For herself, Harper felt no alarm it all. She was sore, but content. Those fat clouds were breaking up, and the sky to the east was an almost perfect, serene shade of blue. She thought it seemed a nice enough day for a sail, and she recalled that John’s mother had been Irish. She had always wanted to see Ireland.
Nick had crouched down on his knees to be next to her. He looked at the baby with a sweet, plain curiosity and then moved his hands, writing on the air. Harper smiled and nodded, and then bent close and put her nose to Ashley’s.
“Hey. Your big brother has something to say to you,” Harper told her. “He says hello. He says it’s a pleasure to meet you and welcome to Earth. He says get ready to have some fun, little girl, because it’s a big bright morning, and this is where the story begins.”
BEGUN ON DECEMBER 30TH, 2010
COMPLETED ON OCTOBER 9TH, 2014
JOE HILL, EXETER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Credits
“Jungleland” by Bruce Springsteen, copyright ? 1975 by Bruce Springsteen, renewed ? 2003 by Bruce Springsteen (Global Music Rights). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
“Chim Chim Cher-ee” and “A Spoonful of Sugar” from Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins. Words and music by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman ? 1963 Wonderland Music Company, Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
“Romeo and Juliet.” Words and music by Mark Knopfler. Copyright ? 1980 Straitjacket Songs Limited. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Coroporation.
“Candle on the Water” from Walt Disney’s Pete’s Dragon. Words and music by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn ? 1976 Walt Disney Music Company and Wonderland Music Company, Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.
Excerpt from Fahrenheit 451 ? 1953, renewed 1981 by Ray Bradbury, reprinted by permission of Don Congdon Associates, Inc.
Excerpt from The Ministry of Fear ? 1943, renewed 1971 by Graham Greene, reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House.
CODA
“What if There was Just a Bit More Story?” by Joe Hill. Copyright ? 2016 by Joe Hill. Because there is. A boy saw it first, a serious little boy of six named Caius, who was walking home with his mother. He tugged her hand and said, “Look at the falling star, mama,” and pointed. The woman, Elaina, held up, shaded her eyes against the bright of the day, peered out to the southeast and saw: a trim white boat, sail swollen full, the stylized image of a red crab stamped upon it. At first glance it seemed it was pursued by a red blast of flame, a comet-flare that rose and swooped and dove. As the craft clipped swiftly through the water, though, Elaina saw it was not running from a ball of fire at all, but was instead accompanied by a great blazing bird. That falcon of flame was using its heat to drive hot air into the sail, speeding the boat to a giddy, almost dangerous clip. Elaina spied a woman with yellow hair, standing on the pulpit at the tip of the bow. The faraway woman raised a hand in greeting, a hand that glowed as if it wore a glove of pure light. Caius waved in return, his own hand blazing up like a torch, green ribbons of flame trailing from his fingertips. “No one loves a show-off, Caius,” Elaina warned him, but her smile suggested she didn’t mean it.
Acknowledgments
If you drive to the end of Little Harbor Road, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, it will take you to the ocean, but you won’t find the sandy lane to Camp Wyndham. I made the place up. Many other features of the area, however, are much as I presented them: South Street Cemetery, South Mill Pond, the Piscataqua Bridge. Here and there I have changed features to suit the needs of the story.
One danger of writing an acknowledgments page is the great likelihood of leaving out someone who made important contributions. When I was expressing my thanks at the end of the last novel, NOS4A2, I neglected to mention how grateful I am for my occasional conversations with Dr. Derek Stern. Talk therapy has been out of fashion for a while now. Who wants to talk when they could just pop a pill, am I right? But psychopharmacology has its limits; no one can write you a prescription for a sense of perspective. I’m not sure I ever would’ve finished that last novel (or this one) if not for Doc Stern’s wry, literate support.
When you work on a book for four years, you get useful information from a lot of quarters. My thanks to Dr. Marc Sopher, Dr. Andy Singh, and Dr. Brian Knab for answering so many of my medical questions. Where I got it wrong, don’t blame them—when I had a choice between serving the story or serving medical truth, I chose the story. To put it another way, you can’t pop a dislocated lunate back into someone’s wrist by squeezing, although it’s a nice fantasy. Kids, if this ever happens to you, proceed to the emergency room, and prepare for surgery. That said, most of Harper’s medical procedures are within the realm of possibility . . . including relieving the pressure on Father Storey’s brain with a Home Depot hand drill.
A number of friends read some or all of this book in the early stages and provided helpful feedback: Chris Ryall, Jason Ciaramella, C. Robert Cargill, Lauren Buekes, Shane Leonard, and Liberty Hardy. My screen agent, Sean Daily, and his wife, Sarah, offered support and good advice, and then Sean turned around and sold the film rights to 21st Century Fox and Temple Hill. My deepest thanks to Steve Asbell, Isaac Klausner, and Wyck Godfrey for placing a bet on Harper and John, and to Sean’s boss, Jody Hotchkiss, for placing a bet on me.
My editor at William Morrow, Jennifer Brehl, and my UK editor at Gollancz, Gillian Redfearn, are a seamless creative yin-and-yang. Every single page of this book is better because of their diligent attentions. Kelly Rudolph and Sophie Calder plotted world-beating publicity campaigns. HarperCollins/Morrow has a murderer’s row of professionals, who worked tirelessly to make every aspect of The Fireman shine. They include Kelly O’Connor, Tavia Kowalchuk, Aryana Hendrawan, Andrea Molitor, Maureen Sugden, Amanda Kain, Leah Carlson-Stanisic, Mary Ann Petyak, Katie Ostrowka, Doug Jones, Carla Parker, Mary Beth Thomas, an incredibly hard-working sales team, and publisher Liate Stehlik. The UK squad is no less formidable, beginning with David Shelley, and including Kate Espiner, Jon Wood, Jen McMenemy and the whole marketing team, Craig Leyenaar, Paul Hussey, my pal Mark Stay, and the rest of the Orion sales crew. Kate Mulgrew read this book on audio, instantly making me sound at least five times cooler than I really am. She is owed a nice bottle of wine. My thanks to Laurel Choate at the Choate Agency for looking after business so I could stay focused on the creative end (i.e., the fun stuff).