by Jeff Giles
Zoe scanned the darkness for X—and kept looking for him long past the point where it was clear that he wasn’t there. She felt as if she were watching his absence walk toward her. She felt sadness hollowing out her heart so it could lie down for a while.
Within moments, everyone had fallen into everyone else’s arms. Jonah asked if they could stay for five minutes so he could throw rocks into the ocean. His mother said, “Okay, but just five minutes,” and Jonah said, “I can have five? What about ten? No? What about seven—what about eight?”
He hadn’t been outside in so long.
Ripper ran ahead with Jonah, and Zoe and her mother drifted behind, walking arm in arm. There was too much to say. Where would they even start?
Zoe could barely see her mother’s face in the dark, but it seemed like she didn’t know the truth about her father. Should she tell her that he was alive—that he had abandoned them all? She didn’t want to. She wanted to protect her mother from the facts.
But the truth rose up out of her. She couldn’t keep it in.
“Dad didn’t kill himself like you thought,” she blurted. “That’s not what happened.”
Her mother stared at her, confused and waiting.
And there on the beach, as quietly as she could so that Jonah couldn’t hear, she told her mother everything. The ocean was noisy and black. It nearly swallowed the words.
Up ahead, Jonah was looking at Ripper’s hands and saying, “You chew your fingernails like I do!” Ripper was saying, “Something like that, yes. But I will stop if you will stop. Have we a bargain?”
Finally, they left the beach, and walked off in search of somewhere warm to make a plan for getting back to Montana. Spock whimpered the whole way. Uhura looked back and barked at him, as if to say, Man up! Zoe’s mother was so shocked that her dead husband was still alive, so lost in her own head, that Zoe had to walk beside her and steer her around the bends in the road.
Zoe’s own head felt clearer somehow, like the box at the back of her brain had sprung open and a lot of old, unhappy thoughts had drifted out over the ocean, like that plastic bag.
After two cold, meandering miles through the woods, they found a diner glowing in the darkness. It must have been the place where X had bought breakfast. On the door, there was a laminated picture of cinnamon French toast and bacon. Zoe touched it with her fingertips as everybody else rushed inside.
While they waited for a table, diners began noticing Ripper—her shredded golden dress, her bloodied arms and legs, her tall black leather boots. A ripple of curiosity, then alarm, went through the place. Ripper announced quietly that it was time for her to leave.
Zoe walked outside with her and hugged her a long time. Somehow, saying good-bye to the only person who understood X the way she herself did was too much. She started crying, and couldn’t stop.
“He said he’d come back,” she sobbed. “He said he’d come back unless—unless two worlds conspired against him.”
Ripper held her.
“But two worlds did conspire, dear girl,” she said. “Two worlds threw everything they had between you. The Lowlands cannot keep X from you for long, however. He bid me tell you that he will find his parents and then return to you. And I believe he will, for I taught him myself and I am a marvelous teacher. The last thing he said to me was that he wants to be worthy of you, Zoe—because you have taught him what worthiness is.”
Zoe smiled.
“Well, that’s a little over-the-top,” she said.
Ripper released her from her arms, and dried a tear coursing down Zoe’s face.
“When you see him,” said Zoe, “please tell him that I love him, and that I remember every, every, every time he touched me.”
“I will,” said Ripper.
“Also?” said Zoe. “Help him figure out where his parents are? He’s right—he needs to know who they were. He deserves to, even if it hurts him like finding out about my dad hurt me.”
“I will,” said Ripper.
“And please tell him to clean his clothes,” said Zoe. “They’re getting gross.”
Ripper laughed.
“I will tell him everything you ask when I return to the Lowlands,” she said. “Yet I must tell you that I am in no hurry to see that fetid place again.” She paused, and her eyes shone mischievously. “I have decided not to return just yet. I have decided to run.”
“Really?” said Zoe. She had stopped crying and was staring at Ripper with wonder. “You are so badass.”
“I suppose I am,” said Ripper. “X once asked if I had ever visited my children when I was a bounty hunter—if I had ever stood across the street just to gaze at them.”
“I asked Banger the same thing,” said Zoe.
“I am ashamed to say that I never did,” said Ripper. “The pain kept me from it. But Jonah has put me in mind of Alfie and Belinda, my own little boy and girl. They were so, so lovely, and deserved so much better than me. I should like to go to New England and find their graves. It might heal me a little to lay some flowers there, and water the grass with my tears.”
“I think that’s a cool idea,” said Zoe.
“Thank you,” said Ripper. “The lords no doubt expect me to flee—and they’ll find a way to haul me back soon enough—but at least there’s no one left on earth they can punish for my misbehavior. It appears there are advantages to having been dead since 1832.”
Ripper was quiet now. She slipped a hand down the neckline of her dress, and withdrew a tightly folded piece of paper she had hidden there.
“X wanted to write you a letter,” she said, “just as you wrote one to him.”
She handed it to Zoe. It was written on a blank page torn from a book in Zoe’s house.
“He begs your forgiveness for the letter being so brief,” said Ripper. “He says that you taught him how to write it—and that you taught him what it means.”
Zoe knew then exactly what the letter would say. She stared at the ratty piece of folded paper. To her eyes, it looked like a flower preparing to open. Her hand trembled just holding it.
She didn’t want to read the letter in front of Ripper. She wanted to be alone. So they said their good-byes, and she watched her new friend stroll down the road in her torn but still glittering dress. There was a light rain falling now, although Zoe couldn’t detect any clouds overhead—the drops seemed to leak down out of the stars.
She didn’t see the exact moment when Ripper disappeared. Suddenly, she was just gone. She must have vanished while walking between one streetlight and the next.
Zoe unfolded the letter, and felt her heart unfold with it.
