“Also I wonder how Bangley is built inside and everyone like him. He is at home with his solitude as the note reverberating inside a bell. Prefers it. Will protect it to the death. Lives for protecting it the way a peregrine lives for killing other birds midflight. Does not want to communicate what the death and the beauty do to each other inside him.”

“He is at home with his solitude as the note reverberating inside a bell.”

“Life and death lived inside each other. That's what occured to me. Death was inside all of us, waiting for warmer nights, a compromised system, a beetle, as in the now dying black timber on the mountains.”

“I acted tough, but inside I wasn’t. I felt like a melty Rolo center, real mushy. The truth was that if White Bird didn’t want to see me that would hurt way too bad. Seeing his eyes filled with anger or hate or indifference would kill me. I figured leaving the next step to him was the only way to protect my heart.”

“We look into each other's eyes as we shake. His are still full of death and horror, but in them I see my face reflected, and inside my tiny eyes inside his, I think I see some hope.”

“At the exit, they sell home-made soap with the evil eye attached, to protect yourself from people who'd wish you ill. I buy one, wondering, How do you hang it inside yourself?”