“The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawson's farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere.”
“Too many!' James shouted, and slammed the door behind him.”
“It is a burden...(M)ake no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden and this more than any, and you will long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law."
- Susan Cooper ("Merriman" The Dark is Rising)”
“The strange white world lay stroked by silence. No birds sang. The garden was no longer there, in this forested land. Nor were the out-buildings nor the old crumbling walls. There lay only a narrow clearing round the house now, hummocked with unbroken snowdrifts, before the trees began, with a narrow path leading away.”
“They walked as old friends walk, without often speaking, sharing the kind of silence that is not so much silence as a kind of still communication.”
“So it will go,” Merriman said. “He will have a sweet picture of the Dark to attract him, as men so often do, and beside it he will set all the demands of the Light, which are heavy and always will be.”
“Expect nothing and fear nothing, here or anywhere. That’s your first lesson.”
“When the dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.”
“every man has a last choice after the first, a chance of forgiveness. It is not too late. Turn. Come to the Light.”
“There was something about Christmas Eve, they both felt, that demanded company; one needed somebody to whisper to, during the warm beautiful dream-taut moments between hanging the empty stocking at the end of the bed, and dropping into the cosy oblivion that would flower into the marvel of Christmas morning.”
“The surface of the iron was irregular, but though it showed no sign of having been polished it was completely smooth—smooth in a way that reminded him of a certain place in the rough stone floor of the kitchen, where all the roughness had been worn away by generations of feet turning to come round the corner from the door.”
“For this was Christmas, which had always been a time of magic, to him and to all the world.”
“The Herdsman passed, nodding, the bright star Arcturus at his knee; the Bull roared by, bearing the great sun Aldebaran and the small group of the Pleiades singing in small melodic voices, like no voices he had ever heard.”
“He was among trees then, spring trees tender with the new matchless green of young leaves, and a clear sun dappling them; summer trees full of leaf, whispering, massive; dark winter firs that fear no master and let no light brighten their woods. He learned the nature of all trees, the particular magics that are in oak and beech and ash.”
“The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world.”
“the sky dark with wheeling birds.”
“They are English,” Merriman said. “Quite right,” said Will’s father. “Splendid in adversity, tedious when safe. Never content, in fact. We’re an odd lot.”
“the house and everyone in it lay in a sleep that would not be broken.”
“He was woken by music. It beckoned him, lilting and insistent; delicate music, played by delicate instruments that he could not identify, with one rippling, bell-like phrase running through it in a gold thread of delight. There was in this music so much of the deepest enchantment of all his dreams and imaginings that he woke smiling in pure happiness at the sound.”
“Overhead the sky was dull and cloudless, a bland impassive blue, more the interior ceiling of some deep irrevocable psychosis than the storm-filled celestial sphere he had known during the previous days.”
“Be content with what you have, refuse to focus on what you don’t have; love others; and stay hopeful concerning what you want and need.”
“I guess I keep waiting for someone to choose me, to want me, over all the other women he could have.”
“Mzatal gave a decisive nod. “I will
manage this. It cannot continue to interfere
with his work. Too much is at stake.”
I raised an eyebrow. “How do you
intend to manage it?”
“I will tell him the truth and outline the
consequences.”
I was surprised Mzatal didn’t shrivel
away from the look I gave him. “Dude.
Seriously? You expect him to stop
crushing on me because you forbid it?”
Mzatal frowned, contemplative.
“Perhaps not ideal given the entanglement
of human emotions, though there is no time
for it to drag on,” he said, as if he actually
knew what he was talking about. “If he
knows you have no interest and sees how
his distractions have affected his work, he
will subside enough for now.”
My withering look became glacial.
“Boss, you’re completely awesome in
many ways, but you are so off-base with
this it’s not even funny.” I rolled my eyes.
“I’ve already ramped ‘No Interest’ up to
eleven on the dial and, at this point, he
doesn’t care if his work suffers.” I took a
big gulp of coffee, then ran my fingers
through my tangled hair. “Let me deal with
it. Normally I’m not into direct
confrontation with this sort of shit, but
there’s isn’t enough time for it to fizzle out
on its own.”
Mzatal regarded me with that damned
unreadable mask which he’d slipped on as
I was talking. Great. Lords weren’t much
on being told they were wrong, but it had
to be said.”
“I can hear the library humming in the night,
a choir of authors murmuring inside their books
along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,
Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son,
each one stitched into his own private coat,
together forming a low, gigantic chord of language.”
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