The Invasion of the Tearling

Lily stared at herself, fascinated. The woman in the jewel had not had an easy life, clearly, and yet she radiated contentment. Flowers had been braided into her hair, and on her back was what appeared to be a bow and a quiver filled with arrows. But for the rounded belly, she looked like the picture of Diana in the old D’Aulaires’ Lily and Maddy had shared in their childhood. Then the image abruptly vanished.

Distressed, Lily shook the sapphire, trying to bring the woman back, but there was nothing more.

“I’m sorry,” Tear told her. “Even the little things will tax me for a while.”

Lily stared at the sapphire for another long moment, and then handed it back to him. Something seemed to tug at her as the jewel left her fingers, and Lily had the odd sense that a piece of herself had gone with it. Seeing part of the future was almost worse than seeing none of it at all; she turned the vision over, wondering whether it was real, whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

“A boy,” Tear murmured beside her. “It’ll be a boy.”

“How can you know that?”

“Sometimes I just know.” He smiled at her, but Lily had the sense of something hidden behind his eyes, some future that she couldn’t yet glimpse. Tear didn’t elaborate, only clasped her shoulder. “But that’s years away. I have something else for you, something much closer.”

“What?”

“Look out there.” Tear pointed to the north. “That ship, the third away.”

“The white ship?”

“No, the one just past it.”

Lily squinted. The sky had lightened to a deep cornflower now, and she could just glimpse the ship he meant, a faint dark stain to the north, barely visible through the fog that clung to the surface of the ocean. “What about it?”

“One of my best people is in charge of that ship. She’s been with us for a long time, ever since she was fourteen years old. Two prison sentences under her belt, and she’s not afraid of anything. Dorian worships her, so much so that she even tries to dress like her, do her hair the same way.”

Something struck inside Lily, a deep vibration like a bell. She stared at him, her eyes wide and pleading. “What’s her name?”

“Madeleine Freeman.”

Lily turned to stare northward.

“I promise you, Lily, you’ll heal.”

Tear’s footsteps retreated, but Lily barely noticed, too busy staring at the third ship. Maddy’s face the last time she had seen her, her hair tied in knots and a black skirt two inches shorter than the dress code … a teenage girl trying to look like a woman. But now Maddy was a woman. Lily’s eyes searched the eastern horizon, looking for the tiniest hint of white against the blue, the first faint sign that there might be land in the distance. She thought of something then, and called softly after Tear. “Maddy’s a diabetic! She needs insulin.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Lily stared after him for a moment, then turned back to the north. She couldn’t think of Maddy, she realized, or she would go insane with waiting for the journey to be over, so she boxed her sister up inside her mind, putting her away. Someday she might see Maddy again, if all of this was real. She thought again of that fantastic vision inside Tear’s jewel, and for a moment she wondered if she was crazy, but she knew she was not.

“A boy,” she whispered. Tear had said so, and she believed him. She placed a hand on her own flat stomach, her eyes full of tears. She could almost feel him there, this child who was still years in her future. Tear was not lying, nor was he crazy. Lily would have a son, she would bear him in the better world, and she would raise him to be free.

She had already named him Jonathan.





Acknowledgments


THREE PEOPLE HELPED to make this a much better book: Maya Ziv, Dorian Karchmar, and Simone Blaser. As always, I am grateful to everyone at both Harper and William Morris Endeavor for their continued support as I move through the Tearling, but these three women put in effort above and beyond, and the book has benefited enormously. Maya, Dorian, and Simone also listened patiently to an awful lot of unjustified whining over the past year, so there’s that. Thanks to Jonathan Burnham, who lets me keep writing, and also to Heather Drucker, Amanda Ainsworth, Katie O’Callaghan, Ashley Fox, Erin Wicks, Miranda Ottewell … and a special thanks to Virginia Stanley, my spirit guide in taking no crap.

Thanks and love to my family, particularly my dear husband, Shane, who endured a great deal of artistic temperament over the past year and a half and never flinched once, and Sir and Monkey, who keep me laughing. Thanks also to my good friend Claire Shinkins, who gives just the right amount of love and support, and to the kind and helpful crew at my local Peets Coffee (especially you, Michi!), where I wrote the bulk of this book.

Quite by accident, I found the writing buddy I had needed for a long time. Thank you, Mark Smith, for listening and giving good advice always, as well as being brave enough to take the Tearling on. Not an easy world, this.

To all of the wonderful independent bookstores and libraries–and bookstore employees and librarians–who helped to get my first book out to the world, thank you. There’s no praise higher to me than that of people who love books, and your hard work on my behalf means a great deal.