From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

Is there any greater mystery than the separateness of each person?

Is there any greater mystery than the separateness of each person?

When I stop remembering, I'm not in the Mansion. I'm standing in the woods, breathing fast. The land is heavy with silence. The tree branches are reaching toward each other like fingers and through them the sky is the opposite of faded. It is such a deep shade of blue that it almost looks unreal, like a screen that could be split open. I don't remember leaving the Mansion and walking outside. I don't remember crossing the yard and moving past the halo of bare trees. The woods feel like shelter.

The ground is damp and the heels of my sneakers are sinking into it. I stand on a mass of tree roots, like a person seeking high ground. The woods smell faintly of smoke. I listen to the rushing sound of the creek. I wrap my arms around the trunk and think of Marcus and feel my heart begin to slow.

A bird with a yellow chest flies from one branch to another, on the run from something. The ferns have left little wet hand prints on my jeans.

Now it's like this: you look at yourself in the mirror and watch your reflection take off a mask. You look hard at all the wrongness in this new face, you look hard at the ways that wrongness has shaped it, and you have to decide if this new face is something you can live with.

If you decide no, you dissolve into yourself. If you decide yes, a small thing inside you is set free.