The Impossible Girl

by Lydia Kang

But this was where she lived, on the edges that defied classification.

Never let anyone know. Ever. This secret will steal you out of your grave someday. And it will take you to your grave, if the wrong person knows.

One always thinks one has forever, and that tomorrow will come to wipe away yesterday’s misfortunes and mistakes so one can start anew.

If you’re going to cry, go to church and pray for the living. The dead don’t need your tears.”

But being poor wears on a person, even with bountiful supplies of love.

Her identity was not so easily discerned. It was up to her to decide who she would be.

Personally, she didn’t believe in heaven or hell. An earthly life was hell enough, and heaven appeared in the ephemera of every day, like dust motes sparkling in a quiet sunrise, or a warm handshake on a frigid day. Stolen gifts. But she had no problem using other people’s godly fear when it was handy.

Tom brought food into every single conversation. About God (“I don’t go to church, because you can’t eat oysters in church”), about smelly feet (“Now, a good cheese might smell as good as bad feet, you know”).

“If you die, we’d all die with you,” Cora said. The Duke snorted. “That doesn’t make me feel better. How about none of us die?”

“Just remember. The Cutters cast you off, and Theodore Flint ran away when the subject of marriage elicited a discussion instead of obedience. Sometimes, blood is not at all thicker than water.”

“There are lessons everywhere, Dr. Blackwell. Whether we choose to listen to them depends on our own good sense.”

she lustily breathed her first breaths in defiance of everyone who wished she didn’t exist.

“One can only hope to outlive fear,”

Alle Dinge sind Gift und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die Dosis machts, dass ein Ding kein Gift sei.’

All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Only the dose makes a thing not to be poison.’”

“Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim,”