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Famous Margot Berwin Quotes

“THE NINE PLANTS OF DESIRE ~ Gloxinia--The mythical plant of love at first sight. ~ Mexican cycad--The plant of immortality. A living dinosaur straight from the Jurassic period. ~ Cacao--The chocolate tree of food and fortune. ~ Moonflower--Bringer of fertility and procreation. ~ Cannabis sativa in the form of sinsemilla--The plant of female sexuality. ~ Lily of the valley--Delivers life force. In a pinch, this beautiful plant can replace digitalis as medication for an ailing heart. ~ Mandrake--According to both William Shakespeare and the Holy Bible, this is the plant of magic. ~ Chicory--The plant of freedom. Offering invisibility to those who dare to ingest its bitter, milky juice. ~ Datura--The plant of mind travel and high adventure. Bringer of visions and dreams of the future.”

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Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“I drank Datura inoxia and traveled with the black panther to find the antidote." "And you saw the energy lines of the trees." "How do you know?" "Because I know." "I smelled the lily of the valley, up close, but the scent of your skin is still sweeter." "Not as sweet as yours." "I danced with a rattlesnake." "There are many of those in life." "And then, under a flash of lightning, a tree caught fire and I found the bromeliad with no name." "How strange that a tree caught fire in the rain forest. It's very wet in there." "I found the plant of passion. The tenth plant." "You found it with your passion. You set the tree on fire with your passion." "I love you." "I love you, too," he said. "And that is the story of us." "It is." "It's true, then, whoever finds the nine plants really does find what they desire." "It's true." "Let's say them together." We began. "Moonflower, gloxinia, cycad, Theobroma cacao, mandrake, chicory, sinsemilla, Datura inoxia, lily of the valley, and the tenth plant. The bromeliad. The passion plant with no name.”

DesirePassionAdventureTenLove StoryPlantsSpiritual Journey
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“A bromeliad extinct for so long that no one bothered to look for it anymore. A plant so rare even its name was gone. It was Sonali's prize. The passion plant with no name. There was no mistaking the mysterious bromeliad, its inward-spiraling leaves forming a small black hole in the center. A mandala, Sonali had said, created by the plant world, about the mind of human beings. I had in my sights the very plant Sonali and Armand had spent so many years searching for. Being an air plant, it did not require any soil to live- it grew straight out of a log. It was not parasitic. It had attached itself for stability only.”

PassionPlantNamelessRareMandalaBromeliad
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“I stood under the arch and absorbed the image. Rose and blue and ancient oriental rugs held pale pink loveseats with curved arms and perfectly faded silk upholstery. Sheer white-winged angels floated on a ceiling of baby-blue sky with clouds of spun gold. And eastern-facing windows of blue stained glass held paler blue stained-glass crosses in the middle. Daylight and streetlamps were obliterated by thick velvet curtains with gold tasseled ropes, and a small, dusty beam of faded light managed to seep past the heavy drapes, making it look like the tail end of the day instead of the early part of the afternoon. His home was lavish and seductive, and I thought it rare that a man living alone could create a thing of such intensity. For the second time in two days I found myself having to adjust my opinion of Michael Bon Chance. It was a marble fountain that ended my reverie and brought me back down to earth. It was the true centerpiece of the room, with water slowly seeping from a cracked jug and dripping over a statue of a nude couple, bathing. I cringed at the sound. Michael looked at me. "Something wrong?" "It's the dripping." He went over to the bar and poured me a glass of wine. "You're tense. Maybe this will help." I took a sip from the glass and put it down on the fireplace mantel. I caught a glimpse of Michael and myself in the mirror above the fire and felt trapped by how beautiful we looked in the rose glow of the dragon's-head lamps with pale pink bulbs.”

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Book:Scent of Darkness
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“Digitoxin (sometimes referred to as digitoxin or digitalis) This widely used heart medication is a cardiac glycoside used in the treatment of atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, and congestive heart failure. Found in the lovely purple bells of the foxglove plant and the gorgeous, velvety black wings of the monarch butterfly, digoxin is probably the most beautiful medication there ever was.”

HeartMedicationMonarch ButterfliesAtrialFoxgloveDigitalis
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis) Lily of the valley is known to slow the disturbed action of a weak and irritable heart, while at the same time increasing its power. As a heart medication, it is sometimes preferable to the digitalis made from the foxglove plant, because it is less toxic and does not accumulate in the blood. Lily of the valley has one of the most sexual scents of all plants and is widely used in perfume. No wonder it causes the heart to beat stronger.”

