“And now, these books. This. He touched PHYSIOGNOMONIE. The secrets of the individual's character as found on his face. Were Jim and Will, then, featured all angelic, pure, half-innocent, peering up through the sidewalk at marching terror? Did the boys represent the ideal for your Woman, Man, or Child of Excellent Bearing, Color, Balance, and Summer Disposition?Converserly...Charles Halloway turned a page...did the scurrying freaks, the Illustrated Marvel, bear the foreheads of the Irascible, the Cruel, the Covetous, the mouths of the Lewd and Untruthful? the teeth of the Crafty, the Unstable, the Audacious, the Vainglorious, and your Marvelous Beast?No. The book slipped shut. If faces were judged, the freaks were no worse than many he'd been slipping from the liberty late nights in his long career.There was only one thing sure.Two lines of Shakespeare said it. He should write them in the middle of the clock of books, to fix the heart of his apprehension:By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes.So vague yet so immense.He did not want to live with it.Yet he knew that, during this night, unless he lived with it very well, he might have to live with it for all the rest of his life.At the window he looked out and thought Jim, Will, are you coming? will you get here?Waiting, his flesh took paleness from his bones.”

“Uriah looked better than he did an hour ago--he washed the blood from his mouth, and some of the color returned to his face. I'm struck, suddenly, by how handsome he is-- all his features are proportionate, his eyes dark and lively, his skin bronze-brown. And he has probably always been handsome. Only boys who have been handsome from a young age have that arrogance in their smile. Not like Tobias, who is almost shy when he smiles like he is surprised you bothered to look at him from the first place.”

“Why did you lift your top the other night in my office? Why did you flash your breasts at me like that?” he asked, his voice very low, his grey eyes intent on her.“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Liar,” he said, and then he closed the distance between them and his hands were cupping her face and his mouth was lowering toward hers and her heart was beating so hard and fast it was a wonder it didn’t explode.”

“The voice came from the night all around him, in his head and out of it."What do you want?' it repeated.He wondered if he dared to turn and look, realised he did not.'Well? You come here every night, in a place where the living are not welcome. I have seen you.Why?''I wanted to meet you,' he said, without looking around. 'I want to live for ever.' His voice crackedas he said it.He had stepped over the precipice. There was no going back. In his imagination, he could alreadyfeel the prick of needle-sharp fangs in his neck, a sharp prelude to eternal life.The sound began. It was low and sad, like the rushing of an underground river. It took him severallong seconds to recognise it as laughter.'This is not life,' said the voice.It said nothing more, and after a while the young man knew he was alone in the graveyard.”

“Sometimes during the night, your father awakened. He rose from his bed, staggered across the room, and found the strength to raise the window sash. He called your mother's name with what little voice he had, and he called yours, too, and your brother, Joe. And he called for Mickey. At that moment, it seemed, his heart was spilling out, all the guilt and regret. Perhaps he felt the light of death approaching. Perhaps he only knew you were all out there somewhere, in the streets beneath his window. He bent over the ledge. The night was chilly. The wind and damp, in his state, were too much. He was dead before dawn.”

“Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive, and more aware of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone...or at least, he would be gone from it. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat were completely dry, but so were his eyes.”