Rosa

“How do you ruin a people? Is it with fire? Is it with bullets? You can drag a man through the street tied to the back of a horse. You can incinerate a village. Can line families up in rows against a brick wall and fell them, one by one, like a forest. But all it takes is one survivor, and the story lives on. One survivor to carry the poems and the songs, the prayers, the sorrows. It isn’t just taking a life that destroys a people. It’s taking their history.”
― GennaRose Nethercott, Thistlefoot

“Malka's flame burns for one hour, then one day, one year. It has not stopped burning since. And I have not stopped running. You were warned. The story as it is, it's not the story as we wish it were, but then again, it is not a story at all. It is our world. A dead child is a dead child. A massacre is a massacre. Memories must be told. Hens beget hens. Mothers beget children who beget daughters of their own. Generations pass and suddenly we forget. Our descendants are born yearning and they do not know why, for they have forgotten. Their hands are full of fire, their legs are trembling to flee. A body remembers. The soured air remembers. We cannot forget. I cannot forget. And if I am to remember, so too, I vow, will you.”
― GennaRose Nethercott, Thistlefoot

“Truth traveled through her like a bullet. What kind of beast cultivates mobs out of common citizens, using fear as bait? In the real world, these weren’t the traits of monsters. They were the traits of men seeking power. Traits of war. . . .[the] weapon wasn’t a gun. . .it was a charming invitation, a toast to a better tomorrow. It was fear at your back. . .this dybbuk and his wraiths, he wasn’t a who, or an it - he’d told her this outright. He was a when. An event made manifest.”
― GennaRose Nethercott, Thistlefoot