HeartScentMedicationSexualGenus SpeciesLily Of The Valley
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“The scent of my blood was mesmerizing in its intensity, a luscious, potent, ethereal haze that clung to the walls of the bathroom. It was far more intense than the opening of the vial itself. It was like a thousand ruby red vials. A million. It filled the room like an actual presence, and it dawned on us both at the same time that my blood not only contained the scent, but was the scent itself. Leather, like warm Egyptian incense, like a dark library in an old city. Jasmine, like the sweet, sweet scent of decay. Fire, like hot darkness. And red velvet rose, like a sheath of light and lilting femininity.”

FireBloodRoseLeatherJasmineScent Of Darkness
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“He opened the door to the freezer and picked up the ice-cube tray that Louise had used to make the bloodsicles so many years ago, now melted red and watery. He held up the bloody washcloth that she had saved and put next to the ice tray when I was ten years old and I immediately touched the scar on my forehead where I had cut it open sleepwalking. "When we left for New Orleans they turned off the electricity in the house. The ice cubes thawed out in the freezer and that's what I smelled when I came into the house. I knew the truth about you then. The truth was in your plasma and your cells, your escinophils, neutrophils, and platelets. It was in your blood. Louise didn't make the scent, she only collected it and then gave it back to you inside the ruby vial." "She took it from me when I was just a little girl," I said. "A healer on the bayou told me, in her own way.”

ChildhoodReason WhyIn The Blood
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“The cab pulled up to our building on St. Louis between Decatur and Chartres Streets, a three-story cement stucco town house in the old creole style. It was painted pale pink and covered with delicate ironwork like a lace veil. It had an arched opening with a wrought-iron gate and an old metal lock. Inside, the ground-floor hallway had high, rounded ceilings and a dark caramel tiled floor leading to a garden in the back. It was drippy and heavy with the scent of jasmine, just like me. Wisteria rolled down from the top-floor balconies all the way to the garden below and curled around the legs of the iron tables and chairs like beautiful prison shackles. Everything about the building looked like it was from another century, and having never been to New Orleans I did not yet know that everything was.”

Old FashionedNew OrleansInterior DesignExteriorScentsVictorian Houses
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“Michael's house was on Magazine Street across from a little diner called Johnny River. It was a local, homemade-looking place with a screen door and dishes that didn't match. The kind of place tourists never find unless they're visiting a friend in New Orleans who happens to live in the neighborhood. The eggs came three on a plate, over easy but still hot in the center, perfectly done, with two biscuits, gravy, sausage, grits, and hot sauce on the side, and because of them I liked Michael just a little bit more after breakfast than I had before. I walked across the street listening to the screen door slam behind me. His house was the second in from the corner. A narrow Victorian painted lilac on the outside with cream-colored steps, chipped and sunken in the middle from who knows how many years and how many footsteps.”

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Book:Scent of Darkness
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“The scent had left a red mark on my neck like a boy had been sucking there. He put his finger on the mark. "Does it hurt?" It didn't, but I felt the liquid inside of me as if I'd drunk it down instead of putting it on my skin. Warmth spread through my limbs like the poison might from a scorpion's tail, branching and branching until it was trapped against the edges of my body, pooling in my fingertips and my toes, with nowhere to go. As the moments passed a definite scent came up through my pores. It began slowly. First from the inside of my arms, and then from my palms. It rose from my legs and then my thighs and then my breasts. Yes. It was coming from everywhere. Fire and jasmine, leather and rose. I was a repository for Louise's life's work, alive, and inside of me. "Can you smell it?" I asked Gabriel. He put his face so close to my body I could feel the moisture from his breath. "I can." Gabriel and I faced each other on the bed. We sat there for hours, I had no idea either of us possessed that kind of patience. Slow as time the scent ripened and deepened, growing more remote and strange with each passing minute. Hot and dark and sweet, my fragrance was as mesmerizing as looking up and seeing a fire on the moon. It was not like any type of perfume that I knew but like nature itself, organically beautiful, as if the scent had been made from the inside of my body and hadn't come from the vial at all. As if it had been sitting inside me for years, a wine that had finally found its perfect moment. Gabriel breathed in this new part of me. He seemed unfocused and unable to stand up or let go of my hands. "What's it like for you?" I asked him. He leaned closer, closed his eyes and inhaled. "Like sweetness," he said, "with a little bit of poison that makes the sweetness, sweeter.”

