The Real Boy

I think if you'll look around, my boy,' he said gently, 'you'll find that no one is quite right. But we all do the best we can.

It was a beautiful lie that they had all been telling themselves—that you could have magic without monsters.

There is a way the truth hits you, both hard and gentle at the same time. It punches you in the stomach as it puts its loving arm around your shoulder. Yes, I am terrible to behold, the truth says. But you suspected it all along, didn't you? And isn't better, now that you know? Now, at least, it all makes sense.

He lifted his hand to knock, but then he stopped. He could go neither forward nor back, so he simply stayed that way—hand frozen in the air.

No one else needed to do this. No one else needed lessons on how to be a person.

Oscar did not know what he was supposed to be feeling right now, what all the adults behind him would be expecting him to feel. He did not even know what he was, in fact, feeling. Except, whatever it was, it was a lot. Too much. More than bodies could hold.

Someone who thinks of possessing a fountain made of a winged baby with water shooting out of its mouth must not have too many troubles.

The words kept coming and he could not stop them, not while Callie was standing there so indecipherably, and so he was going to keep talking until he used up all the words there were and then no one would be able to talk to anyone else anymore and then all anyone would have left were one another's unintelligible faces, and maybe some weird gesturing, too, and it would be all Oscar's fault.

He's gone now. He did something terrible, but...he did good things, too. And he kept us well. And it's all right if you are sad.

There are ways to do things, ways to act with people, and I do not understand them. I cannot understand what people mean when they talk. I do not do things right. I do not feel things right. I do not see things right. I am not...I'm not made of the same thing as everyone else.' The baker took in a deep breath. 'I think if you'll look around, my boy,' he said gently, 'you'll find that no one is quite right. But we all do the best we can.

There is something in the magic we have that is greater than the magic we can do.

Ladders were not inherently dangerous, he told himself, people climbed them every day, and most of them lived.

The Asterians didn't call themselves anything special, because when everyone else refers to you as the shining people, you really don't have to do it yourself.

You see," the lord explained, "everyone else has them. You wouldn't want your child to be the only one who had flaws. What would it be like for them?

The ground beneath our feet is home to more untapped wonder than the skies above our head

...the water was holding [him] close and telling him beautiful lies, and since it was the end, he chose to believe them.

He could still escape—the fear was in front of him, and all he had to do was wrench free and run in the other direction. But he kept walking forward, straight into its embrace.

At each step there is a small moment of transformation that cannot be overlooked or rushed. And these moments should not be, because they are beautiful.

This was not [him]. It was a thing, with all the [him]-ness gone from it. Death takes the person and leaves his shell behind, like a hollowed-out tree.

Something rose in Oscar's chest, like a flower blossoming all at once. It grew until it filled him and threatened to spill over everywhere. The words [he] spoke touched a longing so deep Oscar hadn't even known it was there.

Something was wrong with him - and down deep he'd known his whole life. Maybe the wards had even said something. (You are not right, boy.) Maybe the other children had. (What's wrong with you?) Maybe it had happened while he watched one child after another walk off with a family from the Eastern Villages, with a merchant or a farmer. (You know no one will ever take you, right?) Maybe he'd even said it to himself.

They said words they did not mean, and their conversations seemed to follow all kinds of rules—rules that no one has ever explained to Oscar.

The apprentice's name was Wolf, because sometimes the universe is an unsubtle place.

I’m not really made for people.” Callie exhaled. “You’re not made at all, Oscar. Don’t you see? After everything that’s happened this week? You get to do the making.

Everything and everyone was so hungry. The monster. The Barrow folk, buying everything up when danger lurked. The City people, clutching at pretty little enchanted things. Substituting magic for people. The shining people’s ancestors, when the plague threatened, ignoring the warnings of the wizards, assuring themselves magic would keep them safe as they themselves brought death upon the entire island.

Oscar grabbed on to the words and held them.

The trees were not Aletheia’s gift to the wizards for their service, not living monuments to great men and women. They were monuments of a desperate act, necessitated because of foolishness and greed. The trees were not the wizards’ respite. They were their sacrifice.