Cover

Widdershins

By Charles de Lint from Tom Donerty Associates

ANGEL OF DARKNESS

DREAMS UNDERFOOT

THE FAIR IN EMAIN MACHA

FORESTS OF THE HEART

FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM

GREENMANTLE

I’LL BE WATCHING YOU

INTO THE GREEN

THE IVORY AND THE HORN

JACK OF KINROWAN

THE LITTLE COUNTRY

MEMORY AND DREAM

MOONHEART

MOONLIGHT AND VINES

MULENGRO

THE ONION GIRL

SOMEPLACE TO BE FLYING

SPIRITS IN THE WIRES

SPIRITWALK

SVAHA

TAPPING THE DREAM TREE TRADER

WIDDERSHINS

THE WILD WOOD

YARROW

Widdershins

Charles de Lint

A Tom Donerty Associates Book
New York

For Honey, R.I.P.,
and all those
who shine their light
into the dark

Yesterday is ashes; tomorrow is wood.
Only today does the fire burn brightly.

—Old Inuit proverb

The music of what happens—that is the finest
music in the world.

—Attributed to FIONN MAC CUMHAIL,
from Irish folklore

God, I really hope that we just remember we
all come from the same tribe in the end.

—LILA DOWNS,
from an interview in
Women Who Rock, Jan./Feb 2004

Author’s Note

After my novel The Onion Girl, everybody wanted to know what was going to happen next with Jilly. At least that’s the message I’ve gotten from readers’ letters and at signings, not to mention from my own in-house, first editor: my wife Mary Ann. How could I leave her in that state? Were she and Geordie ever going to get together?

I was a little reluctant to answer those questions—partly because I’d rather books not carry on with the same lead characters as my earlier books, and partly because I don’t want to make readers read my books in any particular order.

Then there’s also the idea that readers should be able to decide for themselves what happens after the book has ended and the story in its pages is done. If the characters feel real enough, their stories can continue in the reader’s mind. There’s no need for me to put in my two cents worth.

But that doesn’t mean one should ignore old friends, and I realized that was exactly what I was doing. So after I wrote Spirits in the Wires to see what Christy and the people in his life were up to, and then satisfied my own desire for new characters by writing Medicine Road and a young-adult novel called The Blue Girl, I sat down to start the book you hold in your hands.

Except, there’s another reluctance I have with going back to a character I like as much I do Jilly: Let’s face it, you can’t have a novel without some drama and hardship in the lives of its principal characters, and I didn’t want to have to put her through the wringer yet again.