The Hallowed Ones

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Thank you to my wonderful editor, Julie Tibbott, and fabulous agent, Becca Stumpf, for making this book happen. You’ve both been delightful to work with.

Much gratitude to my husband, Jason, for suffering through muse duty and my story angst.

Thank you to Marcella Burnard for the grounding and moral support.

And a special thanks to the book’s fairy godmother, Jeffe Kennedy. This story is very lucky to have you to sprinkle fairy dust on it.

After the end of the Outside world, the Plain folk survived.

At the time, I didn’t know that the end of Outside had happened. None of us really did. We knew that something was wrong, of course. That knowledge trickled in slowly, like a leak in a roof. The signs accumulated, and then there was no denying the dark stain spreading over the pale ceiling of our world.

My first inkling was on a day in late September under a cloudless blue sky. The ravens had begun picking at the corn that was drying in the fields, black specks in the gold. I leaned on the wooden fence post, watching the birds scratch and listening to them caw to one another in their inscrutable hoarse language. The wire fence was pierced here by a wooden gate, to move farm equipment and cattle. This was a remote part of our little settlement of Plain people, but it made a good place to get away from chores and parents.

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