“I do long for Charis,” I said. “But there are things I’d like to do before I arrive. I want to do more, make a difference, play my part, find my role in the story.”

“Each character is placed in a setting by the novelist; each expands or contracts his part through the choices he makes. Play your part gladly, but do not waste your time trying to make your role more important. The more a player in the drama elevates his part, the less he fulfills it. And the less is written of him in the Book, no matter how much is written in the Shadowlands.”

“Can a person go back and alter his role?” I asked.

“Once written, the story is finished. It cannot be revised. Death is every man’s final signature on his life’s self-portrait.”

“If only there were a second chance,” I said. “With Marci and Amy and Brian, for starters. What have I left them? An inheritance? But no heritage, no legacy. Only money. Nothing. I know I’m not going to Erebus—but what I feel when I think of how I failed them, that must be a taste of it. If a mere taste of Erebus is so horrid, what’s it like to actually be there?”

“The heights of the mountains of Charis are measured against the depth of the valleys of Erebus.”

“Every time I’ve seen the sixty seconds of Charis and Erebus, I’ve walked away convinced I’ll never forget it. Yet every time, the vision dissipates like smoke in the wind.”

“The GuideBook is a knothole into eternity. It gives you glimpses of what lies beyond—and you may go to it again and again for more than sixty seconds a day.”

I looked from Charis to Erebus and back.

“The stakes are so high. Higher than I ever dreamed.”

“Charis and Erebus are the high stakes that give meaning to life in the Shadowlands. The roads men choose in the beforelife lead to infinite joy or infinite misery in the afterlife, to surpassing glory or surpassing tragedy. Everyone you pass on the street will one day be a creature of unimaginable greatness or unimaginable horror.”

“It’s as if life on this side of the door is the preliminaries,” I said, “and on the other side is the main event. Like this is the tune-up and that’s the concert.”

Marcus nodded. “On Earth, I was not sure you would ever learn these things.”

“You saw me on Earth?”

“What is important is that you not forget what you have seen.”

“We live our lives in eternity’s lobby,” I said, “walking toward a door that will forever seal our destiny.”

“Yes,” Marcus said. “Exactly.”