Dreamwood (28 page)

Oh no. Had he mislaid the tickets?

She had been so busy making her good-byes, she'd forgotten to make her usual checks before a rail journey.

“Do you have the tickets?” She looked nervously at the train, which people had already begun to board.

“Tickets? Yes, in fact I have them right here.” Her father produced them with a faint look of surprise, as if he didn't quite believe that he'd remembered them.

“Oh, well, that's good.” She gave him a congratulatory smile. Usually any discussion of tickets was followed automatically by her father saying “I don't know what I would do without you.”

She supposed a tiny part of her missed hearing that.

But now William Darrington appeared to have remembered what it was that had preoccupied him as he'd made his way across the platform to her.

“I was just thinking you should start keeping your own notebook,” he said. “I don't think
A History of Ghost Clearing in the American States
would be complete without a chapter on how you managed to get through that ghost wall. I was doing some research, and I don't think there's ever been a documented encounter in which ghosts formed a kind of collective spiritual organism—”

“Sir,” the porter interrupted, “we're leaving now. Please board the train.”

“Yes, of course,” her father said absentmindedly, as he went up the steps. “Anyway . . .”

She stepped onto the train, not quite listening as her father continued. She turned a moment to stand in the doorway. As it had on the evening of her arrival, the crowd on the platform had rapidly thinned, but with a few crucial differences: There were Niwa and Pete waving at her—she was leaving good friends behind. And she had her father beside her.

“So what do you say, Lucy?” he asked. “Do you think you'd like to try your hand at writing that?”

She'd answer in a moment. Right now she was waving to her friends.

The final whistle sounded and a cloud of steam streaked by. Viewed from a certain angle, one could almost imagine it as a ghost.

I
n a box of old papers of mine from grade school there is a story I wrote decades ago about a mysterious tree whose golden sap gives a girl the ability to fly. So perhaps I have been writing
Dreamwood
almost as long as I have known how to write. For my family, my friends, who watched me work on this book for years, I'm sure it feels that way—it's been a long haul. Thank you for sticking with me.

I am grateful to Tim Travaglini for seeing something in a random manuscript critique. And I'm grateful to the ninja duo of Tracey and Josh Adams, agents of warmth, acumen, and unflagging support. My extraordinary editor Arianne Lewin asked things of me I did not think I could do. Thank you for believing I could develop abilities I certainly did not have when I started. And thanks to everyone at Putnam for making this book so much better. Katherine Perkins and Paula Sadler, I'm especially grateful for your help.

To the people who have saved me on many occasions, whether with fish tacos or a well-timed phone call, thank you. Writer friends Cynthia Jaynes Omololu, who has been with me since this thing started, and Kim Liggett, who came in as it was ending, deserve special thanks. Nicky Ovitt, for the use of a key name, thank you. Juana Rodriguez, thank you for listening to reports of my often-slow progress. The largest debt is the hardest to express. To my parents, Eric, Kris, Grant, Jules, and Simone—there would be no reason to write without you. Nothing without you.

There is no Lupine Nation or Federation of First Peoples. And I would not want my poor inventions to be confused with any group of real people nor be seen as representing the customs, beliefs, or concerns of real people. But I have exercised the authorial power of “what if” to imagine an America where—in some places, perhaps—there was a different outcome to the wars and policies that have shaped the history of indigenous peoples on this continent.