by Beth Lewis
I figured I’d go west, see what was ’cross the BeeCee border, maybe get there for winter and walk ’cross that frozen ocean like them yellow-haired folk in Halveston. I had me a tinderbox and my knife. It was a good knife what had caught me a murderer. I used to think I didn’t need much more’n that in this life, but I was wrong. I needed company, a friend, and my heart ached for Penelope. That was my real punishment, my prison sentence, not getting to see my friend again. Weren’t no worse Lyon could do to me than that.
When I walked away from Tin River and the graves of a family I never knew ’cept for some old words in a letter, I left invisible footsteps in the moss. First step was light and carried with it Penelope’s forgiveness, them words a’ love she spoke so stern and fierce to me in the home we made for ourselves. The home we built weren’t just wood and nails and dirt, no sir, it was life. We was both running from black sins and secrets when we stumbled into each other but together, we built something damn great. One a’ my footsteps carried them days with her and that one kept on a true heading. The other footstep, well, that one were so light that one tried to pull me off the compass any chance it could. That one stained the moss with blood, heavy with Kreagar’s promise to me. Just you wait, girlie, just you wait. It carried the seed a’ possibility that he’d been right all along. I was a second from becoming him on that snowy day in Tucket. I saw the boy as bait, not as a creature a’ human worth, just like Kreagar seen all them people he killed. Long as I was in them woods, there weren’t no one I could hurt.
But that down-deep wild side a’ me had the potential to do what Kreagar done and think how he thought. There weren’t no way a’ knowing that I wouldn’t. Maybe one day I’d take the wrong path. I just had to keep the bright light burning to chase off the dark. I had ’em both with me every step I took away from Tin River, into the wild, into the nowhere and nothing.
Whatever god it was looking down on me must a’ taken pity, heard my revelation, or figured I’d suffered enough in my short life, ’cause on the sixth day out a’ Tin River, I found tracks only one wild beast could make and on the seventh day I heard him howling.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a whole country to publish a novel. This book will pass through dozens of hands before it reaches the reader. It will be edited, marketed, publicized, formatted, proofread, designed, printed, bound, distributed, stacked on shelves, mailed out, and, finally, read. Thank you to everyone involved at every stage; you’re all rock stars.
Thank you to my agent, Euan Thorneycroft, and the whole team at AM Heath. You saw what I wanted to achieve with this story and helped me get there. Elka and I are much stronger for your guidance.
Huge thanks to my editor, Sarah Hodgson, and the whole team at HarperCollins and Borough Press; also to Julian Pavia at Crown, my editor across the pond: your advice, patience, and enthusiasm have been invaluable.
Thank you to my mum for inspiring me and attacking (constructively, of course) the writing efforts of ten-year-old me with a red pen. I may have cried and stamped my feet but hell, I wouldn’t be writing these acknowledgments without your belief that I could do better. Thank you.
Last, to my wife, Neen, my rock, my critic, my counselor, my whole damn world, thank you.
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