The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere, #3)

by Meg Elison

Destruction is easy. Creation is so much harder.

Motherhood lives forever on the doorstep of death.

And there is one thing I know is true in this world: only what is remembered survives. Only what is written has a chance in the future. People forget. Rivers rise. Stories and songs are snuffed out every time some town takes a fever or loses to a man with a little power. Destruction is common. Creation is rare.

Now I see that if I do not carry my past with me, it will wrap itself around my ankles and drag me down. There is no living without it. There is no pretending I am not the sum of all these things.

“So, where you’re from, it’s not safe to be a woman. Is it?” Flora sighed. “It’s complicated. It’s safe to be a woman if you were born to be one. I was safer in Jeff City, where horsewomen were normal. The Lion ignored us to search for breeders. We were better off. It’s not safe where it’s not understood, or part of everyday life. People sometimes feel tricked . . . or think you’re trying to upset the order of life.”

Your life has been so different from mine. It makes us want different things. That’s all.”

We don’t stay free because of something we did once. We stay free because we fight our way free every day.

People will believe anything if you don’t teach them how to reason for themselves.

I used to think that the losses in my life would slow down or maybe cease, that I wouldn’t always be mourning and saying goodbye. But the older I get, the more constant that state becomes.

Alice had stressed to me time and time again that it was impossible to teach her trade to a youngster who had no basic understanding of life science, the body, the world of plants, or even the difference between applying heat and applying cold. Not understanding these basic processes was what let people fall into abject superstition, believing that they needed to make sacrifices or offer some kind of ritualized devotion in order to be fed or be safe.