1/5/2024 0 Comments Neil gaiman the graveyard bookAnd there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence.” Remember, in days gone by you could be hanged for stealing a shilling. But I don’t remember anyone particularly evil. Let’s see, it’s been a while since I’ve been down that way. “So the people buried in the ground on the other side of the fence are bad people?” But they left land unconsecrated beside the sacred ground, potter’s fields to bury the criminals and the suicides or those who were not of the faith.” But here, in your land, they blessed the churches and the ground they set aside to bury people in, to make it holy. That it is sacred before we come to it, and sacred after. “There are those,” he said, in his silken voice, “who believe that all land is sacred. Silas walked across the path without disturbing a fallen leaf, and sat down on the bench, beside Bod. They came from all across Europe and from all over the world.Ī macabre mélange of swanky men’s colognes. They all spoke English when they talked to each other, or to the waiters, but the accents were as diverse as the gentlemen. They were European, African, Indian, Chinese, South American, Filipino, American. The majority of them were pink-skinned, but there were black-skinned men and brown-skinned. They had friendly faces or unfriendly, helpful or sullen, open or secretive, brutish or sensitive. They had white hair or dark hair or fair hair or red hair or no hair at all. There were about a hundred of them, all in sober black suits, but the suits were all they had in common. They were all men, that much was clear, and they sat at round dinner tables, and they were finishing their dessert. Truthfully, if you were to look at the inhabitants of the Washington Room that night, you would have no clearer idea of what was happening, although a rapid glance would tell you that there were no women in there. I hope you are worth it.”Īnimalic musk, with amber, patchouli, ho wood, cypress, almond blossom, golden sandalwood, and strange spices.Ī small sign in the hotel lobby announced that the Washington Room was taken that night by a private function, although there was no information as to what kind of function this might be. Then she said, “I have come a long way to look after you, boy. I think you should apologise, don’t you?”īod didn’t, but Silas was looking at him and he was carrying his black bag, and about to leave for no-one knew how long, so he said, “I’m sorry Miss Lupescu.”Īt first she said nothing in reply. “That,” said Silas, “Was a very rude thing to say. I am sure that the two of you will get on.” He picked up his bag and said, “You will be in good hands with Miss Lupescu, Bod. You will call me ‘Miss Lupescu’.”īod looked up at Silas, pleadingly, but there was no sympathy on Silas’s face. I am here as a historian, researching the history of old graves. “However, I shall spend my time in this graveyard. I have rented a room in a house over there.” She pointed to a roof just visible from where they stood. When she had made a complete circuit, she said, “You will report to me on waking, and before you go to sleep. This is the boy.” She got up from her seat and walked all around Bod, nostrils flared, as if she were sniffing him. She wore a bulky mackintosh, and a man’s tie around her neck. Her hair was grey, although her face seemed too young for grey hair. Her face was pinched and her expression was disapproving. We’re afraid of nuffink!”Īnd all the ghouls around the coffin-wood fire howled at this statement, and growled and sang and exclaimed at how wise they were, and how mighty, and how fine it was to be scared of nothing.ĭessicated skin coated in blackened ginger, cinnamon, and mold-flecked dirt, with cumin, bitter clove, leather, and dried blood. “But that’s not a good thing to talk about,” said the Emperor of China.”Best to be a Ghoul. The other way is messier, involves being digested, and you’re not really around very long to enjoy it.” “One way or another,” said the Bishop of Bath and Wells, cheerily, “you’ll become one of us. “But I don’t want to become one of you,” said Bod. They told of the places they had been, which mostly seemed to be catacombs and plague-pits (“Plague Pits is good eatin’,” said the Emperor of China, and everyone agreed.) They told Bod how they had got their names and how he, in his turn, once he had become a nameless ghoul, would be named, as they had been. Why, it didn’t matter what their dinner had died of, they could just chomp it down. Impervious they were to disease or illness, said one of them. They all started telling stories, then, of how fine and wonderful a thing it was to be a ghoul, of all the things they had crunched up and swallowed down with their powerful teeth.
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