Page 113 of Under Story

“We want to sleep next to the tree,” Hazel says.

“Please?” asks Silas.

“He’s welcome to stay over,” says Maisie.

Laurel looks at Eli, who shrugs affably.

“You wouldn’t mind?” she asks Maisie and Noah.

“Not at all,” says Noah. “Come back in the morning for bread pudding.”

Maisie brings pillows and blankets downstairs. Laurel puts her outerwear on slowly, in case Silas changes his mind—they’ve never spent a night apart before—but after she kisses him, he chases after Hazel.

Laurel and Eli drive home in the snow.

“First sleepover,” she says.

“First sleepover,” says Eli, putting his hand over hers.

At home, he turns on lights while Laurel removes her coat and shoes. Thanks to an overactive furnace, the house is warm, so she takes her tights off, too. She enters the living room in her skirt and blouse. Eli sits on the sofa.

“Come here,” he says.

The house is quiet without Silas. Laurel and Eli have begun to share the bedroom, but they haven’t slept together since the night he was born.

Eli puts his hand on her thigh. Then he moves it underneath, between her legs, and finds the warm pink base that is already wet. He holds his palm there before he enters with one finger, two, making a noise of release as he does so, as if finding something he’s been searching for. At the end, she threads her arms through his, bringing him closer.

The next morning, Laurel curls around him in bed. “I’m happy.”

“Me, too.” Eli rubs tiny circles on her back. “Laurel…”

She cranes her head to meet his eyes.

“I think we should go to Antarctica,” he says.

Laurel sighs. Eli has raised the idea before, and she has always pushed back. Three years ago, the Arc faded from view. What was unusual was not its disappearance but the fact that it never returned. The departure sparked a flurry of media interest, as well as a podcast, but interest subsided in the years that followed. By now, the story reemerges every so often, usually in speculative articles or even more speculative Reddit posts.

“It feels like a fool’s errand,” Laurel says.

“It’s the only lead we have. There’s a chance that the portal still exists. Even if it doesn’t, we could collect data.”

“But we can’t bring Silas. McMurdo doesn’t allow children.”

“No,” agrees Eli. “But cruises do.”

He takes his phone from the bedside table and opens a browser window. On screen is a rotating slide show of images: a white ship, a whale’s tail, servers holding trays of champagne. Below that is a banner: Heroic Expeditions. A tag line reads, Become an Explorer.

“Cruises are for tourists,” says Laurel. “And they probably don’t go to Cape Evans.”

Eli taps on a package called Premium Explorer. “This one does. The ship actually docks for two days at McMurdo. One of us could stay with Silas while the other visits the portal. If it seems to be working, we’d take Silas through together.”

Laurel scans the itinerary, which begins at the tip of Argentina. The ship will navigate the tumultuous Drake Passage—a bottleneck where the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern Oceans meet—on the way to the Antarctic Peninsula. After docking at McMurdo, it reverses direction to steer toward New Zealand.

“Eli, this costs thirty thousand dollars—for one person,” she says.

“Most cruises only go as far as the Antarctic Peninsula. It takes longer to get all the way to McMurdo. It’s obscene, I know,” says Eli. “But we have the money.”

“That money isn’t ours. It’s theirs.”