First Light Read online

  Peter's eyes felt hot and dry—he blinked, and his loft abruptly reappeared around him. With it came a painful roaring in his head.

  His heart was pounding. Had it been a dream? He didn't think he had been sleeping. He listened for his parents, and heard the reassuring back and forth of their voices below him. He looked through the skylight, where the benign hulk of the buildings across the street looked back with a hundred friendly yellow eyes. He must have fallen asleep: It was dark. He was lying in bed. It was getting late.

  But where had this headache come from?

  The throbbing behind his eyes slowly ebbed until it disappeared completely, leaving Peter feeling light. His parents' voices went on and on. There were no further visions of big scissors or little boys, and the more he listened to his parents' whispering, scraps of sentences emerging here and there, the more he believed he had only had a dream—a dream followed by a headache.

  After a long while, his parents' voices subsided and he heard the single high squeak that meant they were unfolding their bed. He reached for the notebook on the night table, made the tenth slash on the inside cover,and, after thinking about it for a moment, drew a small star next to it.

  He was nearly asleep when he thought he heard the sound of paper being handled. Listening harder, he was sure of it—there was a sort of furtive crinkling. He could have sworn his parents were passing notes. In bed. In the middle of the night.

  When Peter came down the next morning, they were at the kitchen table clutching their big blue mugs of coffee (his father) and tea (his mother), looking as if they hadn't slept at all, but smiling. In fact, they were practically glowing.

  “So we're going?” Peter said.

  His dad took his mom's hand and squeezed it.

  “We're going,” she said.

  A month later, there were fifteen marks on the inside cover of his spiral notebook. And one star. It had become harder to hide the headaches since Jonas—one of his father's graduate students—had come to stay with them, sleeping on the floor of Peter's loft. There wasn't a lot of privacy, but they all agreed that they'd better get used to it, since Jonas was coming to Greenland with them. And although Dr. Solemn promised that they would be living in the most amazing tent ever conceived, he never said it was big.

  The Solemns' kitchen had only three chairs, so for thepast week Jonas had perched on the little white step stool during meals. It wasn't uncomfortable, he said. Peter's mother apologized every time they sat down for the first day or two, saying that it must seem terribly unwelcoming not to have an extra chair, but Jonas always smiled, ran one hand through his cropped brown hair, and said the same thing—that he wasn't brought up to feel unwelcome.

  Jonas's mother was Inuit, and he was born in Greenland, where he lived until he was six. Then his family moved to Denmark so he could go to the fancy school where his father's father was headmaster. But he spent every summer in Greenland with his Inuit grandparents. Jonas told Peter, “I can feel at home anywhere, but I am at home in Greenland.”

  Spending a week together in the apartment had been a great way to get acquainted. Peter and Jonas built a radio together, played gin rummy, and told each other a lot of bad jokes. One night they ate three boxes of powdered doughnuts. In fact, Jonas was around so much that Peter wondered if babysitting was part of Jonas's job description. He hoped not.

  Then it was their last day in New York. The living room had luggage piled everywhere and papers were strewn across the coffee table where Dr. Solemn and Jonas had been working late the night before. Peter sat at thekitchen table between his parents, eating breakfast. He was going to spend the day with Miles, and then he had to go to bed early because they were leaving for the airport at four o'clock the next morning. He grinned at Jonas across the kitchen table, then opened his mouth and showed him his wad of chewed-up bagel.

  “Ah,” said Jonas, pretending to swoon, “the little brother I never had.”

  Jonas, Peter, and his father were on their second bagels, but Peter's mother said she was too nervous to eat. Instead, she was filling out baggage tags in her impossibly beautiful handwriting, making a neat stack next to Peter's plate.

  Jonas peered at them. “And I thought my grandfather had the best handwriting on the planet.”

  “I know,” Peter said with his mouth full. “Isn't it crazy?” His own handwriting was awful. It was one of the things that his teacher wanted him to work on while he was away. Part of the “study plan.”

