Home > Topic > a maelstrom
1 " Then as Anna listened another sound began to rise within the first. It began as a low keening, like the wind in a bottle tree, almost indiscernible amid the guns. Yet it was there, and it grew and grew, gaining strength and timbre until suddenly a new note broke away and was taken up: a high weird quavering like nothing that Anna had ever heard, that peopled the smoke with an army of mourning phantoms. Anna had heard the men talk of this, too—the uncanny demon cry of the Rebel army going into the attack—and now here it was for real, echoing across violence and death for the last time in a wild crescendo that seemed to peak and yet peak again: descanting blood, crying lost youth and the loss of all dreams. One last time it shrilled out of the rolling smoke, then collapsed all at once into a maelstrom of voices—the deep snarling utterance of thousands of men in hell. "
― Howard Bahr , The Black Flower: A Novel of the Civil War
2 " The name Alaska is probably an abbreviation of Unalaska, derived from the original Aleut word agunalaksh, which means " the shores where the sea breaks its back." The war between water and land is never-ending. Waves shatter themselves in spent fury against the rocky bulwarks of the coast; giant tides eat away the sand beaches and alter the entire contour of an island overnight; williwaw winds pour down the side of a volcano like snow sliding off a roof, building to a hundred-mile velocity in a matter of minutes and churning the ocean into a maelstrom where the stoutest vessels founder. "
3 " What did that mean,” I asked softly.He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Í’m not certain,” Sethian admitted, his eyes staring intently at my own. “It could be nothing; or everything.” Slowly he withdrew from me and rolled over to his side, pulling me into a tight embrace as if reluctant to have me even an inch away from him. As I lay silently in his arms, a maelstrom of emotions swept through me. Curiosity, puzzlement, excitement, worry, fear; and I realized they were not my own. Confusion and anxiety were the only emotions I felt in any large quantity. Those other emotions seemed almost alien, except that they left the feel of Sethian in their wake. I glanced at Sethian and found him looking down at me. It was apparent that he had been staring down at me for some time. “Why are you afraid,” I asked on a whim. "
― Cristina Rayne , Claimed by the Elven King: The Complete Edition (Claimed by the Elven King #1-4)
4 " Barely able to breathe, Eva's tongue slipped across her lips. He moved a bit closer. " Every time ye walk past, I want ye. Your scent sends my insides into a maelstrom of need." She closed her eyes and drew out the moment, wishing he'd say that again. Oh, how delectable to listen to a medieval Scotsman declare his desire. "
