So there was the lake and the cicadas and some night bird. There was the gentle lapping of the waves on the rocks down below. “And all the while the world,” Bee sang quietly to herself. “It hit me with the speed —” No, she thought. Turn was right. She started again. “All the while the world, it hit me with the sweetest sound . . .”
She stopped again, swallowed hard. She looked around, not afraid, just filled with wonder. Then she closed her eyes and felt him — felt him behind her, so close that she was quite sure his arms were around her even now, holding her, holding her up. “Thank you,” she said.
In an unguarded moment, I divulged to the writer Monique Polak a scary incident I had been through — something I was having trouble coming to terms with. We hardly knew one another but sometimes you reach out to another writer knowing they’ll just get it. She assured me I’d write about it one day, which shocked me at the time. It wasn’t a throwaway line; there was something about her quiet confidence that heartened me, pushed me eventually, to take a deep breath and dive in despite my trepidations. Thank you, Monique, for knowing.
With two exceptions, all of the characters in this story are fictional. The two exceptions are the kind teacher Bee meets at Sugar Valley School, who is modeled on my dear friend Coral Nault, longtime teacher at Brooke Valley School. She has only just retired but the work she has done is a testimonial to her dedication, to which I add this small tribute.
And the helpful cop, Constable Tanis Cowan, is a very real, very good soul, though it’s hard to imagine her in uniform! While far from retiring, Tanis is moving on to new endeavors and I wish her all the best.
It’s become popular of late, in book acknowledgments, to thank all the people in the biz that help one’s book come into being. The trouble is that once you start naming names, the list can get pretty long pretty fast: agent, publisher, editors, publicists, and so on. I hope they all know that I honor what they do. Thank you, one and all. I do want to include a shout-out to my dear friends at Vermont College of Fine Art, in the Writing for Children and Young Adults program. My fellow instructors and the extraordinary students I have the great pleasure to work with — and stay connected to after they graduate — are the gift that keeps on giving and a continuing source of inspiration and strength. Love you all!
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2018 by Tim Wynne-Jones
Cover photograph copyright © 2018 by MarioGuti/Getty Images
Excerpt from The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro copyright © 2015 by Kazuo Ishiguro. Published by Penguin Random House.
Lyrics to “Carter and Cash,” p. 383 of hardcover edition:
Words and Music by Tobias Erik Karlsson and Tor Albert Miller,
Copyright © 2016 MXM Music AB and Four Song Night
All Rights for MXM Music AB Administered by Kobalt Songs Music Publishing
All Rights for Four Song Night Administered by Songs of Universal, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC
While every effort has been made to obtain permission to reprint copyrighted materials, there may be cases where we have been unable to track a copyright holder. The publisher will be happy to correct any omission in future editions.
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.
First electronic edition 2018
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
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