  Peter's dad raised his eyebrows at Jonas. “Really? Which grandfather is that? The one in Greenland?”

  Jonas laughed. “No, the one in Denmark. He collects fountain pens. My other grandfather couldn't care less about things like handwriting. He's mostly interested in his dogs.” He glanced at Peter's mother. “No offense intended.”

  She smiled without looking up from her writing. “None taken. I'm very fond of dogs as well. I think I would get along with both of your grandfathers.”

  Jonas reached for a third bagel. “You and not too many other people.”

  Peter's mom gathered the baggage tags into one hand and stood up. “Ready?” she asked Peter. She had to pick up some just-in-case medicines at the drugstore and Peter was meeting Miles for a last swim at the university pool.

  “All set.”

  Mrs. Solemn put her tags down on the coffee table, where they caused a small avalanche of paper to slide to the floor. Peter helped her pick everything up. “There's a tag under the couch,” he said, lying on his stomach and sliding one hand out. But what he found wasn't a luggage tag. It was a scrap of paper.

  “What's that?” asked his mother.

  “Just a receipt.” Peter shoved it into a pocket and stood up. “Let's go.”

  Miles was waiting for him on the corner of Tenth Street, his wavy red hair stuffed under a Yankees cap. It was weirdly hot for April, and Miles wore shorts and sneakers without socks.

  “Like my new cups?” he asked Peter. “My mom bought them for me yesterday.”

  Peter looked Miles up and down. “I give up,” he said. “What are cups?”

  Miles sighed. “Shoes. Sneakers. Get it? Like cups for your feet.”

  “Hmmm. Why not call them feetcups?”

  “Because feetcups sounds stupid!”

  Peter grinned. “But cups doesn't?”

  They started walking.

  Peter floated in the pool with his eyes closed while Miles swam laps. He breathed in the chlorine smell and thought “next week, all of this will seem like a dream.”

  Half an hour later, they emerged into the heat and glare of what could have passed for a midsummer day.

  “What now?” Miles asked, jamming his cap onto his wet head.

  “Fonel's!”

  Ruby Fonel made her own candy and ice cream, and her tiny store was a place Peter had loved for as long as he could remember. When he was little, Ruby used to let him come into the back and see how everything was made.

  They sat with their ice cream on the old green bench in front of the store window, where a faded awning created a sliver of shade. Peter watched two pigeons walking in circles in front of them, picking at bits of stale cones.

  “Sorry,” he told them. “Nothing for you. This is the last ice cream cone I'm going to have for a long time, and I'm eating the whole thing.”

  Miles talked about his plans to “row crew” and to finish his fake dictionary. Peter felt his first real wrench of sadness. It's six weeks, he told himself. Just six weeks. Six weeks in a tent on the ice with his mom, his dad, and Jonas. He looked at his cone, which was soggy and had paper stuck to it, and tossed it to the pigeons after all.

  “Want to come over?” he asked Miles, stomping on the cone to crush it for the birds.

  “Sure.”

  Two women and a little boy stood next to them as they waited to cross Sixth Avenue. One side of the boy's hair was very short and sticking out oddly from the side of his head. Peter stared at him.

  “… night of Bill's bir
thday dinner,” one of the women was saying to the other, “and the babysitter was late, so I hopped into the shower before she got there. Next time I'll wait,” she said, rubbing the boy's head, “or at least I'll put the scissors away first.” The women laughed and started to cross the street.

  Peter was rooted to the sidewalk. He felt a quick chill run through him, although he had been complaining about the hot sun five minutes before. The muscles in his legs were jumping around in ways he hoped didn't show. Miles looked back at him from halfway across the street.

  “You coming?”

  Peter started walking. His legs worked, anyway. There were explanations, he told himself. He tried to thinklogically, like his father did. He had probably seen the boy and his mother on the street before, or maybe at the pool. They must live right around here. He must have seen them right after the boy had cut his hair, and then had a dream about them. His brain was playing with the images in his subconscious. Wasn't that what his father said dreams were? Some part of his brain had gotten stuck on the picture of the boy with his funny hair, and had spun a dream around it. And now he was seeing the boy again. They live in the neighborhood, he told himself again. It was nothing to freak out about.

