" The folk of Riverton have all been dead so long. While age has withered me, they remain eternally youthful, eternally beautiful.
There now. I am becoming maudlin and romantic. For they are neither young nor beautiful. They are dead. Buried. Nothing. Mere figments that flit within the memories of those they once knew.
But of course, those who live in memories are never really dead. "

― Kate Morton , The House at Riverton