I glance at the house, dark and empty. "Am I my sister's keeper?" I say. Then I grin at her. "If you feel like waiting, you can come up and see my etchings.

From that point of view, I realized that my hole was not miles deep after all. My father, in fact, could stand on the bottom and it only reached up to his chest.
Darkness, you know, is relative.

I suddenly remember an old game I used to play when I was nine or ten, and I was allowed to ride my bike until it got dark. I used to make little bets with myself as I watched the sun getting lower and lower on the horizon: If I hold my breath to twenty seconds, the night won't come. If I don't blink. If I stand so still a fly lands on my cheek. Now, I find myself doing the same thing, bargaining to keep Kate, even though that isn't the way it works.

With my heart racing, I ran in the other direction; leaving the rest of this rescue to people who actually want to be heroes.

My father looked right at me, but he didn't answer. And his eyes were dazed and staring through me, like I was made out of smoke.
That was the first time I thought that maybe I was.

I hadn't been thinking, actually. I was just trying to get to a place where I'd be noticed.