Marya D.

“He wipes away the tear streaming down my cotton cheekbone to my chin and looks at me like his own chest is about to fracture. And for a moment, I'm certain they should just bury us both here, at the center of the graveyard. Married and died on the same day. Unable to contain the unspeakable, awful, wondrous emotion breaking against our eyelids.
The dreadful residents of Halloween Town applaud, tossing tiny dwarf spiders at our feet as we leave the cemetery, and the warmth in my chest feels like bats clamoring for a way out of my rib cage. Trying to break me apart.
I am now Sally Skellington.
The Pumpkin Queen.
And I'm certain I will never again be as happy as I am right now.”
― Shea Ernshaw, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen

“You had a bad dream." Jack tenderly tucks a strand of bloodred hair behind my ear. "I've got you now, Sally. Through sweet dreams or nightmares, I've always got you."
"Oh, Jack." I bury my face against his rib cage. "It didn't feel like a dream."
As I sink into his hold, letting my twisted-up stuffing of cotton and crisp autumn leaves unravel back into place, I try to tell myself that he's right: It was only a dream.
I may now be the queen of a land of nightmares-- but I come from a place of sweet dreams. And even though my life is happier now than I ever imagined, it seems that, even in slumber, I still can't find my place between those worlds.”
― Megan Shepherd, Hour of the Pumpkin Queen

“Jack pulls me back into his arms, as if he could absorb the pain and take it from me. And I know, I would do it all over again: I would leave Dream Town and never return a thousand times just to be here with Jack, to touch his face, to feel his ice-cold lips on mine, to have a life with him in this town. To stand beside him as Pumpkin Queen.
This is the life I want. The one I'm willing to sacrifice everything for.”
― Shea Ernshaw, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen

“I wonder if someday Jack and I will have our own pram filled with tiny skeletons and rag dolls. The scuttle of little feet through the house. Skeleton boys tumbling down the spiral stairs; little rag doll girls with their threads coming loose, always needing their fingers and toes stitched back together. A perfectly grim little family.”
― Shea Ernshaw, Long Live the Pumpkin Queen