The Graveyard Book (2008)

The Graveyard Book. Neil Gaiman; P. Craig Russell. www.neilgaiman.com . www.hoopladigital.com . Accessed Oct 8, 2023.

Snapshots

The man Jack was tall. This man was taller. The man Jack wore dark clothes. This man’s clothes were darker. People who noticed the man Jack when he was about his business found themselves troubled. The man Jack looked up at the stranger, and it was the man Jack who was troubled.

Then, in a voice like the chiming of a hundred tiny silver bells, she said only…
WOMAN. The dead should have charity.
And she smiled. That, at least, was what the folk of the graveyard who had been on the hillside that night claimed what happened. The debate was over and ended, and without so much as a show of hands, had been decided. The child called Nobody Owens would be given the freedom of the graveyard.

That Scarlett could not see some of Bod’s other friends did not seem to matter. She had already been told by her parents that Bod was imaginary. And that there was nothing wrong with that. So it was no surprise to her that Bod also had imaginary friends.

BOD. What’s particle physics?
SCARLETT. Well, there’s atoms, which is things too small to see… That’s what we’re made of. And there’s things that’s smaller than atoms. And that’s particle physics.
Bod nodded and decided that Scarlett’s father was probably interested in imaginary things.

And then the Indigo Man threw back his head and let out a series of yodeling screams that made Scarlett grip Bod’s hand so tightly that her fingernails pressed into his flesh. Bod was no longer scared though.
SCARLETT. I’m sorry I said they were imaginary. I believe now. They’re real.
INDIGO MAN. ALL WHO INVADE THIS PLACE WILL DIE!
BOD. No, I think you’re right. This one is.
SCARLETT. Is what?
BOD. Imaginary.
SCARLETT. Don’t be stupid. I can see it.
BOD. Yes, and you can’t see dead people.

MR. PENNYWORTH. You are difficult to miss. If you came to me in company with a purple lion, a green elephant, and a scarlet unicorn astride which was the king of England in his royal robes, I do believe that it is you and you alone that people would stare at, dismissing the others as minor irrelevancies!

Bod shivered. He wanted to embrace his guardian, tell him that he would never desert him, but the action was unthinkable. There were people you could hug… and then there was Silas.

No one noticed the boy, not at first. No one even noticed that they hadn’t noticed him.

Nick had little imagination. Mo had an imagination, and the hairs on the back of her neck her prickling.

Bod could feel the graveyard itself trying to hide him, to protect him, to make him vanish, and he fought it, worked to be seen.
TROT. Hola, young Bod! I hear that excitement is the master of the hour, that you fling yourself through these dominions like a comet across the firmament.

What Scarlett saw was not what Bod saw. She did not see the sleer, and that was a mercy. She saw the man Jack, though. He was floating in the air, five, then ten feet above the ground, slashing wildly at the air with two knives, trying to stab something she could not see, in a display that was obviously having no effect.

SILAS. But you will undoubtedly be happier if you remember none of this. So let us walk together, you and I, and discuss what has happened to you over the last few days, and what it might be wise for you to remember, and what it might be better for you to forget.

References

1. The Graveyard Book #01. How Nobody Came to the Graveyard. Neil Gaiman; Kevin Nowlan. 2008.
2. The Graveyard Book #02. The New Friend. Neil Gaiman; P. Craig Russell. 2008.
3. The Graveyard Book #04. The Witch's Headstone. Neil Gaiman; Galen Showman. 2008.
4. The Graveyard Book #05. Danse Macabre. Neil Gaiman; Jill Thompson. 2008.
5. The Graveyard Book #06. Nobody Owens' School Days. Neil Gaiman; David Lafuente. 2008.
6. The Graveyard Book #07. Every Man Jack. Neil Gaiman; Scott Hampton. 2008.