Acceptance

ACCEPTANCE

JEFF VANDERMEER

Dedication

For Ann

Table of Contents

Dedication

PART I: RANGE LIGHT

0001: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0002: GHOST BIRD

0003: THE DIRECTOR

0004: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0005: CONTROL

0006: THE DIRECTOR

0007: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0008: GHOST BIRD

0009: THE DIRECTOR

0010: CONTROL

PART II: FIXED LIGHT

01: THE BRIGHTNESS

02: THE MOANING CREATURE

03: THE ISLAND

04: THE OWL

05: THE SEEKER & SURVEILLANCE BANDITS

06: THE PASSAGE OF TIME, AND PAIN

PART III: OCCULTING LIGHT

0011: GHOST BIRD

0012: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0013: CONTROL

0014: THE DIRECTOR

0015: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0016: GHOST BIRD

0017: THE DIRECTOR

0018: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0019: CONTROL

0020: THE DIRECTOR

0021: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0022: GHOST BIRD

0023: THE DIRECTOR

0024: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0025: CONTROL

0026: THE DIRECTOR

0027: THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

0028: GHOST BIRD

000X: THE DIRECTOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

About the Author

PRAISE FOR THE SOUTHERN REACH TRILOGY

ALSO BY JEFF VANDERMEER

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

000X: THE DIRECTOR, TWELFTH EXPEDITION

Just out of reach, just beyond you: the rush and froth of the surf, the sharp smell of the sea, the crisscrossing shape of the gulls, their sudden, jarring cries. An ordinary day in Area X, an extraordinary day—the day of your death—and there you are, propped up against a mound of sand, half sheltered by a crumbling wall. The warm sun against your face, and the dizzying view above of the lighthouse looming down through its own shadow. The sky has an intensity that admits to nothing beyond its blue prison. There’s sticky sand glittering across a gash in your forehead; there’s a tangy glottal something in your mouth, dripping out.

You feel numb and you feel broken, but there’s a strange relief mixed in with the regret: to come such a long way, to come to a halt here, without knowing how it will turn out, and yet … to rest. To come to rest. Finally. All of your plans back at the Southern Reach, the agonizing and constant fear of failure or worse, the price of that … all of it leaking out into the sand beside you in gritty red pearls.

The landscape surges toward you, curling over from behind to peer at you; it flares in places, or swirls or reduces itself to a pinprick, before coming back into focus. Your hearing isn’t what it once was, either—has weakened along with your balance. And yet there comes this impossible thing: a magician’s trick of a voice rising out of the landscape and the suggestion of eyes upon you. The whisper is familiar: Is your house in order? But you think whoever is asking might be a stranger, and you ignore it, don’t like what might be knocking at the door.

The throbbing of your shoulder from the encounter in the tower is much worse. The wound betrayed you, made you leap out into that blazing blue expanse even though you hadn’t wanted to. Some communication, some trigger between the wound and the flame that came dancing across the reeds betrayed your sovereignty. Your house has rarely been in such disarray, and yet you know that no matter what leaves you in a few minutes something else will remain behind. Disappearing into the sky, the earth, the water, is no guarantee of death here.