Time's Mouth

YEARS PASSED, TIME’S ACCRUAL AT ONCE GRADUAL AND sudden.

It was uglier than any place she’d ever been, but the ugliness was also a comfort because it meant that she and Ray had said goodbye to their old lives.

The baby was sleeping on her belly with her bottom in the air, her arms curled into herself, a little loaf of bread. Nothing was wrong. Opal was perfect.

it happened gradually and then all once,

Ursa refused. “It should only be me if absolutely necessary.” Another rule.

Even if she might never understand why or how it worked, or why she of all people could do it, she did know that she had to relax her body to properly find the hem of time. It was like feeling for a doorknob in the dark. She figured out that access to the past got stronger the more time had passed. She couldn’t reach anything that happened in the l

Those first tender weeks of Ray’s life were heavenly in a way Ursa didn’t expect:

The eastern wing wasn’t high above, it was rooted to the ground, its beauty a secret. It was an underestimated place, and that’s what made it spectacular.

They felt lighter because they could still recall what it felt like to be unburdened by time.