ChangeMetamorphosisBecoming OneScent Of Darkness
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“Brushing past me on his way out he smelled like musk. Like something Louise called an animalic, the scent from the gland of a male deer. He turned around in the middle of the hallway. "My name's Gabriel, I thought you should know since I've been inside of your grandmother's house." Like the archangel, I thought, the impact of Loretta's Catholicism making a rare appearance in my mind. I made a mental note to look up the angel Gabriel and see what deeds he had done to deserve his angel status. When Gabriel was gone his glandular scent, earthy and sweet, lingered in the room. I remembered Louise telling me that a good scent should not smell like a perfume, but like nature itself, including all aspects of the natural world, dark and animal as well as light and floral. "Love includes the bad as well as the good," she'd said, "the evil as well as the kind, and so should the scent that induces it.”

GabrielScent Of A ManGirl Meets Boy
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“Mandrake is medicinal because the root contains an alkaloid that belongs to the atropine group. It's a powerful narcotic and analgesic, and, in larger doses, a superb anesthetic. It's magical because of the bizarre shape of the root, which looks like a human being, sometimes male, sometimes female. This root can and will exercise supernatural power over the human body and mind. It's both an aphrodisiac and a strong hallucinogen. Think about it. Those two things together can create the most mind-bending sex you're ever likely to have. And babies, too. In the book of Genesis, the barren Rachel eats the root and becomes pregnant with Joseph. The plant produces out-of-body experiences in some susceptible people, and a vastly increased sex drive in almost all men." "Sounds good to me." "A lot of people think so. Folks love to experiment with the mandrake. The problem is that it's poisonous in the wrong doses, and, too often to mention, people end up sick, or worse. They forget that the mandrake is in the family Solanaceae, similar to deadly nightshade.”

BiblicalMagicalPoisonousAphrodisiacRootDouble EdgedMandrakeMedicinal
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“The oil smelled floral and musky, like a flowery animal. She kept right on stroking my body. "It has lilac, jasmine, and musk from a rutting deer," she said. The words for the ingredients excited me. Lilac, jasmine, and musk, I said to myself. Lilac, jasmine, and musk, I must. Lilac, jasmine, and musk, I must. They sounded like an incantation. They sounded like the sexiest words in the English language.”

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Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“Anyway, being afraid of a human being is nothing. We're here for such a short period of time, so what does it matter, scared, not scared; what matters is that we last. That's why the blue lotus is so important." "Why?" "In legends, immortals are attracted to its scent. Vampires, werewolves, that sort of thing. That's why the ancient Egyptians called it the scent of immortality." I took Levon's card out of my pocket and rotated the Magician between my fingers. Magical words for good or bad. "Gabriel told me that you painted werewolves." "I have painted the odd rougarou from time to time." "But you don't believe in them?" "I believe in immortality in whatever form it takes. Paintings, books, music, werewolves. They're all the same- the desire to last forever. In my opinion, every artist is a vampire or a werewolf, or a thief. All we want is to live on and on through the work we do and we'll take whatever we can from the people unlucky enough to be around us- their stories, pieces of their selves, their very souls if they'll let us, which they so often do with surprising ease- in order to reach our creative goals. How is that different from a vampire?”

BlueImmortalityVampiresArtistsWerewolvesLotusCryptidsRougarou
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“across water so electric-blue it looked as if someone had dumped a vat of Ty-D-Bol into it. It was a color I didn't realize the earth could make without the help of human beings. I knew the water would be blue, but I had in my mind a tamer, more pastel blue: a light color, through which all the sand and fish underneath would be clearly visible. This water was like super-wavy, lit-up turquoise, and so beautiful I could hardly take my eyes off it. The moment I was spellbound by the color of the water was the moment I knew I had been in New York for too long and my decision to leave was a good one.”

OceanTurquoise
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“Chicory (Cichorium intybus) The ancient Egyptians considered chicory a magical plant, capable of removing all obstacles as well as opening locks, boxes, and doors. They anointed their bodies with chicory juice from the root of the plant in order to gain the powers of invisibility and special favors from important people. They believed chicory magic was much more potent if the plant was cut with a solid-gold knife, in total silence, at midnight. And if none of that worked, they ground and roasted the root and blended it with their favorite coffee to taste. A very versatile plant indeed.”

