“She'd opened the front cover and fallen inside the wonderful, frightening, magical illustrations. She'd wondered what it must feel like to escape the rigid boundaries of words and speak instead with such a fluid language.”

“Was that what Nell had done, too? Forsaken the life and the family she'd been given, to focus instead on the one she'd been without.”

“Ever since Eliza had discovered the book of fairy tales . . . had disappeared inside its faded pages, she'd understood the power of stories. Their magical ability to refill the wounded part of people.”

“The event itself played over in her mind, and the role she'd taken in the police investigation, the things she'd told them - worse, the thing she hadn't - made the panic so bad sometimes that she could hardly breathe. No matter where she went at Greenacres - inside the house or out in the garden - she felt trapped by what she'd seen and done. The memories where everywhere, they were inescapable; made worse because the event that caused them was utterly inexplicable.”

“There was a lid for each pot, she'd told me often and soberly, and she thanked God she'd found her lid in my grandfather.”

“She'd slept terribly the night before. The room, the bed, were both comfortable enough, but she'd been plagued with strange dreams, the sort that lingered upon waking but slithered away from memory as she tried to grasp them. Only the tendrils of discomfort remained.”

“The house, she'd explained to them many times, had spoken to her; she'd listened, and it turned out they'd understood one another very well indeed. Greenacres was an imperious old lady, a little worn, to be sure, cranky in her own way-but who wouldn't be?”