Rebecca Netley > Quotes

“The world gives birth to both the viper and the lamb, and there are churches for each.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“All is not well. You feel it, don’t you?”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“I envisaged Skelthsea, its crags dotted with gulls, how waves might crash and break on the rocks, and a tide that washed the sands endlessly new.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“I don’t believe in ghosts, Elspeth. There are no such things.’ But behind her look there was a shadow of fear.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“Violet Gillies sat in a chair with her right cheek to me. She wore a black dress with silver buttons. Pearl-headed pins glinted in her hair which was teased into curls at the nape. Although she knew that I stood there, she took a while to turn and, when she did, I had to hide my shock. In profile, there was nothing to hint at the scars that she wore on her other cheek.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“The stuffed birds in their cages and the butterflies pinned to their velvet backdrop reminded me only of death.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“Letting the water trickle through my fingers, I gazed down at my reflection and in the ripples another face loomed over mine.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“Sleep, he said, lay down your head No monsters here beneath the bed And so she slept star-deep in dreams Moonlight on the window panes. And did not see it standing by Or how it watched with its dead eye. Anon”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“Darkness bled into the corners and edged across the walls. As I listened, the whistling rose and fell, and I became aware of the way my hand tightened on the rail.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“I did not know any more who or what I was, only that I had left behind, forever, the person I had once been.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“It seemed to me that her gaze passed through the paper and fixed me in its sights.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“Walking a little in front, she guided me through the house and up a staircase to where a mullioned window captured prisms of the autumnal rays.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“Stealthy as the winter frost, it found a rip upon the air. And slipped from death to walk the night But left no footstep there. Anon”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“The mind, my father had always taught me, was the most unreliable of man's organs. Hearts could fail, kidneys could grow septic, but the brain was capable of further reaches; we trust what we see and hear, but how do we truly justify the conclusions we reach?”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“The building stood so quiet, so solid, and yet it carried things inside its skin, things so dark that nobody dared speak of them – and I knew in my bones that something was amiss. It was as if I had been led up some false path.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“Although oil lamps stood on tables, their hesitant light barely licked at the gloom. It was tomb silent, as if even the air did not dare make a sound, and with each step I imagined the twins’ laughter flying down the corridors and ringing in the stairwells, their faces flushed, figures racing in a game of chase. And all the time I thought of the boy who was no longer alive, who lay in some fresh grave upon the island. The hush was profound, as if weighted with shock.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling

“his eyes wandered to the beach, where fingers of orange were spreading across the horizon.”
― Rebecca Netley, The Whistling