Lovely, Dark, and Deep

  Ah. Semicolon.

  My mouth twitches into an almost-smile. His mouth tightens into an almost-grimace. He asks, “Stupid?”

  “No.” I open the door and let him in.

  It actually makes perfect sense. Mom and Dad are semicolons; Auntie Ruth and Uncle Amos were ones, too. Who wouldn’t want to protect that rare and precious semicolon at all costs? Who wouldn’t preemptively want to stay behind a perfectly functional, self-sufficient full-stop period after losing their perfect half?

  And who wouldn’t be scared to find a perfect half they never expected to exist?

  “Semicolons are my new favorite,” Josh says.

  “Mine, too.”

  It’s a start, a good start. Yet I need to hear his full and complete explanation, every last word. My bedroom is too personal, the basement too tempting. So I lead him to the living room and ask him in a very Lee & Li fact-finding way, “Why are you really here?”

  We sit shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip on the sofa, too close for comfort and way too close for conversation. Reluctantly, I scoot a few inches from him, a physical pause that I need. I have to see his eyes, watch his expression. After all, I am Lee & Li trained, and eyes and bodies can communicate what our words cannot.

  “So,” I say. “You hurt my feelings.”

  Listen to him, I tell myself. Watch him. Don’t back-fill the nervous space with my own monologue. I shut my mouth (literally, physically, and figuratively).

  “I know,” Josh answers, and turns completely on the couch to face me. He takes both of my hands in his. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I never want to do that. I guess I was scared. My brother died because of me. I just couldn’t handle that I almost made you die, too. So I ran. But when you came to me that night, that was just about the bravest thing I’ve seen. I don’t want to lose this, you, us, just because I’m scared.”

  “I get that,” I tell him, “but for the record, I do have a condition. You can’t always blame yourself if I get sick when we’re together. I mean, you just can’t.” I sigh because what I have to say next is hard, but it has to be spoken. “Otherwise, this will never work, and you have to know there are easier girls to date.”

  “Easier, yeah. But date? I only want you.”

  There it is again, that melting of my heart. Yet melting is easy; staying is hard. Look at my mom, still hurt thirty years after my mystery aunt abandoned her. This was what Dad was talking about, after all.

  “This—me—I might be too much, and this might be too unfair for you. The truth is, if you aren’t there for me, I’ll probably be crushed. And it’s a lot to ask of anyone, Josh. I might be able to only go out in the dark. And then there are times when I might not be able to go out anywhere.” I take his hand now and lead him down to the basement, keeping the door open in case my parents do an inspection check. Every step down is an invitation for him to bolt again, but I’d rather know now if he’s got real staying power. I have nothing more to hide. “This is where I might have to live. Here.” I turn on the UV-protected overhead light. “For months, maybe.”

  “I’ve been researching solar urticaria,” Josh says, sitting on the edge of my platform bed, “and if we take even more precautions, we should be able to keep you safe in the dark. Some people only get a little rash when they go out.”

  “And some people can’t even go outside,” I counter, lowering myself down on the far edge of the bed. “Ever. No beaches, no bikinis, no running in the sun together. No picnics, no—”

  Almost as if he’s been coached by Auntie Ruth or Nana1947 from the lupus board, Josh tells me, “That’s a lot of no, and there is such a thing as moonlight. Plus, not to brag or anything, but I have a lot of confidence in my creative problem-solving ability.”

  “But your job isn’t to protect me.”

  “I thought that’s what people who love each other are supposed to do: have each other’s back.” And then he reaches all the way over to take my hand.

  Melting. Again. All I want to do is kiss my Thor. Yet I know this is one of those historic moments, the ones where everything hinges on one misplaced word. Or one well-placed semicolon. Without meaning to, I clench his hand, never feeling so urgent about wanting to understand someone and wanting that same someone to understand me.

  “What?” he asks. “Tell me.”

  So I do.

