The treasure there - an old brooch, a cup and a little stone knife - is guarded by the Sleer, a snake with three heads. Together they find a tomb buried inside the hill. At the age of five, he becomes friends with Scarlett Amber Perkins who takes him to be an imaginary friend. He is taught his letters and Silas brings him books, food and clothes. The killer is lurking around waiting for him to make an appearance. He knows that it is not safe for him to go out of the graveyard.

The boy Bod grows up as an obedient child. They name him Nobody Owens as he resembles nobody but himself. That means he will be able to see the ghosts, see in the dark, can enter the graves and will also be taught to fade in and out. He agrees to be the boy's guardian and other ghosts are persuaded to give the boy the Freedom of the Graveyard. The man Jack is persuaded to leave the graveyard by Silas, a being who is neither dead nor living. Owens who died without children takes the boy to her plump bosom promising to be his parent. The Owenses are warned by a pale ghost (the boy's mother who is going to be buried in another graveyard) that the man rattling the graveyard gates has come to kill her son. Owens, a ghost who has been living there with her husband for hundreds of years now after their burial here.

He follows his scent to the graveyard on the hilltop. He had slain the parents and the eldest daughter and that leaves only the toddler. The man Jack reached that big storeyed house to kill the whole family.

If you liked the movie 'Coco', then this won't disappoint you in the least. Sure there are parallels, but Gaiman successfully manoeuvres the horrors of the graveyard to something protective and homely. Apart from the characters, what attracted me most was the originality by which the idea was conceived.

Neil gaiman reading the graveyard book