Fortune-teller tea. Give it a sip!"The liquid was pink and smelled of strawberries, but when Maddie drank it, the flavor was deep and a little bitter, followed by a sudden burst of sweetness.Her father returned. "Well?" he asked."It started out as black licorice and then melted into butterscotch," she said."Oh, my girl, the tea is telling you that this is the year to keep your ear to the ground and listen for surprises. Change is coming!"Maddie's stomach was full of thoughts and her head full of butterflies. She checked her watch again. She couldn't wait for it all to begin.

I think Dad wanted to feel the pain, to feel his body cry, an urgent reminder that he was still alive. I pretended not to notice.

You should just keep your mouth shout! It gets very tedious having you make a snarky comment about everything that someone says in this group.

I watched the rain stream across the window in little rivulets with sunshine coming through. For me, the rain has always been an emotional thing that makes me very happy. However, living with the fact that it will never last forever breaks my heart. The slow falling rain reminds me of the time when I and my father would just watch the rain until it stopped. It has been a warm memory ever since.

He had been searching for it his entire life. He had devoted himself to poetry to find it. Now, in the middle of his life, he found it. It was in the face of the love of his life, his daughter. She who had never blushed before, now blushed. And in that blushing, he knew, was the existence of God. That was the day her father learned what God was. God was pure beauty, God was his daughter’s face when she blushed.

I profess myself an enemy to all other joys, which the most precious square of sense possesses, and find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness love.

The guard hit Kestrel across the face. “I said, what did you give him?”You had a warrior’s heart, even then.Kestrel spat blood. “Nothing,” she told the guard. She thought of her father, she thought of Arin. She told her final lie. “I gave him nothing.

I only had access to him when we were together in the library, and I loved them both -the library and my father- equally and without question.

Papa! You painted my nose!""I certainly did," her father said."But why?" Belle tried to see the purple dot on her face.Maurice grinned. "Because that mark makes you even more beautiful. Different and special from the inside out, just like your fantastic doll. And just like your mother, who you look and act more like every day."Belle eyed her father suspiciously. "A purple mark does all that?""Yes. Because it's yours and only yours," Maurice said.

The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness.

Although my father had never been there, I came to believe I would someday see that city for him.