The Church Beneath the Roots Quotes

“I feel my soul imperiled. I feel the mountain's shadow on me, even at night.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“The stone had opened a door into the mountain, and Onwé worried it had also opened a door into himself, through which monstrous things could pass.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“He knew not to trust the voices. He called them ‘stolen tongues.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“Onwé clutched Luke’s cross and mumbled prayers to his father and to Christ for help. The longer he held it, the more he felt imbued with an inner fire that could protect him from the elder spirits. He wondered if this magic truly came from the god of the Christians, or if it was just the power of his own desire for divine intervention.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“Onwé considered praying for Luke—both to the First Spirit and to Jesus Christ—but the idea was quickly doused by the realization that no help ever seemed to come to Autumn Ridge from the next world. A century of Nauktí prayers had not stopped the destruction of his community, nor had they returned his people to their rightful homeland. And the Christians, for all their zeal, had been unable to save the Indians. Onwé wondered if any gods were listening at all, or if all magic had gone out of the world and taken hope with it.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“I wonder if I’ve been too forgiving,” Luke went on, “of myself and others. I try to walk with Christ. But maybe I focus too much on God’s mercy, and not enough on His justice.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“She, like most Nauktí, believed dreams were puzzles to be solved.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“At’an-A’anotogkua nēmwési tōth’tolhó… Sásh’óu’yannen.” The Impostor does not give. It only takes.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“I crossssed… the chasm of eternity… for youuu, Onwé…”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“I am washed in the river of darkness,” he said, “born again in the fathomless deep. A witness to the wonders to come—from beyond the Black Wall.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“More snow had fallen, and now it thickly caked the windows and obscured the outside world. He felt a thousand miles away from the nearest soul, marooned on a spiteful mountain that wanted him dead.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“he’s a son without a mother. I thought it would be fitting that a mother without a son should stand in for his family.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“Onwé’s thoughts turned as dark as the churning sky, and a shadow crept over his soul. It was the shadow that lurked in the deepest part of him, unresponsive to prayer and only temporarily pacified by routine and healthy habits.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“A sinister presence—the stuff of dark legend—lurked on Pale Peak.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“Every Nauktí in Cold Valley, even the secular ones, respected the tradition of allowing time to pass before naming the recent dead. Their people believed the soul’s journey into the next world was a difficult one, and its success depended upon the silence of the ones they’d left behind. In time, a loved one would sing a hymn whose words offered guidance to the traveling soul, but until that day, the dead were left to rest.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“Snow, like madness, sometimes arrives with little warning. It can accumulate while a man lies dreaming in his bed, and when he awakens, he steps into a world cold and changed.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“She also told me about the Hollow One,” he went on. “The Impostor. Right, Dad? They learn people’s voices and then call you into the woods. How do you say it? At’an-A’ano…”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“Onwé wondered if any gods were listening at all, or if all magic had gone out of the world and taken hope with it.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“It was a calamitous cycle with which many Native communities struggled: the tendency of a people who, upon having their culture and land and their very tongues stolen, turned to drugs as a means of self-medicating. This destruction gave the federal government and its missionaries cause to “save the poor Indians.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“The spirits wander without a proper funeral. If hundreds of people speak of them, it could draw them out of the forest and into Autumn Ridge.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“It was once believed that some caves in the Rocky Mountains are passageways to other realms, open only to the dead. Were a living person to enter one of these, they risked falling into Knûth-Sōkáān—the void between worlds, where even the spirit is forgotten”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“So much blood on your hands,” he said as he ripped the door open. “You are the monster, Burke. Truly, you are the Demon of Cold Valley.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots

“A demon,” Voth replied, “disguising itself as a loved one. That’s how the Devil comes to us. Akántha was a smart kid, though. He knew not to trust the voices. He called them ‘stolen tongues.”
― Felix Blackwell, The Church Beneath the Roots