"They reached the highway, stretching empty between the pines, silent, no sign of cars or people, as if it were not a road at all, but some lost island of asphalt coming from no place, going nowhere." Chap. 1, p.1

"[Gertie] tried an instant to look into the sky to find the north star and so find herself, but the lights were bright and the clouds an even gray so that as she sat on the top porch step and drank her coffee she knew not where she was." Chap. 2, p. 29.

"The waving hair might have twisted into curls on its ends, but the curls, like the face, were buried in the wood. There was only the top of a head . . . but plainly someone there, crouching, a secret being hidden in the wood, waiting to rise and shed the wood and be done with the hiding." Chap. 3, p. 39.

"Suddenly...