“Then she did see it there - just a face, peering through the curtains, hanging in midair like a mask. A head-scarf concealed the hair and the glassy eyes stared inhumanly, but it wasn’t a mask, it couldn’t be. The skin had been powdered dead-white and two hectic spots of rouge centered on the cheekbones. It wasn’t a mask. It was the face of a crazy old woman. Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher’s knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream.And her head.”

“Yet she felt an impostor, and already the mask had begun to bite into her face.”

“(All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadness)”

“It was for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face?”

“... keeping her wild-honey-and-chamomile-soaked hair from falling into her oatmeal-and-yogurt face mask”

“The patterns overhead shifted so that, had she an imagination prone to hysteria, she could easily convince herself something hid in the curtains above her head. She imagined a face in the shadows and folds of fabric, a face with sad, hollow eyes. The sliver of light shining through a crack in the window curtains disappeared. Shadows deepened and swirled and the face became even more uncannily real.”