My heart, for unknown reasons, seems to freeze in motion in my chest. I can see he senses it and he holds his pause to enjoy my suffering, prolonging my ignorance. “Viktor, what?

You can cower,” she told them in a clear voice, wrapping her long shaking fingers around the cold iron bars. “But I will stand.

Even then his thoughts did not turn to prayer but to Abbie and to what she would think about his lack of prayerfulness and that surely she would have immediately broken out in prayer. “Doesn’t matter now,” he whispered and felt that he could not cry out to God.~William Drexler the Third

Tragic tales rarely do make sense.

If he looks at me like that again Dottie will need a bucket and mop to get me back to my room.

A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. “I didn’t. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could not do so himself.” “Very kind of you.” “Yes. I have been looking forward to it for quite some time.” Daddy’s lemonade is almost gone, he sips it carefully, turning his eyes back to the water. “Looking forward to seeing the lad or to conducting your business?” Daddy is toying with him. “Both. You see, I had never actually met his son.” The glass rests against Daddy’s lips, unmoving. Mr. Geyer watches him closely. “But now I have, so I can get on with my,” he fixes his own gaze on the water, as though trying to see whatever it is that has transfixed my father, “business.

Wicked eyes are not a good prospect for seminary boys. They want a gentle, soft sort of wife, not a wife who looks as though she may sprout wings and carry off the young children of the village. ~Maria "Smythe

All I know is that the fear I have been battling all night is breaking down the door of my ignorance. As my feet slam down I feel not the hard, wet asphalt but the soft Persian rug that led to the staircase in my father’s home. In the glow of lightning the dancing trees are illuminated but I see my mother in the glow of candlelight, spinning, twirling, her hair fanned out behind her. It is falling over me, saturating my thoughts, and I cannot. I cannot let it in.

These were not the belongings of the past prisoner he had imagined. These were a lady’s things—hairpins and stockings and a glove. There were more clues waiting but William no longer felt certain he wanted to know the dark secrets of this cell.

I can also speak to small woodland creatures,” he grins at me.

My dear lady, you have no idea just how scandalous I can be. ~Peter Viktor von Strassenberg, 1905

And Mother, I love her dearly, but she flies into a panic whenever I mention women’s rights. As she sees it, it will be so much more difficult to marry me off if I am not only of a weak constitution but of a progressive mind as well.

I can see how your mother would have a point. Having a debate with a politically minded woman can be intriguing and even entertaining but to share a house with her and have her always campaigning and protesting at the dinner table,” he slanted his gaze down toward me. “That could be very tiring indeed.

I came from across the ocean and through the wilderness and landed here and found you hiding behind a tapestry. My fate was sealed at the sight of your stockinged feet.~Viktor von Strassenberg

That Abbie is such a freaking brat who doesn’t know anything! My William is wasting away in that castle and that stuck up, self-righteous cow doesn’t even care because now she’s just all ooooo, Peter I love you! Well I don’t love Peter and he’s a jerk. Let’s go bust down the door!” She sat back and calmly pushed her hair from her face, “Now would you get me a soda?

He had touched her. Bare skin to bare skin. She needed a bleach wipe. She would absolutely use a bleach wipe on her leg. Even if it ate her flesh off.

It was enough to drive me mad. I was no longer myself and yet I was so much more me than I had ever been before. ~Katherine Demure