  “Okay, here’s the thing,” I say. “We can research the hell out of my condition. We can read every little study done around the world. We can write the world’s best plan to protect me. But studies are just guidelines and plans always change. Everyone has a slightly different reaction, and every single time I go out, my reaction might be different. And that’s not even the point,” I say, and I’m heartened because Josh is paying exquisite attention to me like he’s actively storing everything I’m saying into his memory. I gesture around my bunker. “This might be it. This basement might be the entirety of my life.”

  “Are you asking me whether I like being in the Necromanteion with you?” he asks softly, his gaze unwavering. “Because the answer is yes.”

  “Actually, do you like Iceland?” I whisper.

  “For the volcanos?” He touches my lava necklace. His voice deepens, husky, and he says, “This is very Persephone: lava rock and silver. Light and dark.”

  As if he knows what I’m yearning for, Josh traces my lava-hot skin. Then he smiles the smile of the Thors of this world, a guy who knows the distracting effect of his touch. “So what about Iceland?”

  I clear my throat and ignore the deepening of his knowing smile as his finger continues to trace small infinity signs underneath my shirt(s).

  “Iceland?” he prompts me.

  “NASA is predicting the best aurora borealis in years in December. So Iceland. Six-and-a-half-hour direct flight. You should go research it.”

  “Central Washington. Six hours’ drive. You should come.”

  “Are you inviting me to your lair?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Josh pulls back, stunned, worried, no trace left of the he-man smile. “What? Viola, I want to be with you.”

  “No, I mean, yay! But I mean, Helgafell.”

  Somehow, he tracks what I’m saying and asks, “What’s that?”

  “The Holy Mountain in Iceland. Legend has it that it’s a portal to life after death.”

  His eyes grow as wide as mine must have when I did my extensive research on Iceland. “Persephone and the Vikings.”

  “Exactly, and according to Icelandic folklore, if you hike up the mountain without turning to look back once, you’ll be granted three wishes when you reach the top of the hill.” I blink up at him. “Can you even imagine what Persephone would wish for?”

  “A kiss.”

  “Finally.”

  He immediately flushes (a lot and adorably); I flush (a lot and sweatily).

  Semicolon, indeed.

  My lips part, and let me tell you, a wish has nothing on this kiss. Tender, raunchy, soft, hard, all of the above, and everything in between—the right kiss can express a thousand emotions. And this one does. Enveloped in Josh’s arms, his lips upon mine, we run the full gamut: apology and forgiveness. Separation and reunion. And homecoming. So much homecoming.

  As much as I want to revel in my bedroom and cozy up in my old flannel sheets, I lean against my pillows in bed and consult my planner. There is too much to check off on this Souper Bowl Sunday morning to lounge around, even if it’s to relish the memory of Josh’s (many) (many) kisses last night. The motion-sensing night-light flashes on, casting just enough light so I can make it to my desk without stubbing my toes. Or so I thought. My knee bangs hard against the desk leg. I yelp.

  Immediately, my bedroom door flings open, and ninja-mom leaps in to the rescue, ready to karate-kick any intruder foolish enough to invade her daughter’s room.

  “Good morning,” I say, rubbing my throbbing knee.

  “What’re you doing in here?” Mom asks, bew
ildered. Without waiting for my answer, she becomes my personal tour guide of the dangers lurking in my bedroom. “Honey, even that night-light can hurt you.” She’s already bending down to remove the offending 0.3 watts of light bulb. “We haven’t safety-proofed your room yet.”

  “I feel great. Just ask Dad.”

  Mom straightens abruptly, leaving the night-light in place. “Did you guys really sneak out to the park last night?”

  “Yeah, way past his bedtime, too.”

  Mom chuckles. “You didn’t hear it from me, but he’s still groggy after two cups of coffee.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, I bet. He’s not used to breaking rules.”

  “He said he had fun,” Mom says, gazing at the curtains, which don’t just black out the sun. They block out every hint of the world that lies outside.

  “Full moon. It was beautiful.”

  “I wish I had been with you guys.”

  “Well, you could watch the northern lights with us in the Methow Valley.” I sidle a look at her. “Josh’s mom is moving there. He invited us.”

  “He did?” Mom asks without sounding surprised. Of course she isn’t. Dad’s already filled her in on last night, always her partner. “I’ve always wanted to see the northern lights.”

