"Ox was sixteen when he met the boy on the road, the boy who talked and talked and talked. Ox found out later the boy hadn t spoken in almost two years before that day, and that the boy belonged to a family who had moved into the house at the end of the lane. Ox was seventeen when he found out the boy's secret, and it painted the world around him in colors of red and orange and violet, of Alpha and Beta and Omega."