Sinner (The Wolves of Mercy Falls #4)

by Maggie Stiefvater

“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.” — Edna St. Vincent Millay, Letters

She was. Of course. Imaginary creatures are always happy with other imaginary creatures.

I couldn’t decide if he was four or nine or twelve. I had no idea of the specifics of children. He was too young to drive, but old enough to be able to turn doorknobs.

She didn’t mention the other half of the coin, though: that sometimes the truth wasn’t the most useful thing to add to a conversation.

Once, my brother had said that alcohol made you someone else — I definitely didn’t want that. What if the someone else was worse than what I already was? And another time, my friend Mackenzie had said it just made you more of who you already were. The world didn’t need that.

We were so little, when you took away all our sins.

The worst part was that eventually you forgot about the people you loved. The dead ones and the ones who raised you and the ones you wanted to be with at the end of the day. I had learned before my CNA class that the body produced three kinds of tears, each with a unique chemical makeup. One of them was generated regularly to keep your eyes moist. The second sprang to life when the eye got something in it, like debris, lubricating and washing out the intruder. The third happened when sadness built up inside you. The chemicals produced through depression were carried out of the body through these tears. You were crying your sadness out.