“Cassandra always hid when she read, though she never quite knew why. It was as if she couldn't shake the guilty suspicion that she was being lazy, that surrendering herself so completely to something so enjoyable must surely be wrong. But surrender she did. Let herself drop through the rabbit hole and into a tale of magic and mystery ...”

“Cassandra's grandmother smiled then, only it wasn't a happy smile. Cassandra thought she knew how it felt to smile like that. She often did so herself when her mother promised her something she really wanted but knew might not happen.”

“-why had she found the story so absorbing? Of course it was quite possible she hadn't. Maybe she merely preferred a novel--any novel--to reading a newspaper or chatting with the girls she worked with all day. And maybe she always read like that--with an air of having surrendered totally to a spell.”

“They knew each other. He knew her and so himself, for in truth he had never known himself. And she knew him and so herself, for although she had always known herself she had never been able to recognize it until now.”

“So she forgave him. And instead she berated herself for her suspicion, for her snooping. For the things she promised herself she wouldn't do, the feelings she wouldn't have.”

“For a moment something struggles inside her. Then her mind empties and she surrenders. Fighting fate is too difficult. She must save herself to fight whatever fate throws up.”