That night, the phone rang. Alma was in her room, studying her rock collection through the quintescope eyepiece. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this. She kept hoping that one of her own rocks would be “earthy” enough, but none of them ever gave her the feeling that the water from Fourth Point Spring and the wind from Second Point Peak did.
Also, none of them glowed.
Hopefully, what she was looking for would be in the Deep Downs.
Her father knocked on her door, then stuck his head in.
“James is on the phone for you,” he said.
“For me?” Alma asked. James called and talked to her parents every now and then. But Alma hadn’t spoken to him since winter break.
“For you,” her father said, handing her the phone. Then he shut the door, leaving Alma alone.
“Hello?” she said into the phone.
“Hey, Alms,” James said. “What’s going on?”
Hearing James’s voice made Alma want to burst into tears. Which didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like they had been best friends before he left. James was so much older, more than five years, and they were so different. James was smart and focused, while Alma had always been imaginative and distracted.
But James had always been there. He had known her, and she had known him. And when he was gone, like everything else, Alma had missed him.
“Nothing,” she said, but her voice cracked.
“Alms,” James said, sadly this time. “Don’t cry. Mom told me you’ve been doing really well, actually. She told me you joined a club.”
“Astronomy,” Alma said.
“Nerd,” James said.
Alma laughed. “I guess I am. Who would have thought.”
“But listen.” James’s voice was suddenly serious. “Mom also said she’s worried about you. Dad too. They said you’ve been acting weird.”
“I’ve always been weird,” Alma replied.
“Well, that’s definitely true,” James said.
“And a lot has happened. You haven’t seen me in a long time.”
There was a pause. “I saw you for almost a month during winter break, remember?” James finally said, his voice serious again but softer. “You didn’t want to go anywhere with me? You stayed in the house the whole time? You were—you were having a hard time.”
Alma remembered now. They had only been in Four Points for a few weeks when James had come home for his break. She had already met with the doctor about her panic attacks, and she’d spent James’s visit holed up in her room, making excuses for why she didn’t want to leave the house, trying to convince everyone that she was doing better. Even though she wasn’t. “That seems like forever ago,” she told James. “I am different now. But it’s a good different, I think.”
“You sound good,” James said. “You sound … happier. More like yourself.”
“That’s exactly how I feel,” Alma said, pleased that he could tell that without even seeing her. “And I’m learning a lot too. When do you come home for spring break? I can show you my quintescope. It’s a kind of telescope.”
“I’ve never heard of a quintescope,” James replied. “I’ll be home next weekend; maybe we can set it up on the top of that tower. What’s it called?”
“The Fifth Point,” Alma replied with a smile. “I’d like that.”
After the phone call, once her parents had gone to bed, Alma slipped out onto her roof again. She was tired after a day of ups and downs, but if she was changed, if she was happier, if she was more herself like James had said, it was because of the quest.
Thunder thrummed in the south, a sound that soothed her as she watched the golden spheres burning in the stars above her. She found the place where the supernova had been and saw that the cloud of debris was vaster than ever and just as radiant. Then she moved the scope back down to earth and followed the trails of quintessence through the woods around her house, back to the fields and the old silo.
“I’ll find you, Starling,” Alma said to the darkness. “I’ll save you, just like you’re saving me.”