Gosh, it's easy!' he marveled, open-mouthed. 'I never knew before how easy it is to kill anyone! Twenty years to grow 'em, and all it takes is one little push!' He was suddenly drunk with some new kind of power, undiscovered until this minute. The po...
Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody: Potter, you're underage. Which means you still have the trace on you. Harry Potter: What's the trace? Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody: If you sneeze, the Ministry will know who wipes your nose. Point is we'll have to use those means ...
Aegean Islands 1940-41 Where white stares, smokes or breaks, Thread white, white of plaster and of foam, Where sea like a wall falls; Ribbed, lionish coast, The stony islands which blow into my mind More often than I imagine my grassy home; To sun on...
The door suddenly opened. A leggy young brunette took two steps into the office and stopped short. Her brown eyes widened, she hastily excused herself and turned to leave. Pérez’s jaw dropped as he looked up at her high heels and ankles. He crawle...
Well,” said a very amused voice. “This is unexpected.” Tessa sat bolt upright, pulling the heavy coverlet around her. Beside her, Will stirred, propping himself up on his elbows, eyelids fluttering open slowly. “What—” The room was filled...
Will!” He turned at the familiar voice and saw Tessa. There was a small path cut along the side of the hill, lined with unfamiliar white flowers, and she was walking up it, toward him. Her long brown hair blew in the wind — she had taken off her ...
I was six years old when my mother died. For a long time afterward, the sweet and earthy magnolia scent of her would permeate my dreams. No matter what I was dreaming about, good or frightening, my mother's smell would waft through my nighttime adven...
Do you hear that?” he says. “You mean the crashing thunder and pounding rain?” He shakes his head. I listen closely, trying to filter o ut the sounds of the storm. Then I hear it. A whooshing sound with a fast buzzing underne ath it. It’s so,...
But...' Horace looked from one familiar face to another. 'How did you come to..?' Before he could finish the question, Will interupted, thinking to clarify matters but only making them more puzzling... 'We were all in Toscana for the treaty signing,'...
I hated being around people, couldn’t pay attention to what anyone was saying, couldn’t talk to clients, couldn’t tag my pieces, couldn’t ride the subway, human activity seemed pointless, incomprehensible, some blackly swarming ant hill in th...
And, I think, this greening does thaw at the edges, at least, of my own cold season. Joy sneaks in: listening to music, riding my bicycle, I catch myself feeling, in a way that’s as old as I am but suddenly seems unfamiliar, light. I have felt so h...
To be informed is to know simply that something is the case. To be enlightened is to know, in addition, what it is all about: why it is the case, what its connections are with other facts, in what respects it is the same, in what respects it is diffe...
One example is the familiar parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), which in some ways might be better called the parable of the elder brother. For the point of the parable as a whole - a point frequently overlooked by Christian interpreters, in...
But old Christmas smiled as he laid this cruel-seeming spell on the out-door world, for he meant to light up the home with new brightness, to deepen all the richness of in-door colour, and give a keener edge of delight to the warm fragrance of food: ...
Sooo, I'm tired of people thinking I'm a freak. I know you can't relate to that but -" "Get over it already, will ya?" Candace stood. "You're not Smellody anymore. You're pretty. You can get hot guys now. Tanned ones with good vision. Not geeky hose ...
Chapter 8 - The Rescue Team: "Timbroke Hall was completely dark. A creaking shutter opened and closed to the rhythm of a howling, north wind. It bore a cold reminder of the harsh winter coming quickly this year. The children crept up the rock stairs ...
Do you fancy catching a movie at the Sturbridge Theater tonight? That new Robert Pattinson movie is showing,” I ask her, the phone cradled against my chest. “Definitely sign me up for that!” Ari replies, chuckling as I mock scowl. Her easy laug...
Women can go mad with insomnia. The sleep-deprived roam houses that have lost their familiarity. With tea mugs in hand, we wander rooms, looking on shelves for something we will recognize: a book title, a photograph, the teak-carved bird -- a souveni...
Each big idea like that is an operating system upgrade," she says, smiling. Comfortable territory. "Writers are responsible for some of it. They say Shakespeare invented the internal monologue." Oh, I am very familiar with the internal monologue. "Bu...
...Des felt a familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach. All soldiers felt the same thing going into battle, whether they admitted it or not: fear. Fear of failure, fear of dying, fear of watching their friends die, fear of being wounded and living ...
Miaow Consider me. I sit here like Tiberius, inscrutable and grand. I will let "I dare not" wait upon "I would" and bear the twangling of your small guitar because you are my owl and foster me with milk. Why wet my paw? Just keep me in a bag and no o...