I would, in fact, tend to think that all memory of double somersaults and heart-stopping catches had left her arms and legs were it not for the fact that sometimes, as I sit sewing in the room of the rebuilt ouse in which I slept as a child, I hear the crackle, catch a whiff of smoke from the stove downstairs and suddenly the room does dark, the stitches burn beneath my finger, and I am sewing with a needle of hot silver, a thread of fire.
-- Narrator

Importance: This quote appears early on in the story as a sign of foreshadowing for the story about the fire to come. But it also helps draw an early connection between Anna and the narrator, as this quote suggests that both women are often confronted with their own forms of "blindness" and forced to operate from muscle memory. Here, the narrator shows readers that...