"What am I?" you once asked Marly, soon after you came to SENTINEL. "Am I…a soul? The soul of the dead person I once was?"
And she shook her head. "I dislike that word, 'soul.' It carries so much religious and moral connotation. We are creatures of quintessence—you, me, every wraith, every living person you see in the street. Jack Nicholson or Jerry Lee Lewis, J. J. Abrams, J. K. Rowling, even President Graff herself—all of us possess that ineffable spark of existence, of quintessence, that animates us, that gives us life in some form or other."
"Then we are alive?" you asked. "Even wraiths, like us?"
"Again, 'life' is a word that carries a certain significance. Let's say that we exist. We are aware. We feel. The more important question is where our quintessence resides. The quintessence of a living person resides wholly, or almost wholly, within their physical form. When that form dies, the quintessence disappears."
"And what about us?"
"Our quintessence is skewed. It's neither here nor there. It's not completely in this world nor in the next. And this presents great disadvantages. We can't be seen by the living. We can't share their world or their lives. And yet this state bestows strengths as well. Knowing that we're beings of pure quintessence—pure 'soul-stuff,' if you absolutely must use that loaded word—grants us tremendous power, tremendous potential."
Marly spoke these words to you ten months ago now. She hoped to explain your existence in a few well-practiced sentences. It was a gentle introduction; the truth of the matter would prove vastly more complex.
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