Begin Reading
Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
Thank you for buying this
Tom Doherty Associates ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
THIS BOOK IS FOR MY CUCKOOS YET TO COME. I HOPE I SEE YOU FLY.
ONETHE SAME ORDINARY TOWN
In the same ordinary town, on the same ordinary street, lived two very different, very ordinary children who had never quite managed to cross paths with one another. This, too, was sadly ordinary, for the line dividing children who went to this school from children who went to that school ran right down the middle of their block, forming an invisible barrier that had split them in two before they were old enough to notice. Neither of them had had any say in which school they went to or who their friends became: everything had been decided for them. This is so often the case with children, and few of them will ever come to resent it, for few of them will ever know.
Every morning the two children got out of bed, put on their clothes, kissed their parents goodbye, and walked away down their ordinary street, through their ordinary town, heading for school in two ordinary, opposite directions. The town where they lived had one extraordinary quality: it was believed to be extraordinarily safe, so that no one thought anything was odd about these children going about their days without an adult to stand close and hold their hands.
Remember this: that it was a very safe, very ordinary town. This will be important later.
The two children were very much alike and very different at the same time, as children so often are. One was named Hepzibah, because her parents had a languid and eccentric way of looking at the world. They called her “Zib,” understanding “Hepzibah” was more name than she had shadow. Every day they watched for signs that she was growing into her name, and every day they were disappointed.
“Soon,” they promised each other. “Soon.”
The other was named Avery, because his parents had a sharp and efficient way of looking at the world. They called him “Avery” when they were happy, and “Avery Alexander Grey” when they were mad, and gave him no nicknames. Nicknames were for people whose names didn’t fit them properly, and they had measured him, every inch, before they named him.
“We did well,” they reassured each other. “We did.”
These are our two children: ordinary, average, wildly unique, as all children are. Mark them well: know them as truly as you know your own hands, your own heartbeat, for they will be the thread we follow through all that is yet to come, and all that has yet to happen.
Our story began on an ordinary, average day, a day which had never happened before and would never, in all the length and breadth of time, happen again. It was a Wednesday, muddled middle of the week, with nothing to recommend it save that when it was over, it would be more than halfway to the weekend. Because Avery and Zib were very much alike, they both enjoyed the weekend, and started looking forward to it when bedtime came calling on Sunday night. Because they were very different, they enjoyed the weekend for very different reasons. Avery liked it because he was allowed to go to the library and sit as long as he liked, reading books that he was still too young to take home with him, but that he was sure would one day teach him all the secrets of the universe. Zib liked it because she was allowed to go to the woods behind her house and play in the little creek that chuckled and tumbled there, catching frogs and staring into their great golden eyes, looking for the answers to questions she hadn’t quite figured out yet.
Avery’s alarm rang at precisely seven o’clock. He rose from bed without prompting, washed his face and hands and brushed his teeth, and chose his clothing from the selections that had been laid out the night before. He gathered his books and his pencils and his lucky eraser and joined his parents at the breakfast table, where his father spoke of numbers and accounts, and his mother spoke of octaves and arpeggios. His father was a banker, and a very important one at that, managing the money of wealthy people and helping them decide how to make it grow. Avery had planted a nickel once, and it hadn’t grown at all, so he suspected that to be a banker was something like being a wizard, only much more powerful.
His mother was a piano teacher, and her lessons were in the very highest demand, for her students were impeccably taught, able to perform under all types of pressure and eagerly sought by symphony orchestras around the country. Had she been a little less in demand, perhaps Avery and Zib would have met years before, for Zib’s family fancied themselves musically inclined, and had tried, more than once, to interest her in an instrument. But alas, the lessons given by Avery’s mother were always booked years in advance, and no member of Zib’s family had ever been that organized.
As for Zib, her alarm didn’t go off at all, as she had quite failed to
