Sentence Sneak Peek - The Emerald Atlas

The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens

The first sentence from each chapter of The Emerald Atlas, it's a mini summary of what you can expect to read.

* All spoilers are highlighted like this :)

Prologue: "The girl was shaken awake."

"The hat in question was owned by Mrs. Constance Lovestock."

"The train jerked, waking Kate."

"Still asleep, are we?"

"This is—oh boy—I mean, we must've—" "Michael, are you okay?"

"At dinner, they told Miss Sallow that Michael wasn't feeling well and had gone to bed."

"Miss Sallow put them to work first thing the next morning, and between finishing tasks for the housekeeper and avoiding Dr. Pym, it wasn't until midafternoon that Kate and Emma were sit-ting beside Abraham's fire, drinking cider and listening to him gripe about how far he'd had to go to find a goose."

"I'm so sorry," Kate said, for the sixth or seventh time."

"Two Screechers appeared and yanked Kate, Emma, and Michael out of their chairs as a wall of rain swept toward the house."

"It went like this: Kate would pick out a tree or boulder and she'd tell herself, That far, I'll just go that far, and while she walked, she wouldn't allow herself to think about how wet and heavy her clothes were, how they chafed against her skin with every step, how the muscles in her legs had been replaced with so much un-responsive mud; she would only think, That far, I'll make it that far."

"Once in the passageway, the man ordered Kate, Michael, and Emma to stay exactly where they were."

"Gabriel stood with his back to the swinging bridge, his chest heaving, the haft of his falchion slippery with sweat."

"The child weighed nothing."

"Four dwarf guards, led by Captain Robbie McLaur, guided Dr. Pym and the children along a series of passages and stairways to the throne room of King Hamish."

"Come now, wake up, wake up!"

"Kate and Michael walked in the center of the group, directly be-hind the dwarf assigned to carry the ancient, white-bearded, and loudly snoring Fergus on his back."

"Keeping close to the rock wall and moving as silently as pos-sible, Kate, Michael, and the small band of dwarves made their way along the ridge above the old city until they arrived at a doorway into whose arch was carved a pair of crossed hammers."

"The first thing Kate felt—as the door opened, revealing a high-ceilinged room lit by crystals in the walls, and there in the center, sitting on a stone pedestal as if it had been waiting for her, the book, their book—the very first thing she felt was that after everything that had happened in the last few days, this—the fact the vault door had opened for her and no one else—was the worst turn yet."

"Emma and Gabriel, along with the girl Dena and the rest of the band, climbed the mountain along no trail that Emma could see, but that Gabriel and the others seemed to know by heart."

"Hamish had refused to get out of the pool."

"You see, when Katherine touched the book and traveled into the past—four years from this point, which for you three is not the present at all but already fifteen years into the past—she told me everything that was going to transpire with the missing will and Hamish becoming king, et cetera and et cetera...I, armed with this terrible knowledge, went immediately to Queen Esmerelda (Robbie and Hamish's mother and a very dear friend of mine)."

"The air told Kate when they were getting close."

"Have you been crying?"

"Emma's ears were ringing."

"Remember," Dr. Pym said, "by going into the past, you children changed history."

"As Kate hurried with Emma through the dark hallways of the house, she couldn't help noticing that everything was in a state of extreme disrepair: mirrors were crusted with grime, cobwebs clung to the corners, mouse-eaten rugs covered creaking, dusty floors."