The world was empty—no people, no animals, no insects, no plants. Soon even the largest trees would die, in spite of their deep roots. Nothing could survive this.

We sat there, alone, with nothing but a quarter of a bucket of undrinkable sludge.

“Daddy?”

I turned away, didn’t want her to see how shiny my eyes were. I got to my feet, took a couple of deep breaths. Pull yourself together, David.

“We can’t drink it,” I said. “But we can at least clean you up a little bit.”

I found an old rag in the outbuilding. I dipped it in the rusty water and wrung it out. The water was cool against my skin. It felt like water. That was at least something.

“Close your eyes,” I said to Lou.

Then I wiped her cheeks and forehead. She stood facing me, completely still, just relishing the feeling of the cold, damp rag against her skin.

“And hold out your arms,” I said.

She stretched them out toward me. The inside, the outside. The rag turned brown as I washed her. She held her eyes shut. Smiling.

“It tickles.”

She stuck her tongue out toward the rag.

“No, Lou.”

“Just a little.”

“No.”

“Okay, then.”

But when I had finished closing up the rainwater tank, I discovered that she had grabbed the rag and was holding it against her mouth, sucking the water out of it.

“Lou!”

She dropped it immediately.

“Did you swallow any?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

“Yes.”

Chapter Thirteen: Signe

Chapter Thirteen

Signe

Up and down on the waves, in and out of sleep, I’m seated at the map table, my head in my arms, sleeping, waking, drifting, while the storm pummels at Blue. I’m here, I’m there.

It was night when Daddy blew up the bridge. He and Sønstebø met up there in the dark, Sønstebø with his truck, Daddy in our car, or maybe he arrived on foot, walked up the mountainside. Maybe it was so dark that he had to use a flashlight, and maybe the cones of light from the truck’s headlamps were the first things he saw—two tunnels in the air, sharp disruptions in the darkness. . . . Did Daddy think of me, did he think of Mommy? Did Sønstebø think of Magnus?

Time is elastic. Time and the memories that bind it are two sides of the same coin. Magnus and I, Mommy and Daddy, the glacier and the river, the Sister Falls, and there’s so much I don’t remember.

I’m just here, in this night. And I’m in another night, the last night Mommy and Daddy slept together, were together. I don’t remember exactly how much time had passed since the hike, but it can’t have been more than a few weeks. I woke up and my throat was scratchy. I coughed gently into my pillow, but it didn’t help.