  But what about the shower? How could he have known that the boy's mother had been in the shower? And she had said something about going to a birthday dinner. Wouldn't that explain the wrapping paper on the bed?

  They had reached the door of his building, but Peter just stood there.

  “Peter?” Miles asked. “You okay?”

  Peter nodded. “I'm fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sure you're sure?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then how about opening the door?”

  “Right.” Peter felt in his pocket for his keys.

  Upstairs, Peter unlocked the apartment door and pushed it open.

  “Whoa,” Miles said.

  Directly in front of them, Jonas was climbing a blue nylon rope that he had attached to the railing of Peter's loft. He was wearing an orange T-shirt and a big pair of fur pants. It was an interesting look.

  “Nice pipes!” Miles said.

  “He means pants,” Peter said.

  “You like them?” Jonas jumped down to the floor. “Polar bear.”

  “Really?” Miles asked.

  “Yup.”

  “What are you doing?” Peter asked.

  “I'm practicing my holds and my knots,” Jonas said. “Just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “In case I fall into a crevasse in the ice and have to pull myself out.”

  “Whoa,” Miles said. “What's a crevasse?”

  “A big gaping hole, more or less. Want to try?” Jonas asked.

  They spent almost an hour tying knots in the rope and trying to hoist themselves up. Peter was glad to see that Miles wasn't really any better at it than he was, despite all his time at the gym. In the end, they just took turns swinging from the rope and watched Jonas inventory the gear.

  There were coats and jackets, fur-lined boots, fourcomputers, a box of CDs, special small tents called hard-weather pods to be used in a sudden storm, a breadmaker, several pairs of binoculars, a collection of sunglasses and goggles, a thick folder of maps, a box of heavy-duty flashlights (all black, except for one red one), two crates of books, and four shovels. And much, much more. A truck was coming at three o'clock to pick it all up and drive it upstate to the Air National Guard plane that would fly them to Greenland tomorrow. Most of their stuff-crates and crates of food, tables and chairs, two propane stoves, a steam drill, a bunch of solar panels and batteries, a generator, and, of course, the tents—was already up at the hangar waiting to go.

  Jonas reached for a small hard plastic case next to the couch. “Can't forget this.”

  Miles dropped off the rope and knelt on the floor next to Jonas. “What is that?”

  Jonas smiled. “A satellite phone.” The case opened with a click to reveal an old-fashioned-looking phone receiver and panel full of dials. “We have to call in every morning for a weather report. And also to confirm that we haven't frozen to death or been eaten by a bear.”

  “Cool,” Miles breathed. “No cell phone service up there, huh?”

  Jonas shook his head. “No e-mail, either.” Peter had been wrong about that.

  “What's this?” Peter held up a soft black case that was under the coffee table.

  “Medical supplies, I think. Open it.”

  There was a zipper that went around three sides of the case, which opened like a book. Peter found himself looking at a series of tiny knives and some plastic tubing.

  “Surgical kit,” Jonas said from behind him. “Don't worry, we'll probably never need that stuff.”

  The front door opened and Peter's parents came in with packages.

  “No peeking!” Peter's mother said, making a beeline for the kitchen. She had told Peter that she was bringing him a surprise for every Friday they were in Greenland.

  Jonas took out one of the hard-weather pods, which sprang to the size of a sleeping bag. Miles crawled into the tiny tent and Jonas zipped it closed. Miles pretended to be trapped. Everyone was laughing. I'm going on an adventure, Peter told himself, closing up the surgical kit.

  “Before I forget, Peter, I need your keys,” his father said. “I told the landlord we would leave him a set.”

  “Sure.” Peter tossed them over.

  Then it was time for Miles to go. Peter walked him downstairs, and they stood awkwardly in front of the building.

  “I'll be back before school's out,” Peter said finally.

