“Dad’s gonna kill you for missing the eclipse,” she said. “They were looking everywhere. Where were you?”

But before I could answer, we heard someone call out.

“Hey.” We turned and saw Jade walking toward us slowly. “You two having Secret Sister Nerd Time or something?”

Blair opened her mouth with a retort, and it was like nothing had changed. But so much had. So instead, I scooted over, probably getting a thousand splinters in my butt from the wooden dock, and patted the space I’d left.

It was just an invitation. I had no idea if she’d accept. But she did, coming over, plopping down next to me. She slid into her own place in our complicated dance. She told Blair she was glad she was home, and Blair smiled.

It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. But it felt a bit like unburying that time capsule: excavating the dirt and feeling the sun come back out.

That night, as I watched Luke blow up the Death Star between my two sisters, with Blair quoting the lines and Jade rolling her eyes, I didn’t know what was to come. I was pretty convinced I would never speak to Dr. Leo Lacamoire again. He was gone, like a shooting star streaking across the galaxy. He had found what he wanted and was furious with me for not telling him that I’d had it. I got that. He and Simone left early the next morning. Simone stopped over to say goodbye to my mom and return the keys, but afterward, she gave me a long hug.

“He just needs some time,” she whispered into my ear. “We’ll be in touch, all right, stargazer?”

Over the next year, as I forged my way through eighth grade, I did hear from Leo. Twice, but not actually directly from him. In September, an anonymous donor wrote a huge check to the town of Moose Junction in order to keep the library open. The check came with a note written directly to me, which Harriet showed me one afternoon.

Abby —

Get some decent research books. The nonfiction selection is dreadful. May I suggest starting with ExtraPlanets: Looking for Life Beyond Our Solar System?

In October, the leaves were starting to change colors. The hunters came back, wearing blaze orange and shuffling out to their tree stands at 4:00 a.m. Blair was serving dinner at Gooch’s, the nicest restaurant in Waukegan County, and taking online classes in English at night. She still went to therapy twice a week, and she still cried a lot, but I didn’t run in my room and hide under the covers. I sat by her and braided her hair and listened to what she had to say. Jade was starting her own college application process, but she wanted to go far away—she and Mom had planned trips out east to NYU, out west to Oregon, and down south to Austin. Our little corner of Wisconsin needed to stretch a little.