“Twas something else. I had come to hate her, you see. I had come to wish her dead, and that was what held me back.”

“Good! he wanted to cry out to her. Good! Because you only had to see it! I had to wear it!”

“But it was the first time I had ever really used the place I knew and the things I felt in a piece of fiction, and there was a kind of dreadful exhiliration in seeing things that had troubled me for years come out in a new form, a form over which I had imposed control.”

“Swear to me swear to me that if it isn't dead you'll all come back.”

“What chance?’ she had asked, bewildered.‘Your chance. Your chance to live your own life. Right now you have the look of a woman who is seeing ghosts. Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?’She had shaken her head slowly.‘Men and women who can’t get over the past,’ Aunt Evvie said. ‘That’s what ghosts are. Not them.’ She flapped her arm toward the coffin which stood on its bands beside the coincidentally fresh grave. ‘The dead are dead. We bury them, and buried they stay.”

“Then, instead of telling her that where there was life there was hope, or to let a smile be her umbrella, or that it was always darkest just before the dawn, or anything else that had just lately fallen out of the dog's ass, she simply held her. Because sometimes only holding was best. That was one of the things she had taught that man whose last name she had taken for her own--that sometimes it was best to be quiet; sometimes it was best to just shut your everlasting mouth and hang on, hang on, hang on.”

“Commala-come-comeThere’s a young man with a gun.Young man lost his honeyWhen she took it on the run.Commala-come-one!She took it on the run!Left her baby lonelyBut he baby ain’t done.Commala-come-cooThe wind’ll blow ya through.Ya gotta go where ka’s wind blows yaCause there’s nothin else to do.Commala-come-two!Nothin else to do!Gotta go where ka’s wind blows yaCause there’s nothin else to do.Commala-come-keyCan you tell me what ya see?Is it ghosts or just the mirrorThat makes ya wanna flee?Commala-come-three!I beg ya, tell me!Is it ghosts or just your darker selfThat makes ya wanna flee?Commala-come-koWhatcha doin at my do’?If ya doan tell me now, my friendI’ll lay ya on de flo’.Commala-come-fo’!I can lay ya low!The things I’ve do to such as youYou never wanna know.Commala-gin-jiveAin’t it grand to be alive?To look out on DiscordiaWhen the Demon Moon arrives.Commala-come-five!Even when the shadows rise!To see the world and walk the worldMakes ya glad to be alive.Commala-mox-nix!You’re in a nasty fix!To take a hand in traitor’s gloveIs to grasp a sheaf of sticks!Commala-come-six!Nothing there but thorns and sticks!When your find your hand in traitor’s gloveYou’re in a nasty fix.Commala-loaf-leaven!They go to hell or up to heaven!The the guns are shot and the fires hot,You got to poke em in the oven.Commala-come-seven!Salt and yow’ for leaven!Heat em up and knock em downAnd poke em in the oven.Commala-ka-kateYou’re in the hands of fate.No matter if it’s real or not,The hour groweth late.Commala-come-eight!The hour groweth late!No matter what shade ya castYou’re in the hands of fate.Commala-me-mineYou have to walk the line.When you finally get the thing you needIt makes you feel so fine.Commala-come-nine!It makes ya feel fine!But if you’d have the thing you needYou have to walk the line.Commala-come-kenIt’s the other one again.You may know her name and faceBut that don’t make her your friend.Commala-come-ten!She is not your friend!If you let her get too closeShe’ll cut you up again!Commala-come-callWe hail the one who made us all,Who made the men and made the maids,Who made the great and small.Commala-come-call!He made us great and small!And yet how great the hand of fateThat rules us one and all.Commala-come-ki,There’s a time to live and one to die.With your back against the final wallYa gotta let the bullets fly.Commala-come-ki!Let the bullets fly!Don’t ‘ee mourn for me, my ladsWhen it comes my day to die.Commala-come-kass!The child has come at last!Sing your song, O sing it well,The child has come to pass.Commala-come-kass,The worst has come to pass.The Tower trembles on its ground;The child has come at last.Commala-come-come,The battle’s now begun!And all the foes of men and roseRise with the setting sun.”