Blackmoore

I felt like a bird who had wandered into some strange flock, surrounded by a different species.

Instead, he said, in a careful voice, “So you are this bird. In this cage.”
I nodded.
“And you see only one option for yourself: to beat yourself against the bars until you are exhausted and give up all your dreams.”

“I feel caged. Always. I feel like I am this bird, trapped and stifled and caged, and I keep looking for a way to escape, but I am barred at every turn.”

“Your eyebrows,” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Perhaps it is their curve. They look like the wing of a bird in flight.”

“I can never look at a bird without thinking of you,” he said. “I wonder what you will do with your wings once you have found them."

...the bird made no noise. I held my breath as I watched it and felt a connection with this dark, wild bird that I could not explain.

...the house looked to me like a hulking bird of prey, with wings unfolded, ready to drop from the precipice into the empty sky.

“Mama! Kitty is being unkind again!”
“Kate,” I reminded her.

“Kate,” I whispered. “My name is Kate.”

“Kate,” I said, my own anger flaring. “My name is Kate.

“My name,” I said in a low voice, “is not Kitty. It is Kate!” I marched past her.

At every possibility I faced another cage. I could be caged by my own betrayal of my feelings, or I could be caged by an unwanted marriage, or I could be caged by going nowhere and realizing none of my dreams.

I stood, my music gripped to my chest, my face hot. “I do not think my goals, although they may be different from yours, can qualify as a waste—”
“Your goals! Oh, my, that is rich.” She paced in front of me, her shoes clicking hard with every step, as if she would stamp out my will and my voice too if she could. “What exactly are your goals?”
“You know my goals,” I muttered.
She stopped in front of me, her hands on her hips. “What goals? To disappoint? To waste precious resources? Is this why I have invested in you? To gain nothing in return but a silly girl who cares only for Blackmoore and Mozart?”

"Love is like a disease. It ravages. It maims. It destroys everything in its wake. I am wise to shun the idea of it, just as wise as if I were to avoid a plague. It is a weakness of the human heart to imagine that something that starts with passion can last. Passion is a fire that burns and leaves nothing standing in its wake. It is illogical and unreasonable. Love is the downfall of men and the entrapment of women. It is a cage that once one enters, one can never escape."

“It sounds presumptuous.”
“Hmm.” Henry nodded. “Presumptuous.”
“Yes! As if she has something classical about her. As if she could be the star in a Shakespearean tragedy. It is entirely too presumptuous. Did her parents not think how they were setting her up for disappointment? For that is what I felt as soon as I met her—disappointment that she was so very bland.”

She would be proper and lovely and thoughtful and generous and absolutely predictable in every way. For all of these reasons, I heartily disliked her.

I wanted Miss St.Claire to know that she might have visited here first, but my heart had belonged here longer than hers. I was ten when Henry and she had met for the first time. I knew him long before she did, and better, too. I had loved Blackmoore long before she had even heard of it.