“Oh, he did look like a deity – the perfect balance of danger and charm, he was at the same time fascinating and inaccessible, distant because of his demonstrated flawlessness, and possessing such strength of character that he was dismaying and at the same time utterly attractive in an enticing and forbidden way.”
― Simona Panova, Nightmarish Sacrifice
“But there is nothing, no trace that she’s ever existed. She is not here. She will never be here again.
Because of me.”
― Christine Fonseca, Libera Me
“He smirked. “Decision time, pretty lady... back to reality?”
She touched his cheek. “Or down the rabbit hole?”
― Jake Vander-Ark, Fallout Dreams
“Some rumors said she was a demon from another world. Other rumors said she was death incarnate, someone to remind us of our misdeeds. But no one had said how beautiful she was. No one had mentioned her eyes. The ones that showed color only for a second. A hint of beauty in absolute blackness.”
― Shannon A. Thompson, July Thunder
“His love with Lucy bled from his heart as he slipped into a dark despair— a melancholy that only she could sever with her chaste voice and tender kisses. Now in an unreachable darkness, a blindness took hold. A blood lust that would drive him mad for five years hence.”
― Solange nicole, Slayers
“I marched along the familiar paths, hoping a fast stride would keep me warm. Part of me was enjoying the peaceful scenery while the other part pondered my newly altered circumstances. I never wallow in self-pity, for there is nothing to be gained by such indulgences, but I confess to feeling just a bit irritated.
“If only I’d had the good fortune to be a widow!” I muttered to myself crossly, kicking at a pebble in my path. Instead of a divorcée, that is to say. Quelle différence! My present circumstances would be much improved by my having lost my husband in some war, rather than by the shocking action of booting him from my life. It isn’t fair, but there we are.”
― Wendy Coles-Littlepage, Disfigured
“Do not fear the ghosts in this house; they are the least of your worries.
Personally I find the noises they make reassuring.
The creaks and footsteps in the night,
their little tricks of hiding things, or moving them, I find endearing, not upsettling. It makes the place
feel so much more like a home.
Inhabited.
Apart from ghosts nothing lives here for long. No cats no mice, no flies, no dreams, no bats. Two days ago I saw a butterfly, a monarch I believe, which danced from room to room and perched on walls and waited near to me.
There are no flowers in this empty place, and, scared the butterfly would starve, I forced a window wide, cupped my two hands around her fluttering self,
feeling her wings kiss my palms so gentle,
and put her out, and watched her fly away.
I've little patience with the seasons here, but
your arrival eased this winter's chill.
Please, wander round. Explore it all you wish.
I've broken with tradition on some points. If there is
one locked room here, you'll never know. You'll not find in the cellar's fireplace old bones or hair. You'll find no blood.
Regard:
just tools, a washing-machine, a drier, a water-heater, and a chain of keys.
Nothing that can alarm you. Nothing dark.
I may be grim, perhaps, but only just as grim as any man who suffered such affairs. Misfortune,
carelessness or pain, what matters is the loss. You'll see the heartbreak linger in my eyes, and dream
of making me forget what came before you walked
into the hallway of this house. Bringing a little summer in your glance, and with your smile.
While you are here, of course, you will hear the ghosts, always a room away,
and you may wake beside me in the night,
knowing that there's a space without a door,
knowing that there's a place that's locked but isn't there. Hearing them scuffle, echo, thump and pound.
If you are wise you'll run into the night, fluttering away into the cold,
wearing perhaps the laciest of shifts. The lane's hard flints will cut your feet all bloody as you run,
so, if I wished, I could just follow you,
tasting the blood and oceans of your tears. I'll wait instead, here in my private place, and soon I'll put a candle in the window, love, to light your way back home.
The world flutters like insects. I think this is how I shall
remember you,
my head between the white swell of your breasts,
listening to the chambers of your heart.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
“When her mind was discomposed... a book was the opiate that lulled it to repose.”
― Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest
