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“Sherrie would be there, and the last time I’d seen her at a social event she burst into tears when she saw me and ran out of the room. You’re upset, I’d yelled after her, meanly.”
― Aimee Bender, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

“I actually prefer Abby," she said.
"I'm sorry?"
"Nobody calls me Abigail unless it's my mom and she's mad.”
― David Pogue, Abby Carnelia's One & Only Magic Power: Library Edition

“She took out a charcoal stick and began to sketch-- on the workbench itself. Of course the moon wouldn't come to her in songs or poems or crystals or whatever... she felt the most centered, the most tranquil, when she was painting or drawing. Lost in her own world or in new ones she imagined. She shouldn't have made a chart; she should have drawn a circle, with the moons going from waxing to waning all the way around...
She hummed to herself a little, the way she always did when she painted.
Her hair began to glow.
A little shading here, a few light strokes in the middle of the full moon for the face that Rapunzel saw there... Circles and shadows and crosshatching... She worked extra hard on the profile of the fatter waxing crescent, where the moon would be now. She knew what it looked like as she felt her hand shape it.
Her power surged; her hair began to sparkle.
She looked around frantically for something to release her magic on. The first thing she saw was her tea, so she grabbed the red clay cup and wrapped the end of a braid around it.
Just like with Pascal, sparks sprayed off her hair and over the object.
When they faded they revealed...
... a heavy, crude clay cup.
Rapunzel started to slump in disappointment-- and then noticed something. Where the hair had touched the sides, the cup was now shiny black, like onyx or obsidian.”
― Liz Braswell, What Once Was Mine

“She managed to summon her powers twice more by gazing at her mandala, and was tickled with the results: she turned her bright red coral bracelet glittering black, and a dish of pale yellow dye a bluish black. Of course she had no idea if the color was set by the phase of the moon or if it was simply the way she thought about the moon, set in a blue-black sky. But imagine if she could summon any color! She would never have to worry about getting the right paints again.”
― Liz Braswell, What Once Was Mine

“The moon repeated her phases on the exact same solar calendar day once every nineteen years.
And she had just turned nineteen! So nineteen years ago, at this time, the moon would have been new.
She would have been just born, and her magic would have been deadly. So that explained the nurse.
But the other times?
She couldn't remember. All she could clearly think of was that once when she was very, very upset about killing a game hen- more than usual- she had gone to weep and look out the window for hours. The sky was as black as her mind and spirit felt, and the usually comforting stars were pinprick harsh, untwinkling. Each was a stab into her heart. There was no moon.”
― Liz Braswell, What Once Was Mine

“Then she got to work.
Thinking a bit of organization would help, Rapunzel took out the wanted poster of Flynn and made a chart on the back, dividing the rectangle into twenty-eight days. She wrote the moon phases neatly on each. On Day One, New Moon, she wrote Murderhair. Now it was Day Six; Waxing Crescent. Under this she wrote Transformative-- Lizard to Dragon. Day 8 would be Waxing Half Moon-- that would be exciting, right? Maybe that would mean a really big change in her powers. For Day 15, Full Moon, she wrote Healing?
She looked at her neat little chart and felt very pleased with herself.
Projects.
They were the best.”
― Liz Braswell, What Once Was Mine

“If it's any consolation, I used my fantastic powers to turn things different colors today," she said with a smile. "Well, one color. Black."
"Very goth. And hey, more than I could do." He looked down at her trailing silver hair. "This is a much better look for you, by the way. Neoromantic. And... not actually deadly, I take it?"
"It's harmless," she said with a smile. "At least until the new moon. And even then, I have to be actually focusing and directing it to cause harm. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel... comfortable with it now. No more tying it up!"
Flynn smiled and for a moment looked like he was going to reach for her hair, now that it wasn't dangerous. His hand rose and floated in the air halfway between him and her... and then he quickly used it to slick his own hair back out of his face.
"Yeah. My hair can do things, too. But it's kind of dramatic and you have to ask nicely, sometimes with a little gel.”
― Liz Braswell, What Once Was Mine

“My hands ignited the night. A strangled cry escaped me as the lightning surged through my palms. I was but a vessel for the raw, white force erupting forth---so much more than the scant sparks that Yoseph had helped coax out of me before.”
― Sabrina Blackburry, Dirty Lying Faeries

“She now recognized that like most mountain folk, she possessed a vein of fierce, magical energy inside her that could take many forms--- rage, or a stubborn intelligence, or a thick gray melancholy. It was part inheritance, part product of all that she'd survived.”
― Alli Dyer, Strange Folk