Page 162 of Under Story

“Forget it,” Laurel says.

Eli extracts the chocolate for inspection. Then, as she watches, he eats half of it.

Laurel covers her mouth. “Oh my God.”

Eli moves her hand down. He puts the remaining half on her tongue. With one finger, he tips her jaw up.

I.

“Nothing is happening,” Laurel says.

They lie on their backs. A dragonfly—always so much larger than she expects an insect to be—hovers beside them.

“The sun looks kind of rainbow,” Eli says. “What’s left of it.”

Laurel squints. Possibly she sees other colors, but more likely, she’s inventing them.

II.

The stars appear. The Big Dipper, most famous of constellations. Centaurus, finely legible in May. Jupiter, which drifts through the zodiac while orbiting the sun, is now in Pisces.

“What if,” Laurel says, “we look up at the other universe’s stars? Like—we see their stars, and they see ours? What if the sky is…a window?”

Eli doesn’t respond. Laurel giggles. Maybe she is high.

Her eyes soften in their sockets. Pine needles rustle. Jupiter seems to be moving.

The gas giant has become dislodged from Pisces. Laurel knows that this is impossible: Jupiter completes an orbit every twelve years. But how can she deny what she sees? The planet floats past Virgo and traces the edge of the moon.

Then it descends, as a spider drops from silk.

Hypnotized, she watches it draw closer. Larger and larger it looms, growing in detail as well as size: she can see its pleated, pearly gases and its Earth-sized storms.

“Eli!” Laurel cries.

But Eli is gone. Jupiter flies nearer, faster, huger. She scrambles back and screams as it collides.

III.

She comes to on her hands and knees. There is an acrid, metallic scent, and something hisses softly.

Laurel stands, gasping, and whirls. She is alone.

Behind her, the woods are undisturbed. A vast crater lies ahead, though it looks more like a sinkhole: funnel-shaped and narrow at one end.

Where is Eli? Laurel walks back to the road, but she doesn’t see his car. Even the Center is gone. The stars hang haphazardly: some in the wrong place, others too close together. Orion has lost his belt. The Big Dipper’s ladle dangles, broken in half.

Laurel tries to predict where Eli might have gone. Surely he would have been curious. He might have walked to the crater, assuming that she would follow.

Moonlight illuminates the sides of the bowl, but the bottom is shadowed. The wall curves precipitously, so Laurel takes careful steps, sometimes turning sideways. In some places, the ground is ragged; in others, it is smooth as an eye socket.

Laurel stops on a ledge to rest. She still can’t see the base. In her jeans, she feels hot, and her hands are caked with dust. Maybe she should wait here until the mushrooms wear off. Eventually, though, she becomes anxious: if Eli came this way, she shouldn’t lag too far behind.

The next pitch is steep, so she scoots instead of walks. Her throat is dry. She wishes for a water bottle, though she does find a glass of apple cider. Laurel drinks while watching the moon, which lifts in fits and starts. When it aligns over the crater, she can finally see the bottom.

Instead of a base, there is a hole.

Water sloshes inside. As she watches, it begins to rise. Soon, half of the crater is submerged, and a vortex spins below her feet.