Darkness dwells within even the best of us. In the worst of us, darkness not only dwells but reins.

There's more to me than you see, another me down inside somewhere, full of hate, ready to hurt, cut, smash, or if maybe there's no Other and there's just me alone, then I'm not the person I thought I was, I'm something twisted and terrible, terrible.

The only way we'll be saved is if we save ourselves. Good people can't triumph over bad people just by being good; they have to act.

Even as a child, she had preferred night to day, had enjoyed sitting out in the yard after sunset, under the star-speckled sky listening to frogs and crickets. Darkness soothed. It softened the sharp edges of the world, toned down the too-harsh colors. With the coming of twilight, the sky seemed to recede; the universe expanded. The night was bigger than the day, and in its realm, life seemed to have more possibilities.

Perhaps they thought they could bring to this valley only those things they loved, leaving behind all ugliness.

We are not, however, a species that can choose the baggage with which it must travel. In spite of our best intentions, we always find that we have brought along a suitcase or two of darkness, and misery.

Evil travels the world in anonymity, its presence revealed only by the periodic consequences of its desires...