The ghosts that exert the most power in people__ lives-at least, the people I know__end to be of their own making, and consist of equal parts regret and old fears and just plain missing somebody.

Emily, there are enemies everywhere. We have to be on our guard, especially for the next couple of weeks._ Theo sighed unhappily. __his is going to be the longest fortnight of my life._ __hat__ saying something,_ I joked, __iven how long you__e lived._ __xactly,_ he said, without smiling.

The water wasn't the same down here. Water is what runs out of the kitchen taps or a playground drinking fountain. It fills bathubs and pools and yes, of course, the ocean- but at a certain depth, water becomes a barrier from all you remember, all you think you know.You're trapped within it, a plaything of it.Focus erodes. Your thoughts mutate. The pressure.The pressure.The soul can't cope with that. It shouldn't be expected to.Humans weren't built for this. There's a reason nothing lives down here.Or nothing should.

Velva wasn__ merely a rose among the thorns, the lily of the valleys, she was Empress amongst the stars and planet.

There was an ocean above us, held in by a thin sac that might rupture and let down a flood at any second.

That's what I'm trying to do; it's like counting stars, only so much prettier.