Izzy at the end of the w.., p.1
Izzy at the End of the World, page 1
Dedication
For my husband, Bob. The man who saw my light when the world went dark. Who always told me I was the prettiest lady in the world. Who taught our kids to laugh hard and loud, played them guitar, and took them on countless adventures. Who held my hand as our babies were born and again as you died. Thank you for sharing my journey for twenty-seven unbelievable years. For loving me like a force through our impossible, beautiful life. For teaching me the true meaning of unconditional love, and for the chance to teach you the same. So many miles, Honey. Cheers. This one’s for you.
(And to the one reading this now who’s been through the darkest dark. The one who’s hurt so badly, you didn’t know if you’d survive. If nobody’s ever told you, I see the light in you. That a new dawn will rise just for you, born by the power of you. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. It sure is nice having a friend at the end of the world.)
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword
Chapter 1: They’re Here
Chapter 2: They’re Gone
Chapter 3: The Crash
Chapter 4: Something’s Inside
Chapter 5: “Don’t You (Forget about Me)”
Chapter 6: Signs
Chapter 7: Panic
Chapter 8: Drive
Chapter 9: The Stranger
Chapter 10: Long Live Bob
Chapter 11: Decoy
Chapter 12: Stay or Go
Chapter 13: Alienation
Chapter 14: The Farmhouse
Chapter 15: West
Chapter 16: Pain
Chapter 17: The Library
Chapter 18: Signals
Chapter 19: Don’t Make a Sound
Chapter 20: What Is Hidden Comes to Light
Chapter 21: The Truth
Chapter 22: The Field
Chapter 23: Taken
Chapter 24: The Confession
Chapter 25: Found
Chapter 26: Inside
Chapter 27: Free
Chapter 28: A New Day
Chapter 29: Home
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Foreword
HELLO. My name is Isadora Wilder, but most people call me Izzy. I am fourteen years old, and everything I’m about to tell you is true.
The first thing you should know about me is that I’m autistic. For those who don’t have experience with autism, how I speak and act, and the ways I process things, might seem unrealistic, frustrating, or just plain wrong. But this is just me being me, the only way I know how, and I won’t apologize for that. I also have anxiety and depression. So, opening all the way up to people can be hard for me. Especially because some adults don’t like the personal things I have to say. It makes them uncomfortable to hear the pain kids like us go through. But I say those folks are wrong. Us kids are stronger, smarter, and braver than adults could ever understand.
That’s why I’m opening my story to you. Because maybe you’ve gone through hard stuff, too. Maybe you’ve felt the way-deep-down hurt like me and need a friend who knows what it’s like to be scared and misunderstood. Someone who knows what it’s like to feel alone in this great big world. And if the adults don’t like it, tough.
Us kids need to stick together.
A FEW WORDS OF WARNING, THOUGH: this book contains triggers.
Those with anxiety, panic attacks, depression, abuse, death, cancer, and/or suicide triggers might not want to read on. But if you do decide to come with me through my story, I sure hope you find something inside it that helps you through your own story, too.
Either way, know I’m sending you love to wherever you are, and I wish you a life of love, healing, and joy. Thanks for being here.
Much love,
Izzy Wilder
In the end, there is no turning back.
Chapter 1
They’re Here
THIRTY-SIX MINUTES BEFORE EVERYONE VANISHED, I was playing video games with my little sister, Maple. We were tucked up cozy and warm in a house on top of a mountain, high enough to touch the night sky. It was late summer in Vermont. September 19, to be exact. A cool breeze slipped through the evening air, perfumed with woodsmoke and pine. My grandparents were awake, talking real quiet on the couch, almost asleep. Me and Maple were creating new avatars in our favorite game—if you call rolling on the floor and laughing while making up hilarious character names actually playing the game. Everything was normal. Nice. Quiet. At least it was, until my sister made me yell at her—again.
“Maple, no! You cannot name your night elf FartMaster19!” We were howling so loud, Grams startled awake on the couch and hollered at us to hush.
“What?” Maple, twelve going on eighteen, answered while shaping FartMaster19’s nose.
