Home > Work > The Lost Apothecary
41 " Why did we go to such lengths to protect the fragile minds of children? We only robbed them of the truth - and the chance to grow to numb to it before it arrived with a hard knock on the door. "
― Sarah Penner , The Lost Apothecary
42 " …we were happy, yet unfulfilled. It was possible, I understood now, to be both at the same time. I was happy with the stability of working for my family, yet unfulfilled by my job and burdened by the things I hadn’t pursued. I was happy with our desire to someday have children, yet unfulfilled by my achievements apart from family life. How had I only just learned that happiness and fulfillment were entirely distinct things? "
43 " The hint is to let your subconscious find the anomaly. Our brains are meant to identify breaks in a pattern. We evolved that way, many millions of years ago. You are not searching for a thing so much as you are searching for an inconsistency of things, or an absence. "
44 " lived not a waking hour without pain. "
45 " You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust "
46 " You cannot be betrayed by someone you do not trust. "
47 " asked myself what the old Caroline would do—the Caroline of a decade ago, the zealous student not yet dazzled by a diamond on her finger. "
48 " This glass object—delicate and yet still intact, somewhat like myself—was proof that I could be brave, adventurous, and do hard things on my own. I dropped the vial into my pocket. "
49 " And what I’d always considered sensible in James seemed, for the first time, something else: stifling and subtly manipulative. "
50 " Because saving lives with the gifts of the earth, Eliza, is as good as magick. "
51 " Surrounded by a thousand broken pieces, a long and hard search stretched ahead of me, one that would require sifting through the pieces I wanted to keep and the ones I didn’t. "
52 " I was happy with the stability of working for my family, yet unfulfilled by my job and burdened by the things I hadn’t pursued. "
53 " Back in my hotel room, nestled in the middle of the bed with a takeout carton of chicken pad Thai in my lap, I could have cried tears of relief. There were no people and no police and no beeping hospital equipment. "
54 " For many of these women," Nella whispered, "this may be the only place their names are recorded. The only place they will be remembered. It is a promise I made to my mother, to preserve the existence of these women whose names would otherwise be erased from history. The world is not kind to us...There are few places for a woman to leave an indelible mark." I finished tracing an entry, moving on to the next one. "But this register preserves them -- their names, their memories, their worth. "
55 " Next, she pushed aside the sheet of paper and lifted the book. She asked if I understood any of the words, and I shook my head. She then pointed at several of the shorter words -- she, cart, plum -- and explained how each letter made its own sound, and how words strung together on paper could convey an idea, a story. Like magick, I thought. It was everywhere, if only one knew to look. "
56 " The curse of magick, they believe, is that for every reward, there is a great loss. For every spell that goes right, there is something else – in the real, natural world – that goes terribly wrong. "
57 " Yet another reason I didn't meddle with the rich: people always wanted what they have, their secrets most of all. "
58 " The youthful, adventurous student in me had begun to resurface. "
59 " And why had it taken a life crisis to finally ask myself the question? "
60 " It felt as though the universe, in her strange and nonsensical way, meant to reach out to me, to remind me of the enthusiasm I once had "