How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"I followed you."
Eric hesitates for a moment, wondering, but then he's laughing, and Merle is, too. (1.10.24-25)
Okay, this phrase doesn't make a whole lot of sense at the moment. Merle followed Eric? Where? From her house on the island? But it's language that connects them to their shared past when she promised to always follow him, way back when she was his queen.
Quote #5
"Look," said Bridget, "speak of the Devil!"
"Mommy, that's rude!" cried Merle.
"No, it's just what you say when, well, when that happens." (4.10.17-19)
Aw… Cute little Merle doesn't much like her signature line. Is her mom calling her friend the Devil? Merle sees the phrase as literal, and so will her future selves—she'll use this more literally when she talks about Tor in 2073.
Quote #6
"What did you mean? What you said at the quayside. 'Say his name and his horns appear…?'"
Merle smiled. "It's just what people say. When they have been speaking of someone, and then they are there."
"But horns? Am I a beast? A goat, or a ram?"
Merle looked at Erik. She noticed that the bottoms of his rough trousers were wet from the meadow grass, too.
"But you're wet," she said. She took a step closer to him.
"What kind of beast am I?" Erik asked again.
Merle's smile had gone.
She stepped closer to Erik, and then he gently placed his hands on her hips, and they kissed, for a long, long time.
"You still didn't answer my question," he said. "What kind of beast am I…?"
Merle laughed, too. She touched his forearm, very briefly.
She whispered, a grin on her face, laughter in her eyes.
"One that will be the death of me." (5.3.35-47)
Erik(a) and Merle discuss the meaning of her little saying. Is it just something people say, or does its significance run deeper than that? We think it does.