Page 147 of Under Story

Laurel sat down heavily. She would have paid good money for a shower. They had been wearing the same clothes for days: Tess in Carhartt cargos and a black tank top; Laurel in Tevas and overalls, a baseball cap over two braids; and Gloria in hiking pants and a tie-dyed T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a bandanna.

“We can’t leave yet,” Laurel said.

Tess grimaced. The chair of the botany department—a stodgy professor in his early twenties—saw the project as a drain on faculty time and resources. If Tess and Laurel began to cancel classes, their funding could be cut.

Gloria volunteered to stay in Cedar by herself. “The Pie would send data. You guys could follow it remotely.”

“No. Whatever we do, we should do it together,” said Laurel.

Her tone was firm. Tess and Gloria had noticed: they nodded with a deference Laurel hadn’t realized she had earned.

“One more night,” she said.

They drove back to the road for phone service. Gloria called in sick to her job at the diner, and Tess emailed a TA on her BlackBerry. Laurel made two calls: one to Samir, to ask if he could teach her class, and one to Eli.

Rain began to fall lightly in early afternoon. Droplets shimmered as though they were not falling but suspended. The currents in the cave remained stable, and the ORBs barely flickered. Tess climbed into the tree to make sure that they were working.

They ate a somber dinner at the camp stove.

“At least we can bathe tomorrow,” said Tess.

“Yeah,” Gloria said. “Maybe we’re the problem. At this point, our BO is probably interfering with the VOCs.”

—

That night, Laurel took the second watch. Leaving the tent, groggy, she felt like a parent with a newborn. But as she settled by the tree, the better analogy seemed to be the end of pregnancy—not the pregnancy she had experienced in this world, but that which she knew from her own. She had slept more fitfully in the third trimester than she did after Silas was born. Sometimes, after she had peed for the eighth time in a single night, she stood in the bathroom and looked out of the window to the yard. She was exhausted and frequently cranky, but even her crankiness was tinged with the sublime—the paired mundanity and sacredness of waiting.

There was a soft padding sound. Tess made her way from the tent to the tree, wrapped in a blanket and yawning.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said.

Laurel patted the grass beside her, and Tess sat down. The rain made a gentle tapping sound. Silver flecks were visible, like tinsel, in the air around the spheres. Laurel wished that Eli could see the tree like this. If she still had an iPhone, she would have been able to take a video, but she had downgraded to a Nokia.

“Don’t you love watching Gloria here?” asked Tess. “All that excitement. If we gave her permission, she would probably camp out for weeks.”

Laurel laughed. “It’s true. She has so much life ahead.”

“Exactly,” said Tess. “And I’m already exhausted.”

Tess was a hard worker. What fatigue she felt rarely showed. She prided herself on being energetic, game—a team player. Laurel had never seen her look so weary.

“You’ve been doing this for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Forty-five years?” Tess’s laughter had a wry edge. “God, that makes me sound ancient. But I feel it. I’m not as sharp as I used to be. And I sleep like shit out in the field.”

“If you aren’t sharp, there’s no hope for the rest of us,” said Laurel. “We couldn’t have done this without you.”

Tess smiled. They looked up at the ORBs. The gas inside them remained green. For a moment, Laurel thought that certain plumes had taken on a copper tinge. Then she sat back. It was probably her own projection; she felt as though she were willing the ORBs to change color.

“Lately I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do after this,” said Tess.

“Any ideas?”

“You’ll think I’m crazy.” Tess paused. “I might join a commune.”

“Really?” asked Laurel. She didn’t share her true thinking, which was that Tess’s instinct made sense: Tess One had spent the summer at a commune, after all, when Laurel was in college.

“I know it might sound out of left field,” Tess added. “It’s just—being alone for so long…I don’t know if that’s how we’re supposed to live.”