How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
He's thinking about Merle. How something seems to wait in her eyes. How he felt calm, just standing next to her.
"Well, so it is," he says, smiling with wonder.
He's tired. His journey has been a long one. (1.1.6-8)
Oh, Eric, you have no idea. This guy has travelled across time and space to arrive at Blessed Island, the place he's always fated to wind up at. That's one long journey indeed.
Quote #2
When going on a journey, or arriving in a new place, the easiest way to make friends quickly is to bump the air around you with OneDegree. Maybe no one you know is on the same plane, but someone who knows someone you know is likely to be. Or someone who went to school with a friend of yours. Or who works where you worked ten years ago. And so on and so on. Then you have someone to pass the journey with, at the least, and maybe a new friend for life. And although that's never happened to Eric, in all his years of using OneDegree on so many solitary journeys around the world, he has never failed to find some kind of link among a group of a hundred or more who would otherwise have remained total strangers. (1.1.16)
It's actually sort of ironic that Eric is looking to pass the time on his journeys with people he's "connected" to. On Blessed Island he'll meet people whose connection to him is way deeper and long lasting than any of these other folks he's ever encountered.
Quote #3
He has never been here, yet he feels he has met Merle before, and then, there is that other feeling, that somehow disturbs him even more.
Why, he thinks, do I have the feeling that I have come home? (1.3.39-40)
Yeah, that's sort of a weird feeling. Of course, we know Eric feels this way because he has come home, but Eric just doesn't get it. His journey has finally led him to the one place he's meant to be.
Quote #4
Much of his life is spent traveling, investigating stories all over the world. Most of the time he's on his own, and sometimes the trips he has to make are hard, dangerous even. With no one waiting for him at home, not even any truly lifelong friends, he often feels like a ghost, drifting over the face of the earth, rootless. If he died, it would be weeks before anyone even knew, let alone cared. Just for once, his journey has taken him somewhere lovely, somewhere warm, and beautiful. He starts laughing. (1.7.6)
Aw… That's kind of sad. Eric doesn't have any real connections to anyone. But now that's he's reached the end of his journey, he'll finally find out why that is. He's always felt like a wanderer, but he's exactly where he's supposed to be.
Quote #5
She whispers, just loud enough to be heard over the shushing of the waves.
"I followed you."
Eric hesitates for a moment, wondering, but then he's laughing, and Merle is, too. (1.10.23-25)
This is a call back (well, a call ahead actually) to the start of their journey. Merle has agreed to follow Eric over seven different lifetimes and here they are swimming in the sea like a couple of crazy kids in love—just like they did back in the old days.
Quote #6
"I just can't reach him. Not how a mother should. He goes away from me, as if he's on a journey somewhere, somewhere I can't follow. Seeing things I can't see. I can't explain."
She breaks off, then tries once more.
"It's like loving someone from another world." (2.7.49-51)
Merle says this about her son, Eric. Because Eric is developmentally disabled, folks usually think he's a little bit slow. But Merle kind of hits the nail on the head: Eric actually sees more clearly than anyone what his place is in this world and where he is on his journey.
Quote #7
One night, as they parted, Erik whispered something precious to Merle.
"Say that you will never leave me," he said, holding her hands.
"I shall never leave you," said Merle.
"Is it so easy to say?" Erik asked, surprised.
"It is, since it is you I speak of," Merle answered.
"I will never leave you. No matter what happens, or where you go, or what you do. I will never leave you."
"But it might not be so easy," Erik said. "Our love is forbidden. It might become impossible for us to be together."
Merle shook her head. "I will find a way," she said. "I will always find a way." (5.4.14-21)
The Merle of this story is super intense (and just a tiny bit crazy)—she will not be denied her chance to follow Erik(a) along on their journey together. Even if it means resorting to drastic measures.
Quote #8
I do not remember what happened first.
Whether it was a dog or a cow.
No. I do remember now. Strange how walking the journey once more brings back both shade and detail. (6.8.6-8)
The elderly Melle remembers what happened back in that winter when she was twelve-years-old and compares thinking through this experience to a journey. It's like a little adventure, but in your mind. That's okay, Melle. We wouldn't want to relive the whole vampire-uncle/dad thing again either.
Quote #9
Knowing her time was at an end, she lay down on the table.
People gathered around, but she still saw no one but the face in front of her, the face of Eirikr, her king.
She shut her eyes, and as the life sighed gently away from her, she finally answered his question.
"Yes," she whispered, "I will follow you."
And so, their journeys begin. (7.4.25-29)
And here it is: This happened in Merle's past, but it was still to come for the reader. Queen Melle agrees to follow King Eirikr in his mission to live seven different lifetimes, and she sets their story and their journeys in motion.
Quote #10
Yes, thinks Eric Seven. Our journeys began, lifetimes ago.
I have lived this before, but I will not live it again.
He knows that this is his last life. Somehow, as he lies on the stone table, the moment before the violence of the knife-fall, he knows it all. (7.5.1-3)
Well, a journey has to end sometime, right? Eric would prefer it didn't end with his death, but still. Now he finally knows everything that has come before and has led him up to this point. Journey complete, right?
Quote #11
There is nothing now but the two of them, and their love, which has waited for centuries to be made again, and as their blood flows, first from Merle, and then from Eric, as their blood mingles on the table and in the soil of Blessed Island, they are no longer in love, they have become love itself.
And their journey begins.
So, it is. (7.5.53-55)
This is actually pretty sweet. Eric and Merle lived their lives and ended their journey, but now they're in for a new adventure. Does this mean the whole cycle starts again? Or are they onto a new journey in the afterlife?