And he was so thrilled to hear from his daughter that he wasn’t even mad about the telescope. When he learned she was dying, he was devastated. He got on an airplane and flew to Wisconsin as fast as he could, but he was too late—his daughter had died. (“Where was Trish?” I asked. “Traveling Europe,” said Simone. “She worked in Paris as a correspondent for the Washington Post. It all happened so fast. Nobody knew she had such little time left.”)
Dr. Leo Lacamoire was in despair. But the woman—Lyra Lacamoire, his daughter he loved more than anything even though he didn’t know how to show it—had left him a letter, telling him where he could find his telescope and apologizing for everything. Of course, it was Leo who needed to apologize, and even though he was able to do so on the phone, it wasn’t enough. He had let an opportunity pass him by—to not just be beloved by science, but to be beloved by a family. And little did Lyra Lacamoire know that it wasn’t the telescope he longed for, it was what was inside it—a photograph of the two of them together, taken when she was a very little girl and he still visited her sometimes, folded up and stuck in the focus finder. That was what he had been so upset to lose.
He knew he had to get the telescope—it was the only thing left of his daughter. So he hatched a plan to travel to Moose Junction, Wisconsin, and dig up the time capsule himself. He would never see Lyra again. He would never turn back time. But he could retrieve that telescope, and the picture inside it. This, at least, he could do.
“He’ll never speak to me again,” I said to Simone, who had spilled this entire story to Jade and me as we sat on the curb. Dr. Leo Lacamoire had taken the photograph of him and Lyra and driven off in the car, ignoring Simone’s pleas. He wouldn’t even so much as look at me. “I had it this whole time. I just . . .” I shrugged. “It was kind of like my own photograph.”
“We dug it up with our sister,” said Jade. “And she’s really sick. She might not ever get better.”
Simone nodded. “I know. I understand. It was wrong to lie to us, but I do understand. Leo will, too, eventually. That old man has been through the wringer. He’ll heal from this.”
We sat there, right on the curb, and I realized I didn’t give a single crap who saw us in front of the dug-up time capsule. I mean, really, who was going to get mad? Harriet? I highly doubted I would be hearing from Joanna Creech now. Officer J.J. could come drag me off in handcuffs for vandalizing public property for all I cared. He was probably too busy directing traffic off Main Street. I almost laughed at how stupid and foolish this whole thing had been. All this work for a box that had been under my bed. I was tired of hiding and lying. I sat there in the sunlight and dared to let the whole world see what I’d done. But nobody drove by. That part of the plan, at least, had worked.
“That’s so sad, about Dr. Lacamoire,” said Jade. “He could have been with his daughter for thirty-five years, but instead he just let her live her own life. He missed so much.”
Simone nodded. “It’s the saddest thing in the world. It truly is.”
It was sad, but not the saddest thing in the world. I didn’t say that, but I thought it. The saddest thing in the world would be if he never had a chance to apologize. The saddest thing in the world would be if all hope was lost. At least he got the chance to say sorry.
I knew exactly why Dr. Leo Lacamoire didn’t call Lyra sooner. Because what if he did and she never forgave him? What if he said sorry and she hung up the phone? The saddest thing in the world was to live frozen, because you were so unsure of what would happen next.
But he had not done that. He had plunged forward. He had tried, and he had that to hold on to.
“I’m not much for science,” said Simone, “but Leo told me something pretty interesting once.”
“What?” asked Jade. I wasn’t even listening. I was staring off into space, the infinite nothingness that had stolen Leo from his family. Simone put her arms around us.
“The atoms that make us up—you and me and Lyra and Leo and even Obi—are the same atoms that once made up stars,” said Simone. “When stars explode, they send atoms all over the galaxy. Those atoms are like little seeds that form new galaxies. They form us. We’re all made of stardust.” She leaned back and held her hand up to her eyes, staring straight at the sun.
“That makes me feel tiny,” said Jade.
