"It's a sad business, dealing with sad people, and not being able to say a word to comfort them." (Chapter 1, page 15)

"Emma Lou always went over exciting events when she was alone in the woods. Sometimes she acted out things she hoped would happen; sometimes she just went back over things that had happened and thought of how she could have said or done something else." (Chapter 2, page 27)

"Jerome had always thought of girls as sweet little things dressed in fluffy gowns with scrubbed, pink faces, and neat pigtails down their backs. Emma Lou did not fit this picture at all—her face usually had smudges or berry-vine scratches on it." (Chapter 3, page 42)

"Ben says animals know. He says they can smell death." (Chapter 4, page 57)

"As he ate he studied the figure he was chiseling out of the cream-colored stone. He knew it was going to be...