Pure (50 page)

Bradwell holds the Black Box against his ribs. He touches Pressia’s face gently with the back of his rough knuckles then cups her face.

“You were only supposed to stick with us for your own sake, your own selfish reasons,” Pressia says. “You said you had one.”

“And I do.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re my selfish reason,” he says.

“Tell me we’ll find something like home one day,” she says.

“We will,” he says. “I promise.”

She realizes that she can love Bradwell in this moment so fully because she knows that this moment won’t last. She allows herself to believe his promise and lets him hold her up. His hammering heart is as restless as the birds on his back, and she imagines how the soot will cover the earth again with a new dusting, black snow, a blessing of ash.

And then there’s more shifting under the fallen house where it has collapsed into its own cellar hole. Another Black Box shoulders up, grinding its gears, and starts picking its way across the wreckage on spindly jointed arms. And then the cindered wood starts to shiver, and, one by one, Black Boxes pull themselves up from the char.

The End of Book One

This novel drilled its way into my dreams. When I tried to look away, there were people who urged me not to, namely my daughter who kept telling me that I had to finish the book, that it was the best thing I’d ever written. When I confided in my friends Dan and Amy Hartman what I was at work on, they, too, kept pushing me back into this world. I’m thankful that they did.

I want to thank my father who tracked down tons of research for me—nanotechnology, history, medicine, slaughterhouses, light, communications, gems, geography, agriculture, Black Boxes…—who made architectural drawings of the Dome, drew up the top secret document
Operation Phoenix
, and sent me articles to read, things to consider, and I am forever indebted for the argumentative, thoughtful, and loving way he raised me.

Thank you to Dr. Scott Hannahs, PhD, director of DC Field Instrumentation and Operations at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the University of Florida, for briefly discussing with my father the feasibility of the construction of crystalline detectors. Thank you, Simon Lumsdon, for giving me a brilliant lecture on the basics of nanotechnology. I appreciate the information on burying guns posted by Charles Woods in
Backwoods
Home Magazine
, available at this link:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/wood115.html
.

I want to thank my husband, Dave Scott, who endures my fits of frustration and let me read these pages aloud to him, day after day, and who knows his way around a fight scene. I’m thankful for all of those who read early drafts—Alix Reid, Frank Giampietro, Kate Peterson, Kirsten Carleton, and Heather Whitaker, brilliant minds; and special thanks to my agents, Nat Sobel, Judith Weber, and Justin Manask, who believe in me, push me, and help me navigate the world. I’m thankful for Karen Rosenfelt and Emmy Castlen—I admire them so much and am honored that they responded to the novel as they did. I’m thankful for all of my overseas editors, and my editor here at home, Jaime Levine—thank you, thank you, thank you.

The research for this novel led me to accounts of the effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During the editing process, I found the nonfiction book
Last Train from Hiroshima
by Charles Pellegrino, which is not currently being sold by its publisher. It was a crucial read for me because of its depictions of those lost and those who survived. I hope a revised edition finds its way back onto shelves. And I hope, in general, that
Pure
directs people to nonfiction accounts of the atomic bomb—horrors we cannot afford to forget.

Julianna Baggott, critically acclaimed, bestselling author who also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher and N. E. Bode, has published seventeen books, including novels for adults, 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
, on
NPR
.org
, as well as read on NPR’s
Talk of the Nation
and
Here and Now
. Her novels have been book-pick selections by
People
magazine’s summer reading,
Washington Post
book-of-the-week, a Booksense selection, a
Boston Herald
Book Club selection, and on the
Kirkus
Best Books of the Year list. Her novels have been published in over fifty overseas editions. She’s a professor in the Creative Writing program at Florida State University and the founder of the nonprofit Kids in Need—Books in Deed.