by Sara Grant
For simplicity, I decided to go with their version. ‘That’s right. You’ll die.’
‘Freepy,’ Lola said, which made me laugh.
And they believed me. They obeyed me. They looked up to me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable and responsible and not human, but what could I do? I thought about telling the truth about our home, about me, but we were all happier believing this mountain was special and that we’d survived for a reason.
I wanted to believe it too because I thought I’d be gone soon. My health didn’t deteriorate as fast as Tate and Chaske’s did, but my body was changing.
Over the next months I realized that my body wasn’t preparing for death – quite the opposite. I gave birth to a son. I called him Chaske after his father. I told them he was special and he was. He was part Chaske and part me. This horror and tragedy had produced a precious, perfect life. He made me believe in miracles again.
Midnight and I watched over them for as long as we could. And I watch over them still . . .
Chapter Forty
‘It’s going to be OK.’
– Just Saying 301
BECKETT
Beckett picks up Icie’s notebook. He rips out page after page, tossing each one like confetti into the smouldering embers of the Crown. He throws the empty notebook shell on top. Black dots spread and eat into the paper. The flames take hold and the pages disintegrate.
He knows the truth. He will keep the Great I AM’s secret.
It’s funny but Beckett feels as if Icie is watching over him. And maybe she is. Maybe she gave him the vision of Chaske’s death. Maybe she blessed him with a birthmark that mirrored the symbol Chaske etched on their wrists before he died. He will let these mysteries go unexplained.
Beckett vows to return to the Heart with Harper and close it for good. He will create an avalanche somehow. He will bury the Heart so no one can enter it again. He will scrape out the infinity symbol until he has erased it.
As the sun rises, he Says to the Great I AM one last time. He thanks her for her sacrifice. He promises to carry out her mission – to do what she couldn’t.
Harper’s eyes open.
‘You’re going to be OK,’ he tells her. ‘We will join with Vega and we will leave the Mountain.’
‘What about Mumenda?’ Harper asks.
Beckett bows his head. He grieves for the loss of the Great I AM and for a girl who lost so much. ‘Mum and Dad,’ he pronounces it as Icie would have, ‘aren’t coming. They are never coming.’
Harper looks up at him in surprise. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘I know, Harper. You’ll have to trust me. I just know.’ The weight of Icie’s secret weighs heavy on him, but it is a burden he is prepared to bear. He will let Forreal keep the faith, but he will have to look within for inspiration. He will have to ask Harper and Greta for guidance. No more looking for signs.
Beckett looks out over Vega, just like Icie did once. He tries to imagine the time she walked on this earth. He would have liked to have known this person who built Forreal.
She wasn’t a god.
She was just a girl.
But it doesn’t matter. She has proven one person can change the future. Now it’s up to him.
Author’s Note
In November 2009 my Little, Brown editor, Alvina Ling, dropped me a quick email. She was listening to a fascinating discussion on Slate.com’s podcast The Culture Gabfest. She felt the topic could be the inspiration for a young adult novel. She wrote: ‘And then I was thinking, “But who could write this?” and I thought of you.’
Well, I was flattered. I dropped everything and read the article and listened to the accompanying podcast. The article was titled ‘Atomic Priesthoods, Thorn Landscapes and Munchian Pictograms: How to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste to future civilizations’. It discussed how a United States Department of Energy (DoE) panel planned to label the site of an underground nuclear waste repository.
(When last I checked, you can still find the article at: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/green_room/2009/11/atomic_priesthoods_thorn_landscapes_and_munchian_pictograms.html)
It may sound a bit dry and boring, but think about it. Some types of nuclear waste are deadly for more than 10,000 years – that’s longer than the world’s oldest civilization. Who knows what the world will be like even a thousand years from now? What language will we speak? What symbols will have meaning?
I never told Alvina – until now – that my first response to her suggestion to base a teen novel on this issue was absolutely not!
But the article sparked something in my brain and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The idea that we are creating a substance that will be deadly for tens of thousands of years definitely seemed like science fiction, something right out of a superhero comic book. And then there was the added conundrum of how to communicate with future generations, which probably will not speak the same language or understand our symbols. Fascinating!
That was the seed that would blossom into this story about the nature of faith and power of miscommunication – and above all the strength of the human spirit to adapt and survive.
