Then she called each one of us to her, and said good night, a thing she herself taught us long ago. And it is a way of hoping that the other person will sleep well, and will not be troubled by bad dreams. And we said good night to her as well. And we sang for her.
Then Toby took her very old packsack, which was pink; and into it she put her jar of Poppy, and also a jar with mushrooms in it that we were told never to touch. And she walked away slowly into the forest, with a stick to help her, and asked us not to follow her.
Where she went I cannot write in this Book, because I do not know. Some say that she died by herself, and was eaten by vultures. The Pig Ones say that. Others say she was taken away by Oryx, and is now flying in the forest, at night, in the form of an Owl. Others said that she went to join Pilar, and that her Spirit is in the elderberry bush.
Yet others say that she went to find Zeb, and that he is in the form of a Bear, and that she too is in the form of a Bear, and is with him today. That is the best answer, because it is the happiest; and I have written it down. I have written down the other answers too. But I made them in smaller writing.
The three Beloved Oryx Mothers cried very much when Toby went away. We cried as well, and purred over them, and after a while they felt better. And Ren said, Tomorrow is another day, and we said we did not understand what that meant, and Amanda said, Never mind because it was not important. And Lotis Blue said it was a thing of hope.
Then Swift Fox told us that she was pregnant again and soon there would be another baby. And the fourfathers were Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon and Picasso and me, Blackbeard; and I am very happy to have been chosen for that mating. And Swift Fox said that if it was a girl baby it would be named Toby. And that is a thing of hope.
This is the end of the Story of Toby. I have written it in this Book. And I have put my name here — Blackbeard — the way Toby first showed me when I was a child. It says that I was the one who set down these words.
Thank you.
Now we will sing.
Acknowledgements
Although MaddAddam is a work of fiction, it does not include any technologies or biobeings that do not already exist, are not under construction, or are not possible in theory.
Most of the central characters in MaddAddam appear in the first two books in this series, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. Several of their names originated through donations in aid of various causes, including the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture (“Amanda Payne”) and The Walrus magazine (“Rebecca Eckler”). Joining them in MaddAddam are “Allan Slaight,” courtesy of his daughter, Maria (his biography is called Sleight of Hand); “Katrina Wu,” courtesy of Yung Wu; and “March,” courtesy of a blind draw on Wattpad.com that was won by Lucas Fernandes. Saint Nikolai Vavilov came from Sona Grovenstein, and beekeeping tips from Carmen Brown of Honey Delight in Canberra, Australia.
My gratitude, as always, to my editors, Ellen Seligman of McClelland & Stewart (Canada), Nan Talese of Doubleday (U.S.A.), and Alexandra Pringle of Bloomsbury (U.K.).
Thanks also to my first readers: Jess Atwood Gibson; my U.K. agents, Vivienne Schuster, Karolina Sutton, and Betsy Robbins of Curtis Brown; and Phoebe Larmore, my North American agent; and to Timothy O’Connell. Thanks also to Ron Bernstein. And special thanks to Heather Sangster of Strongfinish.ca for the marathon copy-editing session, after which she was faced with a blizzard and a car that wouldn’t start.
And thanks to my office staff, Sarah Webster and Laura Stenberg; and to Penny Kavanaugh; and to VJ Bauer, vjbauer.com, VFX artist; and to Joel Rubinovich and Sheldon Shoib. And to Michael Bradley and Sarah Cooper, and to Coleen Quinn and Xiaolan Zhao. Also, to Louise Dennys, LuAnn Walther, and Lennie Goodings, and to my many agents and publishers around the world. I’d also like to thank Dr. Dave Mossop and Grace Mossop, and Barbara and Norman Barricello, all of Whitehorse, Yukon; and the many readers who have encouraged the writing of this book, including those on Twitter and Facebook.
Finally, my special thanks to Graeme Gibson, with whom I wander through the afternoon woods of life, foraging for nutritious bioforms, battling hostile ones wherever they appear, and eating them when possible.
A Note on the Author
Margaret Atwood is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays.
In addition to the classic The Handmaid’s Tale, winner of the Governor General’s Award, her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, and Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy, and The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize in 2000. Oryx and Crake, the first MaddAddam novel, was shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. Among her other awards is the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature in 2008.
In 2012 she was named a Companion of Literature and inaugurated as a Fellow of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in the U.K. In 2013 she received the Innovator’s Award from the Los Angeles Times for her experimentation with both narrative forms and new digital publishing platforms.
Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto, Canada.
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