Neither of us brought it up again, but an awkward silence hovered over us throughout dinner. I looked down at my plate the whole time and poked sullenly at my calabacitas, stirring the small squash and tomatoes together with the beans and rice until they formed a wholly unappetizing brown lump. Celeste chattered excitedly about what she’d done at school today, and how this friend and that friend weren’t speaking to each other again, and on and on and on, while Mom’s eyes bored into the top of my head. Eventually I dumped my half-eaten plate in the sink and wandered back into my room.

I had no homework, what with Career Week and everything, and for the first time in my life, I actually found myself wishing that I did. Then I’d have something to think about other than the fact that I’d alienated my two best friends, torqued off my mother, and gotten myself roped into Saturday school for the rest of the annum.

I put on my Speculus headset and browsed the internet for a while, looking for… I don’t know. Something to show that I wasn’t crazy. But I couldn’t find any information about that coin of Dad’s.

Next I tried searching for the arch. This is how I learned that corbeled vaults, as they are apparently called, are a dime a dozen. Practically every civilization on Earth had built something that looked like that. There was even a similar-looking one in Veracruz, where Abuelo’s old summer site had been. I couldn’t find any natural examples that looked like the same—most natural arches were worn out of solid rock, not stacked in a pattern like that—but I was starting to think that Erick was right. It was just a coincidence, the coin came from somewhere on Earth, and now I was stuck spending my weekends with my mom’s new loser boyfriend digging up rocks.

Way to go, Isaak.

Notification bubbles from Henry urging me to go on chat kept popping up in my peripheral, but I flicked them away. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him and have to explain away my stupid behavior. Honestly, the person I wanted to talk to most was Abuelo, but it was 2:00 AM in Berkeley where he and my grandma lived, so I figured I’d better not. Finally I took the headset off altogether and wandered toward the kitchen in search of something to fill my growling stomach with.

As I turned the corner past my mom’s room, I heard her say, “I’m just so worried about Isaak. He’s been… drifting so much since Raymond left.”