“Was it all in my head? A Lunar trick?”Her stomach twisted. “No.” She shook her head, fervently. How to explain that she hadn’t had the gift before? That she couldn’t have used it against him? “I would never lie—”The words faded. She had lied. Everything he knew about her had been a lie.“I’m so sorry,” she finished, the words falling lamely in the open air.Kai peeled his eyes away, finding some place of resignation off in the glistening garden. “You’re even more painful to look at than she is.”

“She wanted to have him hold her and tell her all the demons were pretend, that there was no monster in her closet, that everything would be okay. But that was a lie. The demon was in her head, telling her she was too fat. She had to get the demon out. But she couldn't do it by herself.”

“What a failure her life had been. Would she have lied to God if she’d had more faith, been more righteous? How could she possibly have a son at her age? And yet, if she had believed all along . . .”

“But for now, she would lie in her husband's arms, her eyes closed and her body still against his, thinking that if this was all she ever had, it would be enough.”

“He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t tell her how much she had come to mean to him. She could destroy him with her rejection. If she had feigned her feelings for him – if he’d bought into her lies and her quest for freedom…. He wasn’t sure what he would do. He could hurt her." Caleb.”

“She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. But looking at it she saw that it never was the flesh and blood figure of her dreams. Just something she grabbed up to drape her dreams over. In a way she turned her back upon the image where it lay and looked further. She had no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man, neither any glistening young fruit where the petals used to be. She found that she had a host of thoughts she had never expressed to him, and numerous emotions she had never let Jody know about. Things packed up and put away in parts of her heart where he could never find them. She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.”