As I lay in the dark, listening to the distant rush of the waterfall, I hoped that part of me would always be nine and a half, and that even when I was an adult and had to face the world with all its grown-up responsibilities, part of me would always know the excitement of the fascinating things I’d seen at the beck. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than a life without such wonders. How dull and sad life would be if it was all work and chores and war.

We are the sum of those who have touched our lives in one way or another.

But wishes, like fairies, are fickle things. They rarely do what you want them to do.

You don’t need anybody’s permission to live the life you desire, Olivia. You need only the permission of your heart.

There will always be someone willing to save us, Grace. Even a stranger whose name we don’t know. That is the very best of humanity. That is what puts my mind at ease on a day like today.

For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands. – Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market,” 1862.

In that moment, and perhaps for much longer, it seemed to me that the possibility of believing in fairies was more important than one little girl telling the truth.

We women are not as sheltered from the world as we once were. War is opening the world up for us. What sad irony is that?

We have to believe in the possibility of happy endings, sure we do, otherwise what’s it all for?

They tell you that it will pass, that there’ll be a day when you wake up and your heart doesn’t ache, a day when you don’t cry, but laugh and smile and remember the person you’ve lost with great fondness. You can’t believe that day will ever come. But it does, doesn’t it? Somehow, it does.