Palimpsest

But these too fade as they extend like arms outstretched, fade into the empty land not yet colonized by the city, not yet peopled, not yet known. The empty meadows stretch to the horizon, pale and dark, rich and soft.

_______

The war is over.

This was the last of it, and I have told you all you need to know of the breaking of the doors. Find me, find me in black and secret places. I am here; I am waiting. I want no more than any city: to thrive.

Come. Come.

Look out, over my outermost fields, my borderless borders—I am vast enough to contain you.

A wind picks up, blowing hot and dusty and salt-scented. Gooseflesh rises over miles and miles of barren skin.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book owes debts to many people, books being the profligate creatures they are, forever leaving their authors to pay their bills. And so I must settle the tab.

Thank you to Ekaterina Sedia, who once asked me to write her a story about a city.

To Christopher Barzak, an invaluable friend and resource.

To Juliet Ulman, my benevolent editor.

To the members of the Blue Heaven Writers Workshop, especially Paolo Bacigalupi and Daryl Gregory.

To S. J. Tucker, whose music continually explains to me what I’ve written.

To everyone who has supported me, offline and online, allowed me into their homes and their hearts, held me up, made me tea, and listened to (and read) my nonsense: we are all of us Palimpsest, a strange and marvelous city created only when we are together.

And finally, ever and always, to Dmitri Zagidulin, who doesn’t like to be called a muse.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in the Pacific Northwest in 1979, Cathery

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