But there are El Capitan and Helmud—soot streaked and pained. When El Capitan sees Pressia, he stops and falls to his knees. A white piece of paper is clenched in his fist. He raises it over his head like a small white flag.
There is no victory. There’s always loss.
This is his surrender.
This is her surrender.
Her heart is saying, Enough, enough, enough. I give.
And she expects her heart to stop beating.
She’s lost too much.
And she knows that out there, she will find Bradwell’s body. It will hit her again and again that he’s dead. How many blows can she take?
But her heart beats in her chest and keeps beating.
It beats her back to life.
Her own heart will not surrender.
And so this isn’t the end.
This is only another start.
She stops and looks back over her shoulder. Walking through the black snow toward her are Beckley, carrying her grandfather, alive after all, on his back, and Lyda and the baby inside of her, protected under her handmade armor. She turns back to El Capitan. He staggers to his feet, Helmud weighty on his back, and walks toward Pressia. He hugs her. When they were in the fog surrounded by creatures they thought would kill them, El Capitan said, If you were the person standing there with me, I’d always, always stay. This is the promise she needs to believe in. Stand with me. Stay.
This is her family now.
She and El Capitan and Helmud turn and look at the Pures who are heading into the fields, the green soy leaves shimmering around their ankles. They’re pale and wide-eyed, moving like timid ghosts toward the broken edge of their world.
Somewhere, Partridge and Iralene are sitting at a table in a fake kitchen swollen bright with fake sunlight—while batteries inside of orbs are slowly winding down. If people come after them, she hopes that they’ll at least fight. This is the final bit of faith that she must have in him.
But she’s chosen this truth—grotesquely beautiful and beautifully grotesque—this world.
“What are we going to do now?” El Capitan whispers.
“What now?” Helmud says.
“No more blood,” Pressia says.
Her heart beats and beats and beats—each time like a detonation in her own chest—and every moment from here on out is a new world.
The End
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank so many people who endured this ashen world with me for so many years—my spouse, my kids, my loving and generous parents, especially my lead researcher, Bill Baggott; it’s been a lot of welding and soldering and making from cinders. Thank you for your patience.
I’m thankful to my editors, Beth de Guzman, Selina McLemore, and Jaime Levine, as well as all of my overseas editors, especially Hannah Sheppard, Frankie Gray, Florence Lottin, Louise Loiselle, and Patricia Escalona, and my translators who bring this work to life in other languages, in particular Laurent Strim. Thank you to the voices in the audio version—Khristine Hvam, Joshua Swanson, Kevin T. Collins, and Casey Holloway—for adding layers to the narrative. And of course, I’m deeply thankful to the art departments for creating such striking covers. Thank you to the publicists who put so much heart and muscle into getting these books into the world—Linda Duggins and Ben Willis most of all. And I’m thankful for Clare Anne Darragh—for all of her sisterhood and support! I’m thankful to Karen Rosenfelt, Rodney Ferrell, Emmy Castlen, and all of those at Fox 2000 for their vision and conviction. And, welcome in, James Ponsoldt. I’m so glad you’re here.
I want to thank Cheryl Fitch at Florida State University’s Biological Science Department in the Molecular Cloning Facility for letting me see firsthand the work they do. I’m thankful to Margaret McKeown Henihan, who once told me an old Irish tale that made me tear up; it never left.
I’m deeply indebted to Nat Sobel, Judith Weber, the whole crew at Sobel Weber, and Justin Manask. A million times, thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julianna Baggott, critically acclaimed, bestselling author who also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher and N. E. Bode, has published eighteen books, including novels for adults and younger readers, and collections of poetry. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Best American Poetry, Best Creative Nonfiction, Real Simple, and been read on NPR’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered. Her novels include an ALA Alex Award winner, book-pick selections by People magazine’s summer reading, a Washington Post book-of-the-week, a Book Sense selection, and have been on the New York Times’s Notable Books of the Year and Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year lists. Her novels have been published in over seventy-five overseas editions. She’s a professor in the College of Motion Picture Arts at Florida State University and the cofounder of the nonprofit Kids in Need—Books in Deed.
Books by Julianna Baggott
Pure
Fuse
The Ever Breath, for younger readers
The Prince of Fenway Park, for younger readers
Compulsions of Silkworms and Bees, poetry
Lizzie Borden in Love, poetry
This Country of Mothers, poetry
Which Brings Me to You, co-written with Steve Almond
The Madam
The Miss America Family
Girl Talk
Under the Pen Name Bridget Asher
The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted
The Pretend Wife
My Husband’s Sweethearts
Under the Pen Name N. E. Bode
The Amazing Compendium of Edward Magorium, for younger readers
The Slippery Map, for younger readers
The Anybodies Trilogy, for younger readers
THE PURE TRILOGY
Pure
Fuse
Burn
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Prologue: Bradwell
Pressia: Key
Partridge: Grief
El Capitan: Armor
Partridge: In Memoriam
Lyda: Origami
Partridge: Contagion
Pressia: Duty
El Capitan: Bacterium
Lyda: Seventeen
Partridge: Train
Pressia: Teeth and Heartbeats
Lyda: A Fairy Tale
Pressia: Looking Glass
Partridge: Lucky Us
El Capitan: Crazy John-Johns
Partridge: Coal
Pressia: Fresh Smoke
Partridge: Squall
Partridge: Lovebird
Lyda: Second Skin
El Capitan: Flutter
Pressia: Calling, Calling
Partridge: Pill
Pressia: Migratory Birds
Lyda: Nursery
Partridge: A Beaut
El Capitan: Boy
Pressia: Home
El Capitan: Saint
Partridge: Promise
Pressia: Rustling
Lyda: Becoming
Pressia: Mothers
Partridge: Strawberry
Partridge: Risks
El Capitan: Better Off
Partridge: Knowing
Pressia: Hollow Reed
Lyda: Glowing
Pressia: Doors
Partridge: Impersonation
Pressia: Weak
El Capitan: Name
Partridge: Confetti
Pressia: Jumpers
Pressia: Mother and Daughter
Lyda: Proof
Pressia: Cygnus
Partridge: Brass Beds
Partridge: Gunshot Wound
Lyda: Wheels
El Capitan: Angel
Partridge: Dream
Pressia: Another Sky
El Capitan: Word from on High
Partridge: Everywhere
El Capitan: Fitting
Pressia: Doll Head
El Capitan: Heart
Partridge: Tied with String
Pressia: Sacred
El Capitan: Eyes
Partridge: Rooms
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Pure Trilogy
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Julianna Baggott
Cover design by Anne Twomey and Elizabeth Connor.
Cover photographs © Herman Estevez. Origami swan based on an original design by Hoang Tien Quyet.
Cover © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: February 2014
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ISBN: 978-1-4555-0302-5
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