—
Her cellphone rang. She laid Mr. Westin’s delivery on her bed and pressed the phone’s speaker button. She had not spoken to Nate since she had slipped out of his bedroom. “Hey, you.”
“See you on the bus?”
She gripped the phone. It was the weekend and there was no school bus to catch, but the question was still their code for checking if things were okay between them. She wasn’t sure if what had happened the previous evening counted as a fight. Lately, a lot of things they did had grown more difficult to define. She didn’t have a name for what they had become to each other. If they had slept together, they would have woken up with a label for their relationship, and all labels, whether they were pasted on cat food, peanut butter, or people, came with expiration dates. She may not have understood her feelings for Nate, but she knew that she could not imagine riding the bus without him at her side. She nodded, forgetting that Nate could not see her.
“Dre?” Nate asked. “See you on the bus?”
“Yes. We’re good. You were right. About everything. I…I wasn’t thinking straight. It was just that last night was—”
“I know. Carnegie Hall. I realized it after you left.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Dre,” he said, his tone lighter. “So do you…um…want to talk about it some more? I can come over and…”
She glanced at the musty letter on the bed. “No. That’s okay. But Dad made reservations for Sylvia’s birthday dinner later. How do you feel about sushi?”
“Sounds good.”
“Great. See you at Zushi Puzzle at eight.”
Andrea set the phone down and reached for Mr. Westin’s delivery. Tuna jumped onto the bed and planted all her eleven and a half pounds over the wax-sealed note. Andrea tugged the letter from beneath Tuna’s hind leg. Red wax scattered over her lilac duvet. Andrea cracked the brittle seal and unfolded the letter. The edge of its first page was torn, as though it had been ripped from a notebook. It contained a single word written in brown-black ink.
Name?
The night Andrea had screamed her answer to the very same question in the middle of Carnegie Hall’s main stage bled out of an old wound, hot, sticky, and bright red. She crumpled the page and hurled it across her bedroom. Tuna jumped on the paper ball and tossed it between her paws. Reason pounced on it the same way. In both matches, the rumpled sheet lost. The letter had to be a prank. Even after three years, Google made the details of her humiliation easy to find. All you needed to type was “Prodigy chokes at Carnegie Hall.”
Andrea crushed the rest of the letter in her fist to make Tuna another toy. A line scribbled across the top of its second page screamed a plea.
Andrea, stop. Pray, take a breath. I swear to you, this is real. I am the boy behind your wall and you are the girl behind mine. Do not cast my words away.
Her heart lurched. If this was a trick, it was a cruel one. Tears burned behind her eyelids.
You are seventeen and the time has come at last to tell you how everything began, how I have come to love you above all else, and how you will come to love me.
Andrea sucked in the deepest breath she would ever take in her life and dove into the sea of elegant, minuscule handwriting. A story of a young boy, a wall, and a crack rippled in every direction.
Woolsthorpe Manor
1650
Isaac is seven.
A drop of melted mutton fat teetered by the wick of one of the two tall tallow candles on the oak dining table. A thin dark-haired boy peered into the shiny bead, watching the orange light swirling inside the liquid wax.
“Don’t let your stew grow cold, Isaac,” his grandmother scolded. The candlelight softened the lines of her square face, bringing out her resemblance to her daughter Hannah.
Isaac swiveled his spoon around a thick pottage of bacon and sorrel. “Does light have color, Gran?”
“Color? I…um…well…” A V-shaped crease crinkled between her eyes. “Would you care for more bread?”
Isaac shook his head. “No, thank you.”
His grandmother pushed another slice of buttered rye onto his plate. “You really should eat more.”
Isaac washed back a sigh with watered-down orrisroot ale.
His grandmother tilted his chin toward the candlelight. “You are much too thin. What will your mother say when she sees you?”
Isaac tore a piece of bread and shoved it into his mouth. He hoped that if he chewed long enough, he would not have to give his grandmother an answer. He wasn’t entirely sure that she required one. She knew as well as he did that her daughter’s visits were few and far between.
Since his mother had moved to North Witham to raise a family with her new husband, the rector Barnabas Smith, he had learned to stop himself from running to the window every time a carriage rumbled up the gravel path to their home. It had been more difficult to keep still when he was three. The slightest crunch of pebbles had made him jump from his chair and stand on his toes to peek out the window. He had not understood why his mother had hugged him as tightly as she had on her wedding day when he asked her when she was coming back home. He was seven now and fathomed the meaning of her embrace.
Isaac stuffed another piece of bread into his mouth. His grandmother patted his hand and sipped her soup. He did the same, following their nightly script of soft slurps and silence. The breadth of their exchanges was limited to his weight, their herd of Lincoln Longwool sheep, and the apples in their orchard. If the sun was particularly bright, they talked about the weather. Their conversations thinned over lunch, and by dinner their stew was much thicker than anything they had left to say. Still, he tried. He liked seeing his grandmother smile. “The apples look good this year, Gran.”
Her faded face brightened. “They do, don’t they? I think we shall have a lovely crop. We should give some to your mother the next time she visits.”
“Yes.” Isaac looked out the window. “I’m sure she’d like that.”
