“I took the brooch because I was too overcome with irresistible temptation. I was imagining I was Lady Cordelia Fitzgerald, and I just had to wear the brooch over the footbridge of the Lake of Shining Waters, with the wind blowing my auburn hair over to Camelot. I thought I could put it back before you came home, but as I leaned over to look at my reflection in the lake, it slipped from my fingers and sank beneath the rippling waves. That's the best I can do at confessing. Now may I go to the picnic?”

“and suddenly I am washed over by a wave of happiness for it, for my little story, because it is a place, a home even, and I can go back to it from wherever I am”

“Oh, here we are at the bridge. I'm going to shut my eyes tight. I’m always afraid going over bridges. I can't help imagining that perhaps, just as we get to the middle, they'll crumple up like a jackknife and nip us. So I shut my eyes. But I always have to open them for all when I think we're getting near the middle. Because, you see, if the bridge did crumple up I'd want to see it crumple. What a jolly rumble it makes! I always like the rumble part of it. Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world? There, we're over. Now I'll look back. Good night, dear Lake of Shining Waters. I always say good night to the things I love, just as I would to people. I think they like it. That water looks as if it was smiling at me.”

“And I saw my reflection in a lake and I waited for it to freeze a little bit so I could break it with my boot.”

“It’s…The only way I can get on with my life is by forgetting what went on before. Dave used to tell me that I didn’t have control over what the bastard of my father did to me, and that he’d been punished for it, and I might as well concentrate on the rest of my life, because over that…I had some control and I could decide what to do. I could change it over; I could become anything I wanted if I just tried hard enough.”

“That execution will take place here." She runs her fingertips over the table beneath her. "On this table. I thought it would be interesting to show you.""I knew what would happen when I came here," I say. "It's just a table. And I'd like to go back to my room now.”