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she must grow roots, she would rather be left to flourish wild instead of pruned, would rather stand alone, allowed to grow beneath the open sky. Better that than firewood, cut down just to burn in someone else’s hearth.
She is at odds with everything, she does not fit, an insult to her sex, a stubborn child in a woman’s form, her head bowed and arms wrapped tight around her drawing pad as if it were a door.
There is a rhythm to moving through the world alone. You discover what you can and cannot live without, the simple necessities and small joys that define a life. Not food, not shelter, not the basic things a body needs—those are, for her, a luxury—but the things that keep you sane. That bring you joy. That make life bearable.
But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad. What she needs are stories. Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.
But Addie knows too well now, knows that these stories are full of foolish humans doing foolish things, warning tales of gods and monsters and greedy mortals who want too much, and then fail to understand what they’ve lost. Until the price is paid, and it’s too late to claim it back.
a second life at the cost of Adeline’s one and only.
Three and twenty—and then gifted like a prize sow to a man she does not love, or want, or even know.
Adeline was going to be a tree, and instead, people have come brandishing an ax.
Who would say that a soul is nothing more than a seed returned to soil—though she’s the one who warned against the dark.
And then he pulls her to him. A lover’s embrace. He is smoke and skin, air and bone, and when his mouth presses against hers, the first thing she tastes is the turning of the seasons, the moment when dusk gives way to night.
“Book
Cute name for a cat
Book, the shop’s ancient cat,
The cat likes to climb behind a stack and sleep for days, his presence marked only by the emptying dish and the occasional gasp of a customer when they come across a pair of unblinking yellow eyes at the back of the shelves.
Loves the smell of books, and the steady weight of them on shelves, the presence of old titles and the arrival of new ones
If a person cannot leave a mark, do they exist?
Not once does it seem to quicken, not once does she lose track of it. She can’t seem to spend it, or waste it, or even misplace it. The minutes inflate around her, an ocean of undrinkable time between now and then, between here and the store, between her and Henry.
“Small places make for small lives. And some people are fine with that. They like knowing where to put their feet. But if you only walk in other people’s steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.”
She wonders if you can distill a
person’s life, let alone human civilization, to a list of things, wonders if that’s a valid way to measure worth at all, not by the lives touched, but the things left behind.
Here is one day, and here is the next, and the next, and you take what you can, savor every stolen second, cling to every moment, until it’s gone. So she says yes.
a woman must take responsibility for her own education, for no man truly will.”
Addie
How could she say her name?
“The one thing every human has to give.”
Why heart?
photographs weren’t real. There’s no context, just the illusion that you’re showing a snapshot of a life, but life isn’t snapshots, it’s fluid. So photos are like fictions. I loved that about them. Everyone thinks photography is truth, but it’s just a very convincing lie.”
Interesting
choosing a career became choosing a life, and how was anyone supposed to do that, when you only had one?
You are whoever they want you to be.
For the first time, he feels seen.
That Marthe LaRue had only to grieve one loss, instead of two.
“Take your echoes and pretend they are a voice.”
Ideas are wilder than memories. And I can be wild. I can be stubborn as the weeds, and you will not root me out.
Humans are capable of such wondrous things. Of cruelty, and war, but also art and invention.
“Is it such a bad thing…” His mouth trails along her jaw. “… to be savored?” His breath brushes her ear. “To be relished?”
All she knows is that she is tired, and he is the place she wants to rest. And that, somehow, she is happy. But it is not love.
He is gravity. He is three hundred years of history. He is the only constant in her life, the only one who will always, always remember.
“You see only flaws and faults, weaknesses to be exploited. But humans are messy, Luc. That is the wonder of them. They live and love and make mistakes, and they feel so much. And maybe—maybe I am no longer one of them.”
That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.
Belief is a bit like gravity. Enough people believe a thing, and it becomes as solid and real as the ground beneath your feet. But when you’re the only one holding on to an idea, a memory, a girl, it’s hard to keep it from floating away.
