It felt to Alma as if the pieces of the puzzle that had been scattered across her mind two days ago had very suddenly come together.
“This is what the ShopKeeper said!” she cried, lifting the page close to Hugo’s visored gaze. “‘Find the Elements. Grow the Light. Save the Stars’—well, he said ‘Starling.’ I guess that’s a young star. He told me what to do, and here it is again. We have to find the elements!”
Hugo shook his head. “Apologies, but this entire book is ludicrous.”
Alma stared at him, perplexed. “What do you mean?” she asked. “How can it be ludicrous? This book is very old. Ancient, even.”
“Science is cumulative,” Hugo replied. “That means the older the information is, the less correct it is, for the most part.”
“But what about the elements it talks about—earth, wind, water, fire? Isn’t that what you’re doing your lecture on? How the elements were created in the stars?”
“It is very important,” Hugo said, “that you come on Tuesday. I am astounded by the gaps in the education system.” He tapped the cover of the book. “This is alchemy—pseudoscience from medieval times. Earth, wind, water, fire—those are not the elements I’m referring to. And neither is quintessence.”
“Quintessence is the fifth element,” Alma said, flipping back to the page with the elemental symbols in the star. “See? It’s the ‘Great Light’ that fills the stars—the spark in us—and we can make it by combining the other four elements.”
Hugo pushed his visor-glasses up on his nose. Then he pulled them down. Then he pushed them back up. He seemed confused, Alma thought. Conflicted.
But she wasn’t. Not anymore.
Because here was what could be done. Here was what had to be done.
They needed to get started as soon as possible.
“It might be ludicrous,” she said, “but I think it’s true. And you—you know so much, Hugo. I could really use your help finding the elements.”
Hugo scooped up a rock from the ground. “Eureka,” he said, holding it out. “Here is some earth. You’re one-fourth of the way done.”
Alma didn’t take the rock. “I don’t think that can be it,” she said. “I think it has to be … special-er.”
“Special-er,” Hugo repeated.
“Truer,” Alma said. “The most true. That’s what the book says.”
“That doesn’t make sound scientific sense,” Hugo replied. “True earth? I have no hypothesis about what that would consist of or how to find it.”
Alma turned back to the Starling and traced the illustration, the lines emanating from the little form, the circle at her center. “We both saw something, Hugo,” she said. “And you have this book, and I have the quintescope. That’s too many coincidences. I think—I think we’re the elementals who are supposed to save this Starling.”
Hugo was silent. He was silent for a long, long time. By now Alma had figured out that she just had to wait while he thought, while he processed and figured out what he wanted to say. So she waited.
“You really think this?” Hugo finally asked. “You really think that a star, defying the laws of physics, fell out of the sky? And turned into a child? And now requires pseudoscientific assistance to return to outer space?”
“Yes,” Alma said. “That’s what I think. Absolutely.”
He was silent again. Then he said, “I do agree that the number of coincidences surrounding this incident is highly unusual. I’m not saying any of it is true! But since scientific knowledge is about an open-minded spirit of inquiry, I suppose I can explore the hypotheses set forth in this book.”
Alma couldn’t contain her smile. Hugo might not be fully convinced, but he believed enough to help her. That was all she needed.
They were going to find the elements. They were going to create quintessence, that Great Light. And they were going to save the Starling.
“You won’t regret it, Hugo,” Alma said. “Neither of us will. I can feel it.”