“Normally death came at night, taking a person in their sleep, stopping their heart or tickling them awake, leading them to the bathroom with a splitting headache before pouncing and flooding their brain with blood. It waits in alleys and metro stops. After the sun goes down plugs are pulled by white-clad guardians and death is invited into an antiseptic room.But in the country death comes, uninvited, during the day. It takes fishermen in their longboats. It grabs children by the ankles as they swim. In winter it calls them down a slope too steep for their budding skills, and crosses their skies at the tips. It waits along the shore where snow met ice not long ago but now, unseen by sparkling eyes, a little water touches the shore, and the skater makes a circle slightly larger than intended. Death stands in the woods with a bow and arrow at dawn and dusk. And it tugs cars off the road in broad daylight, the tires spinning furiously on ice or snow, or bright autumn leaves. ”

“I know how precious life is. You had no right to take Renaud's and you have no right to take your own now. Not over this. Too much death. It needs to stop.”

“In winter the very ground seemed to reach up and grab the elderly, yanking them to earth as though hungry for them.”

“Instead he stood erect, the snow insinuating itself down his collar and up his sleeves, plastering against his face and into his unblinking eyes.”

“He walked over the arched stone bridge, enjoying the silence of the village. Snow did that. It laid down a simple, clean duvet that muffled all sound and kept everything beneath alive. Farmers and gardeners in Quebec wished for two things in winter: lots of snow and continuous cold. An early thaw was a disaster. It tricked the youngand vulnerable into exposing themselves, only to be nipped in the root. A killing frost.”

“There are people whose death leaves you with an ache of grief. A slight sting. And then there are people whose death stops time. Deaths that leave the sky murky all day long because even the sun is grieving. Deaths that shut down your muscles and stop the music. Deaths that turn every corner of your mind a shade of grey before they light up in a flame and shrivel away.”

“Peter swept aside Yogi Tea and Harmony Herbal Blend, though he hesitated a second over the chamomile. .... But no. Violent death demanded Earl Grey.”