“She always said your cheeks were as red as those apples.” His grandmother stroked the side of his face. “Do you remember?”
He dropped his eyes to his bowl and gulped down six spoonfuls of the pottage. “May I be excused?”
He watched his grandmother’s reply take shape in her cloudy irises. A month ago, he would have tried to guess what she was going to say. Tonight, he didn’t have to. Four weeks’ worth of experimentation had given him enough information to allow him to confidently predict the decision that was making its way from her eyes to her lips.
He had attempted and failed numerous times to get away with eating less soup. His grandmother had scoffed at two spoonfuls, frowned at three, and dismissed four with a wave of her hand. Five rendered mixed results. Six was the most consistent. There was still a one out of ten chance of failure, but he liked his odds. He folded his hands over his lap and waited to hear the decision the numbers had already made.
“All right,” she said, “but please take some bread up with you.”
“Bread?” He broke off a small chunk of bread and enclosed it in his fist. He opened his hand, waved around his empty palm, and grinned. “What bread?”
“How many times must I tell you, Isaac?” His grandmother shook her head. “These amusements of yours are unnatural. I don’t care if the farmhands find your little tricks entertaining. Magic is the devil’s work. I forbid any form of it under this roof.”
Isaac rolled his eyes.
“Did you hear me, young man?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I will stop. I promise.” He kissed her on the cheek. “Good night, Gran.”
—
Isaac strode into his bedroom and shook his sleeve over his desk. A chunk of bread fell out of it and tumbled on top of its stale cousins from the previous evenings. He made a mental note to smuggle the leftovers to the chicken coop in the morning. He was glad that he did not have to lie to his grandmother. Making bread disappear up his sleeve was losi
ng its novelty and he had every intention of mastering apples next. His favorite tree was heavy with them. In the morning, he would take his pick. The night held other amusements for his hands. When his fingers were busy, it was easier to forget that he had a mother who had chosen to forget him.
He crouched by his bed and heaved a wooden chest from under it. Rocks, blocks of wood, pieces of metal, and an assortment of small tools he had made filled it to the brim. He made his selection for the evening and arranged his materials on the desk he had inherited from his father. The scratches and dents on the table had multiplied fourfold since he’d convinced his grandmother to move it into his bedroom. His illiterate father had left it in near-pristine condition, preferring to spend his day keeping his sheep from straying into the neighbor’s corn.
Or so he heard. What little he knew of the man was stitched together from the rare times his grandmother spoke of her late son-in-law. The only things he was confident that they had in common were their dark hair, their hazel eyes, and their name. He also knew that his father would approve of this night’s project. A new apple cart was a welcome addition to any orchard—even one that could carry only two smallish fruits.
A breeze blew through the window above his desk, perfuming his bedroom with ripe apples. The candle’s flame cowered in its wake. He cupped one hand over the candle and reached for the window latch. White light flickered on his timber-framed wall. He turned, expecting to find a firefly that had lost its way. A pair of bright green eyes proved him wrong.
The girl who owned the eyes waved at him from the small glowing hole in his wall. Isaac toppled off his chair. His left knee slammed on the floor. He clenched his teeth. If there was anything that life in Woolsthorpe had taught him, it was how to bear pain without making a sound. His grandmother scowled at the slightest whimper. Boys were not supposed to cry. Isaac clambered to his feet and locked his eyes on the girl behind his wall. His heart pounded in his ears, but he forced himself to smile. Boys were also supposed to have good manners. He waved back at his visitor and took a step toward her.
The girl retreated. He extended his arm to coax her back. The girl trembled where she stood. Isaac searched his room for something to show her that he meant her no harm. Three pieces of stale bread caught his eye. He grabbed them from his desk and tossed them in the air.
The shepherds at the manor did not care for his questions or thoughts, but his juggling never failed to elicit applause. They could not look at him oddly or think him strange when he kept them entertained. He hoped his red-haired guest was going to be as easy to amuse. He couldn’t let her leave without discovering who she was or how she had come to live inside his wall. Getting her to stay and smile was worth breaking his promise to his grandmother. He caught the chunks of bread and made each of them disappear with a flourish.
The girl’s green eyes grew wide. Her mouth moved as though she gasped, but Isaac couldn’t say for sure. Like the large string instrument she had been playing, her voice made no sound. He grinned anyway. Magic had not let him down. He thrust his empty hand to the girl and beamed. A chunk of bread came loose from his sleeve and fell to the floor. A blush seared Isaac’s cheeks and melted his smile.
The girl jumped up and clapped for him, her applause as vigorous as it was soundless. It inflated Isaac’s chest. He picked up the bread that had given his trick away, determined to earn every clap. He waved his hand over the stale chunk. Two pieces of bread appeared next to it on his palm. Isaac stuffed them in his mouth, hoping to win more of the girl’s mute glee. Her sides shook from laughter. Isaac rummaged through the shelves in his mind for other tricks to keep her happy.
The girl took a small step toward the wall. Isaac took a smaller one. The glow around the crack faded. Woolsthorpe’s limestone bricks filled in its edges. Isaac ran to the shrinking hole. A layer of plaster sealed it.
