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Other Birds: A Novel

Book by Sarah Addison Allen · 14 quotes · Witch Balls, At Night, Baked With Love

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Other Birds: A Novel Quotes

“Rosemary cornmeal doughnuts with a lemon glaze, and cornbread tartlets with ricotta and heirloom tomatoes." He set the platter on the table, and Charlotte and Zoey leaned forward to stare. The tartlets were small and perfectly round, with scalloped edges like the hems of Sunday dresses. Purple-tinged tomatoes were fanned on top, obviously cut by someone with seriously good knife skills. The doughnuts appeared to still be warm from the oven, the glaze dripping off them onto the platter. The green scent of rosemary and the sharp scent of lemon made Charlotte picture a long, sandy road. There was an old woman cooking in a summer kitchen somewhere down that road. Home.”

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“Frasier stepped in and reached for a wall switch. A crystal light fixture popped on, raining down variegated light. The building revealed itself to be like a geode---rocky on the outside but sparkling with unexpected decadence inside. It was small, just one room. The furniture was covered with white sheets, but everything else she could see was lovely---the golden parquet floor, the whitewashed rafters, and the long kitchen counter on the far wall, which sported kitschy, pale pink appliances.”

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“Pigeon had been overbearing from the start, but it had always been a welcome balance to her father's disinterest, and Zoey had never before wished for a separate existence from her. But something had shifted, just slightly, in her relationship with her bird since she'd arrived on Mallow Island. Coming here was the last break from the only world she'd ever known, and only Pigeon was left. She was a childhood relic like a stuffed animal or a security blanket, and Zoey didn't want to say goodbye to her. Where would she go? Would she ever mean as much to someone else as she did to Zoey? But nor did Zoey know how to fit her into this life she had to forge on her own.”

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“If she hadn't known that Mallow Island had been famous for its marshmallow candy over a century ago, Trade Street would have told her right away. It was busy and mildly surreal. The sidewalks were crowded with tourists taking pictures of old, narrow buildings painted in faded pastel colors. Nearly every restaurant and bakery had a chalkboard sign with a marshmallow item on its menu---marshmallow popcorn, chocolate milk served in toasted marshmallow cups, sweet potato fries with marshmallow dipping sauce.”

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“The desk in front of Frasier was littered with sketchbooks and colored pencils. Drawing was a medium he'd taken up later in life and all he drew was birds, over and over, usually in the heat of the day when it was too hot to be in the garden. The wall in front of him was covered in sketches of the dellawisps, so many of them the papers overlapped, forming a decoupage of turquoise birds.”

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“Charlotte held up the glass ball. It was the size of an apple and was one of her prettiest, graduating from clear on top to a bubbled lavender color on the bottom. One of the glassblowers at the Sugar Warehouse had made it. "I came over to give you a housewarming gift. Welcome to the Dellawisp." Surprise registered on Zoey's face. She stepped out onto the patio and took the ball from her. Sunlight caught the three strings of glass suspended inside and made them shimmer like icicles. "It's called a witch ball," Charlotte said, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her cutoffs. "Those thin glass strings are supposed to catch spirits that come into your house and trap them inside the ball, protecting you from them. If the ball breaks, it means you have a particularly strong ghost.”

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“She took a slice of bread and put it on her plate. She piled a small mountain of potato chips on it and placed another slice of bread on top. Then she flattened the sandwich with her hand, the chips shattering with a satisfying crunch. In response to Charlotte's curious look, she explained, "Potato chip sandwiches remind me of my mom." Ah. That, Charlotte understood. Food memory was one of the few profoundly good things she brought with her from her own childhood. Sometimes Charlotte would still have chocolate milk over hot rice, something Charlotte and Pepper had eaten when they'd crept hungrily into the camp kitchen after dark during one of Minister McCauley's forced fasts. She could still remember how good it had tasted, like sweet soup.”

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“The sudden quiet made Charlotte's bedroom feel as if it had been plunged underwater. Even the small glass ball ornaments she'd hung by fishing wire from the ceiling gave the impression of air bubbles floating to the water's surface. It was folklore Charlotte had grown up hearing, how these glass spheres called witch balls had been used for centuries to protect homes against ghosts and evil spirits. Her artistic mother used to replicate them out of grapevines, the only thing she had to work with. She would tell customers about their mystical properties at the roadside stand where the camp sold maple syrup and the meager amount of vegetables they managed to grow. Charlotte now collected them, and the symbolism wasn't lost on her. She was trying to protect herself from the ghosts of her past.”

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