The sun stood just one hand above the horizon now, descending quickly into the wavy line where the foothills declined to the valley floor. Even in high summer the days seemed to end this way, in a kind of plunge. Peter cupped his eyes against the glare. Somewhere out there—past the fireline, with its loose jumble of felled timber, and the grazing grounds of Upper Field and the dump with its pit and piles, and the scrubby woodlands hills beyond—lay the ruins of Los Angeles and, farther still, the unimaginable sea. When Peter was a Little and still living in the Sanctuary, he had learned about this, in the library. Although it had been decided, long ago, that most of the books the Builders had left behind were of no value, and potentially confusing to the Littles, who were not to know anything about the virals or what had happened to the world of the Time Before, a few were allowed to remain. Sometimes Teacher would read to them, stories about children and fairies and talking animals who lived in a forest behind the doors of a closet, or else allow them to select a book on their own, to look at the pictures and read as best they could. The Oceans Around Us: that had been Peter’s favorite, the book he’d always chosen. A faded volume, its pages dank-smelling and cool to the touch, the cracked binding held together by bits of curling yellow tape. On the cover was the name of the author, Ed Time-Life, and inside, page after wondrous page of pictures and photos and maps. One map was called the World, which was everything, and most of the World was water. Peter asked Teacher to help him read the names: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic. Hour after hour he sat on his mat in the Big Room, the book cradled in his lap, turning the pages, his eyes locked onto these blue spaces on the maps. The World, he gathered, was round, a great watery ball—a dewdrop hurtling through the sky—and all the water was connected. The rains of spring and snows of winter, the water that poured from the pumps, even the clouds above their heads—that was all part of the oceans, too. Where was the ocean? Peter asked Teacher one day. Could he see it? But Teacher only laughed, as she always did when he asked too many questions, dismissing his concerns with a shake of her head. Maybe there’s an ocean and maybe there isn’t. It’s only a book, Little Peter. Don’t you go worrying about oceans and such.