“It’s not like your cat lady’s name is any better?”
I whipped around fast, laughter gone. “How dare you talk about OMG-I-Love-Corn that way! She’s a serious and smart cat lady who just happens to enjoy corn. Everyone thinks she’s amazing, see?” I pointed my controller at the townsfolk and dragon on-screen, reflected in Maple’s big hazel eyes. “Here comes the dragon-slayer lady to worship OMG-I-Love-Corn.” Maple gave me a look from behind a wave of brown hair that said, Ew, I’m embarrassed to know you and I couldn’t love you more.
I knew how Maple felt. Because that’s how I felt about her, too.
“Okay, fiiine,” Maple groaned, and deleted the name FartMaster19. “If I can’t use the name I want, what about something we agree on—like your cat lady stinks and so do you.” She ducked before I threw my pillow at her head like she knew I would.
I gasped. “How dare you. I do not stink, and my cat lady can’t help smelling like corn—it’s literally all she eats!”
“Oh, I dare.” Maple tried not to laugh. “And I’d dare all the way over again, too.”
I gasped and collapsed dramatically on the floor. “Fine. Change it back to FartMaster19 if you want. But if the villagers make fun of her, that’s on you.”
Pleased with herself, Maple grinned and changed her avatar’s name back to FartMaster19 like she’d planned to do all along.
“Elves,” I mumbled, grabbing my controller with a ghost of a smile. Then we joked and fought and played until Maple got sleepy and went to bed—bragging about FartMaster19 the whole way.
While Grams scrolled her phone on the couch, and Pops heated the oil for popcorn, I snuck outside to peer up at the glitter-bright stars. Out on the deck by myself, it was just me and my thoughts and all the peace in the world.
As always, I gravitated to my mom’s amethyst necklace, strung by a silver chain at my neck. Amethyst was my birthstone, and my mom’s necklace was special. Twirling the raw oversize stone comforted and grounded me. Just touching it made me feel closer to her.
The deck lights flickered.
“Izzy!” Grams hollered at me on the deck, and I jumped. “How long are you gonna be out there? It’s cold!” Grams had a mess of curly brown hair like mine topping her head. A set of dimples like mine poked her cheeks. All the love and fire in the universe flickered inside her fierce brown eyes. But goodness, was she always worrying about me being cold. I’d only been outside a few minutes, but according to her, I might as well have been lost in the arctic for years.
I stared at her through the sliding glass doors and knew exactly what her next words would be: “You’ll catch your death out there, Isadora! Now come on and get your sweater.” I squeezed my mom’s amethyst in my fist and sighed. I already had on a sweater. A Star Wars one Grams had made me with Yoda on the back, Strong, you are knit-written underneath. Not to mention my fleece leggings and thick wool socks.
I definitely was not cold.
My grandfather, who I’d always called Pops, grinned at me from the kitchen with smiley blue eyes, like he knew all the secrets of the world. “Do what she wants, Izzy,” he called through the glass doors. “You know she’s always right.” He gave Grams a side-eyed smirk. She looked back at him, nodded, and laughed.
And it was good. It was right. It felt like the dark days of our history, all the hard times that came before this, were light-years away.
We locked eyes then. First me and Grams, then me and Pops—the two of them inside, safe and sound; me outside on my own, night winds stripping me to bones. I’ll never forget that moment. As if all the words we never said to each other whispered between us. Who would have guessed that look we were sharing was goodbye?
When I turned back around to the stars, an odd light gleamed at the far edge of the sky. The light was twice the width of Venus and shone brighter than the whole blanket of stars. It was like the mysterious light had pinned itself to the heavens as if waiting for me to find it.
Most would have said, “That’s just another star.” And I thought that at first, too. Until my brain said, Uh-uh, Izzy. You’ve been watching this same sky since you were born. Your brain knows that light wasn’t there before. Trust your brain. That light is no star.
Suddenly, I really was cold. Freezing-water-down-my-spine cold. “Do you see that?” I asked Grams and Pops without looking back. But the wind stole my voice and dropped it into the valley before they heard me.
