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Born restless, her father used to say. Which was fine for a son, but bad for a daughter.
“What kind of woman travels by herself?” they gripe. “What kind of woman stays behind alone?” The answer is, of course, a widow. But there is another word that trails behind it, in a whisper. (Witch.)
“And how is a miracle different from a spell? Who is to say the saint was not a witch?”
“Careful. In nature, beauty is a warning. The pretty ones are often poisonous.”
Silence is a kind of wealth,
one of those grim reminders that your life is small and the world is big, and even when it feels like it’s falling down, it’s only falling down on you. To everyone else, it’s just going on as usual.
“Is it life,” he counters, “if there is never death to balance it? Or is its brevity what makes it beautiful?”
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
What is the point, she thinks, of loving something you are doomed to lose? Of holding on to someone who cannot hold on to you?
“Some people keep their heart tucked so deep, they hardly know it’s there. But you,” she went on, turning back toward Charlotte, “you have always worn it like a second skin.” She ran a hand down her daughter’s arm. “Open to the world. You feel it all. The love and pain. The joy and hope and sorrow.” She pulled Charlotte close, carrying the scent of the garden. Of home. “It will make your life harder,” she said into her daughter’s hair. “But it will also make it beautiful.”
“Because you are the kind of bloom that thrives in any soil. And
“It’s the way you cannot hide your feelings. If they do not spill out of your mouth, they shimmer on your skin. They fill the air around you, so loud they almost shout.”
“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.”
“The wonderful thing about luck,” she says, “is you can make your own.”
“Death comes, and sometimes it is kind, and often it is cruel, and very rarely it is welcome. But it comes, all the same.”
Some people keep their heart tucked so deep, they hardly know it’s there. But you have always worn it like a second skin. It will make your life harder. But it will also make it beautiful.
