Marsha > Recent Status Updates

But I was still staring at Bri, who was looking down at her hands as though they belonged to someone else. "What's wrong?"
She looked up at me, eyes wide. "I touched you."
"And thank goodness for it," Finlay said. "We'd be dead if you hadn't."
She shook her head. "You don't understand."
"I don't have magic, remember?" I held my hands out to her. "Go on, take them."
Bri didn't move. "You don't feel changed? Altered?"

"Here." Tariq handed me a small cloth pouch. "This will help you awaken the raven. You won't e ale to rouse Jasper until the bird wakes up."
Rouse Jasper? At this point, I was going to kick him for not being here when I...we...needed him.
"They're coming through your shield, Miles," Olive said.
"Go!" Miles ordered. He turned back to face the horde with Olive and Tariq. I knelt down and gently scooped up the bird.

I felt someone watching me and glanced up, meeting Jasper's gaze int he rearview mirror. the corner of his mouth turned up and I felt myself mirroring the action. I had the feeling he understood my need for answers, which was very validating. The cars ahead started to move and he returned his gaze to the road while I stared at the white tile walls of the tunnel in which we were doing time.

There were three stories in the BODO library and when we reached the top one, I found I was winded. Exercise had never been high on my list of priorities. Given the choice between jogging several miles or reading half a book, I'd choose the book every time. If I had to climb these stairs every day while I worked on deciphering the book, I was going to get into shape whether I liked it or not.

I lifted my hand to press the detonator on my face screen. I should have acted immediately. But I hesitated. I'd read many human stories about the ugliness of war, the guilt of success, the vibrations of failure. A handful riffled through my mind, lightning fast: The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic.

"You sure this is safe?"
"Definitely! Safety isn't an issue. There are dozens of--"
"Then why isn't this on the market for just anyone?" Tolu asked. "It sounds cool, really, Zelu, but...it also sounds like you're donating your body for experimentation. I've heard too much about Western medicine experimenting on Africans--"
"I'm American, too," Zelu snapped, shocked that Tolu also wasn't on her side.

We never saw those dolphins again. From that point on, the crew called me Secret Salt, because they were all sure I had salt water in my blood after they saw me swim with those dolphins. Most likely, the creatures were migrating and came a little too close to shore. But to me, their presence was a blessing from God. It was reassurance that, despite the pollution, our waters were still alive and occupied.

"See my granddaughter safely home, won't you?" the viscount said.
Did Falconer have any idea that Jake was staying int he same hotel as she? Surely not. Her grandfather was tottering toward their hostess. Cleo narrowed her eyes. Falconer had a way of suddenly appearing frail when he wished.
She was getting the distinct impression that her mother had learned her uncanny ability to get her way at her father's knee.

"What's all this about kippers?": Byng asked. He had taken out a pencil and was scribbling on a piece of notepaper. "Now, darling Cleo, I don't want to have all the fun of ordering Addison's clothing. You must do your part."
"We could choose fabric for your gowns," Jake suggested. "Let's make another round of all the shelves, and I will hold bolts up to your hair."
"Only half-mourning colors," Cleo reminded him.

"I'm not the first sojourner you've met."
"Far from it."
"And you ask them all. Why go on."
"Yes."
"Do they say anything helpful?"
"Never. Either they don't think it's worth it, and we have the same problem--very common among sojourners, by the way--or they do, but they can't explain it; it comes as naturally as breathing to them; of course they go on, because isn't life fun? They've never even pondered why."

There was a camp of analytic magicians called the Intuitionists, who argued the following: When it came down to it, magick was not really about how much complicated maths or logic or linguistics you had. The final push to make a spell work was the power of belief. You have to assemble enough proof to convince yourself the world could be another way. As long as you could trick yourself, you could trick the world.

She had always delighted in starting a new term at a new institution--elementary, middle, high school, college and at last Cambridge. She liked learning her way around the buildings, getting library access, nestling into tucked-away study nooks, finding her favorite shortcuts between her department and the dormitories. She liked becoming a person that befit the institution.

The previous year she had applied for the prestigious Cooke Fellowship for dissertation research. The Cooke Fellowships, founded a century ago by a widow of one of the founding theoreticians, were incredibly prestigious. They offered not only ample funding for summer travel to anywhere in the world, but also a procession of dinners and cocktail parties before and after with the Cooke family descendants.

The knight kissed the witch for the food and water she brought them, briefly and without interest, and apologized to the lady after. At night the lady nuzzled her head into the crook of the knight's arm and spread her long hair over them. The witch lay awake, watching the stars until they blurred and ran together.
"Why do you never sing anymore?" the knight said. "Sing for us."

But we're jumping into our futures together. Miles away, but together.
The next morning, the blizzard outside hits so hard, the air itself has body. Through the whiteout, I can barely see Ben's frost-colored rose sitting in a vase by the window.
Waking up next to Ben is shocking. Not that I thought he'd leave in the night, I'm just not used to this alien feeling of security.

