I’m in my boots and out the front door. It’s very cold and still, no wind blowing in my face. The sky is full of shooting stars and they’re brighter than any I’ve ever seen before, but the hemlock trees around the house block part of my view.

I notice Dad’s extension ladder leaning against the roof, for when he needs to break up ice dams or clean the chimney. It’s an easy climb onto the roof of the house. I stand on the ridgepole, as high off the ground as I’ve ever been. I can see in every direction. The crackling gets louder and louder and there’s a huge boom. Suddenly an explosion of light fills the whole sky overhead, and a dark shape arcs down onto the top of the field.

Then, except for the moon, the sky is dark. I blink once, twice, and it’s still there—a shadow on the frozen white.

My hands sting from the cold and I scramble down the roof and back into the house. I open the damper on the stove, throw in a stick of kindling and a bigger piece of wood, and rub my hands together as the fire heats up.

I know scientists aren’t sure if there’s an end to the universe. I read that you can travel at the speed of light forever without reaching an edge of it. But when I was balanced on top of the roof watching the light burst over me, it felt real, how big the universe is.

“Henry?” Mom comes into the hallway in her long winter nightgown. Did she hear the front door open or close? “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, I just put more wood in the stove.”

She points to the crescent of moon in the kitchen window.

“It’s waning.”

This is when I could say what I saw in the sky and what I think crashed onto the field. Mom would find Dad’s headlamp and go outside with me.

But I don’t want to say anything until I find out for sure myself.

“See if you can go back to sleep. It’s still dark out.” She yawns.

“I will.”

Mom says darkness comes for a reason—to show us when to rest. I go into my room, but I can’t sleep.

There’s a picture I remember from my M encyclopedia. I turn to the page that shows a meteor bursting through the atmosphere on its way down to Earth. It looks just like the explosion of light I saw from the roof.

Underneath, it says:

Meteors rarely blaze for more than a few seconds.

Meteors that reach Earth before burning up are meteorites.

Meteorites are rocks from space, the rarest rocks, and I’ve never seen or touched one in my whole life.

Chapter 4