The Keeper of the Isis Light Quotes

“If you inhabited a world and a colony of tongueless people landed, would you consent to having your tongue cut out so that you could be like them?”
― Monica Hughes, The Keeper of the Isis Light

“Up there was freedom and peace. The strong northwest wind blew her red hair out behind her, and tugged at her gown until it drifted out behind her like a silver spider's web. She stood as close as she could to the northwest edge, ignoring the plummeting depths below, feeling the wind buffet her skin. It pressed against her body like a living thing. She felt, as she often felt before up here, that with but the tiniest effort on her part she would be able to fly, to mount the rising air currents, to soar like a hawk on the updraught that rose in a tangible wave above the side of the mesa.
She raised her arms, felt the wind take them.”
― Monica Hughes, The Keeper of the Isis Light

“The scent of cactus flower still lingered in the air, although it was many hours since she had thrown the golden flower into the incinerator. When she walked out onto the terrace, the scent became even more powerful and she realised that it was being wafted to her on the evening breeze from the eastern mountain. The whole upper slope, above the grassline, was a mass of blooming cactus.

She could no more rid Isis of the scent than she could rid herself of her feelings towards Mark - unless she made Guardian fire the whole mountainside and destroy the flowers. He would do it if she were to ask him. He would take away the memory of her love for Mark too, if she were to ask it of him.

She walked to the edge of the terrace and looked across the river valley. To do violence to the mountains and the creatures that lived there, just because she could not bear the scent of the cactus flower, would be hideously wrong. To do violence to her mind, so as to forget her unhappiness, would be equally wrong.”
― Monica Hughes, The Keeper of the Isis Light