Vampires of El Norte Quotes

“It all made her want to shed her skin like the witch in Abuela’s story, let everything that made her a woman fall to the ground to be salted and ruined as she flew into the night, her bones bare and cold in the starlight.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“His voice was like coming home. It loosened the unease that had curled in her chest all week.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“He was a man of dust who served men of silver: it was impossible not to know his place in the world.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“She was there. She was with him, as real as she had been in life. He wanted to see her. He wanted to see her face more than he wanted water on a hot afternoon, more than he wanted rest after weeks in the saddle.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Nena waited. After nine years apart, she still knew the rhythm of his speaking. She knew he had more to say, that he was searching for words or untangling a difficult thought. He was one of the few men she knew who spent time with his thoughts before speaking, even in the midst of an argument or excitement. It was one of the reasons she loved him.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Losing you,” she said, her dark eyes searching his face. “To you, Nena died. To her, you left. Those are two very different griefs.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“A world without you. I am not brave enough.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“It wasn’t that his heart stopped beating, no—it hurt too much to have simply stopped. It buckled in surprise. It collapsed in on itself. It pinned him to where he stood, for he was certain—deliriously certain—that he looked into the face of a ghost.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“could survive on the scraps from her table—had he not spent the last nine years starving? Anything she gave him now was a bounty. It would be fine.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“If other men were charcoal sketches, he was drawn in fine ink.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Maybe, if you wanted, you could even live there too. With me. We could get married. Or something like that.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“He was rich with magic she couldn't understand, a key to a part of herself that had been dead for a long, long time. To her, he was worth more than he knew.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“She became more and more tightly bound by the ropes of womanhood; he roamed free, unburdened by responsibilities.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“He pressed his lips to hers. When he pulled away, her eyes were open, her gaze liquid and intense. A new understanding cracked open in his chest: they both knew that was not practice.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Nothing mattered but this: a bolt of yearning as wide as the sky. A certainty so brilliant it shattered every vision he once had of the future. This was what he wanted... Nena”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“But when I came back, and I saw you, I knew,” he said softly. “My home is with you. It always will be.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Duérmete, niño, Duérmete ya, Que viene el Coco Y te comerá”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Fuck you.” The words came easier than she expected. Néstor winked at her. Touched an imaginary brim of the hat. “A sus órdenes, señorita.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Porque así fue la suerte.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“But he was dust clinging to a wind, too afraid to touch the earth, too afraid to meet the ground.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“It was intoxicating, how much he wanted her to trust him. To relax around him. To smile as she used to, when they were children. Broad and unguarded and sweetly dimpled, her teeth flashing like a loaded pistol in the sun. He would happily be shot dead by it any day of the week.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“What’s that, you ask? Why are we alone in the chaparral, looking very much worse for the wear and clearly running from something? Well, for that I have a perfectly reasonable answer. Vampires, señor. We are running from vampires.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“A strangeness. A ripple of unease. An understanding, though timid at first, that perhaps there was some truth to the stories of blood-hungry beasts and river ghosts that the abuelas on the rancho spun to keep children close to home after sunset. A sense that there was a reason to watch one’s back when shadows grew long.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“I couldn't face it," he said. "A world without you. I am not brave enough.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Nena was his home. The one thing on earth more precious to him than his own life. Whatever that creature was, it did not matter—the only thing that mattered was getting it away from her.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“To him, the crickets fell silent. The noise of the assembly in the courtyard faded; the moon ceased to glow. The night had no mistress but her.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“He had once thought that what they had was a fragile, perfect thing. It was neither. It was imperfect, yes. If a path to the future lay at their feet, it was pocked and marred with difficulties. But he could withstand it. If he bit down on his fear, if he fought hard enough for it, perhaps they could both withstand it.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“A laugh cracked out of Nena like the lick of a whip.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“Night slipped over her warm skin like stepping into cool water, sending a pleasant shudder over her shoulders.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte

“The wound that festered deepest wasn’t that of loneliness. She could stomach being alone. She could build calluses against it and grow strong. It was that, by leaving, he had robbed her of him. She was left without the one person who listened to her, the one person who made her feel like the heavens spun around no other point but her.”
― Isabel Cañas, Vampires of El Norte