The extra blankets finally warm me enough to go back to sleep. I put my notebook and pencil down and turn out the light. Twelve noon can’t come fast enough.

Chapter 13

Meteorites have enabled us to come close to answering questions such as “How did the Earth, Sun and planets form?”, and even “How did we come to be here?”

—Robert Hutchinson and Andrew Graham, Meteorites

I WISH I’D ASKED Miles Morgan the color of his car so I could be sure not to miss him coming over the hill. I put on my coat and hat and go out on the porch to wait.

The Lowington Fire Department water tanker truck is down where the moving water crosses the road, filling up. Dad and Lincoln and Braggy help fill plastic barrels in the back of a pickup truck with a hose connected to a generator. Birdie stands there in her red coat watching them. Mom is upstairs in Lincoln’s old bedroom, resting again.

I guess that Dr. Miles Morgan’s car will be silver, then I guess black, then red, and then a very ordinary dark blue car pulls into the driveway.

The driver’s-side door opens and Dr. Miles Morgan steps out. His skin is a lighter shade of the meteorite, and he wears a gray suit, a white shirt, and a red tie. His shoes are black and shiny. I’ve only seen men wear clothes like these at my grandfather’s funeral. He doesn’t wear a coat or a hat, and he carries a briefcase.

The wind at the top of the hill blows strong and cold, good for keeping the frost from hitting the garden, but not good for city men wearing thin clothes in February. Dr. Miles Morgan shivers as he looks up at Nana’s big farmhouse, painted white but peeling from years of wind and snow.

“Hello, Dr. Morgan. Welcome.” I hold out my hand.

Dr. Morgan’s hand is cold. He looks around at the patches of snow still in Nana’s fields and the leafless maples in front of the house. Smoke rises straight up from the chimney, and you can taste it in the air.

“What a spectacularly wintry landscape you have here,” he says.

“It is winter,” I explain.

He takes a cell phone out of his pocket and holds it up.

“There doesn’t appear to be any cell phone service here,” he says.

“There’s no cell phone service in most of Lowington,” I say, and lead the way into Nana’s warm kitchen.