The psychologist Jerome Kagan has argued that parenting has a threshold function: up until that threshold is crossed, the effects of a child's very early experience even out in the end. But parenting that crosses the threshold—abuse, stress, utter ...
Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I'v...
As the carriage whipped forward, they passed the alley she had spent so many days staring at—it was there, and then gone as they careened around a corner, nearly knocking over a costermonger pushing a donkey cart piled high with new potatoes. Tessa...
The door buzzer sounded again. The two boys exchanged a single look before both bolting down the narrow hallway to the door. Jordan got there first. He grabbed for the coatrack that stood by the door, ripped the coats off it, and flung the door wide,...
Stop it." Isabelle tapped a booted foot in the shallow water at the lake's edge. "Both of you. In fact, all three of you. If we don't stick together in the Seelie Court, we're dead." "But I haven't-," Clary started. "Maybe you haven't, but the way yo...
She closed her eyes and jumped. For a moment she felt herself hang suspended, free of everything. Then gravity took over, and she plunged toward the floor. Instinctively she pulled her arms and legs in, keeping her eyes squeezed shut. The cord pulled...
You're a Shadowhunter," he said. "You know how to deal with injuries." He slid his stele across the table toward her. "Use it." "No," Clary said, and pushed the stele back across the table at him. Jace slammed his hand down on the stele. "Clary—" "...
Will tossed the bloody cloth aside. “And you wonder why we aren’t friends.” “I just wondered,” Gabriel said, in more subdued voice, “if perhaps you have ever had enough.” “Enough of what?” “Enough of behaving as you do.” Will cr...
A pair of werewolves occupied another booth. They were eating raw shanks of lamb and arguing about who would win in a fight: Dumbledore from Harry Potter books or Magnus Bane. "Dumbledore would totally win," said the first one. "He has the badass Kil...
Jace perched on the windowsill and looked down at him. "You really don't get this bodyguard thing, do you?" "I didn't even think you liked me all that much," said Simon. "Is this one of those keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer things?" "...
Green-eyed monsters,” said Magnus, and grinned. He deposited Chairman Meow on the ground, and the cat moved over to Alec, and rubbed against his leg. “The Chairman likes you.” “Is that good?” “I never date anyone my cat doesn’t like,”...
Thank you,” Simon said. “It’s a joke, Isabelle. He’s the Count. He likes counting. You know. ‘What did the Count eat today, children? One chocolate chip cookie, two chocolate chip cookies, three chocolate chip cookies . . .’” There was ...
What's this?" "That's a mango." Simon stared at Jace. Sometimes it really is like Shadowhunters were from an alien planet. "I don't think I've seen one of those that wasn't already cut up," Jace mused. "I like mangoes." Simon grabbed the mango and to...
He turned to Matt and gave a huge smile, one hand on her withers. James reached out and pulled Matt to him, and they stood there in a little circle. It felt disconcertingly like… a family reunion. Matt turned away from James‟s bright smile and lo...
A child is asleep. Her private life unwinds inside skin and skull; only as she sheds childhood, first one decade and then another, can she locate the actual, historical stream, see the setting of her dreaming private life—the nation, the city, the ...
He had the tool to break down the walls that imprisoned his people. He had the tool to rip away the veil to the Holy of Holies so that his flock could come before the Lord and be cleansed, made whole, transformed, and have a personal, loving relation...
He remembered Alejandra and the sadness he'd first seen in the slope of her shoulders which he'd presumed to understand and of which he knew nothing and he felt a loneliness he'd not known since he was a child and he felt wholly alien to the world al...
I always thought they were fabulous monsters!" said the Unicorn. "Is it alive?" "It can talk," said Haigha, solemnly. The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said, "Talk, child." Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: "...
Our holiday food splurge was a small crate of tangerines, which we found ridiculously thrilling after an eight-month abstinence from citrus.... Lily hugged each one to her chest before undressing it as gently as a doll. Watching her do that as she sa...
Lowering my chin, I sighed. What my Seth wanted, I wanted, but... daimons? I rubbed my hands on my bent knees and sighed again - louder, like a petulant child. Aiden's back twisted as he turned his head. "What, Alex?" "Nothing," I mumbled. "There's s...
When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: s...