“Little specks,” I said absentmindedly. But Simone shook her head.
“No,” she said softly. “Don’t you see? It makes me feel huge. We are huge. We’re part of this sky, but this sky is also part of us.”
20
AUGUST, PRESENT DAY
Twelve years old
The eclipse was over. All that buildup for a couple of minutes of darkness. But it had been something spectacular, right here in Moose Junction. That I would not forget.
Leo had taken Simone’s car, but she said she could walk back to Eagle’s Nest when Jade offered her a ride.
“It’s far!” I protested. “Three miles, at least . . .”
“I need some fresh air anyway,” Simone said. I had a feeling she wasn’t excited to get back to Leo.
“You girls,” she said, giving us each a hug. “It’ll be okay, all right? Everything will be just fine. You get back to your parents now.”
Jade nodded toward the beat-up Toyota. It had been Blair’s; the I’d Rather Be Dancing bumper sticker was just starting to peel off in the corners. The stupid thing had stubbornly stayed on ever since Blair got her license. It seemed perfect, suddenly, to be hopping into Blair’s car. It was like she was there with us. The three McCourt sisters, returning that telescope so long after we took it. Jade and I rode in silence for a minute before I opened my mouth.
“Thanks,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I continued. “I could have . . . I don’t know. Figured something out.”
I couldn’t see her face, and we rode quietly for another couple of minutes before she spoke up.
“I was worried about you,” she said. “I didn’t know what you were going to do.”
“I thought you forgot about the telescope,” I told her.
“How could I ever forget that?” she asked. “You think I could forget that?”
I had been wrong about so many things. I had been so stupid! Jade, Sophie—people I had thought were gone forever weren’t. The stars I thought were dead were still shining. You could undo a lie, if you tried hard enough.
“Why didn’t you tell them right away?” asked Jade.
The easy answer was that I was afraid of getting in trouble. Was stealing something buried really stealing? Can you be put in jail for something you did when you were seven? I didn’t know, but I also didn’t want to find out.
But there was another answer hiding under that answer, the same as that chocolate cream hiding in a doughnut. The telescope: it reminded me of sisters and secrets and magic, of a time when things were perfect. It was mine.
That was the truth. But there was another truth, too: the truth of who that telescope belonged to. It was time for the Star-Gazer Twelve to go home.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“What was your plan if I didn’t get there?” asked Jade. “Just let him dig and find nothing?”
“I was going to move some dirt around and then just drop the telescope at Eagle’s Nest,” I said. “I was supposed to be alone. I wasn’t expecting him to want to come.”
“Stick to astronomy, Abby. I think your short-lived career as a secret agent was a bust.”
The traffic was still clogged up. We found a parking spot a couple of streets away from the viewing party, zipping into a spot as an exhausted-looking woman in a pickup truck pulled out. Jade and I hustled to Main Street and pushed our way through the crowds, looking everywhere for our parents. A New Hope was going to be played over the projector soon, and all the lawn chairs had been replaced with blankets. Miss Mae was selling popcorn from a stand. I’d never seen so many people in our
town in my life. I ran into Sophie’s mom, who wrapped me into a hug and asked me how Blair was doing.
“Abby!”
It was Jade, calling to me. She waved me over from across the crowd. She had a huge smile on her face. I headed toward her, shoving through tourists and locals and journalists alike.
“That was something, wasn’t it, Abby?” said Father Peter Patrick, patting my shoulder as I walked by. “God’s creation is outstanding.”
“Abby.” Another voice. One that was all too familiar. One I’d know anywhere.
It couldn’t be. But there she was.
Blair.
Standing right there, in a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt and ripped denim shorts, her hair in a tight ponytail.
“Abby.” She had yelled my name a million times—across the dock, from her bedroom, on a thousand and one car trips to the Ice Shanty. Over her shoulder, yelling at me to follow her. The night we dug the telescope, telling me to keep watch. And I hadn’t heard it from her all summer.
