The trick wasn’t necessarily having less fear, it was finding more courage.

We all have, she knew, a place where we’re not only most comfortable, but most competent.

Who made the rule that people shouldn’t eat or drink in a church?” So they’d tried it. At first it felt awkward, wrong. As though God would be offended if people took a meal in his house. Until they realized that the sacrilege wasn’t eating and talking and laughing in the chapel. It was leaving it empty.

After more than a thousand years,” he continued, “an enemy finally broke through. Not because of superior firepower. Not because the Manchus were better fighters or strategists. They weren’t. The Manchus breached the Great Wall and took Beijing because someone opened a gate. From the inside. As simple as that. A general, a traitor, let them in and an empire fell.

Jews, gypsies, gays. It became normal and acceptable. No one told them what was happening was wrong. In fact, just the opposite.

That’s what I believe,” said Ruth. “Peter didn’t. Here was a man who was given everything. Talent, love, a peaceful place to live and create. And all he had to do was appreciate it.” “And if he didn’t?” “He would remain stone. And the deities would turn on him. They do, you know. They’re generous, but they demand gratitude.

Why were there no words that felt? Words that when you touched them you’d feel what was intended? The chasm left by the loss of Madeleine? The lump in the throat that fizzed and ached. The terror of falling asleep knowing that on waking she’d relive the loss, like Prometheus bound and tormented each day. Everything had changed. Even her grammar. Suddenly she lived in the past tense. And the singular.

This village has known loss, people killed before their time, accidents, war, disease. Three Pines isn’t immune to any of that. But you seem to accept it as part of life and not hang on to the bitterness.

He read the familiar first lines of the book and felt the calm come over him, like a comforter.

Recruiters, for terrorist cells and police forces and armies, relied on this simple truth: if you got people young enough, they could be made to do just about anything.