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Famous Shea Ernshaw Quotes

“On the night of All Hallow's Eve party, I sew my own black gown using the Witch Sisters' chiffon fabric, and a crown made of forged iron and dove feathers from Valentine's Town. I stand at the mirror, pressing down the silky fabric along my ribs, still feeling like myself--like a rag doll, who is also a queen. Instinctively, I tug at the thread on my wrist, but beneath the seam, I feel the softness of cotton, not the crunch of dead leaves. When I was born, my insides were filled with air-puffed cotton--Dream Town cotton. But when Dr. Finkelstein kidnapped me, he replaced the cotton with dead leaves; he wanted no reminders of where I was really from. But now I have filled myself with both: cotton and dead leaves. Because although I am the queen of Halloween Town, I am also a daughter of Dream Town. Made of nightmares and dreams. A little of both.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“I pull out the blue spool of thread and the sharp needle I always keep in the left pocket of my dress--because old seams have a way of popping, thread unspooling, and you never know when you'll need it--and begin stitching my arm back into place. It takes longer than usual; some of the linen has begun to fray along the seam, and I need to gather a few spare dead leaves from the graveyard to fill my shoulder socket all the way. It's a ghastly thing to lose an arm--or any part of yourself, really--to feel disconnected from your body. Not quite whole. And I've always wished Dr. Finkelstein had stuffed my insides with something other than dried, shriveled leaves, tossed aside by the trees. Cotton perhaps, or rose petals. Something silken and ladylike.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“He kisses me again, folding me in his arms--the place I want to stay for a thousand years. When I first discovered Dream Town, I wasn't sure where I belonged, where my true home was. But now I know. Sometimes home is a town, a house with four walls. Other times, it's two hollow eyes in a skull, a skeleton without a heartbeat. It's here---not in Dream Town or Halloween Town---but in Jack's arms. Folded against this hollow, skeleton chest is where I belong. I let the tears stream down my face, I let them bind us together, salt and water and fabric and bone. Woven parts of ourselves that become one.”

SallyGothic RomanceSally And JackJack SkellingtonSkeletonRagdollIn His Arms
Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“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.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“The guilt is a double-edged dagger, twisting inside me, breaking threads and tearing me apart. Can the fool of a story also be the hero? Doubtful. But I have loved Jack for too long to let him be fated to a life worse than death. A life spent in a nightmare he can't wake from. I would cross a thousand thresholds into a thousand different worlds for him.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“I am Sally Skellington, the Pumpkin Queen." There is warmth in my chest now, heat and fury and anger. "But I was born in Dream Town." The words feel like their won conjuring, a spell, a ritual or bedtime riddle to cast things into the stars and make them true. I feel suddenly awake and alive, a woman who isn't simply a rag doll, but a ruler who has traveled to all the realms, even the human world, to set things right. Who feels a spark, a wrath growing inside her.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“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.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“It feels like a fairy tale from one of those happily-ever-after books where the princess storms the castle, slays a goblin-dragon, and takes over the kingdom for herself. Except I am not golden-haired or fine-boned. I have no bones at all. I am a rag doll who married a skeleton king. A rag doll who woke from the impossible daydream and found herself in her own heroine story--a tale whose ending hasn't yet been written; but instead, is only just the beginning.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“You still think I'm the same girl, don't you, Zero?" I ask as we make our way deeper into the woods, under the cover of starlight and swaying bare branches. Zero's nose glows brighter, and I run a hand along his pale ghost body. He is both solid and made of cool winter air, and sometimes I swear I can feel his ears beneath my palm, while other times my fingers pass right through. He is both here and not here. Alive and dead. And right now he feels like my only friend--the only one who thinks I'm unchanged. Made of the same linen and blue thread. Everyone else in Halloween Town seems to think I am someone entirely new--a girl with a royal title whose hair should be like the silken threads of a spider's web, with coffin-straight posture and a crown of feathers atop her head. But I am not these things.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“Your father even wrote the first theories about daytime dreaming in this library." She smiles at Albert, a look of pride. "He invented daydreams, you know," she says, looking back to me. "A way for humans to dream up wild, unthinkable things right in the middle of the afternoon, without ever needing to go to sleep." I think back to my own daydreams, moments when I'd managed to lose myself in thought, especially in my old life: dreaming of a future with Jack, dreaming of who I might be if I ever escaped Dr. Finkelstein.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“I stir the simmering potion until it turns a bright, gruesome red, the same shade as Ruby Valentino's lips. But it's too bright, too obvious. Then I remember. I reach into the pocket of my dress, past the spool of thread, to the thing I'm looking for. When I pull it out, the leaves are slightly flattened, but it's still intact: the four-leaf clover given to me by the leprechaun in St. Patrick Town. He said it would bring me luck. And I need it now. I drop the green clover into the potion, and within seconds, the color turns a vibrant, grassy green--reminding me of the damp meadow in St. Patrick Town, freshly dewed with rain. The exact shade I need.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“Across the street from the bed-and-breakfast, I open a small café where residents can sip cocoa lattes, eat raspberry tarts baked in Valentine's Town, and savor orange whipped toffees that Helgamine and Zeldaborn complain get stuck in their few remaining teeth--yet they keep coming back for more. Wolfman and Behemoth sit together every afternoon sharing a pot of black rose tea, delicately holding their cups between clawed and too-large fingertips, nibbling on coconut macaroons. I even sell my sleeping tonic at the café--in a much milder dose than what I brew for the Sandman, who still stops by for a refill now and then--in scents of lavender and chamomile, herbs harvested from Dream Town.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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“There are books on Dream Making for Insomniacs, Sheep Counting 101, encyclopedias on the methods of sleep, theories around daydreams and naps and sleepwalkers. I pull out a recipe book titled, Sleep Tonics, filled with recipes for golden milk and warm butterscotch cocoa. There is a book on how to choose the correct pillow firmness for side sleepers, and a DIY book on constructing your own mattress made of recycled fibers and sheep's wool.”

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Book:Long Live the Pumpkin Queen
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