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she will already be a different version of herself. A room with the windows all thrown wide, eager to let in the fresh air, the sunlight, the spring.
“A dreamer,” scorns her mother. “A dreamer,” mourns her father. “A dreamer,” warns Estele. Still, it does not seem such a bad word. Until Adeline wakes up.
But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad.
Stories are a way to preserve one’s self. To be remembered. And to forget. Stories come in so many forms: in charcoal, and in song, in paintings, poems, films. And books. Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.
she would have given anything to welcome madness, and disappear. It is the kinder road, to lose yourself.
But if you only walk in other people’s steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark.”
his palm. “He lets souls wither on shelves. I water them.” The light warps and coils.
would look like. It is such a grand word, soul. Like god, like time, like
before, the closest thing she has to a photo, a material memory. “Ready?”
And this, he decides, is what a good-bye should be. Not a period, but an ellipsis, a statement trailing off, until someone is there to pick it up.
It is okay. It will be okay.
No one is ever ready to die. Even when they think they want to.
