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a532780
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One day, Evie O'Neill, you're gonna fall head over heels for me!
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hope
love
evie-o-neill
sam-lloyd
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Libba Bray |
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eafd425
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I'm Sorry,' he says. It's simple and direct, with none of the nonsense about God calling home an angel too young and who are we to question his mysterious ways.
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religion
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Libba Bray |
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7e1c1e5
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Ann turns to me. I know she's waiting for some hint of kindness-a kiss, an embrace, even a smile. But I can't muster any of it. "You'll make a fine governess." My words are like a slap. "I know," she answers, a slap of her own."
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Libba Bray |
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3a34f39
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I don't know how to accomplish such a look. I find myself with a new fear: that I shall never, ever be this lovely.
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Libba Bray |
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1813cfa
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Absence is a curious thing. When friends are absent, they seem to loom ever larger, till the lack of them is all one can feel.
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Libba Bray |
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0253f05
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Evie hadn't always felt that way. For a year after James had died, she'd cupped his half-dollar pendant between her pressed palms and prayed fervently for a miracle, for a telegram that would say GOOD NEWS! IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE, AND PRIVATE JAMES XAVIER O'NEILL HAS BEEN FOUND, SAFE, IN A FARMHOUSE IN FRANCE. But no such telegram ever arrived, and whatever possible faith might have bloomed in Evie withered and died. Now she saw it as ju..
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Libba Bray |
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848a5e2
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I miss Latin. So much fun--all those exciting verbs that don't come until the end of the sentence. It's like a movie trailer for language.
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Libba Bray |
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98f9f2a
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I have met the devil, and her name is Cecily Temple
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Libba Bray |
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d273efd
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America had invented itself. It continued to invent itself as it went along. Sometimes its virtues made it the envy of the world. Sometimes it betrayed the very heart of its ideals. Sometimes the people dispensed with what was difficult or inconvenient to acknowledge. So the good people maintained the illusion of democracy and wrote another hymn to America. They sang loud enough to drown out dissent. They sang loud enough to overpower their..
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history
mistakes
ghosts
democracy
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Libba Bray |
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4371519
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Will was making a speech, something about having been young and careless once, the sort of thing old-timers said when they issued a deathblow, as if they thought their sanctimonious ramblings disguised as empathy would be welcomed, but Evie was only half listening.
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Libba Bray |
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603ef40
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You couldn't be perfect enough to keep the world from betraying you.
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Libba Bray |
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3ac7625
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chasing after words like trying to grab the tails of comets.
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writing
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Libba Bray |
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6a98b9c
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I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth." "If I were the last man on earth it'd be because you drove the other poor suckers to early graves."
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Libba Bray |
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52ef74f
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Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Felicity and Ann hunched over their ornaments as if they were fascinating relics from an archaeological dig. I note that their shoulders are trembling, and I realize that they are fighting laughter over my terrible plight. There's friendship for you.
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friendship
humor
felicity
gemma
doyle
sarcasm
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Libba Bray |
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6fc04fb
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Why does anyone do anything? Belief. A belief that they are right and just in their actions. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac, because he believed that God had commanded it. To kill your son is unthinkable. A crime. But if you are acting in the belief that your God, your supreme deity whom you must obey, has demanded it of you, is it still a crime?" "Yes," Will said. Dr. Poblocki smiled. "I know you do not believe, Will. Bu..
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Libba Bray |
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7b54897
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Because the pure girls get rescued." Mary Lou felt something she didn't let herself feel often. She was well and truly pissed off. "Why do girls have to be all pure and innocent and good? Why don't guys have to be?"
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misogyny
patriarchy
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Libba Bray |
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2268eef
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Sometimes when Sam's pretending to be in love with me, my stomach does funny things." "Well, get some milk of magnesia and stop it."
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Libba Bray |
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b8b36a4
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There is no greater power on this earth than story. People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense--words do.
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Libba Bray |
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f32c669
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When the world moves forward too fast for some people, they try to pull us all back with their fear,
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Libba Bray |
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5e07fa7
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She holds and I do not break away, and that is something after all. We lie there, tethered to each other by the fragile promise of our fingers while the night grows bolder. Unafraid, it opens its mouth and swallows us whole.
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Libba Bray |
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8e71bb7
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Blood is thicker than water. That's what they say. But in truth, most things are.
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Libba Bray |
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27c7fdf
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It keeps her purity vacum-sealed to preserve its freshness for her future husband.
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Libba Bray |
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559cc90
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What Evie needed was a little hair of the dog, but her parents had confiscated her hip flask. It was a swell flask, too--silver, with the initials of Charles Warren etched into it. Good old Charlie, the dear. She'd promised to be his girl. That lasted a week. Charlie was a darling, but also a thudding bore. His idea of petting was to place a hand stiffly on a girl's chest like a starched doily on some maiden aunt's side table while pecking,..
