Great and Precious Things

by Rebecca Yarros

The past could be buried and would eventually set you free. Hopes and dreams for futures that would never come to fruition? Those suckers were the real ghosts.

“Because letting someone do things for you, letting someone care for you, gives them power. Power’s not something I give away.”

And now my heart was… Nope! I was cold, hard, refrigerator butter.

Darkness is drawn to the light, right? And there’s nothing brighter in this town than you.”

It’s a rare gift to see the hidden beauty in things. That kind of optimism is something to be treasured.

Cam: Just got to the mine. Dad’s appointment cut short because his brain no-showed.

This made me laugh-cry. I don’t know why this got me so good but it did.

One choice made in a flash of a second. It had been the flap of the butterfly’s wings that began the hurricane. And we were all still drowning.

“The ability to control what happens to our flesh and to choose our future is the core of our personhood. Free will is the most precious of our possessions, and to lose it is a tragedy to which there is no equal. But the compassion we show to those who lack that control—both the very young who have yet to claim it and the very old who face its loss—that is the essence of our humanity. While I don’t think you lack compassion, I do think you lack empathy for your father’s plight, and I hope you find it before he’s made to suffer again.

‘You’re free to make your own choices, but you’re not free from the consequences of that choice.’”