Yes, but – ” I began. “So” – he said authoritatively, holding up a finger to hush me – “if you have been deprived of your earlier life, perhaps it is only that God has seen fit to bless you with another, that may be richer and fuller.
Owls are keepers of the dead, but not just the dead. They’re messengers between worlds.
A party at which the guests are all of the beautiful persuasion tends to be dull indeed, as they have no conversation that does not pertain to themselves. A successful gathering requires a number of the ill-favored but clever. The beautiful are but ornaments – desirable, but dispensable.
Nothing is lost... only changed.
Even when I’ve just left ye, I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch ye again.
You are alive. You are whole. All is well.
Sometimes it would be months – even a year or more – between episodes, and we would live in peace together. But then it would happen again; the silent phone calls, the too-excused absences, the late nights. Never anything so overt as another woman’s perfume, or lipstick on his collar – he had discretion. But I always felt the ghost of the other woman, whoever she was; some faceless, indistinguishable She. I.
I was convinced by now that his feelings for Laoghaire were only those of a chivalrous friendship, but I didn’t know what he might do if he knew that his uncle had seduced the girl and got her with child.
Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart,” I said cheerily, seizing the opening. “The more you eat, the more you fart. The more you fart, the better you feel – so let’s have beans for every meal!
Hello,” I said softly, one hand over the butterfly wings that beat inside me.
I’ve spent more than twenty years looking for answers, Roger, and I can tell you only one thing: There aren’t any answers, only choices. I’ve made a number of them myself, and no one can tell me whether they were right or wrong.
Well, that’s the hell of it, isn’t it?” she said, turning away. “You never know, but you have to act anyway, don’t you?
Aye, beg me for mercy, Sassenach. Ye shallna have it, though; not yet.
There aren’t many people like that – who will tell you the truth about themselves and anything else right out. I’ve only met three people like that, I think – four now,” she said, her smile widening to warm him. “There was.
An unaccustomed weed of jealousy sprang up in Jamie’s heart, stinging like nettles. He stamped firmly on it; he was fortunate indeed to know that his son enjoyed a loving relationship with his stepfather. There, that was the weed stamped out. The stamping, though, seemed to have left a small bruised spot on his heart; he could feel it when he breathed.
It’s like a little fortress, where the most private part of you lives – maybe it’s your soul, maybe just that bit that makes you yourself and not anyone else.
The position of sun and moon on the Feast of Beltane” is one, with a list if two hundred paired figures laid out beneath. Similar tables existed for Hogmanay and Midsummer’s Day, and Samhainn, the Feast of All Hallows. The ancient feasts of fire and sun, and Beltane’s sun would rise tomorrow.
What would I do if he forbade me to go? Alternatives raced through my mind, everything from planting the ivory letter-opener between his ribs to burning down the house with him in it. The only idea I rejected absolutely was that of giving in.
But for the hours of the night, I was helpless; powerless to move as a dragonfly in amber.
Pointless to spend too much time in planning, anyway, given the propensity of life to make sudden left-hand turns without warning.