“August, right? I’m Xander. Xander Liu.” He holds out his hand expectantly. It takes me a moment, but some splinter of memory eventually surfaces, and I reach forward. We shake hands like friends. He smiles back at me, though there are still tears in his eyes. His teeth are large and white.
Maybe it won’t be so hard not to throw him from a cliff.
I stand with Dandelion in my arms. Then I indicate with my head and hands that Xander should collect and carry the weapons. We will find more on the way. He needs clothes and food, too.
Follow me, I sign, and he seems to understand. I turn and begin walking along the plateau. In the town where I will find clothes and food for him, I hope we can find a vehicle.
Xander watches me walk for a moment, and part of me hopes he will not follow. Maybe he’ll go back to the base and continue scheming battles he can never win.
“Shouldn’t we bury her?” he says at last, hurrying after me. “I mean, you’re not going to just carry her around? That’s so weird.”
I ignore him. We reach the edge of the plateau, and I jump down the five meters to the path below. Xander scrambles down after me, but I don’t wait for him.
“You can’t carry a dead human around. It’s disrespectful. I mean, we can leave Liam, I guess, but we need to bury Raven.”
I walk away. I can hear his footsteps behind me.
“She IS dead, isn’t she? ISN’T SHE?”
I keep walking, driven to one goal. Though my eyes are wide open, it is all I can see.
“ISN’T SHE?!” Xander yells.
I could turn back maybe, and explain it to him. It might make things easier.
I should explain it, what I think has happened. Is happening. Will happen. I could try to explain it.
But I don’t think I know the words.
Acknowledgments
Writing is lonely work and often by the time a book is done I feel like I’m the only person on earth, struggling alone and unloved in an inconsiderate void.
Then I get over myself.
If you’re reading this, there are a whole slew of people who helped me get this book through your eyeballs, ears, or fingers and into your brain: the bookseller, librarian, parent, teacher, or friend who put it in your hands, for example, and the bloggers and reviewers who alerted the world to its existence. They all get my heartfelt thanks. If not for them, we’d be piling books up in warehouses wondering why we don’t have money to eat.
Then there are the people who made it so you read a published book and not just four hundred pages of insensible rambling scribbled onto the backs of chain restaurant menus. The inventor of the laptop computer is one example, and Bill Gates (bless him) for creating Microsoft Word.
But seriously and more importantly, the team at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers shepherded and shaped this book until it met their exacting standards. Zareen Jaffery and Mekisha Telfer deserve particular thanks—working with you guys has been a dream. Sarah and Nita from Simon & Schuster Canada and Jane from S&S UK, everyone at Oceano and Intrinseca, as well as Heather Baror-Shapiro, who has worked on all the international deals. And Lizzy Bromley for designing a ridiculously cool cover.
Speaking of deals, Barbara Poelle deserves an entire paragraph of thanks. The first time we spoke on the phone, I mentioned “shooting for the moon” and she got right onboard and piloted me and my book out past the orbit of Pluto! You’re the agent of my dreams, Barbara. Here’s to many many more of my books for you to send into space. Thanks also to Brita Lundberg and everyone else at the Irene Goodman Agency for all your tireless work on contracts and payments and general awesomeness. I LOVE YOU GUYS!
And then there are the readers—no, not you, though you’re great too—the early readers who took the time to look over this manuscript at various stages to help me make sure I had something good and not something horrifying. Hannah Gómez and Jenna Beacom, who beta read with a critical eye toward the depiction of identity and language, and Calais LaFontaine for her answers about Métis culture. Angie Fleming at Pinkindle for her rigorous beta reading, Deb McIntyre and Becka McIntosh for their copious edit notes, and AJ Downey for insisting that yes this was in fact a good book and deserving of a good publishing deal. Thank you all!
Thanks to the NaNoWriMo organization for providing the boost I needed to write the first draft of this book one cold November in 2011.
My family are, as always, slightly mystified but still supportive. My husband, Len, and daughter, Lucy, both inspire and endure me. My lovely sisters and mother are my biggest fans.
Thank you all so much.