Perfect for fans of The Marrow Thieves, Hatchet and The City of Ember, H.E. Edgmon’s middle grade debut offers a bittersweet tale of hope and survival, a modern classic for the climate change generation.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from H.E. Edgmon’s The Flicker, which is out September 24th 2024.
One year ago, a solar flare scorched the Earth and destroyed life as we know it.
With their parents gone and supplies running dangerously low, step-sisters Millie and Rose only have one chance at survival: leave home with their infant half-brother and loyal dog Corncob in search of Millie’s grandma, a Seminole elder. As they navigate the burning land with a group of fellow survivors, dodging The Hive, a villainous group that has spent the last year hoarding supplies and living in luxury, the siblings have to learn to rely on each other more than ever, and discover how to build a new life from the ashes.
Expertly balancing heartbreak and hope, The Flicker is both a thrilling survival story and a tender exploration of Indigenous ideas of identity and found family.
The Hive is the last and most serious reason going into town ain’t usually worth the risk. Before the Flicker, they were just another big company. Rose doesn’t totally understand what they did. When her dad would talk about them, he would use words like e-commerce and information technology. Whatever that means. Clearly, it was something bad, ’cause her dad would use their CEO’s name—Jimmy Murk—like it was some kinda swear.
But they had factories all over the world, including one not too far from here, and they gave a lot of people jobs. Just, after the Flicker, they got . . . weird.
Rose don’t know what happened at the other factories, but the one here basically turned into a supervillain lair. At least, that’s the way her dad talked about it. When he’d go out on his trips alone, he almost ran into them a few times—and he saw enough to make sure they didn’t ever run into him. What he didn’t see firsthand, he learned from broadcasts from the survivors’ Sanctuary. Anytime Hive trucks were spotted in an area, they made sure to warn anyone who might be listening.
’Cause apparently, they’d take those trucks into any towns they could reach, loading up all the food and supplies they could find, and then keeping it all behind locked doors back at their headquarters. And they didn’t just let people start moving in with them, sharing the things they’d gotten their hands on. They only opened up the doors for their rich buddies, investors who managed to get here from New York or Chicago or maybe as far as California, turning the factory into a safe haven while the people who built the place starved to death outside. And any outsiders who got too close? Anyone with resources they might want for themselves? Well, they’d just go ahead and put them out of their misery real quick.
This is, again, all according to her dad. Rose has never actually seen these Hive trucks, or their headquarters. She has no proof they even exist, outside of her dad’s stories. But that’s more than enough for her.
Her dad was brilliant. He always was, even before the Flicker, but he was real special after. He saw things other people didn’t, and he tried to teach them to her. She wishes now that she’d listened a little better. Somehow, it never really occurred to her that he might not be there to teach her again later.
Maybe ’cause she didn’t want it to.
Whatever.
Hive or no Hive, what’s left in the store is pretty unimpressive.
There’s a few old newspapers and magazines, kicked underneath turned-over shelves. Rose picks them up and shoves them in one of her cargo pockets. Kindling, for later, in case desperation for a fire outweighs the dangers of starting one.
She’s careful to avoid broken lightbulbs and shattered bottles scattered along the floor. Her boots are good shoes, hiking boots meant for mountain trails, but they’re also not as good as they once were. And there’s no harm in making sure they stay good as long as possible.
Not having a pair of hiking shoes would suck. She has no idea what she’s gonna do when she grows out of these.
No use adopting problems, though, as her dad would have said. She’ll worry about that when she has to worry about it, and no sooner.
Rose sets the radio down at her feet and curls her hands around the edge of one overturned shelf, hoisting it up with a groan. Careful as she can, she wiggles underneath it, one arm shooting out to fish around, unseeing, for whatever might be trapped underneath. When her fingers collide with some- thing round and cool, she pulls it out.
Hey! Score!
Canned spinach probably ain’t the most delicious thing in the world, but it’s been a full year since Rose was allowed to worry, even a little bit, what something tasted like. Besides, it’ll be mushy enough to feed to Sammy, and that’s what matters.
She rifles around for a few more minutes, coming up with two more cans—another spinach, and one hearts of palm, whatever that is—before calling it quits. This’ll do for now, buying them a little more time to find a bigger supply somewhere else. She shoves the cans in another cargo pocket, picks up the radio, and heads out.
Rose has every intention of hurrying back to the woods as quick as possible. It’s not good for anyone to be alone for too long. Even if she can think of about a hundred people she’d rather be stuck with in the end of the world than Millie, they need each other, or whatever.
Anyway, she wants to get back to Sammy.
And Corncob is alright, too.
But she’s only taken a few steps into the truck stop parking lot when the radio under her arm changes from a quiet, thrumming kind of static, to a more mechanical, clicking sound. And then someone’s voice comes through.
“Three, nine, dot, zero, two, one, six, three, eight.”
Holy crap! Rose nearly drops the radio as soon as she hears it, surprise sparking through her arms and making them jerk. She catches herself right before it tumbles from her fingers, though.
“Negative seven, nine, dot, five, seven, eight, six, nine, four.”
The voice is familiar, the same one that always broadcasts these messages. Rose has listened to it many times with her dad. It’s lyrical, lilting, almost like a songbird. Kind of high-pitched, but raspy, too, impossible to tell if it belongs to a man or a woman. It always makes Rose feel good, for reasons she can’t quite explain. Maybe she just likes hearing from the Sanctuary.
And speaking of which. She left her backpack in the woods with Millie, like some kind of dip. Her notebook’s in there, and her pencils. How is she gonna remember this message?
Frantic, she yanks some of the old newspaper out of her pocket. She can write on this, if she could just find something to write with!
The voice on the radio is speaking again. “Find us at the junction where cheaters camp.”
Ugh. The junction where cheaters camp? That don’t mean anything!
Except it does, in whatever weird code these people are using. Her dad was sure he could crack it, maybe already had. He just hadn’t told her what it meant, before—
Focus!
She’s so desperate to find something to scribble with, half listening to the broadcast and half searching, she don’t even notice someone is coming up behind her until they grab her arm.
