“As I walked briskly out the road the wind knifed at my face, but this sun caressed the back of my neck.”

“I lifted my face to the sun and let its warmth and light caress me with its favor.”

“The mage pulled my knife out of his side and looked at it. “Nice knife.” The voice was deep but female.I threw my second knife. The blade bit into the mage’s chest. Shit. Missed the neck. “Here, have another one.”

“If you come, you better come in force because I will kill every single one of you. My hand won't shake, my aim won't falter. My face will be the last thing you'll see before you die." I jammed my knife into the table and walked out.”

“I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chains -I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar cane;I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.I will go out until the day, until the morning break -Out to the wind's untainted kiss, the water's clean caress;I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake.I will revisit my lost love and playmates masterless!”

“I won the argument against the knife that night, but barely. I had some other good ideas around that time--about how jumping off a building or blowing my brains out with a gun might stop the suffering. but something about spending a night with a knife in my hand did it.The next morning I called my friend Susan as the sun came up, begged her to help me. I don't think a woman in the whole history of my family had ever done that before, had ever sat in the middle of the road like that and said, in the middle of her life, "I cannot walk another step further--somebody has to help me.”