The Graveyard Book

by Neil Gaiman

“You are ignorant, boy,” said Miss Lupescu. “This is bad. And you are content to be ignorant, which is worse. Repeat after me, there are the living and the dead, there are day-folk and night-folk, there are ghouls and mist-walkers, there are the high hunters and the Hounds of God. Also, there are solitary types.”

Instead he walked up the side of the hill to where a picnic some thirty years before had left its mark in the shape of a large apple tree.

Digby Poole (1785–1860, As I Am So Shall You Be),

Fear is contagious. You can catch it. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say that they’re scared for the fear to become real. Mo was terrified, and now Nick was too.