“What?" I ask. I don't get anything about this day. Everything is just off."Are you sure?""Am I sure where I live? Yeah. Steeple Drive.""Your cabin is on this road?""Is it just me, or is everything I'm saying slightly freaking you out?”

“We eventually come to a one-story house that looks as though it's on its way to becoming one with the forest surrounding it. "Seriously?"Mom looks at me with a glance that says so much.Be quiet, for one thing.Get out, for another.Mind your manners is surely in there.And last but not least, This is freaking crazy.”

“I'm sixteen with what I hope will be a long life ahead, but I'm willing to give it up, to give anything to let her live, to let her make it through the night.”

“Was she always that friendly?" I joke."She saw Robert. At least I got that out of her.""Maybe she buried him in the backyard.""Stop.""Did you smell it in there?""Yes.""That wasn't a normal smell. That wasn't the sort of something's-gone-bad-in-the-garbage smell. That was the sort of Dahmer-next-door smell.""Stop it.""I'm serious," I say."It's probably just some dead animal.""Oh, well, in that case, it's fine.”

“Things like this don't happen back in Libertyville, Illinois. You don't get lost in the woods behind your house.You don't get trapped inside a fortress-like wall ten feet tall.”

“I can't help but think of the dance that I'm not going to.It's not that I want to go to a dance. I'd go milk cows with Jocelyn if I could. Or do whatever kids around here do for fun.”

“There's no light bulb lit. I half wonder if there's any power to light one. "Aunt Alice?"A round goblin comes out of the darkness of the hallway.”