The Winter People

by Jennifer McMahon

a funny little flower with a secret: if you lift the striped hood, you’ll find the preacher underneath.

Wut

Papa must have noticed, because he took my hand and gave it a squeeze, pulled me a little closer to him.

“Tell no one,” she said.

I told Auntie about it later.

Rude, not even a day

“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?”

It does in frozen

How can you dream if you don’t have a soul?

Deep sis

Seven years ago, after losing three babies still in the womb and then their son, Charles, who’d died at two months,

),:

The truth was, he believed he was the luckiest man on earth to have these two for a wife and daughter—it was like getting to live with fairies or mermaids, some breathtakingly beautiful creatures he was not meant to understand fully.

Why is that so cute?!

(even if they had come from the thrift store and had some other kid’s name written inside).

Aint no shame in that game! Get over it maam!

Ruthie nodded. Maybe that explained Fawn’s choice of clothing. She took stories very seriously. She got on these kicks where only one story would do, and you’d have to read it to her over and over until she had every word memorized. And then, when she wasn’t being read to, it was like a part of her stayed stuck inside the story.

Ah, the tism

Did she take the truck?” Fawn asked.

"?

Good girl, Gary whispered, a gentle hiss in her right ear.

You cant just say that dead man!!!

The air in the closet felt strange—crackling and used up. And there was an odd acrid, burning odor—something familiar to her, but she couldn’t say where she’d smelled it before.

“She belongs here,”

“There are different kinds of cleverness, Sara.”

“If you ever grow up and have a girl child, the gift will be passed down double to her. That girl will walk between the worlds. She will be as powerful as I am, maybe more. I have seen it in the fire.”

“The closet,”

“Do you have games on there?” she asked.

"you got games on your phone?"

She was on her way to the bookstore.

Me too sis

Leave this place. Run.

Trust that gut girlie

Taurus was her father’s astrological sign, and though she’d never admit it to anyone, she sometimes imagined it was him up there, looking down on her.

I knew what Martin would say if I told him—what anyone in his right mind would say—but I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I was going mad, or if all of this was a figment of my imagination.

“I’m going to give you some pills. I want you to grind one up each night and put it in her tea. It’ll help her sleep, still her dreams. I’ll stop by to see her soon. In the meantime, if she gets worse, you come get me.” Martin nodded. “I mean it, Martin. Don’t think you can do this on your own. Don’t think you have to.”

I don't like that they are drugging her but I do like that his brother cares so much for both of them to try and figure out something to help. But yeah, they drugging is not cool

The photo was taken from the road, and it was hard to make out too many details, but the woman, bent over, had a long gray braid and wore a brightly colored shawl.

What the heck?!

“It’s camera stuff,” she reported, relief in her voice.

Ooooooop

“Please,” she’d begged her children, “you’ve got to help me. The woman wants me dead.”

The heck?! Im not sure who I do and do not like in this book anymore. I have zero trust

She was his great adventure; his love for her had taken him places he’d never dreamed of going.

greasy, burning sort of odor.

Candace is annoying

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!