Book 0, chapter 4
She sat at the base of her napping tree, mulling over the essential treasures from her dreams. It was important to do so until she was sure she’d committed them to memory. Keeping them in her head was the only way; when she tried to write them down, they became too concrete, and these images needed to float, to avoid categorization and definite meanings, to drift and brew and develop. Some of the impressions were like tea; they only took a few minutes to attain their intended richness. Others were like wines, savings bonds, or gemstones; they took months, years, or lifetimes to be of full value. She didn’t like to think about the impressions that might be like gemstones. Because she didn’t have the luxury of several lifetimes for them to turn from featureless carbon remains to gleaming stones. There were still mysteries she would never solve.

Book 1, chapter 12
I wanted to cry for all the people that would never be able to experience something like this; I understood why they might be willing to spend a lot of money and take a lot of classes to at least get off the ground to hang glide, since they couldn’t fly like I could. Sadness filled up my head, but I didn’t let tears fill up my eyes, because I wanted to be able to see the view without it being blurred. The Earth looked almost peaceful, though I knew it was far from being so.

Book 1, chapter 17
The air was heavy and full of intriguing aromas: Burned hot dogs, sweat, beer, pollution, and cologne, all mixed in with that one very familiar, yet indescribable smell: The electricity-charged scent of cloud anger that was so heavy it could almost be collected with an outstretched hand. I looked out the window at the clouds, glad I wasn’t flying around like a balloon out there. The clouds sparked, strutting their stuff before they exploded and proved to us puny mortals below that Mother Nature was still boss.

Book 2, chapter 19
Talking to her was like a flashback every time I went. I remembered lots of things every time she began to reminisce. I recalled lazy Saturday evenings in front of a fireplace, and laughingly half-serious pillow fights with Charlotte, as well as lying face down on their rug and staring at the sparkles the sun made in the synthetic fur of the carpet. I remembered eating graham crackers and milk in the middle of the night when I’d awoken from a bad dream of falling up, and I remembered making roses out of tissues and rubber bands and scenting them with perfumes Miss Margaret had from a sister of hers. Sun-showers viewed through a stained-glass window dripped into my thoughts from the past, and stuffed animals that smelled like oatmeal and potpourri snuggled against my mind across the years.

Book 2, chapter 28
The sky was hazy, but clear, and my nostrils were filled with the smell of damp earth and an indescribable scent of newness. The storm had blown through the area and removed all the impurities, sweeping everything away and even replacing the air. I could smell the difference: The new air after the storm.

Book 2, chapter 28
A funny tingling sensation engulfed my body as I drifted through all the different rooms, and every mirror I looked into made me feel like I was going to see the faces of my ancestors, or someone else’s. It was the kind of place that had to hold a thousand secrets and twice as many happy and sad spirits . . . the kind of place that made me feel like I was going to open a trunk and find a book that told me everything I ever wanted to know.

Book 3, chapter 12
We didn’t have any Christmas decorations; no lights (of course, not without electricity), no Christmas tree, no wreath on the door. We’d never celebrated Christmas or really any holidays except for birthdays, for those of us who knew when ours were. I wondered about what I was missing and figured it had to be a big deal. Everyone had Christmas lights and other paraphernalia in their houses, and it was all over the mall and other stores, even the grocery store, and when I went home . . . it was like our house was the only place in the world that Christmas never touched. I wondered why that made me sad, and wondered what I should do about it.

Book 3, chapter 13
Even from my earliest memories, I’d been surrounded with people, never physically alone. Adele was a very good substitute mother, Weaver had been my companion and playmate as I was growing up, and I could remember Dax, Alix, and Neptune always being around. We’d found Tab and Thursday when I was around eleven or twelve, and for quite a while the eight of us had been like a little family. Now it was more like a zoo, too many people to think of as a family once we started picking up humans left and right. However, though there were a lot of us, we still managed to get a feeling of closeness between us, a bond that transcended our differences from age to sex to species. It was something less than really family like I felt with Adele, but more than just roommates.

Book 3, chapter 31
Part of the attractiveness of flying was how it got me away from everyone else, where they not only didn’t follow me but couldn’t follow me. It satisfied me to think I always had this place to go, and that there was a place like this no matter where I went. There was no city in the world that didn’t have a sky.

Book 3, chapter 35
I’d missed the silence of this place. We didn’t have that annoying electricity buzzing in the walls, or the sounds of traffic nearby. We had soft, wall-muted conversations and the crashing waves of the ocean, and even when the air was full of Weaver’s music or the children’s playing, it just had its own special quiet way of being loud. I wondered why some sounds could be annoying while others were so comforting, regardless of volume. The ocean’s waves crashed onto the beach outside as I ate, and for some reason at that moment the sound identified this house as a place I belonged.

Book 4, chapter 12
Bells went off in my head when I tried to imagine the way Ruben must think, if ideas blossomed in his head all the time like they were in mine as I watched the kids. And who knew, maybe mine weren’t even very good ideas! If my ideas were flowers, his were entire gardens. Ruben had the power to change the world with his thoughts. That astounded me, and made me wonder how so many people could see my powers as mind-boggling when Ruben existed. My thoughts could only move objects. His could move the world.

Book 4, chapter 18
The wind was as dry as paper and about as emotional as a blank sheet. I closed my eyes and tried to pour what I was feeling out into the air, but nothing really came. I was moving the air, but nothing was lighting up. My lack of emotion made me shiver. I felt thirsty.

Book 4, chapter 22
Becoming unfrozen, I took the letter out of my back pocket and just held it. I wasn’t sure about some of the feelings I had when I looked at it. It gave me chills, both from excitement and fear, but it also made something else burst free in my head. The concept that she cared enough about me to contact me was almost alien. It was unthinkable: Could someone I’d never met . . . love me? The letter was a connection to that long-lost love. But very soon, it wouldn’t be the only one.

Book 4, chapter 26
We held hands as we flew. It wasn’t necessary, of course, but Nina liked it like that for some reason. She spread her arms like wings and pointed her toes like she thought she was Supergirl, laughing into the wind. I smiled at her, feeling proud and protective. Nina loved flying, and I was the only one who could give it to her.

Book 5, chapter 7
I was worried because I was barely used to my immediate family, and now I was going to be introduced to my extended one. So many people, all with diluted versions of my blood, all actual kin to me, all completely unknown to me. What was a relative if I had no idea how to relate?