• • •

Let us leave the album and move back into the sunlight. The oldest of the trees in the garden is a spreading oak. Beneath it, shaded by leaves and branches, is a bench, and two friends are seated upon it. Nearby, Wormwood tends the garden, aided by Crudford. Wormwood, it has emerged, is a skilled gardener, perhaps the greatest the Multiverse has ever known. A dachshund digs beside him, hoping to unearth a bone. This is the great-great-great-grandson of Boswell.

His name, too, is Boswell.

There is much of Samuel the boy in Samuel the older man as he sits on the bench, a glass of champagne by his side. His hair, now gray, still flops across his forehead, and his glasses still refuse to sit quite evenly on his nose. His socks still do not match.

Nurd’s appearance has not changed. It will never change, for he will never age. He once used to worry about what might happen when Samuel died, for he could not imagine a Multiverse without his friend, but he worries no longer: he has learned the secrets of the Multiverse, and has seen what lies beyond death. Wherever Samuel goes, Nurd will go, too. When the time comes, he will be waiting for his friend on the other side.

Waiting along with a host of Boswells.

“Tell me a tale,” says Samuel. “Tell me a story of your adventures.”

He has heard all of Nurd’s tales many times before, but he never tires of them. It is not just in appearance that he resembles the boy he once was. He has never lost his enthusiasm, or his sense of wonder. They have carried him through difficult times, for it is not only Nurd who has led an exciting existence over the years. Samuel’s life, too, has always been enjoyably odd, and there are stories about him that may yet have to be told.

And as the sun warms them, Nurd begins to speak.

“Once upon a time,” he says, “there was a boy named Samuel Johnson . . .”

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Emily Bestler, Judith Curr, Megan Reid, David Brown, and all at Atria/Emily Bestler Books; Sue Fletcher, Swati Gamble, Kerry Hood, and the team at Hodder & Stoughton; Clair Lamb and Madeira James; and all of my foreign publishers and agents who have supported these odd little books. As always, I’m indebted to my agent, Darley Anderson, and his staff, without whom I wouldn’t have a career at all. Finally, love and thanks to Jennie, Cameron, and Alistair.

JOHN CONNOLLY is the author such international bestsellers as The Wrath of Angels, The Gates, and The Book of Lost Things. He divides his time between Dublin, Ireland, and Portland, Maine. He can be contacted through his website at johnconnollybooks.com, or via Twitter at @jconnollybooks.

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