Lost in the Moment and Found (Wayward Children, #8)

by Seanan McGuire

FOR THE CHILD I WAS. I WILL SPEND MY ENTIRE LIFE TRYING TO MAKE UP FOR THE FACT THAT WHEN I WAS YOU, I DIDN’T RUN SOON ENOUGH. I’M SORRY.

That was the day she lost her father. It would be years before she realized losing him had taken something less tangible and less provably important away at the same time: the feeling of safety and security in the world, like it was a kind place.

There was so much she didn’t seem to know. It was like her father had taken all the answers with him when he left, and now she had to live in a world that didn’t have any answers in it at all.

“You’re a child. If an adult hurt you, that’s on them, not on you.

That’s one of the things about living in a body. It can change, but the ways it changes today will be the ways it has always been tomorrow. If the modification isn’t noted in the moment, then it can be all too easily dismissed.

Better to be devoured in the dark than to stay and be destroyed by a man who has every reason to love and care for me.

So I will build them a home and haven, as none was built for me, and I will care for them as long as I am able.”

The great tale of her being shall be extended no more; she is gone to the Library where all of us must one day be Returned, and she will pay no overdue fines on her soul.

This time, when the door closed, it didn’t sound like an ending. It sounded like the beginning of something new.