4
" There isn’t anything I can tell you that you don’t already know,” Melly answered.
“Yes, but if we already know it then you’re not telling us anything new,” Bea said, thinking her way through the carriages of fear on the witch’s train of thought, “and if we don’t tell you what we know and what we don’t know, then you won’t know if you’ve actually told us something we don’t know, and what you don’t know we don’t know won’t hurt you.”
Melly stared at Bea, her cigarette hanging from her lip in defeat.
“Did that make sense?” Joan asked.
“Yes,” Melly said slowly, “but it probably shouldn’t have done. "
― F.D. Lee , The Fairy's Tale (The Pathways Tree, #1)
6
" The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;Little we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,The winds that will be howling at all hours,And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,For this, for everything, we are out of tune;It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather beA Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. "
10
" Norman picked up a sketch, glanced at it, then put it back down on the table. " I saw Bea Williamson this morning," he said in a low voice. " Lurking about looking for cut glass." " Oh, of course," Mira said with a sigh. " Did she have it with her?" Norman nodded solemnly. " Yep. I swear, I think it's almost gotten ... bigger." Mira shook her head. " Not possible." " I'm serious," Norman said. " It's way big." I kept waiting for someone to expand on this, but since neither of them seemed about to, I asked, " What are you talking about?" They looked at each other. Then, Mira took a breath. " Bea Williamson's baby," she said quietly, as if someone could hear us, " has the biggest head you have ever seen." Norman nodded, seconding this. " A baby?" I said. " A big-headed baby," Mira corrected me. " You should see the cranium on this kid. It's mind-boggling. "
14
" The return journey was nothing like the arrival. Bea couldn’t wait to get out of the car. She remembered feeling like this before, with Brandon, on several occasions. It was an excruciating need to escape the confinement of being in too close a proximity to passive-aggressive behaviour. She hated conflict, after a row, it would take her hours, perhaps days to become fully relaxed and herself again. She became anxious, not entirely brought on by his coldness, but by old memories, and the way her body would instinctively react to them. It wasn’t a feeling that she wanted to experience with someone new, of whom she’d told his sister only a short time ago that she was falling in love with. "
― Tracey-anne McCartney , A Carpet of Purple Flowers
15
" I’m not… What’s wrong with them believing?” Bea asked, a note of pleading creeping, uninvited, into her voice.
“You do not sell belief, you sell belief-in. Belief in true love, as if everyone were entitled to it. Belief in a simple solution to a complex problem. Belief in one type of person, one type of future.”
“No I don’t. I offer people dreams, and hope, and, and, something to organise their lives with,” Bea said, not sure why she was trying to convince him. “I don’t make them into ‘one person’.”
“Oh no? Let me recall your doctrine: Kings, Princes and their ilk must marry girls whose only asset is their beauty. Not clever girls, not worthy girls, not girls who could rule. Powerful women, older women – like one day you will become – are nought but wicked creatures, consumed with jealousy and unfit to hold position. No,” he said as Bea began to speak, “I am not finished. Let us turn our attention to the men. As long as the woman is something to be won, it follows only the worthy will prevail. It matters not if they truly love the girl, nor if the man is cruel or arrogant or unfit to tie his own doublet. As long as he has wealth and completes whatever trials are decided fit, he is suitable. For what is stupidity or arrogance when compared against a crown? The good will win, and the wicked perish, and you and your stories decide what makes a person good or wicked. Not life. Not choice. Not even common sense. You. "
― F.D. Lee , The Fairy's Tale (The Pathways Tree, #1)
16
" So what is it you're going to show me today?" " A number of things. In fact, what I'm going to show you is part of a story. Didn't you tell me the other day that what you like to do is read?" Bea nodded, arching her eyebrows." Well, this is a story about books." " About books?" " About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind." " You sound like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel." " That's probably because I work in a bookshop and I've seen too many. But this is a true story. As real as the fact that this bread they served us is at least three days old. And, like all true stories, it begins and ends in a cemetery, although not the sort of cemetery you imagine." She smiled the way children smile when they've been promised a riddle or a magic trick." I'm all ears. "
20
" (…) met the owner of this cozy book-and-candle Apt. G, a tall, leggy, striking girl named Bea or maybe just the letter B or maybe the insect Bee, not sure, her long blond hair pulled in a ponytail, her no-doubt banging body effortlessly buried beneath a pile of tights and sweaters and scarves – she is a walking coat rack – and as we shook hands, Bea fixed me with the most alarming blue-eyed stare of my life, the kind of stare in which you think some potent subliminal message is being passed along (Run away with me or maybe just Run away), (…) "
― Jess Walter , The Financial Lives of the Poets