“She has teeth like stars and hair like sheep fuzz”

“Creamy and leggy, with long azure hair and the eyes of a silent-movie star, she moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx.”

“Wherever she looked, she saw fires. They covered the earth like fallen stars, and like the stars there was no end to them.”

“The owner of the Post Office was called Maurice. A sixtyish-year-old with a large red nose that was pebble-dashed with broken capillaries, and a smooth bald head with a fuzz of grey hair around the side like the tide mark on a dirty bath. He had a gruff manner, distrusting eyes and a cough like kicked gravel.”

“Her hand reached up and took a strand of his hair between her fingers. “Simple as that.”She gently pulled on that curl and let it go. “It’s so springy.”They’d barely grazed at the truth, but I she was satisfied—and distracted. By his hair, of all things.“I feel like a sheep that has been overlooked during spring shearing,” he murmured.“Yes, adorably fluffy.”Another time he might have protested the use of that adjective. But now he was all too relieved. “Would you like me to pull my chair closer, so you may fondle my hair with greater ease?” he asked.She beamed at him. “Why, yes, I’d like exactly that.”

“It draws you in. You twist your mind into new shapes. You start to understand Caverna . . . and you fall in love with her. Imagine the most beautiful woman in the world, but with tunnels as her long, tangled, snake-like hair. Her skin is dappled in trap-lantern gold and velvety black, like a tropical frog. Her eyes are cavern lagoons, bottomless and full of hunger. When she smiles, she has diamonds and sapphires for teeth, thousands of them, needle-thin.""But that sounds like a monster!" "She is. Caverna is terrifying. This is love, not liking. You fear her, but she is all you can think about.”