PlantVersatileChicory
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“Walking around the Quarter with its horses and buggies, cobblestone streets, and kerosene lamps felt like stepping back in time, all the way back to the time when Louise was a small child living in Fayetteville. I imagined her in a linen jumper with a white collar, skipping along the cobblestones, avoiding the cracks that would break her mother's back. It was quiet outside as well as sweltering August temperatures kept tourists off the streets and residents inside their homes. The blocks felt private and sensual as Gabriel and I held hands and walked under the lush vegetation spilling from the baskets that hung off the balconies of the houses on St. Philip. I could smell the sweet olive and the jasmine and I had the pleasant sensation of knowing that they were coming from outside of my body. New Orleans was my equal in scent, and as long as it was night and the air was a degree or two cooler than in the daytime I was sure I could walk around freely without attracting any unwanted attention.”

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Book:Scent of Darkness
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“The monarch butterfly is a cardiotonic. It increases the tone of the heart muscle, causing more effective emptying of the chambers. The butterfly will help Diego. It will be good for him." "Do we use monarchs, too- in the United States, I mean?" I asked desperately. "You take digitalis from the digitoxin found in plants. Mostly foxglove. I use a digitalis-like toxin found in the monarch butterflies. Both have the same properties. The monarch lays its eggs on the milkweed plant, which also produces cardioglycosides. As the insects hatch and grow, they feed on the milkweed and ingest the heart medicine from the plant. They sequester it in their bodies, never using it and never excreting it." "Why do they do that?" "To keep predators away. Digitalis has a bitter taste that keeps the birds away.”

ToxinMilkweedMonarch ButterfliesDigitalis
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“Mandrake (Atropa Mandragora) If you're interested in a plant that looks like a person, has visible sex organs, is an aphrodisiac of the first order, contains mind-altering alkaloids such as hyoscyamine, has been known to cure depression and insomnia, then Atropa Mandragora is the plant for you. But be careful. More than one person who has pulled this plant out of the ground has died in the process.”

AphrodisiacGenus SpeciesMandrakeCurable
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“I don't know. Chicken bones, frizzly hens, all that voodoo stuff gives me the creeps." He got up and put his arms around me. "How do you know about frizzly hens?" "I just do." "Strange." "Louise and Fayetteville." "Ah, yes, Louise. Well, do I give you the creeps?" "No." "That's right. And besides, there's a lot more to New Orleans than that. There's gumbo and bread pudding and fried chicken. There are old Victorian homes, music everywhere, and the friendliest, nicest people everywhere.”

New OrleansPros And Cons
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“You always carry a black tarot card with you to breakfast?" she asked. "This is the first time." "I bet. I gotta ask you though, why the Magician?" "A friend gave it to me. Why? What do you know about it?" "I know you got yourself involved with a black-back magician. That means everything is hidden, and backward. You could run into an animal that doesn't act like one. A magical animal like a rougarou. A werewolf that feasts on evil souls." I put the card in my back pocket, horizontally, so it wouldn't fall out this time. "Protect your soul, Eggs." "I'm not evil," I said, already out the door and on the way to see Michael, who seemed more normal to me at that moment than the waitress at Johnny River's. "We're all capable of it sometimes," she yelled behind me.”

WarningBackwardsOminousThe MagicianTarot Card
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“It started when I met you in the rain forest. When I almost stepped on the cycad and the gloxinia, but you stopped me just in time." "That's when I made you go back and get the moonflower." "The umbilical cord, you called it." "We walked to Casablanca through the jungle." "And then alongside the ocean." "I liked you already." "I liked you, too. You introduced me to Tamatz Kauyumari. The oldest and biggest deer." "I sang you his spirit song." "And then he led us to Theobroma cacao." "I saw Panthera onca following you through the jungle, twice." "I never should have gone to the market without you, but you were sleeping." "That's where you met the Cashier." "And found the mandrake. And cichorium intybus. The plant of invisibility.”

