“A closet isn't scary in the daytime, Maeve. It holds clothes, not monsters. Whatever is scaring you, bring it into the light. Its strength will fade.”

“Whatever is scaring you, bring it into the light. It's strength will fade”

“We did musical chairs to sit with our partner. Glasses were refilled and heads bent in pairs. Looking over the table, I was suffused with affection for my friends. If you could bottle this warm feeling and turn it into words, I thought, that would be the perfect toast.”

“I was a girl sitting in the sun, enjoying a pepper.”

“Now I think of the starling flocks that move across the stripped winter landscape at home; how you'll hear and look up to this great rush of birds, lifting and diving and turning. I think of the ravens, afloat on the air streams. Of the crows, going home at the fade of light, hundreds on hundreds, flowing and flowing, the winter sky filled with their tide.Dark birds, ruffianly dark birds, stronger than birds of light and better survivors. They are the undervoice, scavenging life, living off gleanings. Uncivilised. Shameless. Outside the law. They allow the return of the soul.”

“I see you, Ben. I always have. You're in my pack."He pulled away."What if being packmates isn't enough for me?”

“I hated myself for needing him at such times, for craving his strength whenever I felt upset.”