So, I kept watch. Pushing the curls away from my face and digging deeper into the mystery. Grams’s eyes were so hot on my back, I thought Yoda might catch fire.
But tonight, I cou
ldn’t look away from that strange light in the sky. And I had this nagging feeling that light was watching me, too.
“Isadora Bellamy Wilder!” I nearly leaped out of my socks. Pops looked on from the kitchen, about to pour in the kernels of corn. Grams stormed toward the glass deck doors, sweater in hand, angry face on, spicy words ready to fly. “I said, get your—” When she slid open the doors, our dog, a shepherd-mix disaster named Akka, galloped through the living room in a whoosh. He snaked past Grams’s legs and out the door, almost knocking her down. “You naughty old thing!” Grams told Akka, trying not to grin through her show of mad. “What’s gotten into you?”
Akka barked. He sat at my feet grinning like the devil, and I couldn’t help laughing. That dog loved me more than anything, and I loved him the same. We’d found Akka at the shelter a month after Mom died. It was love at first sight. Akka understood me like no one else and had been my soul mate ever since.
“I can’t help it if he loves me best,” I told Grams, brows high, giving her the same exasperated love-you-no-matter-what-but-oh-are-you-trouble look she gave Akka.
“Of course he does,” Pops added through the open door. “Who wouldn’t love you?” Those were the last words I heard Pops say. Because right then, the not-a-star light—moved.
I did a double take. Like, did I really just see that thing move? The second I questioned it, the ball of light sprang forward, getting bigger the faster it came.
The deck lights flickered and zapped. The trees surrounding us shivered. The boughs bent, and tips swayed. Akka barked and barked as hundreds more of the same giant white lights filled the sky. A low hum vibrated through everything. The living room lit up in white.
Grams, halfway inside the deck doors, dropped my sweater, fixed on the lights coming fast. Our hair rose and danced in the wind. Grams and I shared the same look—one that whispered of terror and fear, a second before our eyes screamed, RUN.
But where was there to run to?
Grams shouted at Pops, “Get Maple!” her voice shaky and sharp. Pops sprang from the kitchen in a flash and sped off after my sister, no questions asked.
Popcorn was just starting to pop in the background when Grams reached out to grab me. She caught my arm as one of the lights lowered over our house. Everything glowed in pulsing white light. The object was huge, like a meteor from the center of space. Grams’s eyes grew, gaping up at the brightly lit object hovering outside.
I squinted up into the glare, still clamped on to Akka’s collar, as the wind really started to blow. The only place the giant light wasn’t lit was a black circle in the center.
“Bork-bork-bork!” Akka lunged at the light over our house and busted me out of my trance. My arms almost ripped from my sockets and Akka escaped my grip.
“Akka!” I sprang after him, and barely caught him trying to jump off the deck.
The drop was fifteen feet to the ground.
He could have died.
Heart pounding, I pulled Akka toward the house, but he fought me the whole way.
Hurricane winds prickled with pine needles swirled around me and my boy. My hair lifted like an uprooted tree, gnarled roots whipping this way and that. I shoved my hair off my face and called to Grams, “Help me! Akka won’t come inside.” But Grams didn’t move from the doorway. Her arm was still outstretched where she’d been holding my sweater, her wild eyes fixed on the lights.
Like she couldn’t see anything else.
Pops and Maple ran downstairs and set their eyes on the lights. Maple had put on her sweater. I’d never seen my sister so scared. I’d just locked eyes with her when—
FLASH.
Megawatt spotlights of gold beamed to earth from the objects filling the sky. A shock of pain zapped through me. The amethyst on my mom’s necklace seared against my skin. When I tried to touch it, when I tried to pull Akka inside, when I tried to move forward, I couldn’t. I couldn’t even shift my eyes. Suddenly, I was unable to move. The soft hum from the lights grew so loud, my eyes shook in their sockets. My body felt inside out.
Before I could even process what was happening, the countless illuminated objects parked over Vermont shut off their lights. And all at once, I could move.