In the basement, today, Ben lovingly. plays with the curls on my neck. I shut my eyes on another painful throb.
I have to be strong and do this for us.
"Ben, I can't lose you again," I say weakly, my neck collapsing in shame.
"Hey." Ben swirls his hand across my back. "You're not gonna."
I wriggle free of his touch. I can't let his sweetness top what I need to do. Ben clocks what I did, his eyes narrowed in fear.

Mama Bianchi's pie stand is a small canteen behind the former sculpture garden, just before the Vero Roseto property gates that lead into the dense thickets of Valle Forest. In the declining last few years, the neglected pie stand has become a vermin lair, so it needs a severe cute-ening. While I vacuum cobwebs from the corner, Ben leans against the pie stand's windowsill.
Things are getting...easy between us.

Despite our so-far platonic friendship, Ben still surprises me with tiny touches like this. Sniffing my hair. Poking my cheek. A hand on my back when he's squeezing past me.
When Ben's fingers come near me, my skin fizzes like I'm holding an ice cube too long.
Always shocking, never relaxing.
This isn't good for me. Being anything more than friends with Ben isn't good.

Ben crosses his arms over the hoe to lean against it. "You don't want to kick my ass?"
"No."
"Liar."
"I'm not lying."
"So, what do you want?"
"I want"--I take a step toward him, so we're inches apart--"to offer you a cool beverage because you look like you need a break. Now can I get you an iced tea or not?"
Ben smiles. "Sure."
Minutes later, I return from the kitchen to the yard with cans of Brisk iced tea.

"Well, then here's another fact," said my dad. "Last night I called the guy who wanted to buy our guitars. He told me his brother owns that music store down by the mall. He needs an assistant manager. His brother also has a garage apartment behind the store that won't be occupied for a month. It'd give us a roof over our heads for a little while, anyway. Maybe some work."
"That's good, right?" I asked.
"It's good."

We moved out of our house right after first grade ended. There was no big announcement, no goodbye party. We just sort of left, the way you abandon your desk at the end of the school year. You clean it out, but if you leave a few pencils and an old spelling test behind, you don't worry about it too much. You know the kid who has your desk next fall will take care of things.

OVER AN HOUR AFTER Lucy's fingerprint discovery, Mom arrived. I thought she would help and listen, but she barely even reacted to the news that we'd had a serious breakthrough in how the killers framed Cole. Instead she just dropped everyone off at their homes, telling each set of parents to keep their kids inside and not let them out under any circumstances. Worst of all, she won't discuss what her people found.

Of all the shocking things to occur in this year of our Lord of shocking occurrences, am I going to get with this suave twerp before school's over? I've been with nerdy boys before, and they always got a little freak going on. Overthinking can be potent.
Across the table, under the blue lights casting harsh shadows, and with patsy Cline playing on the speakers, Benny Prince starts to look a bit...dangerous.

Mrs. Dearie pulls on a blue surgical glove and opens Mrs. Benson's side drawer, which should be empty.
In my mind, that ugly officer's face reappears--tattooed on my brain since the Slap. I have an intimate understanding of when a cop is playing with their food. The coyness, the patently fake ignorance. It isn't them doing me a kindness; it's aimed at unsettling, inducing stress, and getting their target to crack.

"I see how you act with others. You will not use the power to take my will."
"You don't know that. I don't know what happens to people when they get power because I've never had power myself. But most of them do pretty awful things most of the time."
"What if I only teach you the spell to take my name and not the spell to take my will."
"That would work until I learn the spell from somebody else. No."

I give all my attention to Isaac. "Stay with me, Isaac, and I'll get us out of here."
"With you," he says with that same weary smile. "Always with you."
He's so weak now, I just about have to carry him out of Hiro's office--and now the hallway seems impossibly long and is no longer straight. Instead, it winds back in upon itself like an intestine. The very walls fight me every step of the way, but I will not yield.

The roof isn't a roof. It's a hillside of wildflowers, the air is a birthday cake fresh out of the oven and the sky is a swirl of colors that go beyond what eyes are supposed to see. It's good to be here still and to share the flavorful skies and the painted snails that talk in tongues and even the razorback spiders that will sometimes crawl into your brain and make you scream, because it's like that sometimes too.

Her name is Ivy Inez Ramey, and she's been charged into my capable hands. Unlike Roxy, who waits until she feels the call, I arrive early. Punctuality is a virtue I hold in high regard. Ivy doesn't want to have any relationship with me, much less one where I have all the power, but she will quickly learn that it is not my nature to abuse that power. In time, she will come to lean on me as a companion and confidant.

"Do you know what all this is worth?" He slaps the back of a sofa like it's the rump of a horse. She half expects it to gallop away. "More than I've ever made in my life. More than I ever could make in my life." he laughs again, a dark, bitter sound., "and it was always right here. I just had to walk through that door."
He seems perfectly content to stand there, marveling at his previously undiscovered wealth.

"Well, come on," Birdie says to the others. "We aren't playing in the kitchen."
"The study?" Minnow asks. Everyone is excited by this idea except her. Which is odd, because she's so competitive during their card games. Maybe Minnow and River had a falling out. River certainly seems upset. But Minnow doesn't.
"The floor." It's perfect. A wi8e, open space. Birdie's annoyed she didn't think of it sooner.