The mountain and abandoned nuclear waste repository in Half Lives are fictional. I based my setting on both the deserted nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and the ongoing construction of the Onkalo Waste Repository, a long-term storage facility for highly nuclear waste in Finland. Although my nuclear waste repository is located in Nevada, the mountain I have created is not in the same geographic location, nor does it have the same geological make-up as Yucca Mountain. According to the state of Nevada, the Yucca site is nothing more than a single boarded-up, empty tunnel, approximately five miles long.
The deterrent system outlined in the DoE report – titled ‘Expert Judgment on Markers To Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion Into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’ – inspired the crown of thorns and the rocky wall in Half Lives. But the actual recommendations created by the panel of thirteen linguists, scientists and anthropologists, at a cost of approximately one million dollars in 1993, included a ridge with a salt core and granite monoliths.
And truth is stranger than fiction . . . over the course of the three-plus years it took to imagine, research and write Half Lives, the situation at Yucca Mountain changed. The Yucca Mountain project was abandoned by the DoE. At the time of writing this book, the debate on where to house nuclear fuel rods in the United States continues – meanwhile, tens of thousands of tons of radioactive waste are being held in facilities that weren’t designed for long-term storage.
This issue is not unique to the United States. Countries around the world with active nuclear power stations must find a long-term solution. At the time of writing, plans were being discussed for Britain’s first nuclear research and disposal facility.
The bottom line is that Half Lives is a work of fiction. I have taken a few creative liberties to enhance my futuristic tale. But the issues it raises are real, and the debate is ongoing.
For more information, check out the following resources:
About a Mountain by John D’Agata
Nuclear Eternity, a documentary written and directed by Michael Madsen
www.yuccamountain.org/new.htm
World Nuclear Association, www.world-nuclear.org/
Wishing you a long and healthy life!
Sara Grant
London, England
June 2012
Acknowledgements
First and foremost I should thank my Little, Brown editor, Alvina Ling. She planted the seed that would blossom into Half Lives.
I was also blessed with a wonderful editorial team in three countries – Alvina Ling, Amber Caravéo, Tim Sonderhuesken, Bethany Strout and Jenny Glencross. Not only are they exceptional editors but they are also lovely people. Thanks are not enough for their editorial feedback and collaboration!
I’d also like to thank the amazing team at Orion for taking such great care
of me and my books – with special thanks to Nina Douglas and Louise Court for helping spread the word with such creativity and congeniality.
I must also acknowledge all the fine work by my champions at Andrew Nurnberg Associates – my agent, Jenny Savill, and her assistant, Ella Kahn. Jenny challenges, listens and encourages. I couldn’t ask for a better partner in my literary life.
A special thanks to my dear friend Sara O’Connor for always being on the other end of the phone, text or email to offer advice, ideas and enthusiasm!
Every writer needs a support group – not only to offer editorial guidance but to talk you off the fictional ledges you sometimes create along the way. Thanks to my fellow writers and friends, Kate Scott, Jasmine Richards and Karen Ball.
A huge thank you to Jim and Liz Boone. I found Jim’s website online – http://www.birdandhike.com/index.htm – when I was researching mountains near Las Vegas. Wonderfully and bizarrely, he and Liz spent a scorching hot morning hiking the mountains around Las Vegas with a writer they’d never met before and answering all my strange questions.
I give eternal thanks to my American and British families and friends for their love and encouragement. Growing up, my parents provided a safe place from which I could let my imagination run wild. A special thanks to Susan – my big sister and best friend – she is the person I know will always come to my rescue. And to Richard and Victoria for their continued enthusiasm!
Every writer should have a spouse like mine. He makes roast dinners when a deadline is looming. He brainstorms with me when I’m having plot problems. He’s read this and all my prose countless times. He’s my cheerleader and my rock star!
This book is dedicated to my writing companion of seven years, Margaret Carey. She passed away in 2011, but not before giving me editorial guidance and endless support on Half Lives. Her time on this earth was cut short, but so many wonderful memories of her live on in the hearts and minds of her friends and family.
Also by Sara Grant
Dark Parties
Copyright
AN INDIGO EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Indigo.
This eBook first published in 2013 by Indigo.
Text copyright © Sara Grant 2013
Illustrations copyright © Liz Casal 2013
The right of Sara Grant to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.
Facebook is the registered trademark of Facebook, Inc.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 78062 017 6
Typeset by Input Data Services Ltd, Bridgwater, Somerset
Indigo
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper St Martin’s Lane
London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK company
www.orionbooks.co.uk