It doesn't matter whether you're alive or dead; either way, the ghostroads are the best way to move through the twilight. They dependably exist, which gives them a definite advantage over the roads that sink down from the daylight or rise up from the midnight. They aren't safe, exactly, but nothing in the twilight really is, and the ghostroads generally don't go out of their way to kill people. They're content to strew themselves with hidden dangers and wait, rather than going hunting like some of the routes that can get you through the midnight. They're less direct than the roads on most other levels, and that's part of what gives them their stability. As long as there's a hidden turn to take or an intersection yet uncrossed, the ghostroads still retain their reason to be.
The important thing to remember about the ghostroads is this: every road that's ever existed is a part of them, and the twilight is just as stretched and painted-over as the daylight. If you want to find a road that isn't there anymore, all you have to do is close your eyes, plant your feet, and let go. Stop trying to be anchored; stop trying to convince yourself that anything ever ends. The ghostroads know the way, and they'll take you, if you'll let them. It's not the sort of thing people do without a reason—even the routewitches are careful when it comes to surfing the palimpsest atlas of the ghostroads' memory—but it can get you where you want to go, if you're willing to trust the path you're on.
If there's one piece of advice I can give about the ghostroads, it's this: don't get lost. Maybe you won't always know where you are, and maybe that's for the best, but there's a big difference between knowing your location and being truly lost. Before you try to pull any fancy tricks or turn the road to your own advantage, learn to believe—to truly know—that you're never, not for a second, lost. Because people who get lost out there...those people are never found again, not by anyone, and what the ghostroads claim, they don't easily give back. Living or dead, the ghostroads don't care. We're all travelers when we're with them, and we all owe the roads a traveler's respect.
Most of all, most importantly of all, when you tell the ghostroads that you want to go somewhere, be sure you really mean it. They don't take kindly to being toyed with, and they don't give second chances. Every trip you take in the twilight, you take for keeps.
Happy trails.
***
Tommy picked me up in one of Maine's unincorporated townships, a crumbling, dying little settlement that must have been alive and vibrant once, before the heart and the hope leaked out of it like water through a broken vase. From there, we drive the ghostroads to Calais, just on the edge of the Canadian border. This is the edge of his territory, and the closer we get to Canada, the slower he drives, until it's like we're moving through molasses. We're still three miles from where I need to be when he stops the car, shame-faced and sweating, and says, "This is as far as I go, Rose. I'm sorry."
He's got nothing to be sorry for, and this is further than I really expected him to take me. I want to tell him that, I really do, but the words all slip away when I look into his eyes. There's something in them that speaks of exits, of road signs that lead to final destinations, and I can't bear the sight of it. I knew this night was coming--this night always comes. It still hits me like a blow. Tommy is coming close to realizing that the road isn't forever, and the knowledge burns.
How many will that make? How many racers and riders and hitchers and ferrymen who've fallen onto the ghostroads, and then found their own way off them, while I'm still here? Too many. And Tommy—sweet, stupid Tommy—isn't going to be the last of them.
"I'm good," I say, and slip out of his car, back into the cool, sweet air of the everlasting twilight. The feel of asphalt beneath my feet is centering, a benediction directed only toward the road. "I can walk from here. You can find your own way back?"
It's a fool's question, and I want to take it back almost before I finish asking it. Tommy's a racer, a man who died behind the wheel and carried his car into the twilight with him. He's tied to the stretch of road where he crashed. His presence makes the road safer than it would have been without him, makes the drunks think twice before they stagger out of the bars, makes the teenage hotheads lighten up on the gas and take the turns a little more slowly. Phantom racers have their place in the way of things, and they do more than just make good ghost stories.
I envy the shit out of them; always have, always will. They have something no hitcher gets to have. They have homes.
Tommy frowns a little, confusion blocking out the exits in his eyes. "Yeah, Rose, I can find my way." The car's engine growls, a little roar from a captive lion. She doesn't like me messing with her driver.