The Binding

somehow it went from too soon to too late, without the right moment in between.

Memories,’ she said, at last. ‘Not people, Emmett. We take memories and bind them. Whatever people can’t bear to remember. Whatever they can’t live with. We take those memories and put them where they can’t do any harm. That’s all books are

May your darkness be quiet and the light come sooner than you need,

Who the hell are you?" "I'm the witch's apprentice. Who the hell are you?

Which was worse? To feel nothing, or to grieve for something you no longer remembered? Surely when you forgot, you’d forget to be sad, or what was the point? And yet that numbness would take part of your self away, it would be like having pins-and-needles in your soul … I took a deep breath.

Books want to burn,' he says. 'They go up like that because - they're unstable, memories don't want to stay...

My heart was so light I could have flown. The memory of it takes my breath away. I didn’t know happiness was that simple.

Knowledge is always a kind of magic, I suppose.

Maybe I should have followed him; but somehow it went from too soon to too late, without the right moment in between.

There's a growing trade in fakes, you know. Does that concern you? He paused, but he didn't seem surprised not to get an answer. I've never seen one - well, as far as I know - but I'm curious. Could one really tell the difference? Novels, they call them. They must be much cheaper to produce. You can copy them, you see. use the same story over and over, and as long as you're careful how you sell them, you can get away with it. It makes one wonder who would write them. People who enjoy imagining misery, I suppose. People who have no scruples about dishonesty. People who can spend days writing a long sad lie without going insane.

Here the clock in the hall dredged up seconds like stones and dropped them again into the pool of the day, letting each ripple widen before the next one fell.

something inside me fell apart: like a pot that had been broken years ago but somehow managed to cling to it shape until someone nudged it

Under everything is happiness so deep and rich it’s like dark wet earth. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know why it’s there. But I could reach out and grab a fistful of it.

The darkness rolled and sucked like a tide, at arm’s length; and then, instead of drowning me, it receded.

We make books - we make beautiful books - out of love.

But the part of me that yearned for music and noise was the old, healthy part; I knew that silence, work and rest were what I needed now. Even if, sometimes, it felt so lonely I could hardly bear it.

I’d do almost anything not to have to be myself any more.

I ran through air that held me back.

I don’t want to see anyone and I don’t want to be alone.

We kissed as if we could stop the earth turning, as if we were enemies as well as lovers, as if we'd never see each other again.

We take memories and bind them. Whatever people can’t bear to remember. Whatever they can’t live with. We take those memories and put them where they can’t do any more harm. That’s all books are.’ Finally I met her eyes.

Havilland calls himself an artist, but ultimately a binder is merely the rectum through which waste is squeezed into another shape.

It was driving me mad, this constant desire- no, need- to hit him, when I knew I didn't dare

To have another person’s memory entrusted to you . . . To take the deepest, darkest part away from them and keep it safe, forever. To honor it, to make it beautiful, even though no one will ever see it. To guard it with your own life . . .

Time expanded and shrank to instants and eternities: a spasm of pleasure, sunlight on the ceiling, his fingers digging into my shoulder, half-darkness and the rich smell of wine that was older than we were.

– or like glimpsing my old self, from before I got ill. I hadn’t belonged anywhere for so long, and now this room, with its smell of leather and glue, welcomed me.

I know why you hated me,' He said. 'Because you wanted me, and you were scared.

I'd always loved the first days of spring, when suddenly the prison of winter broke wide open.

I knew the moment I saw him - it was love at first sight." "That's just a fairytale, Alta. You have to know someone before you fall in love.