Surrender (22 page)
Authors: Sonya Hartnett
Vernon is smiling. He likes this. I know that, in a moment, he will creep slightly closer. He will creep and creep unrelentingly, until he’s perched a hair’s breadth from me. I’ll smell his scent clearly then, the dank wood and clay. I’ll see his intention sunk in his eyes. He’ll want me to follow him to this world. He’ll want me to dream the boys’ dreams.
And why not, I wonder: why not simply go.
There are no bones in a hole inside that world, no monsters roaming the hills. The dogs doze on mats in front of the hearth; the girls are just children, harmless as butterflies.
Just a few more minutes here
, I suggest: life hates to leave, worried what it might miss. But Vernon, closer, is shaking his head.
This is all
.
The air in my lungs lies coldly as soil. Facing each other, as still as we are, we’re like the angels in the cemetery atop the most elaborate graves. So this is all.
I take his hand and follow him trustingly into the world. I feel sun-warmed grass growing under my feet, a cap of sunshine on my hair. At the last moment I see we’re surrounded by eyes and swarthy muzzles, the ebony claws of waiting beasts. At the last moment I feel the dead weight of him, and wrench my hand from his.
He roars, enraged, grappling; darkness surges toward me. But wings unfold around me and, with a mighty sweep of air, I alone am lifted skyward, from where I first arrived.
LSO BY
S
ONYA
H
ARTNETT
RAISE FOR
S
URRENDER
“Readers are left to grieve for an angel child, compassionately portrayed, engaged in a tug-of-war with evil and despair. They will be moved by Sonya Hartnett’s gifted writing and the powerful changes her characters undergo.”
—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“The reader is caught by the many layers of mystery, and by the resilient lyricism, the powerful imagery. The clues piece together masterfully, as what was set up as a complex friendship between two boys and their dog evolves into a chilling story of love, guilt, revenge, and sorrow. . . . Delicate, measured, heartbreaking.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)
“Meticulous, luminous prose. . . . By oscillating time, creating resonance through the play of Gabriel’s and Finnigan’s voices, and by quietly stoking the pace, Hartnett leads the reader to an explosive climax and a heartbreaking understanding of a tortured human psyche.”—
The Horn Book
“The coiled intensity of the narrative’s inescapable slide toward doom is cold and gripping. . . . Fans of Hartnett’s other works and of adult writers such as Flannery O’Connor will enjoy untangling the sinewy threads of this dark story.”
—
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
S
ONYA
H
ARTNETT
is the author of
Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf, Thursday’s Child, What the Birds See, The Silver Donkey, Butterfly, The Ghost’s Child, The Midnight Zoo,
and
Sadie and Ratz.
She is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including a Michael L. Printz Honor, the
Guardian
Children’s Fiction Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Sonya Hartnett lives in Australia.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2005 by Sonya Hartnett
Cover photograph copyright © 2006 by Craig Aurness/Corbis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Hartnett, Sonya.
Surrender / Sonya Hartnett. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: As he is dying, a twenty-year-old man known as Gabriel recounts his troubled childhood and his strange relationship with a dangerous counterpart named Finnigan.
ISBN 978-0-7636-2768-3 (hardcover)
[1. Family problems — Fiction. 2. Brothers — Fiction. 3. Dogs — Fiction. 4. City and town life — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H267387Sur 2006
[Fic] — dc22 2005054259
ISBN 978-0-7636-3423-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6005-5 (electronic)
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