“Every small town that I had ever been to had had a caboose.”

“A freshly red-painted train caboose had, for decades now, made its home on a green, little patch of the world outside of the one-room post office. Every small town that I had ever been to had had a caboose.”

“But it hadn't just been Sebastian who had been watching me. Rather, it had been tribes of merman and mermaids, who had been curious about this newcomer in town that could outswim any school of small fish.”

“He had to accept the fate of every newcomer to a small town where there are plenty of tongues that gossip and few minds that think.”

“Then she had been a fiancee, a young wife, and a mother, and she had discovered that these words were far too small ever to contain the experience.”

“SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN. I KNOW IT. EVERY TIME I HAD A BAD DREAM I FEEL LIKE LEAVING TOWN. THEN I FEEL THAT SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN. AND THIS IS THE WORST DREAM I'VE EVER HAD IN MY WHOLE LIFE.”