression came into her eyes. She hit him again, harder.”

“Adrift and unmoored, she had tried again and again to throw him a rope to save him from the raging waters. And now he no longer felt like a drowning man at sea. Nora... the siren and the goddess, the ship and the wine-dark sea. She would either save him or end him.”

“Yet in the blood of man there is a tide, an old sea-current rather, that is somehow akin to the twilight, which brings him rumours of beauty from however far away, as driftwood is found at sea from islands not yet discovered: and this spring-tide or current that visits the blood of man comes from the fabulous quarter of his lineage, from the legendary, the old; it takes him out to the woodlands, out to the hills; he listens to ancient song.”