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Libba Bray |
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b94a070
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It is the taste of forgetting. Of sleep and dreams with no waking. Never to long or yearn, to struggle or hurt or love or desire ever again. And I understand that this is what it truly means to lose your soul.
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Libba Bray |
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fac52f9
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Only ninnies go to Penny's.
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Libba Bray |
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1335fd8
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Ain't that the way of the world, now? Good luck turns bad. Bad luck turns good. Just a big rolling craps game played between this world and the next, and we the dice getting tossed around.
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Libba Bray |
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c3ab6c1
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Will this be my life forevermore? Careful tea parties and the quiet fear that I don't belong, that I'm a fraud? I held magic in my hands! I tasted freedom in a land where summer doesn't end. I outsmarted the Rakshana with a boy whose kiss I still feel somehow. was it all for naught? I'd rather not have known any of it than have it snatched away after a taste.
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Libba Bray |
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593a538
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Do not be tempted by English roses. Their beauty fades, but their thorns are forever.
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Libba Bray |
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e6ab4a2
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Our days are numbered in the book of days, Most High," Gorgon murmurs as the garden comes once more into view. "That is what gives them sweetness and purpose."
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life
purpose
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Libba Bray |
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1d3ddd8
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These words have been sanitized for your protection. An adjective and a noun, respectively.
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Libba Bray |
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edd11af
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No, you're right. I shan't ever understand your willingness to lie down and die," Felicity barks. "If you won't at least try to fight, I have no sympathy for you."
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Libba Bray |
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1d3c23b
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Why had this power come to me? I can scarcely govern myself. At times, I feel as if I could dance through the halls with happiness, and then, just as suddenly, my thoughts are dark and lost and frightening.
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Libba Bray |
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da095be
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Are you saying we're not ravish-worthy?
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Libba Bray |
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33297c5
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She wears her grief like a coat of feathers too heavy for flight. He crossed out heavy, wrote weighted instead, then decided that was downright pretentious and put heavy back in.
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Libba Bray |
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2046f3c
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I don't want to have this conversation. It's sunny out. There's bacon downstairs.
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Libba Bray |
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d1677f6
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Why do I feel this response makes Kartik much like governesses who tell their charges grisly fairy tales before bed and then expect them to sleep peacefully through the night?
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Libba Bray |
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5e175c6
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I've the run of the place, and so i spend some time exploring, climbing steep stairs into thin turrets whose windows give me a bird's-eye view of the land surrounding Spence. I flit past locked doors and dark, paneled rooms that seem more like museum exhibits than living, breathing places. I wander until it is dark and past the time when I should be in bed, not that I think anyone shall be searching for me.
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Libba Bray |
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a020ccf
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Yes, fine," I say, feeling dead inside. They don't know what they're in for at Spence, getting me, a ghost of a girl who'll nod and smile and take her tea who isn't really here."
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Libba Bray |
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79240d8
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But forgiveness...I'll hold on to that fragile slice of hope and keep it close, remembering that in each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice.
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Libba Bray |
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4aeb580
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Alliteration. It's when you repeat the same consonant in a phrase," Memphis explained. "Huh. I was hoping it was something dirty."
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sam-lloyd
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Libba Bray |
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3e60aed
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It's over, her mind whispered. There's still hope, her heart insisted.
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love
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Libba Bray |
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3de85e7
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I feel a tug in the air. The magic. When I look over, Felicity has her eyes closed in concentration, and a faint smile curves those full lips. Suddenly, Lady Denby breaks wind with an enormous crackling sound. There is no hiding the shock and horror on her face as she realizes what she's done. She breaks wind again, and several women clear their throats and look away as if they can pretend no to notice the offense.
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Libba Bray |
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77dca44
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We'll have to make the chumps believe it. Moonlight strolls. Staring into each other's eyes. Sharing the same straw in our egg cream. Dreadful pet names." "Not Lamb Chop," Evie protested. "That's hideous." "You got it, Pork Chop." "I will murder you in your sleep." Sam grinned. "Does that mean you're sleeping beside me?" "Not on your life, Lloyd."
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Libba Bray |
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6e8e40e
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You see, the glamour girl standing before you was not the dame I first laid eyes on in Penn Station. In fact, at first I thought she was the charwoman. Don't you remember how frightful you looked that night, Honey Pie?" Sam patted Evie's hand. Her strained smile pleased him. "She was sooty and grimy. Had on her mother's dress and those thick woolen stockings that grandmas and war orphans wear. And one of her teeth was missing. Ghastly. But ..
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Libba Bray |