Beneath a Waning Moon Quotes

“But good Lord, how could Tom possibly keep the interest of a woman who spoke six languages? He barely spoke one. “You”
― Elizabeth Hunter, Beneath a Waning Moon

“A book on steam engine design lay next to one of poems by the poet laureate Tennyson. Lenore traced the poetry book’s cover design. A finely made book with its gold-tooled leather and gilt-edged vellum pages. A beautiful book. An expensive one given to her by a man who’d likely spent three months’ hard-earned wages to obtain it.

Lenore made a mournful sound in her throat. Nathaniel. She closed her eyes, remembering his ready smile and eyes as blue as bachelor’s button. She thought of him every day, but lately, in the weeks following her father’s death, he was constantly on her mind.”
― Grace Draven, Beneath a Waning Moon

“That night, she was neglecting her pen in favor of rereading one of the most-favored books in her library. It was a small volume that had appeared mysteriously when she was only fifteen. Josephine still had no idea who had gifted her the lovely horror of Carmilla, but she owed her nameless benefactor an enormous debt. Her personal guess was a briefly employed footman who had seen her reading her mother’s well-worn copy of The Mysteries of Udolpho and confessed his own forbidden love of Poe. The slim volume of Le Fanu’s Gothic horror stories had been hidden well into adulthood. As it wasn’t her father’s habit to investigate her reading choices, concealment might have been more for dramatic effect than real fear of discovery. Josephine read by lamplight, curled into an old chaise and basking in the sweet isolation of darkness as she mouthed well-loved passages from her favorite vampire tale.

“For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me.”

She slammed the book shut. How had she turned so morbid? For while Josephine had long known she would not live to old age, she thought she had resigned herself to it. She made a point of fighting the melancholy that threatened her. If she had any regret, it was that she would not live long enough to write all the stories she wanted. Sometimes she felt a longing to shout them into the night, offering them up to any wandering soul that they might be heard so they could live. So many voices beating in her chest. So many tales to write and whisper and shout. Her eyes fell to the book she’d slammed shut.

‘“You are afraid to die?”
“Yes, everyone is.”

Josephine stood and pushed her way out of the glass house, into the garden where the mist enveloped her. She lifted her face to the moon and felt the tears cold on her cheeks. “‘ Girls are caterpillars,” she whispered, “‘ when they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don’t you see?’” But the summer would never come for Josephine. She beat back the despair that threatened to envelop her.
You are afraid to die?
Yes, everyone is.
She lifted her face and opened her eyes to the starry night, speaking her secret longing into the night. “‘ But to die as lovers may— to die together, so that they may live together.’”
How she longed for love! For passion. How she ached to be seen. To be cherished. To be known.
She could pour her soul onto the page and still find loneliness in the dark. She strangled her heart to keep it alive, knowing it was only a matter of time until the palest lover took her to his bosom. Already, she could feel the tightness in her chest. Tomorrow would not be a good day.”
― Elizabeth Hunter, Beneath a Waning Moon

“She wrote her stories, and they were read and enjoyed—or so Lenore claimed—by many. Josephine enjoyed quiet society and music and books and gardening.”
― Elizabeth Hunter, Beneath a Waning Moon

“Fear can be a good thing. It keeps you sharp and alert. It isn’t a weakness when it benefits you.”
― Grace Draven, Beneath a Waning Moon

“She closed her eyes, praying for sleep. Nathaniel’s face rose before her mind’s eye, Colin’s superimposed over it. Their features melded in a strange patchwork amalgamation, two beings attempting to merge as one. Lenore opened her eyes. Moonlight spilled through the room, unblocked by the drapes neither she nor Constance remembered to close. The silvery light illuminated her bedside table and the books she’d left there. Her heart tripped a beat at the sight of her book of verse—Nathaniel’s gift to her. The Guardian had recited Tennyson while he kissed her.”
― Grace Draven, Beneath a Waning Moon

“Each time they met, he drew her like a ship to a shore beacon and sent flutters through her belly. So oddly beguiling. Truth be told, his was a visage one might see in a danse macabre mural—spectral and strange as if bound to earth by the thinnest of threads. Quod fuimus, estis; quod sumus, vos eritis - What we were, you are; what we are, you will be.”
― Grace Draven, Beneath a Waning Moon

“The hollow voice, with its hints of eternity and long night, raised chills on her arms, though now it was from fascination instead of fear. She lifted her veil to better see him and bit back a gasp. Pale as the dead he guarded, his features held a peculiar beauty highlighted by sharp cheekbones spaced wide and high, a long haughty nose and solemn mouth. He was a combination of sinister and fragile, unearthly and eerie…and familiar.”
― Grace Draven, Beneath a Waning Moon

“Still as a scarecrow, the Guardian stood between the stone angel and a stately crypt, oblivious to the crowd gaping at him with open-mouthed horror. The sinuous fog intermingled with his long hair, both white as a shroud.”
― Grace Draven, Beneath a Waning Moon

“[O]ne should never wait for life. Dare to live dangerously. You never know what mysteries could be waiting in the shadows.”
― Elizabeth Hunter, Beneath a Waning Moon