eyes. She is weak, wrung almost to the point of breaking, but she is alive.
All she sees is chaos. That isn’t unusual: Erin has always seen chaos, everywhere she looks. But this chaos is almost soothing, because this chaos means it’s over. This chaos means it’s done. Most of all, this chaos means this time, they’re letting things roll onward. For better or worse, they’ve found a timeline they’re willing to preserve for a while, and they’re willing to let her rest. The idea is almost intoxicating. Rest. What a glorious, impossible goal that seems.
Rest.
Hand over hand, Erin drags her near-bloodless body to the Hand of Glory. She digs a match from her pocket, sets it to the fingers, and watches the light return. Her eyes are so heavy. She is so tired. Still, she smiles as she lets the Hand brush fire onto the nearby table, watching the flames consume the silk rope that had been used to bind Roger, then move onto the wood, eating it in greedy gulps. Flames lit from a Hand of Glory will burn almost anything. Best of all, until the Hand itself is consumed, no one will notice the fire. No one will come to stop it.
Everything will burn.
She closes her eyes before the flames can reach her. There is Darren, smiling, hands outstretched, offering to lead her somewhere far away, somewhere better than this, somewhere they can be together. For the first time since she began to understand what her life was meant to be, Erin lets go.
By the time the flames come for her, she’s long, long gone.
There is a strange heat at their backs when they reach the edge of the field. They turn, and see that the hut has become a tower of flame; the corn has become a blazing beacon, lighting up the sky. For a moment, they just stare.
“Erin,” says Roger, and his eyes sting with tears he doesn’t know how to shed. “She wasn’t . . .” His voice trails off. They could have saved her. They still can, once they figure out how to revise the world. One last time.
But not today.
“She had a Hand of Glory,” says Dodger. “She always did like lighting fires.”
Roger laughs. He can’t stop himself; he doesn’t try very hard. Dodger glances at him, at the firelight dancing on his face. Then, wordlessly, she offers her hand to Kim, who takes it with matching silence, and holds fast, and does not let her go.
They have to learn what they are. They have to learn what that means. They have so much left to do, and so little of it is certain, or clear, or simple. But as the firelight filters through the corn, the world is the color of mercury, and the embers from the all-consuming flame are like an improbable road leading upward, ever upward, into the infinite and ever-forgiving sky.
“Where will we go?”
“Anywhere you want.”
“Will you stay with me?”
Avery reached for Zib’s hand. She let him take it, and they tangled their fingers together like the roots of a tree, so tight that they might never come untangled.
“Always,” he said.
They started to walk. The improbable road was there to meet them.
—From Over the Woodward Wall, by A. Deborah Baker
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every book is a journey. Some are undertaken with the greatest of consideration and planning; others begin on a whim. This book, contradictory to the end, has been both. The story at its core is something I’ve been considering for years: for a very long time, it was the book I didn’t yet have the necessary skill to write. But the actual writing began in a fit of pique after my agent (the incomparable Diana Fox) said she didn’t understand the four-page pitch document I had written to try to sell the novel on spec. If she couldn’t understand the pitch, I reasoned, it made sense to write the 150,000+ word book to clarify things.
I never said I was good at calculated decisions.
Diana did understand what I was trying to do once she saw the finished manuscript, and brought me to Lee Harris, who has been an incredibly thoughtful and persistent editor, making what could have been a very thorny project smooth and utterly enjoyable. His hand has reshaped scenes and clarified action, and I am so proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish together. The entire team at Tor is amazing. I am so privileged to have the opportunity to work with them.
Shawn Connolly, my self-proclaimed stupid brother, my partner in crime in all things X-Men . . . this book would not exist if not for him. His unflagging support and belief in me have informed every page. Without him, I would have given up a long time ago. The book is dedicated to him, which means technically my obligations are discharged, but I also want to take this space to say that he is the best accidental not-a-sibling a girl like me could have, and he makes me want to be better. He made me want to make this book better. I am so grateful.
Kate Secor is one of my best friends, and we were living in the same geographical area while this book was being written. Thanks for hashing so many things out over Indian food and bad television, and for being a rock I could cling to when the waters got too high.
Thanks to Chris Mangum, Tara O’Shea, and Michelle “Vixy” Dockrey for being the best pit crew and general support system I could ever have wanted. Thanks to Jennifer Brozek, for being a shoulder to lean on, and to Ursula Vernon for identifying weird birds when asked. Thanks to Jude Feldman, for emergency kitten retrieval runs and more Indian food (I am a simple soul). Thanks to Whitney Johnson, for being a delight. And thanks to my entire karaoke crew. You make the world better.
Amy . . . I love you. Thanks for putting up with my tendency to forget that there’s something outside the written word.
Finally, thank you all, for reading. I couldn’t tell these stories without someone who wanted to listen. The Impossible City isn’t far from here, and I can take you, if you’d like to go. Just take your hand, close your eyes, and trust me.
I know the way.
Also by Seanan McGuire
Dusk or Dawn or Dawn or Day
Deadlands: Boneyard
The Wayward Children Series
Every Heart a Doorway
Down Among the Sticks and Bones
Beneath the Sugar Sky
In an Absent Dream
The October Daye Series
Rosemary and Rue
A Local Habitation
An Artificial Night
Late Eclipses
One Salt Sea
Ashes of Honor
Chimes at Midnight
The Winter Long
A Red-Rose Chain
Once Broken Faith
The Brightest Fell
Night and Silence
The Incryptid Series
Discount Armageddon
Midnight Blue-Light Special
Half-Off Ragnarok
Pocket Apocalypse
Chaos Choreography
Magic for Nothing
Tricks for Free
That Ain’t Witchcraft
The Ghost Roads Series
Sparrow Hill Road
The Girl in the Green Silk Gown
The Indexing Series
Indexing
Indexing: Reflections
AS MIRA GRANT
The Newsflesh Series
Feed
Deadline
Blackout
Feedback
Rise: The Complete Newsflesh Collection (short stories)
The Parasitology Series
Parasite
Symbiont
Chimera
Rolling in the Deep
Into the Drowning Deep
Alien: Echo
Final Girls
Kingdom of Needle and Bone