More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“People talk about one life…one chance. But I reckon a single life is made up of a dozen or more roles and responsibilities. I can count the versions of myself like friend and foe. Mistakes are the detours that remind you of the true way, Saint. To love and be loved is more than can ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.”
“I did have a dog growing up. Loved that mutt like it was human. Maybe more. That sound strange?”
He had never questioned his own future, his abilities, his faith in himself and in the fact that everything would be just fine. It was one of the things she admired most about him. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
He must have known, but still she caught the flinch. “Memories lie in people, not places and things.”
“So maybe you and the rest, you look for them first. And then after you find the girls, you look for those soulless ghouls that took them. And if there’s anything of you left, then you go after the boy. But I hope I’m long dead before that happens.”
Saint closed her eyes. “But I sit here, and I don’t feel anything but fear. I don’t hear anything but silence.” “The bad are the few, but often they shout louder than the many. Don’t mistake silence for weakness.”
“Hey, Saint.” She drew her gun steady, her mind on her training. “Hey, kid.” He stared at the barrel, the smile replaced by such sadness she almost broke again. “I like it when you call me kid. It makes me feel like there’s still time.” “There is.”
His hand rested gently on the back of her neck. She felt nothing but warmth. She stepped into him and closed her eyes, and for the first time since felt close to something, to home.
“Charles Vane set fire to one of his own fleet and sent it toward Governor Rogers’s forces during a brutal dogfight. Pirate blood. You go down swinging.” He smiled. “We go down swinging, kid.”
“I also know that a group of ladybirds is called a loveliness. I like how some things are just perfect, you know.” He looked at her, and knew.
“What?” “Your rainbow connection.” “What’s that?” She rolled her eyes in a move that echoed her mother. “Everyone on this earth is placed here for someone else. You follow your dreams and find them, and you make a match and nothing else matters. Haven’t you heard the frog sing it?”
To face the past is to momentarily turn your back on what is now. And when you do that, you miss so damn much.”
“And if I don’t want to be free—” “Then you see out your days in that basement, trying to make sense of the dark.”
“But your old self, who I used to come see sometimes…Maybe it was him you left in the dark. And only him.” “I don’t even remember myself before that day.” “You came back so fucking hot, kid. So burning hot there was only one place you were heading. I was sad when I heard, but surprised? No.”
Patch stood there and felt the acute weight of keeping another person alive against such ruthless and random odds.
“Time changes our ability to view the things that hurt us.” “But not the pain.” “No. Not the pain.”
“She said your heart only has room for so much love, because once it gets damaged it shrinks.” He thought of Misty, of the things he had done. “Is that what you worry about, that I won’t have room to love you?” She did not answer. And when she slept he leaned in close and wanted so much to kiss her soft cheek. “I’ll always be here for you. I swear
He stared at the man, at his hands and arms, his mouth and lips and eyes. Patch knew well about the rot that set in just beneath, how you couldn’t tell shit about someone from the way they looked or the job they did. To see it you had to gut them; you had to look deep inside for the poison in their veins.
Patch tried not to notice the lure of the painting, that low pain in his gut, in his bones. He tried not to see Sammy’s face as he worked, Saint’s as she stopped by with a plate because his mother could not care for him. He tried not to see Nix, Misty, the Mad House, and the town of Monta Clare. But mostly, when he lay down in thunderous silence each night, he tried not to see Charlotte.
“I want…I turn to reading when times get hard. Lose yourself for a while, we all need that sometimes. People say they don’t deserve it, that none of us do. But we’re serving our time. A lot of us won’t breathe free air again. Reading isn’t a privilege, sir. I believe we all have the right to leave our problems and escape into another world, if only through the written word.” Patch heard the words leaving Cooper’s mouth as he spoke them verbatim. Six months practicing. A single shot would miss or hit.
“Will Patch die in there?” Charlotte said. “No.” “Shame.” “Don’t say that.” “You can’t think there’s a heaven for people like him?” “It’s the only thing that I pray for.”
“Why do we hold on to the bad things and forget the good?”
“As a parent, what do you want for your children?” Tooms said. “More than you want for yourself.”
“I guess maybe someone all wrong for me in the ways that counted least. We fell in love and it was like…you know when all of a sudden there’s meaning. Actual true meaning and purpose.” “Like color in the dark,” Patch said.
“Hearts were broken, and then healed, and then broken all over again. But we lived, Joseph. Just like you. We lived and laughed, and we loved each other without condition.
“Damn noble what you do. Quickest way to shed ignorance is to read a book. Strips it each page you turn, letting knowledge in, you know.
“You get out of here and you don’t look back. Never. You promise me you make it out and leave all this behind you,” Grace said. “You know I can’t do that.” “You can. You get out and get on. You live. You fucking owe it to me.”
“People say it gets easier, but that’s only because each day we get a little closer to seeing them again.” Charlotte looked over at her. “You’re going to say you didn’t think I believed because I don’t go to church,” Saint said. “I see you pray.” “Maybe when we pray we’re not asking for intervention. We’re just reminding ourselves of the things that matter. You screw up and ask forgiveness of yourself. Someone loses their way, and you search your own mind for the guidance to help them.”
Someone once told him that the bad things no longer matter if you choose not to repeat them. But as he saw the first clusters of children ease into their day, he knew second chances were the hardest earn, sometimes beyond reach no matter how much you willed and pushed.
Chief Nix once told her that to love and be loved was more than could ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes.
He had lost a daughter, a friend, a love, and a parent. He had lost more than could ever be counted. And when he felt a hand slip into his, he knew that it was in his mind, that it could not be real. That maybe it had never been real at all.
Saint waited till she was free of their land, till Candice and the farm faded in the mirror, and only then did she pull to the side of the road and cry. For the girl she once was. For the man he would become.
