Watch for her! they said. Follow her, if you like, as many hundreds of others do, because the young woman called Swan has the power of life in her, and she’s waking up the earth!
And in the years to come they would talk about the blooming of the wasteland, the cultivation projects and the work being done to dig canals for flatboat barges. They would talk about the day Swan met a boatload of survivors from the destroyed land that had been called Russia, and nobody could understand their language, but she talked to them and heard them through the miraculous jeweled ring of glass that she always carried close at hand. They would talk about the rebuilding of the libraries and the great museums, and of the schools that taught first and foremost the lesson learned from the awful holocaust of the seventeenth of July: Never again.
They would talk about the two children of Swan and Robin—twins, a boy and a girl—and about the celebration when thousands flocked to the city of Mary’s Rest to see those children, who were named Joshua and Sister.
And when they would tell their own children the tale by candlelight in the warmth of their homes, on the streets where lamps burned under stars that still stirred the power to dream, they would always begin the tale with the same magic words:
“Once upon a time…”
Table of Contents
BOOK ONE
One
The Point of No Return
One Once upon a time
Two Sister Creep
Three Black Frankenstein
Four The spooky kid
Five King’s Knight
Two
Burning Spears
Six The man who liked movies
Seven Judgment Day
Eight The greeter
Nine Underground boys
Ten Discipline and control makes the man
Eleven Charter
Three
Lights Out
Twelve ’Round the mulberry bush
Thirteen Not yet three
Fourteen The holy axe
Fifteen The world’s champion upchucker
Sixteen Come a cropper
Seventeen Start with one step
Eighteen Start with one step
Four
Land of the Dead
Nineteen The biggest tomb in the world
Twenty-one The most wonderful light
Twenty-two Summer’s over
Twenty-three Tunnel trolls
Twenty-four Protect the child
Twenty-five Dreamwalking
Twenty-six New turn of the game
Five
Wheel of FortuneTurning
Twenty-seven Black circle
Twenty-eight The hurting sound
Twenty-nine Strange new flower
Thirty Tupperware bowls
Thirty-one Big fist a-knockin’
Thirty-two Citizen of the world
Thirty-three Paper and paints
Six
Hell Freezes
Thirty-four Dirtwarts
Thirty-five The waiting Magnum
Thirty-six Zulu warrior
Thirty-seven The elemental fist
Thirty-eight Dealing with the Fat Man
Thirty-nine Paradise
Forty The sound of somebody being reborn
Seven
Thinking About Tomorrow
Forty-one Heads will roll
Forty-two The straitjacket game
Forty-three Suicide mission
Forty-four My people
Forty-five A smoky old glass
Forty-six Christian in a Cadillac
Forty-seven Green froth
Eight
Toadfrog with Golden Wings
Forty-eight The last apple tree
Forty-nine Flee the mark of Cain
Fifty The good deed done
Fifty-one Job’s Mask
Fifty-two Solitary journeyer
Fifty-three A new right hand
Fifty-four White blossoms
Nine
The Fountain and the Fire
Fifty-five Signs and symbols
Fifty-six The surgeon’s task
Fifty-seven Bones of a thousand candles
Fifty-eight The seamstress
Ten
Seeds
Fifty-nine The hand revealed
Sixty Swan and the big dude
Sixty-one A decent wish
Sixty-two The savage prince
Sixty-three Fighting fire with fire
Eleven
Daughter of Ice and Fire
Sixty-four Thy passin’ guest
Sixty-five The Empress
Sixty-six Things that could be
Sixty-seven It’s a man’s world
Sixty-eight The Job’s Mask cracked
Sixty-nine The kiss
Twelve
True Faces
Seventy Mr. Caidin’s son
Seventy-two A lady
Seventy-three Storming the fortress
Seventy-four The lair
Thirteen
A Five-Star General
Seventy-five The Waste Land
Seventy-six Roland’s prize
Seventy-seven What the Junkman saw
Seventy-eight Friend
Seventy-nine Swan’s decision
Eighty Robin being cool
Eighty-one Bitter ashes
Eighty-two The tide of death and destruction
Eighty-three Iron claws
Eighty-four The masters of efficiency
Fourteen
Prayer for the Final Hour
Eighty-five The master thief
Eighty-six Buried treasure
Eighty-seven A feat of magic
Eighty-eight The way out
Eighty-nine The greatest power
Ninety Roland’s good, long look
Ninety-one Realm of God
Ninety-two The machine
Ninety-three Swan’s death knell
Ninety-four A place to rest
Ninety-five The vow