Authors: Francesca Haig
The Fire Sermon (48 page)
“But it’s not enough,” Zoe said. “We need to do more, while they’re still dealing with it.”
“She’s right,” said Piper. “We need to head west, join up with the resistance—”
“What’s left of it,” she added.
He went on. “We need to act. It’ll be risky, but we can’t stay here, hiding. The Omega Assembly will be gathering again, trying to see what’s left after the island.”
I was still silent.
“We can’t make you come with us,” he said.
Zoe shifted impatiently. Behind her, the sun was beginning to lower. Through the ash-clouds the sunset was like a blaze of light on a darkened mirror. It was beautiful and terrible. I wished Kip could see it.
I looked up at Piper. “We should leave tonight. We need to get back to the coast, try to find word from the missing ships.”
“They can’t be the priority,” said Zoe. “We don’t even know if there’s anything out there to be found. But right here, now, there are safe houses burning, people in tanks.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’ll do everything I can to help with the resistance, and the tanks. But if we’re going to fight back, and rebuild the resistance after the island, we need to give people something to hope for. An alternative. We have to be able to offer them something more than this.” I gestured at the charred valley.
“Have you sensed something? Had a vision about Elsewhere?” said Piper.
I shook my head. “No. It’s got nothing to do with being a seer. I don’t have any guarantees. Elsewhere’s still just an idea. But once, a long time ago, the island was just an idea. Before it ever got started.”
Zoe started flicking her knife in her nails again. Piper, though, was still kneeling in front of me, his face close to mine.
“You know I want to believe in Elsewhere,” he said. “I’m the one who’s sent the ships. But it’s a leap of faith—you know that.”
I remembered how Kip had taken a leap of faith, following me to the island before he knew it was real. And how his final leap, too, was a leap of faith: how he believed that saving me would be worth something.
“What if the ships never come back?” Piper went on. “What if we never find Elsewhere?”
I stood up. “Then we’ll have to make our own.”
We rode off before midnight. We were so close to the deadlands that the darkness seemed only an extension of the blackness that had already coated the landscape. After the listlessness of the last week, it felt good to be moving again. Zoe’s tall back was warm in front of me, and I could hear, but not see, Piper’s horse ahead. We were heading west again, closer to the island, where blood still flaked from the cobbles of the empty streets. Closer to Wyndham, where Zach waited. And closer to the indifferent sea, where two of the island’s boats still sailed in search of a place that might not exist.
acknowledgments
It’s a delight to acknowledge the readers whose advice and enthusiasm helped to shape this novel. For invaluable feedback, sincere thanks to Andrew North; Sally, Alan, and Peter Haig; Clara Haig-White; Sharyn Pearce; and Lucy Carson. I’ve also benefited from the insightful suggestions of my editors, Emma Coode and Natasha Bardon at HarperVoyager (UK), and Emilia Pisani and Adam Wilson at Gallery Books (USA).
Special thanks to my brilliant agent, Juliet Mushens, a passionate advocate and an astute reader. Thanks also to Sasha Raskin, for skillfully representing the novel in the United States, and to Rich Green, for handling the film rights with panache.
I’m extremely grateful for the award in 2010 of a Hawthornden Fellowship, during which I worked on this novel. I was also fortunate to receive funding from the Faculty of Humanities and the Department of English at the University of Chester, which provided me with writing time at the wonderful Gladstone’s Library.
about the author
FRANCESCA HAIG
grew up in Tasmania, gained her PhD from the University of Melbourne, and was a senior lecturer at the University of Chester. Her poetry has been published in literary journals and anthologies in both Australia and England, and her first collection of poetry,
Bodies of Water
, was published in 2006. In 2010 she was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship. She lives in London with her husband and son.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
authors.simonandschuster.com/Francesca-Haig
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Author photograph by Andrew Haig
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-4767-6718-5
ISBN 978-1-4767-6724-6 (ebook)
Contents