“Abby,” she said a third time. She was smiling—a real smile, one that met her eyes—and opened her arms wide. Wide enough for both Jade and me. And as the three of us pressed together, I knew that whatever happened next, the power of three would not be broken. We were bound together—not by any secret, but by the sky itself.
We sat out on a dock, feet dangling. Blair and I looked across the lake, listening to Caleb’s band play bad covers.
“You’re back,” I said.
“I’m back,” she said. “You missed my graduation ceremony. Caps and gowns and everything.”
“Really?”
“No,” she laughed. “Just a hug from my roommate and some meds and an outpatient therapist to see in Washport.”
Blair was still skinny, but she looked more rounded out. The nooks and crannies of her knees and shoulders had been filled, and her skin had a bit of its shine back. I could hug her without feeling like she’d break.
“I missed you,” I said.
“I missed you.”
“I’ve missed you for a long time,” I said honestly. Longer than the summer; longer than the past year, even. She knew what I meant.
“You know why I went to Harvest Hills?” she asked, watching an eagle swoop down and snatch something out of the water.
“To get better,” I said.
She nodded. “Yeah. But I went because of you. The Joffrey thing, my accident on prom night, the cupcake . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, her brown ponytail grazing my face. “All I could think about was how you had seen me make really stupid decisions.”
“You were sick,” I said.
“I know! I know that. But still. I didn’t want you to see that and think that was how things should be,” she said. “I always felt like maybe . . . like you looked up to me. And this was one thing I didn’t want you to look up to. I saw you, after the Memorial Day . . . thing. I saw your face when Mom and I got in the car. And you looked like someone had just told you everything you’d ever believed was a lie. Confused. And scared.”
I nodded. “I was. My whole life, you’d been so perfect. And suddenly it was like maybe I’d never even known you.”
“You know me,” said Blair, her voice getting tight. “You know who I am without ballet. That’s something I’m still kinda figuring out.” She shifted, stretching her arms and arching her back to the sky. In that moment, she looked a little like the ballerina she’d always been.
“Dad’s gonna kill you for missing the eclipse,” she said. “They were looking everywhere. Where were you?”
But before I could answer, we heard someone call out.
“Hey.” We turned and saw Jade walking toward us slowly. “You two having Secret Sister Nerd Time or something?”
Blair opened her mouth with a retort, and it was like nothing had changed. But so much had. So instead, I scooted over, probably getting a thousand splinters in my butt from the wooden dock, and patted the space I’d left.
It was just an invitation. I had no idea if she’d accept. But she did, coming over, plopping down next to me. She slid into her own place in our complicated dance. She told Blair she was glad she was home, and Blair smiled.
It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But it felt a bit like unburying that time capsule: excavating the dirt and feeling the sun come back out.
That night, as I watched Luke blow up the Death Star between my two sisters, with Blair quoting the lines and Jade rolling her eyes, I didn’t know what was to come. I was pretty convinced I would never speak to Dr. Leo Lacamoire again. He was gone, like a shooting star streaking across the galaxy. He had found what he wanted and was furious with me for not telling him that I’d had it. I got that. He and Simone left early the next morning. Simone stopped over to say goodbye to my mom and return the keys, but afterward, she gave me a long hug.
“He just needs some time,” she whispered into my ear. “We’ll be in touch, all right, stargazer?”
Over the next year, as I forged my way through eighth grade, I did hear from Leo. Twice, but not actually directly from him. In September, an anonymous donor wrote a huge check to the town of Moose Junction in order to keep the library open. The check came with a note written directly to me, which Harriet showed me one afternoon.
Abby —
Get some decent research books. The nonfiction selection is dreadful. May I suggest starting with ExtraPlanets: Looking for Life Beyond Our Solar System?
