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Love and Other Lies

Ben McPherson
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Imagine a girl
  4. Prologue
  5. The Foreigner
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. The Skeptic
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. The Spectator
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. The Assassin
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. Thirty-Three
  42. Thirty-Four
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. Thirty-Six
  45. Thirty-Seven
  46. Thirty-Eight
  47. Thirty-Nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. The Hunter
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Imagine a girl
  58. Acknowledgments
  59. About the Author
  60. Also by Ben McPherson
  61. About the Publisher

Cover

cover image

Dedication

For Francis

Imagine a girl

Imagine a girl.

Imagine her sleeping alone on a grassy bank at the side of a glistening fjord.

If you were here beside her you might wonder if the girl is breathing, she’s lying so very still. When at last you see the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest you feel foolish for doubting the everyday miracle of breath.

Her kingfisher dress glints like the sun on the water. Seventeen, you might guess, though in truth the girl is fifteen and wishes she were older. A peaceful face, strong-jawed and determined. But something about her makes you want to protect her as she sleeps. All that life ahead of her: all those people not yet met, all those choices not yet made.

And now she’s here, on this island, sleeping in the dappled light beneath this tree, because the thought of all those people—of all those possible lives—has left her nervous and exhausted. And so she sleeps away her fears, and in her dreams she is limitless.

In the city at the top of the fjord there is a flash. Then a silence. Then a roar like a world ending. Glass drops in sheets from the fronts of buildings, becomes sand under the feet of the people as they flee. Songbirds grow silent, then take to the wing. Even crows.

Seconds pass.

In the suburbs people murmur Thunder, though the sky is clear and the air pressure low. Dogs do not bark. Cats cower by fences, looking up.

Again, seconds pass.

On her bank by the water the girl hears nothing. For a moment the air tightens. The surface of the water grows opaque. Boats rise, then fall. Hawsers thrum against masts; hulls strain against ropes.

Bare-legged in her sundress of kingfisher-blue, the girl does not stir.

The shock wave from the bomb has passed.

Prologue

Midsummer’s Eve

June 23

She blinked hard, twice.

Some change in the sound of the day had woken her. The pattern of waves against the wooden dock. A boat engine idling.

The engine was thrown into reverse. It whined, then cut.

She sat up, turned to face the water.

A policeman was swinging his foot from boat to shore. A look, she thought, as he glanced down at her. Steely. His uniform was neatly pressed, his belt a little tight. Everything about him was sleek: his flashlight, his nightstick, both shiny and new.

She rearranged herself on the grass, raised herself up on an elbow.

Light danced on the fjord; the mainland hazy now and far away. In the policeman’s hand the nylon of the rope shone blistering white. Unused, she thought. Strange. The politi decal on the boat was fresh, the aluminum of the hull unscuffed.