Until now, Michael had never felt such tormenting fear in his life as he had then. A winter storm of fear was shaking his soul, crushing his heart, turning all his hope to ice.
Michael asks Elizabeth what happened to his daughter, and she gives him a vague answer that doesn't bring much hope. At this moment, Michael remembers the one time he felt such fear as at this moment of now knowing what happened to his daughter. It was during the time when his wife was pregnant with her, and they were hopelessly poor. This truly portrays fatherly love thematized in the novel.
Yet it was not Melissa who had stolen Falke; it was Falke who had stolen the two of them...from everything.
Elizabeth is stuck between her feeling of jealousy toward Melissa and her realization of the true nature of Falke and their kind. Melissa is there to take her place, she is aware of that, but knowing that she is only a pawn to Falke, just like she has been, makes her compassion towards the girl prevail.
Now, tonight, I'm an old woman imprisoned inside this girl's body. I shouldn't be here, but I am. I don't understand it, but I accept it.
Elizabeth has lived for a long time stuck in a sixteen-year-old body. Her mind shows her true age and while reading her parts one can hardly imagine her young appearance. She is aware of the wrongness of her existence without death, her existence of evil. Despite the fact that she has lived a long time, her appearance is close to that of Michael's granddaughter, so their love connection is a strange one, to say the least.
