--Zel by Donna Jo Napoli
“When I brought Zel to the tower that I had never heard of before but that my feet took me to all on their own, I did it to gain time. I needed to figure out how to lead Zel to the choice that would keep us together. I gave up salvation for all time---surely I deserved more than thirteen years in return.”
--Zel by Donna Jo Napoli
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“I know in an instant that this is the moment I have dreaded. I must talk to Zel of the most important decision she will make in her life. I must give Zel the choice between a life with me forever and the ordinary life of stupid people who know no better.”
--Zel by Donna Jo Napoli “I have been considering my fate, and the way it appears to me is this: if I agree to marry the Prince, who is young and handsome and somewhat less intelligent than a clod of dirt, he may perchance let me out of this tower before the wedding takes place. ‘Twould not occur to him that I might run away when once I had given my word. Which I would do, I assure you, in the winking of an eye. On the other hand, if I do agree to marry the Prince, the King will simply have the Prince quietly assassinated, and I will end up marrying the King anyway. He would never risk losing anything he wanted through foolish trust in a woman’s word. No indeed; I shall be treated like the wife of Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater, who kept his poor lady in a pumpkin shell, and most uncomfortable that must have been. I daresay I’ll be walled up in some tower or another until the day I die, which could turn out to be a great deal sooner than I might otherwise have expected. If I agree to marry the King from the first, why then, the Prince is less likely to find a knife between his ribs, which I recognize is a much happier outcome for the Prince. Yet look at what I am left with: the old sinner with the concealed weapons and a smile that makes you wonder how, precisely, his first two wives died.”
--Goose Girl by Patrice Kindl “And it’s while I’m contemplating this that I think about what the nurse said. She’s running the show. And suddenly I understand what Gramps was really asking Gran. He had listened to that nurse, too. He got it before I did. If I stay. If I live. It’s up to me.”
--If I Stay by Gayle Foreman |