9
" Almost immediately, I found the red door into the library. I opened it idly- and the breath stopped in my throat. It was the same room I remembered: the shelves, the lion-footed table, the white bass-relief of Clio. But now, tendrils of dark green ivy grew between the shelves, reaching toward the books as if they were hungry to read. White mist flowed along the floor, rippling and tumbling as if blown by wind. Across the ceiling wove a network of icy ropes like tree roots. They dripped- not little droplets like the ice melting off a tree but grape-sized drops of water, like giant tears, that splashed on the table, plopped to the floor. "
― Rosamund Hodge , Cruel Beauty
13
" My voice felt cold, lovely, and alien as crystal in my throat. "Why should I help you anywhere?"
Though he was slumped against the wall now, he managed to look up at me. His catlike pupils were so dilated they looked almost human.
"Well... I did save your life." Then he doubled up in pain and slid to the floor.
As long as I could remember, the anger had writhed and clawed inside me, and no matter how much it hurt, I had choked it down. Now at last I hated someone who deserved hatred, and it felt like I was Zeus's thunder, like I was the storms of Poseidon upon the sea. I was shaking with fury, and I had never felt so glad.
"You killed my mother. You enslaved my world. And as you pointed out, I will live here as your captive till I die. Tell me, my darling lord, why should I thank you for my life?"
He was gasping and shuddering with pain, and he didn't seem to be seeing me anymore as he whispered, "Please."
I knelt over him and smiled down into his face. My body was wrapped in ice; my voice came from somewhere very far away.
"Do you think you are safe with me?"
Then I stood and walked away, leaving him all alone in the dark. "
― Rosamund Hodge , Cruel Beauty
14
" The next morning, I opened a red-painted door and saw a little room with bookshelves lining its whitewashed walls. In the center of the room sat a round lion-footed table, on which a fat old codex lay open; on the far wall, between a gap in the bookcases, a life-sized bas-relief of the Muse Clio stared at me, her scrolls clasped to her chest, her blind white eyes all-knowing.
It was a library. At first I thought it was very small, but when I stepped inside I saw a doorway leading to another room of books, which itself opened on two more. It was a honeycomb of rooms, their walls covered in bookshelves, reliefs of the Muses peering from occasional alcoves. "
― Rosamund Hodge , Cruel Beauty
19
" There were no furnishings and no decorations-- except the wall on the opposite side had a small alcove, and in the alcove was a bronze statue of a bird, green with age. I thought it might be a sparrow, but it was so corroded that I couldn't tell for sure.
I wondered if it might be the statue of a Lar.
In this room--like the first hallway-- the air smelled of summer. But there was no half-heard laughter on the air, no sense that space was subtly wrong, nor that invisible eyes were watching. There was only the warm, peaceful stillness that exists between one summer breeze and the next. A trickle of water ran down the wall on my left and pooled before the alcove; I drew a breath, and my lungs filled with the mineral scent of water over warm rock.
Without thinking, I sat down and leaned back against the wall. It was not smooth; the stones formed hard, uneven ripples behind my back-- yet the tension ran out of my body. I stared at the bronze sparrow, and I did not entirely fall asleep, but I almost dreamt: my mind was full of summer breezes, the warm, wet smell of earth after summer rain, the delight of running barefoot through damp grass and finding the hidden tangle of strawberries. "
― Rosamund Hodge , Cruel Beauty