  While I don’t test Iceland with Mom, since Josh and I only sketched out that research trip last night (in between kissing), I tell her how we would use our time in his new hometown to research Persephone, complete with moonlight snowshoeing.

  “That sounds like fun,” Mom says thoughtfully. “But it’s a long way from home with a boy.”

  If I’ve learned one thing from my parents, it’s to pounce on the right openings because opportunities don’t just wait around. Either you’re in or you’re not. Either you seize the moment, or you don’t.

  I seize; I seize. I sit down on my desk, surrounded by my favorite articles and my most treasured photos. “Come with us, Mom.”

  A denial shapes on her pursed lips until Mom’s eyes rest on the photo of Auntie Ruth and me, outside our tent in the Serengeti next to the one of our family at Disneyland.

  “Hmm,” Mom muses, and I know that we’re on the path to yes.

  The benefit of crashing in the hotel room while everyone else went cross-country skiing all day is that I’m well rested at midnight. Everyone else, not so much. Yawns, yawns sound everywhere when we venture out into the cold, dark snowfield to watch for the northern lights. Far beyond us, in a haze of dark are the snow-filled woods where Josh and I plan to snowshoe in the dusk tomorrow, if my body is up for it.

  “Well, this is certainly bracing,” Mom says, shivering, after we’ve huddled on the red Adirondack chairs around an unlit fire pit for all of five minutes.

  The innkeeper joins us outside to make sure “we” have everything we need, but the way he’s studying Auntie Ruth, I know who he’s concerned about. Who wouldn’t be? Her silver parka is going to inspire Persephone’s entire Wynnter wardrobe.

  “Oh, wow. Would you look at the northern lights. So awesome,” Roz says flatly as we all stare at the cloud-dense sky. There is not a trace of the aurora borealis, not even a hint of pale honeydew green on the black canvas above.

  “Sometimes they’re there. Sometimes not,” the innkeeper responds.

  “How long is this going to take anyway?” Roz’s whine shades the contours of every consonant and vowel in her question. How should I answer? In a minute, two hours, twenty days, an eternity, unknown. “Whose idea was this?”

  “Mine,” I tell her, and when she aims a death glare at me, I can’t help but add, “And we’re doing this again tomorrow night.”

  “Again?” Roz demands. “Why?”

  “Clouds tonight,” Josh says, tilting his head back.

  “Then why are we here now?” Roz asks, but meets my eyes as our parents answer in tandem: “Just in case.” She sighs. “I so did not win the family lottery.”

  Oh, but little sister, you have. When we get home, I plan to convince our parents to let Roz go on her seventeenth-birthday expedition with Auntie Ruth. That will be this big sister’s parting gift before I leave for Reed College. (Application submitted—and surprise of surprises, my campus interviewer loved my three-page researched and footnoted proposal to create my own gastrodiplomacy program with Le Cordon Bleu. Afterward, Ms. Kavoussi gave me a high five.)

  Meanwhile, the innkeeper sidles even closer to my aunt and asks her, “Hot rum toddy?” After Auntie Ruth nods eagerly, let’s just say a grown man has never run so fast in snow. (See also: gastrodiplomacy.) And let’s just say I smile, watching Auntie Ruth absently rub her ringless finger, feeling the wedding band that is tucked away safe, somewhere.

  We sit outside for so long, without so much as a delicate lightening of the sky, that everyone else, even Mom and Dad, dozes, neglecting their sentry duty of scanning the horizon for any possible sign of danger. As they made sure we all knew (repeatedly), just a few days ago, a cougar had snatched a pet cat off a porch nearby. The only sound now is the soft wind, the drift of snow from the mounds around us. I press my lava pendant lightly to my chest. This, right here, right now, is all I need.

  In this peace, my eyelids droop, even though I napped earlier, but I refuse to fall asleep now, not when Josh takes my mittened hand and stands. We walk a few feet from everyone else.

  Cocooned in our embrace, I whisper up to him, “So.”

  “Story time?” he asks. I can feel Josh’s dimpled smile before I see it.