In October, the leaves were starting to change colors. The hunters came back, wearing blaze orange and shuffling out to their tree stands at 4:00 a.m. Blair was serving dinner at Gooch’s, the nicest restaurant in Waukegan County, and taking online classes in English at night. She still went to therapy twice a week, and she still cried a lot, but I didn’t run in my room and hide under the covers. I sat by her and braided her hair and listened to what she had to say. Jade was starting her own college application process, but she wanted to go far away—she and Mom had planned trips out east to NYU, out west to Oregon, and down south to Austin. Our little corner of Wisconsin needed to stretch a little.
I still stole all her sweatshirts. She still made fun of me for being a nerd. But something was different. I knew she would come to my rescue. She knew I was capable of telling the truth. We no longer felt like two teams; instead, we felt like one, fumbling the ball a lot but trying our hardest to work somehow. The three of us spent more time together again. We went to the library and brought huge stacks of books to the dock. We went to Gooch’s, and Blair gave us a million iced tea refills. We stayed up too late, watching trashy reality TV reruns and laughing at Jade’s impressions. Things had changed, like when you break a vase and glue it back together and can still run your finger over the cracks. But one night while we ate dinner, Blair asked for seconds, and Jade didn’t look at her phone once, and things like that can make a girl feel invincible.
Dad even forgave me for missing the eclipse, our Big Thing that we’d planned for all summer. We went on a long drive to Chicago that fall, just me and him, and I finally told him everything: the telescope, the time capsule, Dr. Leo Lacamoire and our completed mission.
I left out the fact that Blair, Jade, and I had dug it up ages ago. That part didn’t seem like it was only my story to tell.
Dad sat in silence for a few minutes as we drove through the city’s downtown.
“I wish you would have told me,” he said. “I feel like my girls stopped telling me the most important things.” Right as he said that, we drove past the Marriott we’d stayed at while Blair auditioned for the Joffrey. It felt so long ago.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. “And I’m really, really sorry I missed the eclipse.”
“I know, Abby,” he said. “It’s okay.”
We wouldn’t have a do-over on that one. Unless you’re Dr. Leo Lacamoire, a total eclipse is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. But we did drive to the planetarium. We peered into the Atwood Sphere, where you can see how the night sky
looked over the city in 1913. A snapshot, of how things had been then.
When my cell phone showed a number from New York one day after school, I assumed it was one of those phone calls telling you that you’ve won a tropical vacation or that your car insurance needed updating (I don’t even have my driver’s license, but I somehow got those voice mails once every few months). When I answered it, though, it was so much more.
“Is this Abigail McCourt?” a nice-sounding guy said.
“Yeah,” I answered cautiously. “Who’s this?”
“My name is Brent Browning. My friend Jo asked me to give you a call. She said it was a personal favor to one of her clients.”
“Jo?”
“Joanna Creech?”
Joanna Creech. Power suit lady. Book editor extraordinaire. I could hardly breathe.
Brent Browning was super nice. He explained that if you wanted to get a book published, you couldn’t just mail it to someone like Joanna Creech. You had to have someone called an agent send it for you, or else it would wind up in the garbage can. Besides, Joanna Creech only worked with books about science, but he told me that his job was to sell graphic novels to editors who wanted to place them in stores. Brent had glanced at Planet Pirates and said they were really well done, but not quite a story. He suggested I take a creative writing class or two in high school, try to get them formatted more clearly, and then reach out to him when I graduated.
“Look, I’m a busy guy,” he said. “I don’t usually chase people down. But Jo has done me a few solids, and when I saw your work, I was blown away. I can’t believe you’re only twelve. A few more years under your belt and some proper story structure, and I can really see you and your sister going places. You keep my phone number, okay?”
So maybe I was Going Places, too.
He told me to keep up the good work, and I promised I would be in touch in a few years. I knew my dream of Planet Pirates wasn’t going to save Blair. I couldn’t save Blair. Jade had been right all along. Only Blair could save herself.
What Happens Next Page 15