"The other girls in the village never felt restless. Nhamo was like a pot of boiling water. 'I want...I want...,' she whispered to herself, but she didn't know what she wanted and so she had no idea how to find it." Chapter 1, p. 2.

"Nhamo lay awake and tried to sort out her thoughts. Could she have been mistaken about the shadow by the stream? She was certain it was a trick of the light, but everyone else took the appearance of a spirit leopard seriously. It was almost, she thought as she rolled a sleeping toddler back onto her own mat, as if they were expecting it to appear. And as if they were expecting it to come looking for her." Chapter 3, p. 16.

"Rather, there was a space between one person and the next. It was as though a necklace had come apart and each bead...