The Island God Quotes

“Once upon a time, tales of witches were dark and scary. They spoke of ugly old women doing evil things. Putting children into ovens. Cursing the young and pure with poisoned apples. The world had found witches in ordinary women. Women who talked back to their husbands, helped others with medicine and advice. Women who didn’t want to get married or have children or embark on a life of drudgery for others. This wasn’t witch-finding, of course. It was misogyny. It used the old stories as excuses. And none of it came close to naming true witchery.”
― Sarah Painter, The Island God

“Fiona and Bee had left, but Esme’s mind was still whirling. If Tobias was a god, whatever that even meant, perhaps he couldn’t die? It was a comforting thought until her gaze fell upon the pile of books she had borrowed from the shop. Neolithic burial cairns, pagan mythology, death myths from around the world. So many words cataloguing ancient beliefs and a thousand deities. Gods large and small. They weren’t all here, now. Which meant they had either been fictitious or they had existed once and then disappeared. Died.”
― Sarah Painter, The Island God

“There has been a Ward Witch on this island for a very long time. As long as you tend the wards and live on the island, that is all that is required. Just being the Ward Witch is all that matters.’ Esme frowned. ‘It’s purely symbolic? The gate knows there is a Ward Witch, so they assume the way is shut?’ ‘Exactly,’ Bee said.”
― Sarah Painter, The Island God

“He pottered in his shop, tidying up the already-neat shelves, and then sat on his stool behind the counter and attacked the crossword. He was trying to calm himself after the community meeting. He was pleased for Luke that his brother wasn’t dead. That was the right way to feel, so he made sure he felt it. Tried to make it deeper and more true than the competing feeling which told him that Lewis was trouble. That he didn’t like change on the island. That new people could mean new problems.”
― Sarah Painter, The Island God

“The air was still. The grass down the slope and across the mound unmoving. Tobias began picking his way down the slope to the middle of the island. Two large stones, planted upright five thousand years ago, marked the proper way to approach the cairn. This was a place for the dead. It always had been, since before there were beings sentient enough to name it as such. The mound was a monument and a resting place. Tobias knew that Neolithic kings slept inside, along with their wives and children. Their ghosts did not trouble him. Not even the smallest ones. There was something else he feared.”
― Sarah Painter, The Island God