Relativity, page 34
“She’s in England. She won’t know.”
Alison shrugged. “I guess not.”
They started to dig a hole together, in the shadow of the colossal Moreton Bay fig tree and its tangled roots, using white plastic teaspoons. Digging with spoons was more difficult than Ethan expected. Maybe he should have brought a shovel.
“I have dirt under my fingernails.” Alison frowned.
When the hole was deep enough for the shoebox coffin, Ethan gently lowered Quark into the soil.
“What do we do next?”
Alison waved good-bye to the shoebox. “You need to give a eulogy. That’s a speech.”
“Good-bye, Quark.” Ethan scratched his head. “You were named after an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter, postulated as building blocks of hadrons. But you were so much more than that. You were a rabbit who liked to eat biscuits, and my very best pet. I’m sorry you didn’t survive my botched attempt at time travel. But thank you for saving my life.”
Alison coughed.
“And thanks to Alison for saving my life too.”
“You know what?” she said brightly. “Maybe Quark did survive. Maybe he’s the one who successfully went backward in time. He could be the leader of bunnies in Ancient Rome or something.”
Ethan kicked the pile of dirt back over the hole, covering the shoebox. “I hope so. That would be a much happier ending to the story than spending the rest of eternity being dead in a box. Like what happened to Schrödinger’s cat.”
Alison gave him a confused look. She placed a bunch of handpicked flowers on top of Quark’s grave. “When do you go back to school? I start next Wednesday.”
“Me too. But guess what? I’m going to uni as well.”
“You’re too young to go to uni.”
“I know, but the physics department invited me to go to some cosmology lectures. Only if I can pass the mathematics requirements but it looks pretty easy. I’m a genius, remember?”
“Yeah, whatever. Your shoelaces are undone.”
Ethan untied the balloons from the bench. He’d sat here once with his father, on that exact seat, and eaten a cheeseburger. Fed the ibises. Talked about physics. He looked at his watch and then at the sky. High above the horizon, in the east, Ethan could see the moon. He pointed. “Look!”
Alison shielded her face with her hand. “It’s a funny shape. And it’s daytime. I thought the moon only came out at night.”
“Right now, it’s a waxing gibbous moon so it rises earlier. But the shape of the moon is always the same, what changes is the reflected light. Even when we can’t see it, the moon’s still always there. Sometimes it’s full and bright and sometimes it’s covered in shadows. And because the moon is tidally locked to Earth, we never see its dark side.”
A strong gust of wind stole the strings from Ethan’s grip and suddenly the helium balloons were carried away by the breeze.
“Oh no,” he said. “I let them go.”
As they watched the balloons drift over the park and up into the sky, Ethan felt heavy. He thought about his mum and his dad, how his universe had expanded. Then he thought back to his father’s words. There’s too much gravity. It was everywhere. Even though the balloons floated high above them now, eventually they’d burst or deflate. Helium might leak until the balloons fell out of the sky; the heat of the sun might pop them. Gravity would get them in the end. Falling was inevitable.
Now Ethan understood. Phrases like “the gravity of the situation” made sense, and he realized why—when things were difficult—they were called heavy or weighty.
Gravity.
Ethan couldn’t see it with his brain anymore, but he felt it everywhere.
Ω
GRAVITY MAKES TEARS run down our faces, and our chests heave and sink. It’s the reason we drop to the ground and yell out our hurt. It can be paralytic, leaving us heavy in our beds, unable to rise and face the day. Gravity plays tricks on us: distorts space and time, bends the light. But gravity keeps our feet on the floor and stops us from floating far away into the atmosphere, disappearing into outer space. Because gravity doesn’t just pull us down—it also pushes us up.
Gravitation shapes the universe. Forms tides, heats planetary cores. It’s why fragments of matter clump together into planets and moons, why stars cluster into vast, rippling galaxies. Earth isn’t going to crash into the sun, the moon won’t collide with Earth—gravity keeps them safely in orbit. It always attracts and never repels; it brings the planets back.
Gravity is insistent. It firmly stands its ground. We never stop accelerating toward the center of the Earth at 9.8m/s2. That curvature in the fabric of space-time is a phenomenon we experience every day, an invisible experience we all have in common.
None of us are weightless. Gravity extends to infinity.
