“Look behind you now.Do you feel in your heart a slight hastening of its beat, and a powerful sense that something momentous is about to happen?... Perhaps, then, this is the hour that Mary Hightower takes to the sky with thousands Afterlights heading toward Memphis.... Perhaps this is the moment that Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, arrives in the same city in search for Allie, only to find that he has no idea where to look.... Perhaps this is the very instant that a monster called the McGill arrives there as well, aching to ease his pain by sharing his misery - not only with his new minions, but with anyone he can.... And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the covergence of the wrong, of the right, and the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep.... For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of doubt, which is which.”

“...And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the convergence of the wrong, of the right, and of the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep...For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of a doubt, which is which.”

“And," added Mikey. "she's my sister."The others looked at him for a moment, and broke out laughing."Yeah, yeah," Squirrel scoffed, "and the McGill is my cousin."Now Allie burst out laughing, which made Mikey more annoyed."If the McGill was your cousin," Mikey said, "I can guarantee he'd disown you.”

“For weeks Charlie had been singing the same song over and over again.“Dinah won’t you blow…”He sang it twenty-four hours a day, with the same vacant, cheerful tone.”Dinah won’t you blow your hor-or-orn?”He kept the beat with his head, endlessly banging it against the hallways bulkhead.“Dinah won’t you blow…”Johnnie-O, who had very little patience to begin with, would have pulled out his hair, were it possible for an Afterlight’s hair to come out.“Dinah won’t you blow…”Johnnie squeezed his oversized hands into fists, wishing there was something he could bust, but having spent many years trying to break things, he knew more than anyone that Everlost stuff didn’t break, unless breakage was its purpose.“Dinah won’t you blow your horn!”“Dammit, will you shut your hole or I swear I’m gonna pound you into next Tuesday and then throw you out of the stinkin’ window where you and your song can drown and sink down to the center of earth for all I care, so you better shut your hole right now!”Charlie looked at him for a moment, eyes wide, considering it. Then he said, ”Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah!”Johnnie groaned.”

“I remember the first time I saw you,” Allie said.“I thought you smelled me first.”“Right,” said Allie. “The chocolate. But then I saw you as I sat up in the dead forest, thinking I knew you. At the time, I thought I must have seen you through the windshield when our cars crashed…. But that wasn’t it. I think, way back then, I was seeing you as you are now. Isn’t that funny?”“Not as funny as the way I always complained, and the way you always bossed me around!”They embraced and held each other for a long time.“Don’t forget me,” Nick said. “No matter where your life goes, no matter how old you get. And if you ever get the feeling that someone is looking over your shoulder, but there’s nobody there, maybe it’ll be me.”“I’ll write to you,” said Allie, and Nick laughed. “No really. I’ll write the letter then burn it, and if I care just enough it will cross into Everlost.”“And,” added Nick, “it will show up as a dead letter at that the post office Milos made cross into San Antonio!”Allie could have stood there saying good-bye forever, because it was more than Nick she was saying good-bye to. She was leaving behind four years of half-life in a world that was both stunningly beautiful, and hauntingly dark. And she was saying good-bye to Mikey. I’ll be waiting for you, he had said…. Well, if he was, maybe she wasn’t saying good-bye at all.Nick hefted the backpack on his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be heading off to Memphis?” he said. “You’d better hit the road…. Jack.” Then he chuckled by his own joke, and walked off.”

“Then, in spite of everything, he began to smile. So much of his existence in Everlost had been full of despair. Despair, and a fear of losing what he had. But Allie was not lost, she was just there across the river, waiting for him to find her. Nick was not lost either--not entirely.It was then that Mikey McGill realized something. It must have been his sister who first called this place Everlost, because by naming it so, it stripped away all hope except for a faith in her, and the "safety" she could provide. Well, Mary was wrong on all counts, because nothing in Everlost was lost forever, if one had the courage to search for it.Mikey held tightly on to this shining truth as he and the golem sunk into the earth. Then with all the force of his heart, his mind, and his soul, Mikey McGill began to dig.”

“How many kids are in the Graveyard?""A bunch.""Who sends your supplies?""George Washington. Or is it Abraham Lincoln? I forget.""How often do you receive new arrivals?""About as often as you beat your wife.”