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MAP

LIST OF COLOR PLATES

1 They were staring intently at their houseguest, as taking uproom table

2 “That’s what the Chapeaux Noirs are all about: a clean slate for the Industrial Wastes Wipe out the oppressors, the wreckers, the looters Finis”

3 And then, her son appeared from the curtain of shadow: a boy of fifteen summers, fourteen winters

4 She thrust her hands into the robe’s pocket and retrieved the three things she’d stowed there: an eagle’s feather A pearly stone A boy’s full set of teeth

5 The ship pitched in the waves that drew it closer to the rock’s only visible landing spot: a wave-racked wooden jetty

6 The ivy hung fro tendrils fro

7 Alexandra held out her arms; her son stepped into them and laid his head, softly, on his mother’s chest

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

The May Queen

First, the explosion of life Then came the celebration

Such had it been for generations and generations, as long as the eldest of the eldest could re as the record books had kept steady score By the tireen shoots frorounds had been cleared and the maypole had been pulled from its exile in the basement of the Mansion The board had met and the Queen decided; all that was left was the wait The wait for May

And when it caown: the May Queen She appeared on horseback, as was tradition, wearing a blinding white gown and her hair sprouting garlands of flowers Her narapher for the courts, a proudin the stands—a person of honor—with the Interient-elect and his flushed, fat wife and his three children looking bored and be suits that they only wore for weddings

But the May Queen was radiant in her long brown braids and white, white gown, and everyone in the town flocked to see her and the procession that followed In the center square, a brass band, having perfor of the Prison” to satisfy the powers that be, launched into a familiar set list of seasonal favorites, led by a ht of the audience A traditional dance was endured by the younger set a the audience, while the elders cooed their appreciation and waxed nostalgic about their own time, when they wore those selfsaned all the while, s down from her flower-laden dais; she must’ve been only fifteen All the boys blushed to make eye contact with her Even the Spokes, the hard-liners of the Bicycle Revolution, seemed to drop their ever-present steeliness in favor of an easy gait, and today there were no words of anger exchanged between theht question their fervor And when the Synod arrived to rasp the benediction on the day, the crowd suffered the the fact that the May Fair’s celebration had long predated the sect’s fixation on the Blighted Tree; indeed, the May Fair had been a long-standing tradition, it was told, even when the tree’s boughs were full with green buds, before it earned its present nae parasite had rendered the tree in a kind of suspended animation But such was the spirit that day: Even the spoilers were allowed their separate peace

By the time the festivities, the beribbonedcrowd and the light had faded and the athered around the barrels of poppy beer and the woun in earnest, the May Queen had long since been hoisted on the shoulders of a crowd of local boys and brought with much fanfare to her home, where, her now-tipsy father assuown toppled in a corner, her braids a tattered mess, and her pillow streith flowers

But this was not the case

Zita, the May Queen, was cli down the trellis froown, and her wreath of flowers still atop her braided hair A thorn fro rose round She stopped and studied her surroundings She could hear the muffled, distant sounds of the celebrations in the town square; a few straggling partygoers, hohed over some joke on the street She whistled, twice

Nothing

Again, she pursed her lips and gave two shrill whistles A rustle sounded in the nearby junipers Zita froze