“He pushed his mind throughand pulled his body after.”

“In an instant he saw the delusion of his five hundred years. He was not looking into a box; he was looking out of one. All these centuries his mind, his body, his world had been a box of horrors. He took one last breath, then pushed open the lid of his prison and escaped.”

“His mind remained freakishly pin-point sharp until his last days, but his body had shut-down a good six months before. He surprised his hospice doctor and nurses by clinging to life long after he should have expired. It was a fear of dying, driven by guilt over something he did early on. He was afraid of judgment day. His strict Catholic upbringing wreaked havoc in his brain and kept his will from preventing his body to die.”

“As he fell toward the highway, a horrible scenario flashed through his mind: his body smashing against an SUV's windshield, some annoyed commuter trying to push him off with the wipers. "Stupid 16-year-old kid falling from the sky! I'm late!”

“When they reached the creek where they’d gone two nights before, far enough from the house so that she could scream to the heavens as she came, he slid out of the saddle and pulled her into his arms, body to body, holding her tightly against him as he kissed her, open-mouthed and hungry. She wound her arms around him, pushed her leg between his, her tongue into his mouth and he was dizzy with wanting her.”

“Marco knows he does not have the time to push her away, so he pulls her close, burying his face in her hair, his bowler hat torn from his head by the wind...."Trust me," Celia whispers in his ear, and he stops fighting it, forgetting everything but her.”