“The evening air smelled of berries, rich and sweet in the way that makes you close your eyes when you breathe in the scent. You can’t help but do it; the smell takes ahold of you and calls to your heart, and it makes you think of all the good things that have passed and all the good things yet to come, so you close your eyes to shut out everything else that’s real, everything that’s drab or sorrowful, all the things that hurt you like the thorns.”
Olivia Hawker in “The Ragged Edge of Night”