  Miles nodded. “Have a great time.” He pretended topunch Peter in the arm, and then started to walk down the block. After a few steps he turned around and started walking backward.

  “Miles away!” he yelled.

  Peter waved and reached for his keys before he remem bered that he had given them to his father. Inside his pocket, his fingers felt the scrap of paper he had found under the couch after breakfast. It wasn't a receipt. Peter took it out and looked at it again.

  It was a torn corner of a notebook sheet with one sentence written on it in his father's chicken-scratch scrawl: What's the worst that can happen?

  Peter crumpled the note up and shoved it deep into his pocket. An adventure, he told himself firmly, and pushed the buzzer for his apartment.

  GRACEHOPE

  Thea opened her eyes and reached for the bedclothes she had thrown off in sleep. It couldn't be time to dress, she told herself, stretching once and then turning drowsily to one side. She found herself thinking about the names of farm animals for some reason—pig, chicken, sheep, duck, cow. She must have been dreaming about them. She wondered idly if she had them wrong again—were a horse and a pig about the same size? She was fairly certain that one was meant to be somewhat bigger than the other, but she could never remember which.

  The thrumming of the waterwheel began to lull her back to sleep. Slowly, two words swam up from somewhere deep in her mind and burst into Thea's consciousness. “The council!” she cried. She sat up quickly and bumped her head on the chamber's slanted ceiling.

  “Ouch. Lana! Ouch.” She tipped herself out of bed and pulled on the fur she had laid out the night before. She could dispense with a bath—she had soaped her hair just yesterday—but there were her bracelets to put on. The clasps took at least five minutes to get right and were one of the few things she couldn't do while she skated. How late was she?

  “Lana!” She picked up the fur lying on top of her trunk, shoved her legs into it, pulled it up over her shoulders, and stumbled into the greatroom with her hands full of bracelets and her skates slung over one shoulder.

  “Thea.” Her aunt sat at the long table, a cup of rice-water steaming in front of her.

  “Why didn't you wake me?”

  “I didn't wake you because I told you I wasn't going to wake you. A girl old enough to address the council is abl
e to rouse and ready herself.” But her aunt had already stood up from her seat and begun to fasten Thea's bracelets for her. “I made you a breakfast,” she said.

  Thea glanced down at the table. “Thank you. But owing to you I have no time to eat it.”

  “You can skate with it.” Her aunt's strong handsreleased Thea's arm, the bracelets properly clasped. “I have a feeling Mattias is still waiting for you,” she said.

  Thea peered into the small bowl in front of her, and then gave her aunt a look that was genuinely grateful. “Rushberries! You shouldn't have.”

  Lana pretended not to hear. “Today is not a day to be late, Thea. Think of all your work. You should be on your way.”

  Her aunt had probably been sitting at the greatroom table since first light, struggling against her instinct to wake Thea, dress her, and feed her breakfast with her old baby spoon, which, Thea knew, Lana kept wrapped in a cloth in her worktable drawer despite the fact that one was supposed to pass these things on to others.

  Thea picked up the bowl in front of her and dumped the precious fruit onto the thin pancake on her plate. She rolled the pancake deftly with a practiced hand, tucking the ends in so that she wouldn't waste a drop of berry juice, then slid expertly across the smooth floor in her stockings, stopping at the thick fur mat that lay in front of the Mainway door.

  Her aunt shook her head. “Someday you are going to have to start moving about like the lady you hope to become, Thea.”

  “So you like to inform me.” Still holding the rolled-up pancake in one hand, Thea stepped into her skates and took her outerwrap from a peg.

  “Wish me luck?”

  Her aunt blew her a kiss. Thea blew one back, throwing her arm out in a dramatic arc that spun her around to face the Mainway door. She took a deep breath and pushed through it into the stream of skaters outside.

  Thea ate her breakfast as she skated steadily down the Mainway, greeting those who caught her eye with a short wave but keeping her head down when she could. It was a busy time of day—most people had morning workposts— and she wove in and out of the skaters in an effort to reach Mattias as quickly as possible.