For all my treasures—
When I wrote the earliest drafts of this story back in 2013, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t know how much digging and exploring and soul-searching and revising were ahead of me. I’ve rewritten this story so many times I’ve lost count, but what I do know is that at each step, I’ve had people helping and supporting me, and each of those people has added something new and helped me bring this story bit by bit closer to its true form.
To Kim, Jessica, Jen, Bridey, Tiffany, and Roommate. Thank you for being there from the beginning of this story, when Johnson was still a thing. Thank you for helping me learn, mature, and grow in empathy, and for forgiving me and putting up with me when that learning and growth was slow. I couldn’t have written this without you.
Thank you to Ellie Terry, Cindy Baldwin, and Amanda Rawson Hill for taking a chance on this story in Pitch Wars ’16. Dear reader, if these women and their books are new to you, get thee to a bookstore, because their books are treasures indeed. Thank you to all my Pitch Wars friends for supporting and believing in me when I was well and truly new.
Thank you to Ellie and Madeleine for your invaluable sensitivity reads and wisdom about mental health representation. You are both incredible, and any errors are mine.
To John Bennion, Dawan Coombs, Chris Crowe, Martine Leavitt, and the other amazing English department faculty at BYU. Thank you for letting me write a children’s novel for my graduate thesis, and for the encouragement and supportive environment you fostered. I hope you know how precious that was to me.
To my new #roaring20sdebut friends. You’ve already helped me more than you know.
My oldest treasure, my parents. Thank you, Mom, for bringing me to the library whenever I wanted, for reading to me, and for having the most passionate and empathetic view of people and the world of anyone I know. Thank you, Dad, for your endless wisdom and passing on your book addiction. When I was little, you said you thought we were friends before we were born. I think you were right.
Oh, my siblings. I love you so much, and I could not have written this without you. Thank you for always supporting me in my crazy schemes and dreams. If I die first, I’ll save our spot for the heavenly Fantasmic!, right in the back center by that trash can. I’ve got the blankets. Bring funnel cake.
Thank you to my grandparents. You four are like the corners of a tent protecting me against a storm. Thank you for providing such a solid foundation. Thank you to all my aunts and uncles and cousins, and I know there are a lot of you (a lot), but I hope you know how much I’ve learned from watching you over the years and how much each of you means to me.
With all the carving and chiseling and adding of new things with each draft, ultimately I needed someone truly magical who could fix all the unwieldiness and bring this story to life. That person was Melissa Warten, editor extraordinaire and true magician. I had such high hopes for this story from the beginning, and you’ve absolutely taken it above and beyond. If this story is whole, if it breathes, it’s because of your sparkling wizardry. Thank you, thank you, and to the entire FSG team for making this story happen.
(And thanks to my magic feather. You know who you are.)
Thank you, also, to Brianne Johnson, Allie Levick, and the other fabulous magicians at Writers House. You brought this story to its perfect home and have always had my back. I would be stumbling through a magicless desert without you.
A wide-eyed, awestruck thank you to cover artist Alisa Coburn for somehow taking these two characters I’ve had in my head for so long and putting them so perfectly and magically in color. You are nothing less than an art alchemist.
Which brings me to you, dear reader. You are my gold at the end of this Treasure Hunt. You might feel most like Ruth, or you might feel like Olivia. Either way, you are worth more than all the gold in the universe. The maker of this universe filled it mind-bogglingly full of treasures of all kinds, everywhere you look, and He treasures you, you specifically and individually, above it all. I do, too.