"I live in the attic, mother says it's so. I peer through the window, he peers back at me. The attic is dark, Cousin says it is not dark where I live. Cousin who lives under the stairs sometimes whispers secrets to me. The rats live in the walls, they chew on Cousin. Cousin who lives under the stairs doesn't mind. Cousin told me that the rats are kind, the rats understand how we live. Cousin tells me that there are others who don't understand how we live. Cousin learned that from Auntie, Auntie learned that from mother."

"The attic is full of books. The books teach me where the corners are. I learned how to read the things mother writes on the wall from those books. Mother writes the trees on my wall, other times she writes the sky. Mother never writes the others on the wall, the others do not talk to us Mother says. Mother is not the only one who writes on the walls. Cousin told me it is Joan who writes other things on the walls. I do not know if Cousin tells me the truth. I have not seen Joan for such a long time."

"I like to stand in the creek. I like to stand on the bottom of the creek, that is where brother lives. I feel my feet sink into the muddy, fleshy bottom of the creek. There are things that touch my feet, brother tells me to leave them alone or they may not brush by my feet. The water goes up just above my nose, that way I can see things in the surface. Fog often drifts over the creek, that is when I hear brother speak. Brother tells me many things. Brother told me the creek is named the Colquie, the creek speaks to brother and I listen. Brother tells me the creek likes me. I watch the rowans, and they watch over me. In the evenings I stand in the weeds. The fog is out in the evenings. I feel brother hold my ankles, 'stay!' He begs me, but I can not; I hear mother calling; it is supper time."

"Sometimes when it is late, when the moon hides itself behind the waxy darkness, and I can barely see it hiding from me, Sister will come out. If I am very quiet and do not forget to tell cousin to sing to the rats so they are very quiet, I can play with sister. I like to run through the woods with sister, we like to chase them. We dance with the goat on the hillside, that goat is different than the goats the others have; it is all dark, and it stands up. Sister tells me that the others will be hurt for killing so many goats. I can hear the goats scream and I smell their blood."

"Mother says I must keep the rowans with me. She says that if I drink the red that comes out of the rowans, that I will be safe from the others."

"Sometimes I can't find the moon, I know it is playing hide and seek again, it's face hidden under the harvest tablecloth, it can't fool me though, I know all it's secrets."

"I once asked mother about father. I do not ask mother about father anymore."

"Mother calls to me; 'Child, it is time.' I follow out into the garden, Mother says I must walk straight in the town, she says the other folk who live in town do not like the way I skitter when I play in the forest. Mother does not walk with me, she walks the corners, she tells me to go ahead and find the folk and tell them that she will soon arrive. I cannot walk the corners of angled space, but I know where the corners are, and I will one day learn how."
"The strange old folk of the town peer through closed shutters as I wander into town, they don't see much of what comes down from the Baxtwitch turnpike, they must think it wild, lifeless country, that makes me laugh. I know the house I am looking for; I can smell the bitter-sweet aroma of expectant death, it invites me in. I am silent as mother says I must. The nightly noises fill my head, I listen to the symphony of expected and unexpected things.”

“There is the one, sleeping so soundly, they don’t know that I have come to tell them something. I know the words I have memorized them. Mother says that I must tell these words to the one who sleeps in the bed in the house with the number 1990 on the street named Blaine. I lean in close to the ear of the one who is sleeping so that the words don’t escape and flitter through the air. My hair, white as the web of the things that crawl in the sleeping one’s pillow, brushes the face of the sleeping one, I begin the message, I whisper the words, words know by all but forgotten by all but a few, telling them how to escape.”