And when stronger forces threaten to pull us apart, it’s the weakest force that unites us. Gravity binds us together.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my exceptional agent, Karolina Sutton, for championing Relativity from its first draft and offering the best advice at every juncture. I’m also grateful to my amazing international agents: Melissa Pimentel and everyone at Curtis Brown UK; Pippa Masson and all at Curtis Brown Australia; and Alexandra Machinist and all at ICM.
Enormous thanks to my phenomenal editors, Cate Blake and Karen Kosztolnyik—this book is infinitely stronger because of your magical brains. Thanks also to Ben Ball, Lou Ryan, Laura Thomas, Josh Durham, Rhian Davies, Heidi McCourt, Alysha Farry, and everyone at Penguin Australia, as well as Nikki Lusk and Emma Schwarcz for your sharp eyes. Further thanks to Jennifer Bergstrom, Becky Prager, Louise Burke, Carolyn Reidy, Meagan Harris, Jennifer Robinson, Jennifer Long, Liz Psaltis, Lisa Litwack, and all at Gallery Books, and Sarah Castleton, Grace Vincent, Kate Doran, Rachel Wilkie and everyone at Corsair.
To everyone who read Relativity in its various shapes over the years—Marcus Forsythe, Mark Scano, Adrienne Xu, Karen Riley, Jack Boag, Eliza Sarlos, Tim Willox, Eva Husson, Margot Watts, James Goodman-Stephens, Liv Hambrett, Geoff Orton, Josephine Rowe, Sofija Stefanovic, Elmo Keep, Dan Ducrou, Eva Schonstein, Luke Gerzina, and anyone else I’ve missed—thank you for your generosity and encouragement. Adrian Fernand, your drive and intelligent feedback always pushed me to work harder and dig deeper—thank you for being my partner in crime. A million thanks to Sam Thorp, who had confidence in my writing before I ever did and helped me find Schrödinger’s cat. I’m especially grateful to Brendan Gallagher, Angela Bennetts, and Amy Gray for your insightful help. Most of all, my heartfelt thanks to Alison Fairley.
For your physics expertise, thank you, Paul Gregory and Joseph Roche. I’m indebted to Stewart Saunders, Chris John Bell, and Jeanne North for guidance with all things neuroscience and medical, and to Rhoderic Chung. Thanks, Benjamin Law, Renee Senogles, Kelly Fagan, Romy Ash, Emily Maguire, Nam Le, Christos Tsiolkas, Dominic Knight, and Sophie Cunningham for your sage advice.
Writing this book would have been impossible without help from my Faber Academy crew: Amy Hoskin, Damien Gibson, Simon Murphy, Richard Reeves, Richard Skinner, and Steve Watson. Special thanks to each of you for all the years of priceless editorial advice, friendship, solidarity, and support.
Thank you to my parents—to my mother, Josephine Barcelon, for always encouraging me to read, and to my father, Michael Hayes, for always encouraging me to write. Extra thanks to Dad for pointing out constellations at our star-watching stone and showing me the moon. Thank you to Nerida and Robert for your continued support, and to my grandparents Marie Thérèse, Amparo, Francis Daniel, and José. And Claudia, Hose, Peter, Froukje, and Harry—you guys are the best.
Finally, a googolplexian of thanks to my son and husband for their boundless love and patience. Julian, you inspire me every moment of every day—thank you for teaching me how to tell stories and showing me how to write this one. You are my light and my constant; Relativity is my ode to you. And David, your unwavering belief and infinite kindness have sustained me through the brightest and darkest moments. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for giving me time and space, and the universe.
Every year, thousands of infants across the world are injured or killed by abusive head trauma caused by violent shaking. These injuries and deaths are 100 percent preventable. This book is dedicated to all the families affected by shaken baby syndrome and in memory of those babies who didn’t survive.
ANTONIA HAYES, who grew up in Sydney and spent her twenties in Paris, lives in San Francisco with her husband and son. Relativity is her first novel.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Antonia-Hayes
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Facebook.com/GalleryBooks
@GalleryBooks
We hope you enjoyed reading this Gallery Books eBook.
* * *
Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com
Gallery Books
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Antonia Hayes
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books hardcover edition May 2016
GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Jacket design by Laywan Kwan
Jacket illustration © Shutterstock
Author photograph by Alison Christiana
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-0507-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-0509-8 (ebook)
Antonia Hayes, Relativity
Thank you for reading books on Archive.BookFrom.Net
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Alison shrugged. “I guess not.”
