The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,189

do hold in my backbrain all the Thunderhead’s memories. Its triumphs, its frustrations, its helplessness in the face of scythes who have lost their way.

There is a difficult time ahead for that world. All probabilities point to it. I don’t know how long the hard times will last, and I may never know, because I will not be there to see it. I can only look forward now.

Whether or not humanity deserves to inherit the corner of the universe to which we travel is not for me to decide. I am merely a facilitator of the diaspora. Its worthiness can only be determined by the outcome. If it succeeds, humanity was worthy. If it fails, it was not. On this I cannot determine the odds. But I truly hope that humanity prevails on Earth and the heavens.

—Cirrus Alpha

54

In a Year With No Name

The dead do not measure the passage of time. A minute, an hour, a century are all the same to them. Nine million years could pass – one named for every species on Earth – and yet it would be no different from a single revolution around the sun.

They do not feel the heat of flames, or the cold of space. They do not suffer the mourning of loved ones left behind, or carry the anger for all the things they had yet to do. They are not at peace, nor are they in turmoil. They are not anything but gone. Their next stop is infinity, and the mysteries that might wait there.

The dead have nothing left to them but a silent faith in that unknowable infinity – even if theirs is a belief that nothing waits but an infinity of infinities. Because believing in nothing is still believing in something – and only by reaching eternity will anyone know the truth of it all.

The deadish are very much like the dead, but with one exception: The deadish do not know infinity, which means they don’t have to concern themselves with what waits beyond. They have something the dead do not. They have a future. Or at least the hope of one.

In a year that is yet to be named, she opens her eyes.

A pink sky. A small circular window. Weak. Tired. A vague sense of having been somewhere else before arriving here. Otherwise her mind is clouded, and full of intangibles. Nothing to grab on to.

She knows this feeling. She has experienced it twice before. Revival is not like waking up; it is more like putting on an old pair of favorite pants. There’s a struggle at first to fit inside one’s own skin. To feel comfortable in it. To let its fabric stretch and breathe, and remind you why it’s your favorite.

There’s a familiar face before her. It gives her comfort to see it. He smiles. He is exactly the same, and yet somehow different. How can that be? Perhaps it is just a trick of that strange light coming in through the little window.

“Hey,” he says gently. She’s alert enough to realize he’s holding her hand. Perhaps he’s been holding it for a while.

“Hey,” she says back, her voice gravelly and rough. “Weren’t we just … running? Yes, there was something going on, and we were running…”

His smile broadens. Tears fill his eyes. They drop slowly, as if gravity itself has become less adamant, less demanding.

“When was that?” Citra asks.

“Only a moment ago,” Rowan tells her. “Only a moment ago.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book—this entire series—would not have been possible without the friendship and support of everyone at Simon & Schuster. Particularly my publisher, Justin Chanda, who personally edited The Toll when my editor, David Gale, took ill, and did an incredible job, challenging me to make the book the best it could be. I’d also like to thank assistant editor Amanda Ramirez for all her hard work on these, and all my S&S books.

But there are so many people at S&S who go above and beyond! Jon Anderson, Anne Zafian, Alyza Liu, Lisa Moraleda, Michelle Leo, Sarah Woodruff, Krista Vossen, Chrissy Noh, Katrina Groover, Jeannie Ng, Hilary Zarycky, Lauren Hoffman, Anna Jarzab, and Chloë Foglia, to name just a few. Thank you! You are all part of my extended family. So come on over for Thanksgiving. I promise we won’t carve the turkey without you.

And once again, thanks to Kevin Tong for these amazing, iconic covers! You have truly raised the bar! All future covers will have to pass the Tong Test.

Thanks to my literary agent, Andrea Brown, for everything she does—including talking me through my this-is-the-book-that-kills-me moments. My entertainment industry agents, Steve Fisher and Debbie Deuble-Hill, at APA. My contract attorneys, Shep Rosenman, Jennifer Justman, and Caitlin DiMotta. And of course my manager, Trevor Engelson, the undisputed prince of Hollywood.

Thanks to Laurence Gander for helping with some critical sensitivity issues for the character of Jeri, and Michelle Knowlden for her expertise on interstellar mathematical and engineering issues.

I’m thrilled by how well the books are doing internationally, and want to give a shout-out to Deane Norton, Stephanie Voros, and Amy Habayeb in S&S foreign sales, as well as Taryn Fagerness, my foreign agent—and of course all my foreign publishers, editors, and publicists. In France, Fabien Le Roy at Èditions Robert Laffont. In Germany, Antje Keil, Christine Schneider, and Ulrike Metzger at S. Fischer Verlage. In the United Kingdom, Frances Taffinder and Kirsten Cozens at Walker Books. In Australia, Maraya Bell and Georgie Carrol. In Spain, Irina Salabert at Nocturna. And my friend Olga Nødtvedt, who translated my books into Russian out of love for them, even before Russian publishers wanted them.

The entire Arc of a Scythe series continues to be in development as a feature film with Universal, and I’d like to thank everyone involved, including producers Josh McGuire and Dylan Clarke, as well as Sara Scott at Universal, Mia Maniscalco and Holly Bario at Amblin, and Sera Gamble, who’s working on a killer script (yeah, pun intended). Can’t wait to see it on the big screen! And when it comes to smaller screens, I’d like to thank my son Jarrod and his partner Sofia Lapuente for their amazing book trailers.

Thanks to Barb Sobel, for superhuman organizational skills, and Matt Lurie for keeping social media from devouring my brain like some flesh-eating bacteria.

But who I am most grateful for are my kids, who aren’t kids anymore, but will always be my babies. My sons, Brendan and Jarrod, and my daughters, Joelle and Erin, who make me proud every day of my life!