The world was full of dangers now that she was pregnant: mercury in tuna, hot tubs, beer, secondhand smoke, over-the-counter medicine. Not to mention crazy baby-abducting fairy kings.

All great heroes have a flaw. It's one of the things that makes them heroes.

Storytelling wasn't about making things up. It was more like inviting the stories to come through her, let themselves be told.

What if things happened to you—special, magic things—because you’d been preparing for them?

I've lived here ... my whole life. It's where I lost all my baby teeth. Where tiny hamster, gerbil, and bird skeletons lie in rotted-out cardboard coffins beneath the oak tree in our backyard. Also where, if some future archaeologist goes digging, they'll find the remains of a plush toy: a gray terrier named Toto I buried after the accident.