“Good idea,” I said, pulling into the exit lane. “I could use a break.”
I parked the car and let out Boo, who loped wildly toward the ocean. Weylyn laughed. “I think he likes it.”
We took off our shoes, sat in the sand, and watched the waves roll ashore like we had when we were still young and almost in love. The low-hanging sun burned deep orange, and sea spray burst out from behind the rocks like embers. It looked just like a postcard I had been given many years ago by a strange boy, a boy who met a sad girl and tried to make her happy the only way he knew how. Once again, Weylyn had wandered into my life at just the right moment, and now he was wandering off. Only this time, I was going with him.
What happened next wasn’t extraordinary in any way. The waves didn’t suddenly rise, and the clouds didn’t magically part. Weylyn Grey simply took my hand in his, and we watched the sun melt into the ocean until it was just the two of us under the great starry purple.
epilogue
WILDWOOD FOREST, OREGON
2028
ROARKE
My mother once said, “You get to take one big risk in your life, Roarke. One. So don’t waste it.” She said this to me when I was sixteen after I begged her to let me go on a white-water rafting trip. I’m not sure where she had found this statistic—my guess is she heard it in a movie and filed it in her brain under Aphorisms to Drive Roarke Crazy—but I took her at her word. So, according to my infinitely wise mother, I was allowed one near-death experience, and I chose to use it on my twenty-first birthday by climbing Mount Campbell, the twelve-thousand-foot peak that loomed over the forest I had played in as a kid.
Two of my friends from college agreed to join me on my adventure, and we spent the weekend climbing, drinking, and eating mostly stale trail mix. On the second night, I lay in my tent staring up at the stars through the plastic skylight, my head buzzing with booze and half-formed memories of a strange man who lived in this very forest. For years, I had convinced myself that only some of what I remembered from that spring was actually real. The wolf, the spider’s web, the plants that sprang from the ground like magic; those were all just figments of a young boy’s active imagination, the product of too many cartoons and too little common sense.
I had barely closed my eyes when I heard a howl. The sound wasn’t close, but it wasn’t distant, either. Whatever animal had made the noise couldn’t have been farther than a quarter mile away. Cautiously, I crawled out of my tent and stood up. My eyes adjusted to the dark as I scanned the surrounding woods. It was a balmy night, especially for three thousand feet. The fireflies were out, blinking on and off like tiny lamplighters trying to set fire to the ferns and tall grasses. One drifted past me, and I gently cupped it in my hands. Greenish light pulsed between the cracks in my fingers as I carried the tiny creature to edge of the clearing.
I unthreaded my fingers, and the firefly floated into the trees. I was about to head back to my tent when I noticed several other fireflies flying in the same direction. At first it was just a few, then a dozen, then a hundred bobbing beacons on what appeared to be a pilgrimage of some kind. I watched in awe as they began to congregate around something deep in the forest.
A figure … or maybe two.
Or possibly nothing at all.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank everyone who took a red pen to this book—all the family, friends, and colleagues who spent their evenings reading my novel instead of whatever was on their nightstand—and to my parents, who provided me with the opportunity to study what I loved.
I’d also like to thank my agent, Andrea Somberg, for making my first publishing experience a positive one, my editor, Peter Wolverton, for his invaluable notes, and the rest of the team at St. Martin’s Press.
Lastly, I’d like to thank Max, whose love, support, and insight made this book—and so many other things—possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RUTH EMMIE LANG was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and has the red hair to prove it. When she was four years old, she immigrated to Ohio, where she has lived for the last twenty-seven years. She has since lost her Scottish accent but still has the hair. Ruth currently lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband and dreams of someday owning a little house in the woods where she can write more books. Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance is her first novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Press 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.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue
First Interlude
Book 1: The Wolf Boy
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Book 2: Rainmaker
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Second Interlude
Book 3: Storm Seeker
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Book 4: The Forest Familiar
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Third Interlude
Book 5: Firefly Keeper
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Fourth Interlude
Book 6: Old Man Spider
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BEASTS OF EXTRAORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCE. Copyright © 2017 by Ruth Emmie Lang. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover photograph: tree © Brian W. Downs/Offset.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-11204-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-11205-7 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250112057
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: November 2017
inary Circumstance
Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance Page 28