By and large, horror fiction is the most difficult to domesticate because part of the point is that it's one step ahead – or behind – everybody else'… - Clive Barker

He would be vigilant, but he would anticipate nothing, neither disaster nor revelation.
That was not to say he would give up looking to the future. True, he was just a Cuckoo: scared and weary and alone. But so, in the end were most of his tribe: it didn’t mean all was lost. As long as they could still be moved by a minor chord, or brought to a crisis of tears by scenes of lovers reunited; as long as there was room in their cautious hearts for games of chance, and laughter in the face of God, that must surely be enough to save them, at the last.
If not, there was no hope for any living thing.

Believe nothing," Apolline advised. "This woman wouldn't know the truth if it fucked her.

True joy is a profound remembering; and true grief the same.