They started to dig a hole together, in the shadow of the colossal Moreton Bay fig tree and its tangled roots, using white plastic teaspoons. Digging with spoons was more difficult than Ethan expected. Maybe he should have brought a shovel.
“I have dirt under my fingernails.” Alison frowned.
When the hole was deep enough for the shoebox coffin, Ethan gently lowered Quark into the soil.
“What do we do next?”
Alison waved good-bye to the shoebox. “You need to give a eulogy. That’s a speech.”
“Good-bye, Quark.” Ethan scratched his head. “You were named after an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter, postulated as building blocks of hadrons. But you were so much more than that. You were a rabbit who liked to eat biscuits, and my very best pet. I’m sorry you didn’t survive my botched attempt at time travel. But thank you for saving my life.”
Alison coughed.
“And thanks to Alison for saving my life too.”
“You know what?” she said brightly. “Maybe Quark did survive. Maybe he’s the one who successfully went backward in time. He could be the leader of bunnies in Ancient Rome or something.”
Ethan kicked the pile of dirt back over the hole, covering the shoebox. “I hope so. That would be a much happier ending to the story than spending the rest of eternity being dead in a box. Like what happened to Schrödinger’s cat.”
Alison gave him a confused look. She placed a bunch of handpicked flowers on top of Quark’s grave. “When do you go back to school? I start next Wednesday.”
“Me too. But guess what? I’m going to uni as well.”
“You’re too young to go to uni.”
“I know, but the physics department invited me to go to some cosmology lectures. Only if I can pass the mathematics requirements but it looks pretty easy. I’m a genius, remember?”
“Yeah, whatever. Your shoelaces are undone.”
Ethan untied the balloons from the bench. He’d sat here once with his father, on that exact seat, and eaten a cheeseburger. Fed the ibises. Talked about physics. He looked at his watch and then at the sky. High above the horizon, in the east, Ethan could see the moon. He pointed. “Look!”
Alison shielded her face with her hand. “It’s a funny shape. And it’s daytime. I thought the moon only came out at night.”
“Right now, it’s a waxing gibbous moon so it rises earlier. But the shape of the moon is always the same, what changes is the reflected light. Even when we can’t see it, the moon’s still always there. Sometimes it’s full and bright and sometimes it’s covered in shadows. And because the moon is tidally locked to Earth, we never see its dark side.”
A strong gust of wind stole the strings from Ethan’s grip and suddenly the helium balloons were carried away by the breeze.
“Oh no,” he said. “I let them go.”
As they watched the balloons drift over the park and up into the sky, Ethan felt heavy. He thought about his mum and his dad, how his universe had expanded. Then he thought back to his father’s words. There’s too much gravity. It was everywhere. Even though the balloons floated high above them now, eventually they’d burst or deflate. Helium might leak until the balloons fell out of the sky; the heat of the sun might pop them. Gravity would get them in the end. Falling was inevitable.
Now Ethan understood. Phrases like “the gravity of the situation” made sense, and he realized why—when things were difficult—they were called heavy or weighty.
Gravity.
Ethan couldn’t see it with his brain anymore, but he felt it everywhere.
Ω
GRAVITY MAKES TEARS run down our faces, and our chests heave and sink. It’s the reason we drop to the ground and yell out our hurt. It can be paralytic, leaving us heavy in our beds, unable to rise and face the day. Gravity plays tricks on us: distorts space and time, bends the light. But gravity keeps our feet on the floor and stops us from floating far away into the atmosphere, disappearing into outer space. Because gravity doesn’t just pull us down—it also pushes us up.
Gravitation shapes the universe. Forms tides, heats planetary cores. It’s why fragments of matter clump together into planets and moons, why stars cluster into vast, rippling galaxies. Earth isn’t going to crash into the sun, the moon won’t collide with Earth—gravity keeps them safely in orbit. It always attracts and never repels; it brings the planets back.
Gravity is insistent. It firmly stands its ground. We never stop accelerating toward the center of the Earth at 9.8m/s2. That curvature in the fabric of space-time is a phenomenon we experience every day, an invisible experience we all have in common.
None of us are weightless. Gravity extends to infinity.
