“Second daughter walks outside where everything smells like a ghost. She leaves without her red cloak, without her father's ax, without breadcrumbs for the path home. She has only her proud virginity that clangs like a bell, her will to escape like an egg slipping free and her curiosity, that strange puss, the part of her brain hat claws toward the dark. In the night, in the black fringe of the forest, she could be anyone. She could be the witch sipping boy-blood, the doctor scraping lichen for his collection, the girl who runs and runs and runs.”

“When she walked through the woods (infrequently now) she picked her way along the path, making way for the boy inside to run along before her. It could be hard to choose the time outside over the time within.”

“She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving.He took the bottle from her hand and opened it using only his thumb and index finger. Alice thought there was nothing special in the gesture, that she could have done it herself, like anyone else, if only her hands hadn't been so sweaty. And yet she found it strangely fascinating, like a small heroic feat performed specially for her.”

“…that would be too much like running away, and that, she would not do. She does not run—they cannot make her—she walks.”

“Without another word, he walked out. Gennie waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs before she pressed a hand to her stomach. The next time she saw a light in the dark, she told herself, she'd run like hell in the opposite direction.”

“Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her pack. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere.”