by Patrick Ness
They look over. A human creature, man-sized, the faun notes, but not perhaps all the way to being a man just yet. Close, though. Very close indeed.
The Queen no longer looks like the Queen. She looks again like the girl who rose out of the lake, the one put there still alive, the one that reached out in confusion and bound his Queen to her, to the doom of the world entire.
The boy frowns. “Do I know you?”
And then the spirit, not the Queen, but the spirit herself reaches out and asks of the boy, simply, “How do I let go?”
The boy pauses, surprised. His eyes flit to the faun, accepting him simply, with a glance, as the sun makes its first kiss of the horizon. The doom begins. The doom begins but–
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” says the boy. “For everyone.”
“Everyone,” the spirit agrees.
The boy takes a breath. “Today was a day I had to let go of a lot of stuff. Like everything that was tying me down suddenly got untied.”
“And I the same,” the spirit says. “Today is the day my destiny changed.”
“So did mine.”
“I know,” the spirit says. “I heard it coming. I followed the longing for it.”
She looks at the rose he twirls in his hand. There is one thorn that he idly pricks at with his thumb, and the faun can feel the Queen’s thumb move in kind. The boy looks up to her again.
“I think I know who you are,” he says.
“How do I let go?” the spirit merely asks again.
“I don’t know,” the boy says, “but I think this is for you.”
He holds out the rose.
And the spirit steps away from the Queen to take it.
It is, in the end, that simple.
“Oh,” says the spirit, with a surprised laugh. “Yes. I have found my release…”
Her words and continued laughter surround them as a breeze, turning petals of a rose on it, twisting and spiralling, until finally fading to nothing as the spirit makes her final passage, leaving only a scent of late summer in her wake, as if the world has let out a sigh, one of relief, one of renewal, and carries on spinning.
“Well,” says the boy, “that was weird.”
He gives one last look to the place where the faun stands, then back out to the setting sun, now halfway down. “I have found my release,” he whispers to himself. “Into what, though?”
But then he smiles. He turns and, hands in his pockets, leaves the faun there, at the water’s edge. The faun feels a tremendous freedom as his physical form dissipates, moving once more into pure spirit, into a world saved, a world released. He feels her beside him, feels the warmth of her happiness at her freedom and the continuing surprising warmth of her regard. The embrace still awaits him. Perhaps it won’t extinguish him. Perhaps the freedom can arrive before the world itself ends.
He will find out. Whatever happens next, he will find out. His spirit turns to hers, open and willing to follow wherever she may lead.
“My Queen,” he says. For there she is.
Notes & Acknowledgements
The name Angela Darlington was won at auction to raise money for Diversity Role Models, a charity which tackles homophobia in schools and of which I am a patron. Find out more about their amazing work on www.diversityrolemodels.org. I thank the real Angela Darlington and hasten to add that the resemblance ends at her name. This is a work of fiction. My own father, for example, is not in these pages.
Thanks to my agent and friend Michelle Kass and my editors Denise Johnstone-Burt at Walker and Rosemary Brosnan at HarperCollins for never once baulking at the zigzag sequence of books I keep turning in.
The spirit of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Judy Blume’s Forever suffuse Release. I can only encourage you to read both to see where I’ve fallen short.
ALSO BY PATRICK NESS
The Rest of Us Just Live Here
More Than This
The Crane Wife
A Monster Calls
Monsters of Men
The Ask and the Answer
The Knife of Never Letting Go
Topics About Which I Know Nothing
The Crash of Hennington
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.
First published 2017 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Text © 2017 Patrick Ness
Cover illustration © 2017 Levente Szabo
The right of Patrick Ness to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
“Glacier” (written by John Grant). Published by Blue Mountain Music Ltd/Showpony Music Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.
All rights administered by Blue Mountain Music Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-7531-2 (ePub)
www.walker.co.uk
