As Old As Time

by Liz Braswell

“You can’t have adventures without risk. You can’t have great things if you constantly fear loss. And I am a much, much better person because of your mother. If nothing else, she gave me you.”

Maurice hadn’t thought it possible to fall in love with another human even more than he had with his dear wife…and yet he had to be forcefully persuaded to give up tiny infant Belle when it was time to feed her.

Your friends would come if they could. Some cannot because they cannot.”

She felt less threatened by their martial stance than unnerved by their attention. It was like the first market day after she had developed a figure. That was the moment the tone of the villagers’ gossip about her had changed: from look at that strange little child to what a waste looks like that are on one like her.

He was a dreamer, it was true—but no inventor lasted long in his or her career by giving in to dreaming. The moment something didn’t work, either due to a misunderstanding of how a metal behaved or how steam would push a certain way, you had to immediately stop and think and figure out what the cause of the problem was and start again from there. Practical, pragmatic, dogged—these were all the adjectives used to describe successful inventors.

Everyone should have a journey—and everyone should also have a home, too.