“We had this big grill at his house, and I remember, one night he said, 'Sam, tonight you're feeding us,' He showed me how to push on the middle of the steaks to see how done they were, and how to sear them fast on each side to keep the juices in." "And they were awesome, weren't they?" "I burned the hell out of them," I said, matter-of-fact. "I'd compare them to charcoal, but charcoal is still sort of edible.”

“For a second, he was still, blinking. Then he shook off all the blankets and coats so that his arms were free and he wrapped them around me as tightly as he could. I felt him shuddering, shuddering against me as he buried his face in my hair. I said, uselessly, "Sam, don't go." Sam cupped my face in his hands and looked me in the eyes. His eyes were yellow, sad, wolf, mine. "These stay the same. Remember that when you look at me. Remember it's me. Please."" — Grace and Sam (Shiver)”

“While I pressed the tissue to my face, Beck said, “Can I tell you something? There are a lot of empty boxes in your head, Sam.”I looked at him, quizzical. Again, it was a strange enough concept to hold my attention.“There are a lot of empty boxes in there, and you can put things in them.” Beck handed me another tissue for the other side of my face.My trust of Beck at that point was not yet complete; I remember thinking that he was making a very bad joke that I wasn’t getting. My voice sounded wary, even to me. “What kinds of things?”“Sad things,” Beck said. “Do you have a lot of sad things in your head?”“No,” I said.Beck sucked in his lower lip and released it slowly. “Well, I do.”This was shocking. I didn’t ask a question, but I tilted toward him.“And these things would make me cry,” Beck continued. “They used to make me cry all day long.”I remembered thinking this was probably a lie. I could not imagine Beck crying. He was a rock. Even then, his fingers braced against the floor, he looked poised, sure, immutable.“You don’t believe me? Ask Ulrik. He had to deal with it,” Beck said. “And so you know what I did with those sad things? I put them in boxes. I put the sad things in the boxes in my head, and I closed them up and I put tape on them and I stacked them up in the corner and threw a blanket over them.”“Brain tape?” I suggested, with a little smirk. I was eight, after all.Beck smiled, a weird private smile that, at the time, I didn’t understand. Now I knew it was relief at eliciting a joke from me, no matter how pitiful the joke was. “Yes, brain tape. And a brain blanket over the top. Now I don’t have to look at those sad things anymore. I could open those boxes sometime, I guess, if I wanted to, but mostly I just leave them sealed up.”“How did you use the brain tape?”“You have to imagine it. Imagine putting those sad things in the boxes and imagine taping it up with the brain tape. And imagine pushing them into the side of your brain, where you won’t trip over them when you’re thinking normally, and then toss a blanket over the top. Do you have sad things, Sam?”I could see the dusty corner of my brain where the boxes sat. They were all wardrobe boxes, because those were the most interesting sort of boxes — tall enough to make houses with — and there were rolls and rolls of brain tape stacked on top. There were razors lying beside them, waiting to cut the boxes and me back open.“Mom,” I whispered.I wasn’t looking at Beck, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him swallow.“What else?” he asked, barely loud enough for me to hear. “The water,” I said. I closed my eyes. I could see it, right there, and I had to force out the next word. “My …” My fingers were on my scars.Beck reached out a hand toward my shoulder, hesitant. When I didn’t move away, he put an arm around my back and I leaned against his chest, feeling small and eight and broken.“Me,” I said.”

“I smiled sweetly at his embarressment, beginning to walk again, kicking up golden leaves. I heard him scuffling leaves behind me. "And what was the point of this again?" Forget it!" Sam said. "Do you you like this place or not?"I stoped in my tracks, spinning to face him. "Hey." I pointed at him; he raised his eyebrows and stopped in his tracks. "You didn't think Jack would be here at all, did you?"His thick black eyebrows went up even farther. Did you evan intend to look for him at all?"He held his hands up as if a surrender. "What do you want me to say?"You were trying to see if I would reconize it, wern't you?" I took anouther step, colsing the distance between us. I could feel the heat of his body, even without touching him, in the increasing cold of the day. "YOU told me about this wood somehow. How did you show it to me?"I keep trying to tell you. You wont listen. Because you're stubbon. It's how we speek- it's the only words we have. Just pictures. Just simple little picters. You HAVE changed Grace. Just not your skin. I want you to believe me." His hands were still raise, but he was starting to grin at me in the failing light.So you brought me here to see this." I stepped forward again, and he stepped back.Do you like it?"Under false pretence." Anouther step forward; anouther back. The grine widenedSo do you like it?"When you knew we wouldn't come across anybody else."His teeth flashed in his grin. "Do you like it?"I punched my hands into his chest. "You know I love it. You knew I would." I went to punch him, and he grabed my wrists. For a moment we stood there like that, him looking down at me with a grin half-caught on his face, and me lookingup at him: Still Life with Boy and Girl. It would've been the perfect moment to kiss me, but he didn't. He just looked at me and looked at me, and by the time I relizeed I could just as easily kiss him, I noticed that his grin was slipping away. Sam slowly lowered my wrists and relesed them. "I'm glad." he said very quietly.My arms still hung by my sides, right where Sam had put them. I frowned at him. "You were supposed to kiss me."I thought about it."I just kept looking at the soft, sad shape of his lips, looking just like his voice sounded. I was probably staring, but I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted him to kiss me and how stupide it was to want it so badly. "Why don't you?" He leaned over and gave mr the lightest of kisses. His lips, cool and dry, ever so polite and incredibly maddening. "I have to get inside soon," he whispered "It's getting cold”

“Do you feel better?” I asked Sam as he opened the door to the Volkswagen for me.“Yes,” he said. He was still a terrible liar.“Good,” I said. I was still a fantastic one.”

“After you were bitten, I knew what would happen. I waited for you to change, every night, so I could bring you back and keep you from getting hurt." A chilly gust of wind lifter his hair and sent a shower of golden leaves glimmering down around him. He spred out his arms, letting them fall into his hands. He looked like a dark angel in an eternal autumn wood. "Did you know you get one happy day for everyone you catch?"I didn't know what he meant, even after he opened his fist to show me the quivering leaves crumpled in his palm.One happy day for every falling leaf you catch." Sam's voice was low.I watched the egdes of the leaves slowly unfold, fluttering in the breeze."How long did you wait?"It would have been romantic if hr'd had the courage to look into my face to say it, but instead, he dropped his eyes to the ground and scuffed his boots in the leaves- countless possibilities for happy days- on the ground. "I haven't stopped."And I should've said something romantic too, but i didn't have the courage, either. So instead, I watched the shy way he was chewing his lip and studying the leaves, and said, "That must've been very borring.”

“I remembered standing in the middle of the street in front of The Crooked Bookshelf, filled with the certainty of a future. I had heard the wolves howling behind the house and remembered how glad I had been to be human.”