Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

by V.E. Schwab

“Careful. In nature, beauty is a warning. The pretty ones are often poisonous.”

“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. That her beauty is something she is expected to pass on instead of keep.

same

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

Catty pulls her hand right up to her face. And runs her tongue through the blood.

what the fuck

The daylight ushers in another kind of torment: children.

real

If, if, if, and she knows that way lies madness but once she starts, she can’t stop her mind from going down the hundred ways it could have ended instead of how it did.

Never walk alone at night, they tell you, if you’re a girl. And it isn’t fair. Because the night is when the world is quiet. The night is when the air is clear. The night is wild and welcoming

Who you were isn’t who you have to be.”