![]() It had taken more than a year for him to understand why: Preaching had been projecting out, imposing himself on the world, with the world then projecting onto him. A first-order lens, over a century old.Īs a preacher he thought he had known a kind of peace, a kind of calling, but only after his self-exile, giving all of that up, had Saul truly found what he was looking for. The spectacular four-ton lens, or beacon, at the top had its own unique signature, and he had hundreds of ways to adjust its light. He knew every step of its stairs, every room inside its stone-and-brick walls, every crack and bit of spackle. It served as a daymark so boats could navigate the shallows, but also was lit at night half the week, corresponding to the schedules of commercial traffic farther out to sea. Soon the light house rose solid and tall above him. Some things came to you late, but late was better than never. Even into his late thirties, Charlie had the lean, muscular torso, strong shoulders, and stout legs of a man who had spent much of his adult life on boats, hauling in nets, and the flat belly of someone who didn’t spend too many nights out drinking.Ī quiet click of the door, then whistling into the wind like an idiot as soon as he’d taken a few steps-thanking the God who’d made him, in the end, so lucky, even if in such a delayed and unexpected way. As he’d left, he’d turned to look at the man sprawled on his back half in and half out of the sheets. ![]() He’d served Charlie a generous portion with a slice of orange, kept hot under a bowl, and left a little note beside the toaster, bread at the ready. A welcome thing that put an awkward half smile on Saul’s face.Ĭharlie’d barely stirred as Saul had gotten up, dressed, made eggs for breakfast. A new thing this, not agreed to with words, but with Charlie pulling him back to bed when he’d been about to put on his clothes and leave. Saul had lived in the light house for four years before he’d met Charlie, and he lived there still, but last night he’d stayed in the village a half mile away, in Charlie’s cottage. The brisk, fresh salt smell to the air had an edge of flame: a burning smell from some nearby house or still-smoldering bonfire. ![]() Blackbirds plunged the thin branches of trees down, exploded upward in panic at his passage, settled back into garrulous communities. To his right, the ponds were dark with the muttering complaints of grebes and buffleheads. Driftwood and bottles and faded white buoys and a dead hammerhead shark had washed up in the aftermath, tangled among snarls of seaweed, but no real damage either here or in the village.Īt his feet lay bramble and the thick gray of thistles that would bloom purple in the spring and summer. There had been a storm the night before, and down and to his left, the ocean lay gray and roiling against the dull blue of the sky, seen through the rustle and sway of the sea oats. That winter morning, the wind was cold against the collar of Saul Evans’s coat as he trudged down the trail toward the light house. Sighted: pelicans, moorhens, some kind of warbler, blackbirds beyond number, sanderlings, a royal tern, an osprey, flickers, cormorants, bluebirds, pigmy rattlesnake (at the fence-remember), rabbit or two, white-tailed deer, and near dawn, on the trail, many an armadillo. Also need nails and to check the western siren again. Need to requisition paint for daymark-black eroded on seaward side. Overhauled the lens machinery and cleaned the lens.In this New York Times bestselling final installment of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, the mysteries of Area X may be solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound-or terrifying. Meanwhile, Acceptance tunnels ever deeper into the circumstances surrounding the creation of Area X-what initiated this unnatural upheaval? Among the many who have tried, who has gotten close to understanding Area X-and who may have been corrupted by it? If they fail, the outer world is in peril. Now one last, desperate team crosses the border, determined to reach a remote island that may hold the answers they've been seeking. As Area X expands, the agency tasked with investigating and overseeing it-the Southern Reach-has collapsed on itself in confusion. It is winter in Area X, the mysterious wilderness that has defied explanation for thirty years, rebuffing expedition after expedition, refusing to reveal its secrets. ![]() The New York Times bestselling final installment of Jeff VanderMeer’s wildy popular Southern Reach Trilogy ![]()
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