Once, a few months after Eureka’s parents got divorced, Diana had taken her canoeing on the Red River. For three days it was just the two of them, earning sunburns on their shoulders, paddling in time to soul songs, camping on the riverbank, eating only the fish they caught. They’d borrowed Uncle Beau’s tent but ended up sleeping in the open, at the bottom of an ocean of stars. Eureka had never seen stars so bright. Diana told her to pick one and she would pick one, too. They named their star after each other so whenever they were apart they could look at the sky and—even if they couldn’t see the Diana-Star or Eureka-Star, even if Dad married another woman and moved her to a town where no one had ever been in love—Eureka could see her mother’s presence, stand in her mother’s glow.
She looked up now and tried to feel Diana through the spaces in the rain. It was hard. She wiped her eyes and lowered her head and remembered something she wished she’d never known Diana said—
Today I saw the boy who’s going to break Eureka’s heart.
Dad had quoted Diana’s line the other day when Eureka introduced him to Ander. Diana had even sketched a picture of a boy who looked like Ander.
Eureka had dismissed Dad. He didn’t know the whole story.
But how much of the story did she know? Ander was a Seedbearer, but he wasn’t like his family. She thought she’d understood that. Now she was ashamed for doubting her parents. Diana had known that someday, some way, Eureka and Ander would care for each other. She had known that this affection would drain the life from him. She had known that this predicament would crush Eureka’s heart. Why hadn’t she warned Eureka? Why had she told her not to cry but never told her not to love?
“Mom—” she moaned into the rainy darkness.
A pack of coyotes howled in response. She wished she hadn’t left the cave. The lonely pond looked ominous when she wasn’t imagining Diana in the sky.
Candles lit portions of the rock opposite the Bitter Cloud. Other caves, Eureka realized. Other people awake and alive. Was that where Solon’s assistants lived? She realized this pond was new. She must have cried it. Her rain had filled what used to be a valley connecting Solon to his neighbors. It was a Tearline pond. She wondered how Filiz and the Poet reached Solon’s cave now that she’d washed out their path.
She let the canoe drift, lifted the torch from the prow. She held it toward the other caves. The light revealed evidence of desperation: remains of bonfires, abandoned fishing lines, carcasses of animals, bones picked clean of flesh.
She spiraled downward, caught in depression’s seductive pull. The boy she’d trusted couldn’t help her without loving her, couldn’t love her without hurtling toward senility. She would have to give him up. She would have to face Atlas alone.
“Hey, Cuttlefish.”
Eureka scanned the rocks. Her heart pounded as she tried to trace the sound’s origin. A shadow crossed a rock on the other side of the pond. She lowered the torch into its clip and let the stars light the silhouette of a teenage boy. Dark hair was matted to his forehead. His hand was raised toward her. His face was obscured by shadows, and he wore an unfamiliar raincoat, but Eureka knew it was Brooks.
And inside Brooks was Atlas.
A shiver spread through her. She became afraid. She picked up her paddle. She hadn’t been thinking when she left the Bitter Cloud. Why had she abandoned the safety of its glaze? She dragged the paddle through the water, away from Atlas. Brooks.
Until he laughed. Throaty and deep, bright with shared secrets, it was the way Brooks always laughed at their many thousands of inside jokes.
“Trying to get away from me?”
She couldn’t leave Brooks. Her arms reversed to paddle backward. If she left now she’d regret it forever. She’d lose her chance to see whether Brooks was alive or a ghost.
“That’s more like it.” A smile lit his voice. Eureka yearned to see it on his face.
She drew closer. Gray starlight touched his skin, the white of his teeth. She remembered the last moment they’d shared before Brooks had been taken. She wanted to go back there and stay, even though she’d felt depressed and afraid. Those final moments with uncorrupted Brooks shone in her memory like gold. They’d been lying on the beach under a haze of coconut sunscreen. Brooks was drinking a can of Coke. They had sand on their skin, salt on their lips. She heard the swish of his bathing suit when he rose to swim to the breakers. Then he was gone.
He looked the same now. Freckles dotted his cheeks. His brow cast shadows over his dark eyes. He’d come all the way around the world for her. She knew that was Atlas, but it was Brooks, too.
“Are you there?” she asked.