Sublime

The terror and consternation of the Presidential couple may be imagined by anyone who has ever loved a child, and suffered that dread intimation common to all parents, that Fate may not hold that life in as high a regard, and may dispose of it at will.

Coelho

I wished the boy safe travels, but these were empty words, for he was clearly doomed,

I owed it to Eugenio, the boy, who, assuming they had taken him elsewhere that first night, would have returned to his home by now, to his bedroom, where he and his toy rabbit would once more be under threat, while they slept, from the peaceable aeroplanes dangling on threads – that inert oscillation – dreaming now of the weight of his absent mothe

You live the experience of the story vicariously through them:

it was one of those questions you couldn’t ask in case he were to tell the truth.