Gallows Hill Quotes

“For the first time in her life, she’d seen a corpse, and it had been her own.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Some things are special,” Witchety continued. “Keys to beloved places. The bones of an animal that never lived a day in captivity. Tiny gifts and unblemished flowers and stones that make you feel a particular way. They may not have much power on their own, but weave them together with care and they create a breathing tapestry. That’s what the Watcher is.” She lifted the talisman. “What this is. Things that are special enough to keep you safe. At least a little.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“I hope it isn’t rude to ask, but is Witchety your real name?” “Sure, it’s real,” Witchety replied. “Might not be the one I got at birth, mind, but I’ve been called Witchety for so long now that it’s more my own than anything else.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Death made an equal out of everyone.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“She’d had it all wrong. The bells in the house weren’t left over from some centuries-old staffing arrangement. And there weren’t levers inside the house to pull. The wires were connected to the fence. The bells were an alarm system.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“At night, her parents put her to bed and told her to stay there until morning. You see, the girl and her family weren’t alone. Another family lived nearby. And just as the girl played during the day, the other family liked to play outside at night.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“She was desperately aware of how rare opportunities like this were. A house and a business, each worth more than all of her current possessions combined, had been handed to her. She felt achingly ungrateful for the way she was shirking them. Except that, sometimes, an unasked-for gift could easily begin to look like a burden.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Until the dead finally caught up to them. And then they would stitch their victim’s mouths closed, just as theirs had been. Never again allowed to laugh at their suffering. Never again allowed to argue their own relative virtue. Death made an equal out of everyone.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Some people believed that death stained a place. Margot didn’t like to think of herself as superstitious, even though superstitious behaviors had a way of creeping into her habits: the slight skip over cracked pavement, the wariness during full moons.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“... The time felt deeply sick. As though anyone who was alert at this hour invited terrible, horrific things into their lives. As though it opened a doorway to a darker world.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Gallows Hill felt sparse in a way she'd never known. She could have filled her lungs with air and screamed at the top of her voice and she doubted anyone would hear.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“She placed the bottle of holy water into her pocket and switched on her poor, abused cell phone’s flashlight function. Then she stepped outside, carefully closing the door behind herself.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Go,” she called to Marsh, but he needed no encouragement. Together they flew onto the field surrounding the house. The scene was drowned in mist. Gray forms blurred in the distance as they converged toward the house. Margot, bent double, kept one hand on Marsh’s collar. Dawn can’t be far. Please. It can’t be. She tried to track the forms about them, but their ferocious pace made it hard to see anything. Marsh, dragging her in his wake, chose a gap between the gray figures. Margot had a second-long glimpse of twisted faces, hollow eyes, and black-threaded mouths, and then they were past, racing down the hill. To where? The employee accommodations? Off the land entirely? I can survive a headache for a couple of hours if it means the dead ones aren’t able to follow.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“That isn’t right. I switched on lights as I came down from the attic. Didn’t I…? When did they go out?”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“He’s not just a token. The only way to defend against evil is with powerful good. And Marsh is the most good I know of. Keep him close tonight. I’ll be back around to pick him up in the afternoon.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Human nature. Everyone tries the locks. The dead still get inside. But it’s a hard instinct to repress.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Curiosity is good for a child. But not in Gallows Hill.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Then, a scrape. The noise registered in Margot’s head before her ears even had time to process it. She knew that noise. She’d heard it a dozen times a day as a child. No other memories of her earliest years existed, but she knew this. Back then, it had been a good noise. She’d associated it with something she loved. Now, it spread pure dread through her limbs. The scrape came from the dog door as it swung open.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Now, though, the time felt deeply sick. As though anyone who was alert at this hour invited terrible, horrific things into their lives. As though it opened a doorway to a darker world.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“but the head was turned at a sharp angle. Pulled to the left. As though her neck had been broken. It could have come from anything—a distortion in the wall, a quirk of the bulb behind her. Margot raised her hand, watching its mirror flit across the surfaces until it was at the same height as her head. It did not distort. I don’t understand. She tried turning her head to the right, seeing if she could correct the angle enough to get the shadow’s head to stand upright. For a second, it seemed to work. The head rose on the violently twisted neck, reaching a point where it was nearly straight, and then it twisted over, dropping to the other side. Something protruded from the edge of the shadow’s neck. A broken bone through skin.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“The sound that had broken her dreams continued. A shrill, chiming alarm, loud and close by. The room was dripping in heavy moonlight. Margot squinted into the darker corners of the space and saw a flicker of movement. The service bell danced on its hook.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“White lines ran like rivers across her torso, threading from her collarbone, under her bra, and ending near her navel. They’d faded over time, but the scars would never fully vanish.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“she felt as though damaging the form would invite some kind of horrific misfortune.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“Be careful,” the woman said. Her final words were drowned inside the gasping, wheezing breathlessness. “Be safe.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“sometimes, an unasked-for gift could easily begin to look like a burden.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“As her would-be-psychologist roommate was fond of saying, the human brain was an expert at rationalizing and diminishing things that it didn’t fully understand.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill

“She’d watched her share of horror movies. She’d seen plenty of fictional portrayals of death, both modern and campy. She had to assume, if her mind was intent on tormenting her, it would have plucked inspiration from something it had already seen.”
― Darcy Coates, Gallows Hill