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It was not a monster that lay sleeping on the white sheets. Nor a faceless horror. Nor even the white bear. It was a man. His hair was golden, glowing bright as a bonfire in the light of the candle. And his features were fair, I suppose, but he was a stranger and that somehow was the greatest shock of all- that I had been lying all these months beside a complete stranger.
Edith Pattou -
My heart pounding, I tried to follow what I saw the others doing. It did not seem difficult, though I managed to step on the troll’s feet several times. Luckily, he did not try to converse with me. It was not long before he led me off the dance floor and then left me. Relieved, I hoped he would pass along the word that the troll lady in the colorless dress had two left feet.
Edith Pattou
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That's the trouble with loving a wild thing: You're always left watching the door. But you also get kind of used to it.
Edith Pattou -
A pine needle fell in the forest. The hawk saw it. The deer heard it. The white bear smelled it.
Edith Pattou -
And I realized how much more complicated life is without the benefit of magic. Rubbing linseed oil into my blistered hands, I thought wistfully of how magic lets you skip over the steps of things. That is what makes it so appealing. But, I thought, the steps of things are where life is truly found, in doing the day-to-day tasks.
Edith Pattou -
That indeed would be a great accolade, but the more I think on it, I believe I should miss my little home in the Blue Stack Mountains too much. And indeed, it is an important posting; you never know when the gabha might start stiring up trouble again...
Edith Pattou -
It is odd, the twists that life will sometimes take. The ewe that you think will give birth with ease dies bringing forth a two-headed lamb. Or the ski trail that you have been told is treacherous, you navigate easily.
Edith Pattou -
Here. After so long waiting. Her purple eyes. Torn cloak. Skin pale, sheer as ice. Exhausted. But unafraid.
Edith Pattou
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I knelt by the design. Yes, there was the sun rising. But the white form I had always thought to be a cloud was a bear. I could see it now, upside down. White bear, isbjorn, stood for north. Father had not been able to help himself. The truth was there, too. Truth and lie, side by side.
Edith Pattou -
East of the sun and west of the moon.' As unfathomable as the words were, I realized I must figure them out, reason it through. For I would go to this impossible land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon. From the moment the sleigh had vanished from sight and I could no longer hear the silver bells I knew that I would go after the stranger that had been the white bear to make right the terrible wrong I had done him.... All that mattered was to make things right. And I would do whatever it took, journey to wherever I must, to reach that goal.
Edith Pattou -
Where there was life, there was also hope.
Edith Pattou -
And telling a story, I suppose, is like winding a skein of spun yarn- you sometimes lose track of the beginning.
Edith Pattou -
It was the difference between walking with a stranger and walking with your heartmate. It was the difference between working for duty and working for love.
Edith Pattou -
East of the sun and west of the moon.
Edith Pattou
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The joy I feel is immense; it burns inside me as though I have swallowed a piece of the sun.
Edith Pattou -
Neither Rose nor Charles liked to talk much of their adventures with the trolls, but some of the so-called "softskins" whom they had brought out of Niflheim, as well as the crew of the ship Soren had hired to go north to find Rose, must have spread the story, because for many years afterward, there were tales of a race of trolls living on top of the world. Only Rose and her white bear know the whole truth of it.
Edith Pattou -
She would search for him. In the land that lay east of the sun and west of the moon. But there was no way there.
Edith Pattou -
For all that I loved the old tales of magic, I did not actually want there to be talking animals and mysterious requests on storm-tossed nights. Such things were for stories and ought to remain there.
Edith Pattou -
That's the trouble with loving a wild thing: You're always left watching the door.
Edith Pattou