And when stronger forces threaten to pull us apart, it’s the weakest force that unites us. Gravity binds us together.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my exceptional agent, Karolina Sutton, for championing Relativity from its first draft and offering the best advice at every juncture. I’m also grateful to my amazing international agents: Melissa Pimentel and everyone at Curtis Brown UK; Pippa Masson and all at Curtis Brown Australia; and Alexandra Machinist and all at ICM.
Enormous thanks to my phenomenal editors, Cate Blake and Karen Kosztolnyik—this book is infinitely stronger because of your magical brains. Thanks also to Ben Ball, Lou Ryan, Laura Thomas, Josh Durham, Rhian Davies, Heidi McCourt, Alysha Farry, and everyone at Penguin Australia, as well as Nikki Lusk and Emma Schwarcz for your sharp eyes. Further thanks to Jennifer Bergstrom, Becky Prager, Louise Burke, Carolyn Reidy, Meagan Harris, Jennifer Robinson, Jennifer Long, Liz Psaltis, Lisa Litwack, and all at Gallery Books, and Sarah Castleton, Grace Vincent, Kate Doran, Rachel Wilkie and everyone at Corsair.
To everyone who read Relativity in its various shapes over the years—Marcus Forsythe, Mark Scano, Adrienne Xu, Karen Riley, Jack Boag, Eliza Sarlos, Tim Willox, Eva Husson, Margot Watts, James Goodman-Stephens, Liv Hambrett, Geoff Orton, Josephine Rowe, Sofija Stefanovic, Elmo Keep, Dan Ducrou, Eva Schonstein, Luke Gerzina, and anyone else I’ve missed—thank you for your generosity and encouragement. Adrian Fernand, your drive and intelligent feedback always pushed me to work harder and dig deeper—thank you for being my partner in crime. A million thanks to Sam Thorp, who had confidence in my writing before I ever did and helped me find Schrödinger’s cat. I’m especially grateful to Brendan Gallagher, Angela Bennetts, and Amy Gray for your insightful help. Most of all, my heartfelt thanks to Alison Fairley.
For your physics expertise, thank you, Paul Gregory and Joseph Roche. I’m indebted to Stewart Saunders, Chris John Bell, and Jeanne North for guidance with all things neuroscience and medical, and to Rhoderic Chung. Thanks, Benjamin Law, Renee Senogles, Kelly Fagan, Romy Ash, Emily Maguire, Nam Le, Christos Tsiolkas, Dominic Knight, and Sophie Cunningham for your sage advice.
Writing this book would have been impossible without help from my Faber Academy crew: Amy Hoskin, Damien Gibson, Simon Murphy, Richard Reeves, Richard Skinner, and Steve Watson. Special thanks to each of you for all the years of priceless editorial advice, friendship, solidarity, and support.
Thank you to my parents—to my mother, Josephine Barcelon, for always encouraging me to read, and to my father, Michael Hayes, for always encouraging me to write. Extra thanks to Dad for pointing out constellations at our star-watching stone and showing me the moon. Thank you to Nerida and Robert for your continued support, and to my grandparents Marie Thérèse, Amparo, Francis Daniel, and José. And Claudia, Hose, Peter, Froukje, and Harry—you guys are the best.
Finally, a googolplexian of thanks to my son and husband for their boundless love and patience. Julian, you inspire me every moment of every day—thank you for teaching me how to tell stories and showing me how to write this one. You are my light and my constant; Relativity is my ode to you. And David, your unwavering belief and infinite kindness have sustained me through the brightest and darkest moments. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for giving me time and space, and the universe.
Every year, thousands of infants across the world are injured or killed by abusive head trauma caused by violent shaking. These injuries and deaths are 100 percent preventable. This book is dedicated to all the families affected by shaken baby syndrome and in memory of those babies who didn’t survive.
ANTONIA HAYES, who grew up in Sydney and spent her twenties in Paris, lives in San Francisco with her husband and son. Relativity is her first novel.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Antonia-Hayes
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Facebook.com/GalleryBooks
@GalleryBooks
We hope you enjoyed reading this Gallery Books eBook.
* * *
Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com
Gallery Books
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Antonia Hayes
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Gallery Books hardcover edition May 2016
GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Davina Mock-Maniscalco
Jacket design by Laywan Kwan
Jacket illustration © Shutterstock
Author photograph by Alison Christiana
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-0507-4
ISBN 978-1-5011-0509-8 (ebook)
Antonia Hayes, Relativity
