Nowadays, people resort to all kinds of activities in order to calm themselves after a stressful event: performing yoga poses in a sauna, leaping off bridges while tied to a bungee, killing imaginary zombies with...

This memory was both happy and sad: happy because it was so pleasant, and sad because it made Penelope think about how much she missed Swanburne–the girls, the teachers, Miss Mortimer. Or perhaps it was...

Elk have not been seen in Switzerland for many a year. In the interests of scientific accuracy, please strike the idea of elk from your mind. If you must, think of ibexes instead, a fierce...

Call it professional interest. You see, Jessamine, love is a kind of poison; one of my favorite kinds, in fact. It infects the blood; it takes over the mind; it seizes dominion over the body....

You flesh bodies are so obsessed with goodness, yet no other form of life on earth is capable of such cruelty. You need only convince yourselves your transgressions serve some ‘purpose.’ Even if it is...

But was that not the task you set me? To defend the helpless against the strong?” “Indeed it was Master Weed. But who is to say who is helpless, and who is strong?” ……….”If you...

I take my metal canister of tea off the shelf. It is my own mixture of dried lavender blossoms and lemon balm, harvested from my garden and hung in the storeroom to dry. Weed helped...

If there is one thing I have learned, from loving Jessamine and even from the evil tasks you have made me do, it is that all forms of life are worthy of compassion.

They are trying to take you back from me now, and they will—but only for a brief, little while—

All books are judged by their covers until they are read.

[A]s Agatha Swanburne once said, ‘To be kept waiting is unfortunate, but to be kept waiting with nothing interesting to read is a tragedy of Greek proportions.

In the words of Agatha Swanburne, founder of Swanburne Academy, “Every book is judged by its cover until it is read.