The dark quiet of the mountaintop returned like nothing unusual had happened. I thought the worst was over.
But our nightmare had just begun.
Chapter 2
They’re Gone
I’D BEEN SCARED PLENTY OF TIMES. SO SCARED, I wondered if I’d ever stop feeling afraid. But it wasn’t until unidentified flying lights swarmed my mountain, I knew how deep fear could go. How fast my safe world could slip away. I guess that’s the difference between reading a thing and living it: until you actually lived the story, it was just someone else’s dream. But this time, the protagonist was me.
Night wrapped around me and Akka like we’d been folded into black paper. I couldn’t see any more unidentified flying lights, but we were still frozen on the deck—a couple of Han Solos stuck in carbonite. All I could think was, Is this the real world?
Until the force field gluing us to the deck let go.
I threw my head back and gasped like I’d sprung up from the bottom of the sea. Wind rushed my ears. Akka lunged toward the house and slipped from my grip. The world sped up real quick after that.
I rushed inside and shut the deck door, a million questions swarming my mind. What were those lights? Where did they come from? Were they military? Are we at war?
Were they UFOs?
“Grams?” The stink of burned popcorn hit my nose. “Pops? Maple?”
The stove was still on, and the popcorn was starting to smoke.
Why wasn’t Pops shutting it off?
“Pops! Grams! Maple!” Feet numb, I tripped over some stuff on the floor but kept moving. “Where are you?” My voice echoed through the house the way it might in space. Endlessly. Unheard. I slid across the wood floor to the kitchen, heart pounding in my ears, lights flickering on and off.
“Hello?” Popcorn spilled out the top of the pot and onto the floor. “Pops?” Smoke stung my eyes. I shut off the stove. “Grams?” Any more smoke and the alarms would go off, and alarms were too much for my ears, so I didn’t want that.
I opened the kitchen windows and turned on the fan. “Maple!”
My scalp prickled like pins poking my brain.
Something was wrong.
About to check upstairs, I was stopped by Akka’s high-pitched cries. He was sniffing the stuff by the deck doors I’d tripped over when I ran inside. My heart jumped when I realized what the stuff was. The extra sweater Grams wanted me to take. A pack of mint gum and cherry lip balm—Maple’s. Pops’s wallet, phone, and Allen wrench set. Grams’s worry stone from Gimli, phone, and change purse. Everything they’d had in their pockets had dropped to the floor.
Heart wild as a wolf in a trap, I sprang toward the staircase, tripped, and slammed into a wall. Mom’s amethyst dug into my chest, and I hollered in pain.
Akka sat at my feet, whining up at me. “It’s okay,” I lied. “I’m okay.” He pawed my leg, unconvinced, as I pulled open the neck of my shirt. A big angry burn marked my chest. I’d been so frantic, I hadn’t even noticed the pain.
A memory flashed. The lights. Mom’s amethyst burned hot with the lights. A really terrible awful bad thought slithered in next. What if Grams, Maple, and Pops were vaporized in the lights and only their stuff was left behind.
“No. No, no, no.”
I galloped up the stairs, choking on bile. “Maple! Grams! Pops!” Sobs of fear cluttered my words. “Answer me!”
Akka click-click-clicked after me. I vomited on the stairway and didn’t stop to clean it. I wondered what Grams would say if she knew I didn’t clean it up, then started to frantic cry. Tears shuddered out of my chest and burst from my mouth like a million stirred crows. Nothing felt real. Bad thoughts pounded my mind:
They’re gone.
You’re alone.
Nobody’s coming back.
The lights.
They’re gone with the lights.
I checked the whole upstairs, but they weren’t there either and panic took hold.
I sprinted into my bedroom so fast, the door slammed the wall with a bang. Everything looked normal. My bed, still a tumble of sheets. Clothes and homework scattered my floor. I blinked at the poster of Akka the Flame, a half-elf, half-fawn fire mage from the Moonlight Society trilogy, the namesake of my best boy. Akka the Flame aimed his athame at the caption above him: Your power is waiting.
