The forest was poised in anticipation of the night, like a playground in the moments before the school bell rings for break. The kids had accepted the crushing news that it was bedtime. Even Lola disappeared into the yurt with her book, and Horatio was snoring beside the fire. I had my hand in the cooler, hoping to chance upon a ready-mixed can of gin and tonic, when Joni whistled from down by the cars. I grabbed two cans and picked my way down the slope, the granite slabs black as sleeping dogs in the darkness. “Look at the stars,” Joni said as she accepted the drink. I tipped my head back, gazing up through the canopy, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Joni grunted as she lay down on her back. I did the same.
Layer upon layer of stars revealed themselves, shyly at first and then—as though veils were being drawn aside—in droves: some twinkling, some shooting, some strobing through colors, some that weren’t stars at all but satellites, some so tiny and numerous they formed shadowy dust-cloud galaxies.
“That must be north,” said Joni, “because there’re the two bears, Ursa Minor and Major, dancing around the polestar.” She pointed out planets and a galaxy where baby stars are formed.
“How do you know this stuff?” I asked.
“There wasn’t a lot to do, growing up in rural Pennsylvania.”
“There wasn’t a lot to do in rural Kenya, either,” I said, “and even less in bloody Burma.” Although, come to think of it, I had spent some time stargazing as a kid. My father bought a telescope once on a camping trip to the Ngorongoro, and we had seen stars like this then. I remembered how he’d told me that we could see so many stars—a picture book of stars like the ones we could see now—because there was no light pollution for miles around.
“Is there still no phone signal?” Joni asked.
“I’ve had a couple of messages, but nothing since this morning. A call came through from China earlier, but the connection was so bad we couldn’t speak. We’re a long way out here and the signal seems to come and go—”
“You know what I saw on the map earlier? Up on that ridge?” The dark shape of Joni’s arm pointed toward the skulking hills that surrounded our campsite. “A phone tower. The signal should be fine.” The abyss of space daunted me into silence. Chattering bats skirted our orbit. Sighing wind. Shallow breath in my chest. Joni sat up to loom over me in the dark. “We’re only fifteen miles from Church Stretton—that’s a big enough town—and thirty miles from Shrewsbury, and that’s a city. We should be able to see lights, even if it’s just a glow behind the hills.”
We got up and went to the Beast to get my phone and check the signal. Joni was right: there was coverage, but when I tried to call a couple of numbers—her phone, my home—the line was permanently busy. I left the handset on charge, just in case.
The glow from the car’s interior light made the darkness all the more intense, as though it had taken a step closer. I flicked on the headlights and they shot out into the night, a pure white lance whose tip faded before it could pierce the heavens. Joni and I stood in the streams of light while long shadows of ourselves strained to get away. Common moths glinted through the beam, shining briefly before blanching to nothing.
We stood there for a long time, drinking our gin, each finding her own silent reasons for why there was no electricity as far as the eye could see.
Chapter Three
I grasped for Billy in the purple part of the night, certain he was frozen through. I dug into the covers for his hand, which was warm, and laid my palm flat across his shoulder blades to check for the rise and fall of breathing. I fell back onto my mattress, listening to a silence so deep it had its own complexity—the pitch and roll of waves—and when I woke again it was to an ashy dawn, as gray as the remains of the campfire where Horatio still slept. Wherever he’d come from, he was in no hurry to get back. I shrugged on a fleece and unzipped the tent flaps, which were laden with dew.
Maggie was already outside, fussing about something.
“What’s up, Princess Margaret?”
She held up both hands. “Which one is my favorite finger?”
“The pinkie?”
She dropped her hands into her lap, looking away. I had done wrong; now I was dead to her.
“The sore thumb?” I tried.
She ignored me. One strike and you’re out. Game over. For a second, I shone so brightly through my daughter she became translucent, and I saw myself sitting there, raw as a ripped hangnail. No wonder I found it hard to like her sometimes. I reached over and kissed her unwilling head. Charlie was subdued, too. Even Peter managed to sit still for a while. Our listless mood was in contrast to the bustling forest, which chattered with life. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle or some other woodland creature straight out of Beatrix Potter scurried past wearing a bonnet and carrying a pattypan. Maybe that would have pleased Maggie.
I went back to the tent to get dressed, and Charlie sidled up, slipping his hand into mine and making me startle.
“What happened to the cows, Mummy?”
You can protect kids from everything but their own curiosity. I told him I didn’t know exactly, but for some reason they hadn’t been milked.
“Why didn’t the farmer get help?” he asked.
That was a very good question.
“What will happen to the cows?” he said.
“I don’t know. They might get mastitis.”
“Will we get mashed eyes—”
“You can’t catch mastitis. Try not to worry about the cows.”
He looked away into the trees as though he could still hear their screaming. I stroked his hair back from his forehead.
“I’m scared,” he said.
“How big is your worry, Charlie?”
“The cows were horrid. But it’s good that Horatio’s here. About a seven or six?” He went quiet, fingers seeking inside my grasp, velvety as a mole.
“A six isn’t so bad.” I squeezed his hand three times, our secret code for I love you.
“Peter reckons their udders will swell up with milk and burst.” He scanned my face for signs of confirmation. Of course, I lied. He squeezed my hand four times—I love you, too—and ran off to tell Peter.
Joni stumped up the slope and dumped shrubbery into one of the big cooking pots. By way of a morning greeting, she told us how she “wiped out down by the crick,” ripped her shirt, but found this pile of edible greenery from which we could rustle up all manner of herbal treats. “It’s a fricking supermarket out there,” she said, jabbing a finger at the wilderness, her eyes lit up like a kid peering into a golden treasure chest. I poked at the forage with a wooden spoon. Joni gave the kids a bucket and sent them to fetch washing water from the stream. They raced off and she turned on me.