“Everything is really something else in disguise. Of course she was no exception, she reminded herself. Everybody would assume that she was there as the Childersins’ novelty pet, or as a Perfume-detector. Nobody would guess that she was there to look for the person who had stolen her history.”

“When I looked at her, she appeared to be a different person from the one I'd known... She had rewritten everything, our history together, our friendship. Now I was the girl who'd stolen Andres; the girl who'd lied to her about who I was. Therefore, she owned me nothing.”

“She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things.”

“Sarah wondered what they—the ‘they’ who had taken her child; the ‘they’ or the ‘him’ or the ‘her’—were feeding him.Sometimes a fear dug at her until she acknowledged it: maybe they weren’t feeding him at all.Who would do that? Who would willingly starve a child? Who would hurt her baby? Who would take her baby? Who was this person and why were they allowed to exist?And what would I do to that person if I got the chance?There were days when she lay on the bed and concocted scenarios in her head. She would see herself finding Lockie. She was never really sure of the place. It would be a dark room in a dark house but the location wasn’t important. She would see herself rescuing her child, folding him in her arms and saying his name. Then she would see the person who had taken him.There was never a face, just a body with a blank head, but Sarah would see herself grow until she towered over the person and then she would hit and hit and hit until there was nothing left and all the time she would be screaming, ‘How dare you take my child? How dare you take him?’She had to find him. The desperate need to find him swirled around her body with everything she did. It ate into her soul and sometimes she had to hold on to the kitchen counter to stop herself running out into the road and screaming his name. She wanted to be looking for him all the time. She wanted to leave Sammy and Doug and just keep going until she got to the city and then she wanted to knock on every door across the whole of Sydney until she found her son. But maybe he wasn’t even in Sydney anymore. Maybe he wasn’t even in Australia. Where are you, Lockie? Where are you, where are you, where are you?”

“She remembered that once, when she was a little girl, she had seen a pretty young woman with golden hair down to her knees in a long flowered dress, and had said to her, without thinking, "Are you a princess?" The girl had laughed very kindly at her and asked her what her name was. Blanche remembered going away from her, led by her mother's hand, thinking to herself that the girl really was a princess, but in disguise. And she had resolved that someday, she would dress as though she were a princess in disguise.”

“She was sitting up now. My arm was around her and she was leaning back against me, and we were quite calm. She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else's eyes in the world would have stopped looking. She looked as though there were nothing on earth she would not look at like that, and really she was afraid of so many things,”