It was written in pencil, and the point had been pressed down so hard it had nearly torn through the paper.
It was a beautiful letter, as she knew it would be.
It just said: “X.”
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Jodi Reamer, who’s a truly singular badass—a literary agent with a law degree and a black belt. The fact that she championed this novel was thrilling, humbling, and then thrilling again. Her instincts have been invaluable, as has her unflappable personality. I myself have been known to get kinda flapped.
I’d also like to thank Cindy Loh, who’s an inspiring publisher and editor, as well as an excellent person to have on your team when you need to think up a title and/or order wine. Cindy’s a triathlete who competes in those insane obstacle courses where you throw javelins and scale giant walls of mud. I would say she’s a great multitasker, but I think everything she does is part of the same task: to fully live.
Jodi’s right hand is Alec Shane. Cindy’s is Hali Baumstein. Alec, Hali: they say really nice stuff about you behind your backs.
Thank you to the whole shrewd, funny, welcoming Bloomsbury team. Cristina Gilbert, who runs marketing, publicity, and sales in the U.S., is incredible and surrounds herself with other incredibles. Thank you to Lizzy Mason and Erica Barmash for introducing me to the YA community with such a sunburst of war
mth and patience. (Erica: Dallas says he likes you back!) Thank you to Courtney Griffin, Emily Ritter, Beth Eller, Linette Kim, Shae McDaniel, Eshani Agrawal, Alona Fryman, and Ashley Poston. Thank you to the lifesaving folks in managing editorial: Melissa Kavonic, Diane Aronson, Chandra Wohleber, and Patricia McHugh. Thank you to the inspired designers Donna Mark and Colleen Andrews and to the fantastic sales team, with whom I had my favorite meeting of 2016.
Bloomsbury’s global team has been a crucial part of this journey. Thank you to Emma Hopkin, the managing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books worldwide; to Rebecca McNally, the publishing director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books UK; and to Kate Cubitt, the managing director for Australia.
Thank you to Cecilia de la Campa, the director of foreign rights at Writers House, and to Kassie Evashevski, of UTA, for their ingenuity and dedication.
While I was writing this book, many friends gave me places to work and moral support during difficult times, and I love them for it: Missy Schwartz, Carla Sacks, John Morris, Michael & Sonja O’Donnell, Valerie Van Galder (& Bella!), Stephen Garrett, Maureen Buckley, James Wirth, Chris Mundy, and Nilou Panahpour.
I’m also immensely grateful to my elite team of first readers: Darin Strauss, Susannah Meadows, Radhika Jones, Melissa Maerz, Sara Vilkomerson, and Anthony Breznican.
For conspicuous acts of kindness in support of this book, sincere thanks to Tina Jordan, Kami Garcia, Breia Brissey, Andrew Long, Bonnie Siegler, Jessica Shaw, Kerry Kletter, and Kathleen Glasgow.
Thank you to Erin Berger and Jennifer Besser, who read the earliest chapters and gave me vital encouragement. Erin and Jen are cool in too many ways for me to enumerate, but their generosity floors me.
Thank you to Hans Bodenhamer, a Montana science teacher who answered all my questions about caving and took me on a conservation trip with the Bigfork High School Cave Club. Hans and a fellow explorer, Jason Ballenksy, challenged me to be as accurate about caving—and as respectful of nature—as I could. Any and all mistakes are on me.
Thank you to the loyal friends who’ve always been there for me: Jill Bernstein, Meeta Agrawal, Kristen Baldwin, Sara Boilen, Sabrina Calley, Veronica Chambers, Betsy Gleick, Devin Gordon, Barrie Gruner, Chris Heath, Carrie Levy, Rick Porras, Brian & Lyndsay Schott, Lou Vogel, and my fellow YA authors in the Sweet Sixteens and the Swanky Seventeens. A special hat-tip to Karen Valby, who suggested the name Zoe for my main character back when other people were insisting that I name her after them. (A note from my friend Kate Ward: “I would settle for the villain.”)
I’m indebted to two gripping articles: Peter Stark’s examination of what it feels like to freeze to death (Outside magazine) and Ray Kershaw’s account of the Mossdale caving tragedy (The Independent).
My family and I moved to Montana in 2014 to be closer to my father-in-law, Dick Bevill. This book was written largely at a thrift-store desk overlooking Dick’s ranch, and it is, I hope, animated with a bit of his own questing spirit and his reverence for the natural world.
Thanks also to my intrepid brother-in-law, James Peterson, who went caving with me so I wouldn’t wuss out, and my nephew, Max McFarland, who coined the term “Struggle Buggy,” which I have borrowed for Zoe’s Taurus. Max uses it to describe his friend Nick’s junky Toyota Corolla, which resembles a car only insofar as it is car-shaped and has tires.
Finally, I would like to thank my awesome, weird-in-a-good-way children, Lily and Theo, and my sister, Susan Heger, who is the most openhearted person I’ve ever known.
Copyright © 2017 by Jeff Giles
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in the United States of America in January 2017
This electronic edition published in January 2017
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Giles, Jeff.
Title: The edge of everything / by Jeff Giles.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury, [2017].
Summary: Holed up in their missing neighbors’ cabin in a Montana blizzard, seventeen-year-old Zoe and her little brother are rescued from an intruder by X, a bounty hunter sent from the Lowlands to claim the souls of evil men.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016016228 (print) | LCCN 2016027937 (e-book)
ISBN 978-1-61963-753-5 (hardcover) • ISBN 978-1-61963-752-8 (e-book)
Subjects: | CYAC: Bounty hunters—Fiction. | Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Future life—Fiction. | Montana—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic. | JUVENILE FICTION / Love & Romance. | JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.G553 Edg 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.G553 (e-book) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016016228
Book design by Colleen Andrews
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