Eventually his screams subsided and became cries and then the cries became tears. He sank down on the floor, staring at Willow beside him.
“He went. He changed his mind. He let me live.”
“Don’t talk,” said Willow. “Not now.”
“There’s so much I don’t know. My father… my father?”
He turned to Kepler, who stood looking down at him, a strange expression on his face.
“Was he-was he really my father?” Boy said.
Kepler looked hard at Boy. Long seconds passed.
“Was he my father? Tell me!”
“Of course he wasn’t,” Kepler snapped. “I said that to make you live. I knew it was the only thing I could say that might save you.”
“No!” cried Boy. “No! You’re lying now! You said I was his son.”
“There are things you don’t know about yet, Boy,” said Kepler, “that happened long ago. I was simply using those things to save your life.” He turned to the door.
“No!” cried Boy, “Wait…”
“You’re alive, aren’t you, Boy? Just be grateful for that.” Kepler stooped and picked up the book from the floor where Willow had dropped it.
“I’ll see you’re all right,” said Kepler. “Both of you. Now that Valerian’s gone.”
He walked out through the shattered doorway.
Boy collapsed into Willow’s arms, and began to sob once more. Around them lay the devastation of what had once been the heart of Valerian’s world. From the streets below came the noise of happy, drunken people, and from the skies overhead came the rush and bang of fireworks.
Boy’s tears flowed freely down his face, Willow holding him all the while. He thought about what he’d heard, what he’d seen, but couldn’t begin to understand. He pushed the thoughts away. There would be time enough to think, later.
And there was something else. Someone else.
As if only now noticing her, Boy felt Willow’s arms around him. He lifted his head, and looked up at her face, and at last he saw the love that was waiting for him there.
A new year had dawned, with a new, and different future, one that Boy had not foreseen. He sensed that the path ahead was obscured by many, many questions, but one thing, at least, was clear.
Boy and Willow would walk that path together.
End of Book One
About the Author
Marcus Sedgwick’s Floodland was hailed as a “dazzling debut” and won the Branford Boase Award for a best first novel. Witch Hill was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel. Sedgwick’s most recent book, The Dark Horse, was short-listed for the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction and for the Carnegie Medal. Marcus Sedgwick has worked in children’s publishing in England for ten years; before that, he was a bookseller. In addition to writing, he does stone carvings, etchings and woodcuts. He lives in Sussex and has a young daughter, Alice.
