Peng Shepherd - The Book of M

Harper Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Copyright © Peng Shepherd 2018

Cover design by Leo Nickolls © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph © All Canada Photos/Alamy Stock Photo

Peng Shepherd asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008225605

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008225629

Version: 2019-03-27

Contents

Cover

Title Page THE BOOK OF M Peng Shepherd

Copyright

Part I

Orlando Zhang

Orlando Zhang

Orlando Zhang

Orlando Zhang

Part II

Mahnaz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

Mahnaz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

Mahnaz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

Mahnaz Ahmadi

The One Who Gathers

The One Who Gathers

Orlando Zhang

Naz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

The One Who Gathers

Orlando Zhang

Mahnaz Ahmadi

The One Who Gathers

Orlando Zhang

Part III

Orlando Zhang

Orlando Zhang

Orlando Zhang

The One Who Gathers

Mahnaz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

Mahnaz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

The One Who Gathers

Orlando Zhang

The One Who Gathers

Mahnaz Ahmadi

The One Who Gathers

Orlando Zhang

Mahnaz Ahmadi

The One Who Gathers

Orlando Zhang

Part IV

Orlando Zhang

Mahnaz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

The One Who Gathers

Orlando Zhang

Mahnaz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

The One Who Gathers

Mahnaz Ahmadi

The One Who Gathers

Mahnaz Ahmadi

Orlando Zhang

Part V

M

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

THE END OF ORY’S WORLD BEGAN WITH A DEER.

He went outside at dawn to where the trees began, to check the game trap. Followed the trip wire, pushed away the leaves, uncovered the hidden metal cage. Empty.

The air had already turned his hands red with cold before he’d scattered the dried twigs back into place with the nose of his shotgun. The last time there had been anything snared inside had been two weeks ago, at least. Pale orange bruised into gray around the edges of the horizon, a gangrenous dawn. He and his wife, Max, were down to just one meal now that it was too cold to catch anything—a jar of spaghetti sauce he’d found the last time he broke into an abandoned house in western Arlington. There was no delaying it any longer. Ory would have to go into the city again to scavenge for food. Go or starve.

On the way back in, he saw it, frozen midstep in the weeds a few feet from the tree line. A deer. Its huge, dark pupils gleamed as they stared warily back, calculating. It should have dropped its antlers for the coming winter already, but they were still there, perched between its pricked ears. We’re saved, Ory thought. He raised the double-barrel Remington in silence and aimed. Then he saw.

White steam billowed around its muzzle. The obsidian eyes blinked. It had seemed like a deer, but now he could see that it was not. Almost, but not quite. Where its bony, branchlike antlers should have been, instead a pair of small brown wings sprouted from its forehead, mottled feathers spread in the same way horns might curve.

Max .

Ory made for the shelter at a sprint. Inside, he scrambled to lock all the locks and re-prop the wood plank at an angle under the doorknob as fast as he could. Max was still asleep when he had left her, snoring lightly on her stomach, hair in her face. Ory went straight to the bedroom, straight to her.

“Blue,” he said as soon as her drowsy, dream-heavy eyes fluttered open and met his own. He waited, breathless, for her to speak. It was their test, their way of telling whether or not she still knew who he was.