SpiritualAdventureStoryPlantsFirst Met
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“Gabriel will give you things you never expected to receive in this lifetime. He will take you places in love that you cannot imagine. Gabriel will haunt you. Gabriel can save you. Gabriel will make you want to live forever. Gabriel will make you wish you were dead." I looked around the packed church for my Gabriel. Father Madrid continued. "Gabriel is the messenger of God and the angel of death. How can one being be both of those things? "Gabriel signifies duality, complication, perplexity; the true human condition in the form of an angel. "How many of you have acted like Gabriel in your day-to-day life? On the one hand finding a special person to love and on the other hand bringing pain and heartache to that very same person? "On the one hand loving someone new and exciting. And on the other knowing that that very love brings destruction and hurt to others, who feel abandoned by you as you live only for your new love, and brings pain to those who desire your beloved for themselves.”

DualityNew LoveDouble EdgedArchangel Gabriel
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“The mandrake belongs to the potato family. It has large dark leaves, and white or purplish flowers that turn into yellow apple-sized berries with a lovely, fragrant scent. It's an edible plant, which is good to know if you're ever stuck in the jungle without food. While the fruit of the mandrake is attractive and good-tasting, the subterranean part of the plant is where all the action takes place. It's the part that humans have been fascinated with for ages and ages, since biblical times.”

PlantBiblicalEdibleMandrake
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“Is he from New Orleans originally?" "Born and raised." "The people here are born below the sea level and they spend their whole lives wanting to go back to where they came from. My own theory is that everyone from here was a mermaid in another lifetime and they are all trying to swim back to the bottom of the ocean. That Michael of yours will drag you down to the depths if you let him. It's not his fault either. That's where he's most comfortable.”

New OrleansBorn And RaisedMerpeopleSea Levels
Book:Scent of Darkness
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“He opened his hand, and inside was a tiny lavender-colored flower with a small stem. "Well, well, well. Look what we have here. Mr. Exley left us a present. Cichorium intybus. Chicory. The plant of freedom and one of the nine plants. He used it to get out of the basement, and then he left us a cutting as a courtesy. Your Mr. Exley has a good sense of humor." "He's not my Mr. Exley." "Unimportant. This little petal tells us how he got out of here." "He broke a deadbolt with a flower petal?" "In a sense, yes. Cichorium intybus is a perennial related to the dandelion. It's cultivated in England and Ireland and from Nova Scotia to Florida and west to the plains. It is not cultivated here, in South America. He brought it with him!" "For what?" "For its magical properties. The plant has a long, thick taproot filled with a bitter milky-white juice. The ancient Egyptians believed that if the juice is rubbed on the body it promotes invisibility, and removal of obstacles. The Mayans called it the plant of freedom, for the same reason.”

FreedomInvisibilityPerennialChicory
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“Is that an orchid?" I asked, pointing to a particularly unattractive small brown plant. "Maxillaria tenuifolia," said Sonali. "One of my favorites. This little brown orchid is a species. Not as spectacular as a hybrid, but very satisfying nonetheless. Its charms are quite powerful. Come closer and smell it." I leaned over the ugly brown plant. "Coconut pie! How is that possible?" "Wonderful, isn't it? She doesn't need bright, flashy colors or spectacular sprays of flowers. Her pollinators, the moths, come out at night. She uses her coconut scent to guide and entice the little moth in much the way we use perfume to entice men in nightclubs and cafés." Sonali winked at me. "You can learn much about how an orchid is pollinated by the way it looks. White, pink, and pale-green flowers usually get pollinated at night, since those colors are easily seen under moonlight. The little moth sneaks up on the flower in the middle of the night like a lover. He lands on her, pollinates her, and then leaves. We've all had that experience, yes?" "Yes," I said, thinking of Exley. "Brightly colored orchids, on the other hand, are pollinated by butterflies and birds. Butterflies prefer red and orange. Bees love orange and yellow all the way through to ultraviolet." "Just like certain men like certain color clothing," I said. "Yes, colored petals are the clothing of flowers. The insect must find a way through those petals to get what he wants, like a man brushing his hand through the layers of a woman's skirt.”

ColorsPetalsSexual AttractionOrchidsPollinators
Book:Hothouse Flower and the Nine Plants of Desire
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“See ya, Crab," sullen boy said to Rayanne. "Crab?" "It's my name, Rayanne Crabbe, with a double b and an e at the end. So what?" "Pull in your pincers, Rayanne," said Gabriel, opening and closing the four fingers of both hands against his thumbs. Rayanne's last name being Crabbe was the first piece of good news I had heard in a long time, and as she and Gabriel walked away I could swear she was moving sideways.”

Last NameCrabLike ACrabbe
Book:Scent of Darkness
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