The Shadow Society (37 page)

He chuckled. “I’m a little disappointed. I hoped you were going to ask me again what I said to the Shades. How I convinced them not to fight.”

“Slightly off topic, but all right. Tell me, Conn. What did you say?”

He gazed down at me, and his eyes were the color of heavy weather. “That I love you.”

When I kissed him, his mouth tasted like warm rain. My heart crashed, and I knew that this would not be easy. It never would be easy. It would be rough and stormy.

And beautiful. Beautiful, too.

Like a tornado spinning down from the clouds.

I know. Most girls want their skies to be sunny.

But I’m not most girls.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to—

Mark Beirn, Cathy Meyer, Nina Orechwa, Becky Rosenthal, and Dan Wolfe, for helping me get through high school.

The teachers of Bolingbrook High School 1991–1995, especially E. J. Bronkema, who was very kind and influential.

Brian Shallcross and Brooke Tafoya, for discussing the Department of Children and Family Services with me.

David Moré, for an excellent talk about painting with oils.

Dave Elfving, for suggestions about how to incorporate Chicago history, particularly the Couch Mausoleum (though I fudged some details, since the cemetery the Mausoleum used to be part of was moved after the Civil War, not the Great Fire).

Doireann Fitzgerald, for Irish names.

Cat Keyser, for discussing “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” with me.

Lila Davachi and Kevin Ochsner, for giving me the term “priming.”

Marilyn Rutkoski, because I love your raccoon painting and spoon collection.

Andy Rutkoski, for advice about motorcycles and the kinds of tools Conn might use.

Robert Rutkoski, for explaining Lake Michigan cloudbanks.

Thomas Philippon, for helping me invent the hypercycle and suggesting Shades cast shadows.

My son, Eliot, who was a newborn in my arms when I began this story, and his babysitter, Shaida Kahn, for giving me time to write it.

My stellar editor, Janine O’Malley.

The wonderfully supportive Charlotte Sheedy, Meredith Kaffel, and Joan Rosen.

All those who read drafts or portions of drafts: Betsy Bird, Heather Duffy-Stone, Gayle Forman, Daphne Grab, Jenny Knode, Mordicai Knode (who influenced the character of Jims and let me crib from our conversations), Marilyn Rutkoski, Jill Santopolo, Eliot Schrefer, Rebecca Stead, Natalie Van Unen, and especially Donna Freitas, for encouraging this project, reading it as it grew, giving great suggestions, and saving me from plenty of mistakes.

And last, to Chicago and Bolingbrook, Illinois, with love.

Also by Marie Rutkoski

The Cabinet of Wonders

The Celestial Globe

The Jewel of the Kalderash

Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers

175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010

Text copyright © 2012 by Marie Rutkoski

All rights reserved

First hardcover edition, 2012

eBook edition, October 2012

macteenbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Rutkoski, Marie.

The shadow society / Marie Rutkoski. — 1st ed.

     p. cm.

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Darcy Jones knows little about her past except that she was abandoned outside a Chicago firehouse at age five, but when the mysterious Conn arrives at her high school she begins to discover things about her past that she is not sure she likes.

ISBN 978-0-374-34905-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-374-36757-2 (e-book)

[1.  Identity—Fiction.   2.  Foster home care—Fiction.   3.  High schools—Fiction.   4.  Schools—Fiction.   5.  Illinois—Fiction.   6.  Science fiction.]   I.  Title.

  PZ7.R935Sh 2012

  [Fic]—dc23                     2011033158

eISBN 9780374367572