  “I had an idea for my next gastrodiplomatic effort.” The clouds shift, clearing an amphitheater overhead, sparkling with stars. “A moonlight bake sale at the last tailgate at school, featuring mooncakes and information about photosensitivity. And we can sell Persephone there. I think it’ll make it easier for me to go back to school if I’m the one who tells everyone about my condition.”

  “Or I could just impale the guy who was a jerk to you in the next issue.”

  “I’d rather educate him.”

  Josh squeezes my hand: My gastrodiplomat.

  I squeeze back: I know.

  So many divergent roads have led us to this very moment: a trip to Africa that may or may not have triggered my allergy to the sun, a condition that added depth and meaning to a comic, a comic that’s given me a place to use my voice for others, and a boy who is my semicolon.

  “There it is!” exclaims Auntie Ruth, jabbing her finger due north.

  The innkeeper, I notice from my peripheral vision, is hurrying back (to her) with a steaming carafe and an enormous camera with the largest lens I’ve ever seen. He takes that opportunity to stand (body-warmingly) close to my aunt as he hastily sets up a tripod.

  I squint and see nothing but stark black. I blink, then stare even harder at the sky. Even more nothing.

  “This is it?” I say to Josh. All that’s visible is the most unimpressive smudge mark on the dark sky. Seriously, this is what people ooh and aah over? This is what people fly to Iceland and trek thousands of miles to Norway to observe? This?

  Josh starts shoulder-laughing, trying hard (and failing) to squelch his chuckles. I do, too. I don’t want to hurt the innkeeper’s feelings because he’s (excitedly) adjusting his camera lens here, fiddling with the tripod there.

  “Look here,” the innkeeper says, beckoning all skeptics to his camera.

  I trudge over the snow to his elaborate setup. He taps his finger on the screen on the back of the camera. The camera catches what I have missed completely with my naked eye: a green-blue light splashes across the dark sky. It is glorious.

  “Sometimes you need a little help,” says the innkeeper.

  Sometimes? I glance at my parents, who have force-fed heaping piles of help on me, Roz, Auntie Ruth, their clients. They had good reasons, namely, Love.

  Roz gasps. “No way!”

  In the blink of an eye, some atmospheric conditions have changed without us even sensing it. Now, as I look skyward, the universe premieres a ballet of light for us. The aurora dance
s in the night sky, light that is lovely only because the sky is so dark and deep. I gasp. Darkness is the prerequisite condition. My heart expands as the wild green light dances free and bright.

  With his arms around me, Josh sings in my ear softly, “Take my love, take my land / Take me where I cannot stand …”

  My voice rises to meet his: “I don’t care, I’m still free.”

  Together we end, our voices all twangy strong: “You can’t take the sky from me.”

  “You guys are really and truly—” Roz starts to say, but then stops the way I have, hundreds, thousands of times before.

  “Weird, I know,” I fill in the censored blank for her.

  “No,” she says, “perfect for each other.”

  The shelter of the night may conceal my grin, but it can’t contain it. Good thing, because I don’t think I’m hiding my happiness from anyone, least of all Josh, who squeezes my hand. I stare up at the northern lights, stare until I can almost believe that my eyes will never miss another miracle that bursts around me. Stare until I know with absolute certainty that I will remember every contour of this radiant moment when my eyelids finally close.

  In one blink, I am lit with possibility.

  Starlight, moonbeam, sunray, I glow.

  “If light is in your heart, you will find your way home.”

  —RUMI

  Light surrounds me, my heart, my life, my faith, notably from my personal constellation of wonderful people who are beloved waypoints into this story.

  Steven Malk, my agent, who has unfailing belief in me, and Cheryl Klein, who graciously brought the idea for this book to me and shaped it so intelligently. Nick Thomas for his insightful editing and compassionate worldview. Arthur Levine and Elizabeth Parisi, who made me feel at home at Scholastic, as well as Rachel Gluckstern, Ann Marie Wong, and Anna Swenson. Lorie Ann Grover for being this story’s muse, first reader, and bestie. And as always, Janet Lee Carey for her loving feedback of every last word, sentence, and emotion.