1
Katie soon learned there was a problem with hope.Carla H. Krueger
2
Bea stared at the pencils as if they were enemies.Carla H. Krueger
3
Prayer is better than pills.Carla H. Krueger
4
The breeze around them seemed to drop — dead — like a door to the best things had just closed.Carla H. Krueger
5
He had become the sky around the sun — alive, but not really there.Carla H. Krueger
6
Beyond the boundaries of herself, her parents and the enclosing garden walls, were open fields and other waiting places she still knew nothing of — lies of the land, perhaps. What Katie did know is that out there in the lonely nowhere was a special quietness, free of the sounds of daytime birds or foxes at night — and that it was a quietness she might like to listen to one day.Carla H. Krueger
7
On some days she was able to see both sun and moon at the same time. Like feuding cousins, they hung in two corners of the vast world-ceiling refusing to look at one another. The moon was always harder to spot and more faded, but it was there if you looked, as many things were.Carla H. Krueger
8
Youngsters deserve no opinions.Carla H. Krueger
9
For no real reason — well, perhaps because of the seriousness under the trees or Nader’s hair, which was very messy and covered in little grass seeds — Katie began to giggle. She knew it was wrong, yet it was also natural. She covered her mouth with both hands, but Nader was already pale with revulsion. He turned and marched away into unwanted sunlight, leaving her to wonder why bad things happened and why no good person prevented them. .Carla H. Krueger
10
A silence absorbed them both — a lack of sound so potent it blackened the place with something richer than hate.Carla H. Krueger
11
She heard him speak, but did not recognise the problem in his voice — only later did she realise it was that thing he’d been concealing — known as guilt.Carla H. Krueger
12
Too old for dolls. Too ill for tablets.Carla H. Krueger
13
Shush — it’s silent time again.Carla H. Krueger
14
Nader refused to bring her the feathery dream catcher — her asabikeshiinh — with its willow-web and invisible ‘lady spider’ apparently weaving her spells — an object Bea insisted always hung above her in bed.Carla H. Krueger
15
I’ll be your friend until you find a better one.Carla H. Krueger
16
I suffered my own battles. I suffer still.Carla H. Krueger