The Long Way Home

by Louise Penny

But, much more elusive and dangerous than facts, what he really looked for were feelings. Because they would lead him to the truth.

Armand Gamache considered himself more an explorer than a hunter.

Armand Gamache had seen the worst. But he’d also seen the best. Often in the same person.

After spending most of her life scanning the horizon for slights and threats, genuine and imagined, she knew the real threat to her happiness came not from the dot in the distance, but from looking for it.

Expecting it. Waiting for it. And in some cases, creating it.

“I don’t know. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Lacoste recited them slowly, lifting a finger to count them off. “I need help,”

“Unless he had an appointment in Samarra.”

“Samarra?” Clara turned to look at her friend. “What’re you talking about?” “Somerset Maugham,” said Myrna.

At the top of the page were the words “W. Somerset Maugham.”

“A servant goes into the marketplace in Baghdad,” Clara read off the screen, her back to her friend. “There he bumps into an old woman. When she turns around, he recognizes her as Death.”

“Death glares at him and the servant, frightened, runs away. He goes straight to his master and explains that he met Death in the market and that he needs to get away, to save himself. The master gives him a horse and the servant takes off, riding as fast as

he can for Samarra, where he knows Death won’t find him.”

“Later that day the master is in the marketplace and he too meets Death,” Clara continued reading. “He asks her why she frightened his servant and Death explains that she hadn’t meant to scare him. She was just surprised.”

“Death said, I was simply surprised to see him in the market. Because I have an appointment with him tonight. In Samarra.”

Just as Clara put together the elements of a painting, as Ruth the elements of a poem, Gamache pieced together the elements of a case.

And like a painting or a poem, at the heart of his cases there was a strong emotion.

Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up. It seemed that was what Peter had done. Thrown out all he knew and started again. In his mid-fifties.

What’s the use of healing, if the life that’s saved is callow and selfish and ruled by fear? There’s a difference between being in sanctuary and being in hiding.”

It had confirmed all Ruth’s fears. Kindness killed. No good could come of helping others.

And so Ruth made it a policy to turn her back. Not for herself, but to protect those she loved.

“Any real act of creation is first an act of destruction. Picasso said it, and it’s true. We don’t build on the old, we tear it down. And start fresh.”

And what could be more threatening than freedom? Isn’t that what inspiration is? It can’t be locked up, or even channeled. It can’t be contained or controlled. And that’s what the tenth muse was offering.”

Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.”