“No! Wait!” Isaac scrambled to his treasure chest and grabbed a mallet he had fashioned from pieces of a broken plow. He swung at his wall. Plaster crumbled. “Are you there, girl? What is your name? Tell me who you are.”
He pressed his cheek against the wall and waited for a reply. The bricks did not answer. He hoisted his mallet over his shoulder. Knobby fingers closed around his wrist and shook the mallet from his grasp. It crashed on the floor, an inch from his toes.
“Just what do you think you are doing, young man?” His grandmother tugged him away from the wall, her nostrils flaring.
“Gran, I can explain.” His eyes scoured his wall for an answer his grandmother might accept. He would have told her the truth had he had the words for it. “I saw a spider.”
She jumped back from the wall. “Did you kill it?”
“I missed.”
She yanked the hem of her wool skirt off the floor. “Oh…well…carry on then.” She shuffled to the doorway. “But Isaac…”
He straightened his face and tried not to giggle. “Yes?”
“Use your shoe.”
Isaac shut the door and waited for his grandmother’s footsteps to fade behind it. He raised his foot over an invisible insect and stomped as loudly as he could. His Gran deserved to go to bed with peace of mind.
He heaved his mallet and aimed at his wall. His eyes fell on the chipped plaster before the mallet’s head did. He dropped the mallet and sighed. He had lived in Woolsthorpe Manor long enough to know that behind his bedroom’s stone wall was nothing but a clear view of the barn. He rubbed his forehead, conceding that he was not going to find answers inside its bricks. He had to look elsewhere. He took the candle from his desk, tiptoed past his grandmother’s room, and crept downstairs.
The candle’s flame cast a yellow glow over the small parlor’s cream walls. Brass glinted in the light. He took a step toward the lantern-shaped clock above the stone fireplace. He took note of the time and returned to his bedroom.
Isaac retrieved a leather-bound notebook from his desk drawer and flipped through it. A quarter of its pages were filled with the phrases his grandmother had made him copy from the Bible during his writing lessons. His penmanship was shaky at first, but by the middle of the book, his letters’ curls, loops, and tails had grown steady enough to keep his secrets. They guarded the questions that made Woolsthorpe’s farmhands snicker whenever he made the mistake of asking them out loud. Why does my ball only move when I push it? Why does it slow down and stop? Tonight he entrusted the notebook with his most difficult question yet: Who is the girl behind my wall?
He dipped his quill into a small pot of oak gall ink. He steered the nib across the page and listed everything that he remembered about their encounter.
9 o’clock. White light. Crack. Girl.
He doubted he would forget anything about this evening, but committing the details to paper was going to help him believe it in the morning.
Green eyes. Red-brown hair. Large violin. Silence.
He underlined the last word. He closed his eyes and painted the girl inside his eyelids, recalling how her fingers flitted over her instrument’s neck and how her bow glided over its four strings. Her music was mute, but he heard its loneliness in his heart. The hollow his mother had left in his chest echoed with the same song.
And that, my dearest Andrea, is how we first met—through a crack, in silence, at the first blush of youth. I know that there is no magic that I can perform to make you fully fathom the letter that is in your hands. I regret that I cannot tell you more at this writing other than that you shall hear from me again. I do not wish to burden you with more than I must—despite the devastating temptation to tell you how everything ends.
Yours always,
Isaac Newton
1666
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55
A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.
—ISAAC NEWTON
San Francisco
Present Day
Andrea is seventeen.
Thank God for seven-year-olds. Since Andrea had read Isaac’s letter two and a half weeks before, Sebastian was the only person she could sit across from without fidgeting. The Monopoly board between them helped. If she happened to wince when any of Isaac’s words came loose from the knot in her gut, she blamed it on not passing Go, not collecting two hundred dollars, and going directly to jail. Sebastian believed her and, it seemed, so did Nate.
Nate landed on Sebastian’s Boardwalk property with its little red plastic hotel. He slapped his forehead. “Again? Seriously? Be honest, Bas. You rigged the dice.”
Sebastian grinned and read the back of his title deed card. “That will be seventeen hundred dollars. Pay up.”
Nate counted out the rent he owed. “You’ve wiped me out and your hotel didn’t even have a minibar.”
“Want to play again?” Sebastian asked.
“I’m game if your sister is.” Nate turned to Andrea. “What do you say?”
Andrea checked the time on the grandfather clock in the living room. It was getting late and there was another dice she needed to roll. “No, thanks. I’m done. My pride can only take declaring bankruptcy once a night.”
Sebastian stuffed the Chance cards back into the Monopoly box.
Nate stowed the game’s tokens. “I should get going.”
“I’ll walk you out.” Andrea stood up.
“Hey, Nate,” Sebastian said. “Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?” Nate asked.
“Monopoly.”
“Monopoly who?”
“Monopoly is bigger than your nopoly.”
Andrea giggled louder than the joke was funny. It was likely going to be the last time she was going to laugh that evening and she wanted to make the most of it. Her wall and Isaac’s letter were waiting for her upstairs.
Love and Gravity Page 6