To see the ocean once is to learn how to miss it. ~Mistress Coyle

I was born into all that, all that mess, the over-crowded swamp and the over-crowded sematary and the not-crowded-enough town, so I don’t remember nothing, don’t remember a world without Noise. My pa died of sickness before I was born and then my ma died, of course, no surprises there. Ben and Cillian took me in, raised me. Ben says my ma was the last of the women but everyone says that about everyone’s ma. Ben may not be lying, he believes it’s true, but who knows?

Things change, but they stay the same.

Conor was no longer invisible. They all saw him now. But he was further away than ever.

As to how you'll help me," he says. "Well, we have met the Answer, have we not?" He turns back to look at us, his eyes glinting. "It's time for them to meet the Ask.

A monster, I think, remembering what Ben told me once. War makes Monsters of Men.

Knowledge is dangerous and men lie and the world changes, whether I want it to or not.