Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V.E. Schwab

“And how is a miracle different from a spell? Who is to say the saint was not a witch?”

“You will learn, it is better to bend than to break.” María stared into the hearth. “Why should I be the one who bends?”

María feels no maternal urge, no envy when she sees a babe swept up into a mother’s arms. Everyone insists it is her purpose, and it drives her mad, the idea that the shape of her body determines the shape her life must take.

“One can be alone without feeling lonely,” she muses. “One can feel lonely without being alone.”

From that moment on, she insisted, she would read only romance. As if love and horror could not go hand in hand.

One moment April stretches as far as she can see, and the next, somehow, it is behind her.

“The world will try to make you small. It will tell you to be modest, and meek. But the world is wrong. You should get to feel and love and live as boldly as you want.”