CHAPTER 12
It was an hour’s drive to the launch site. Adri watched the farm disappear behind her, then Jericho Road, then, as they entered the highway, Canaan. She and Lily didn’t speak the whole way. She’d brushed her hair for once, and now she ran her hands through it.
She clutched a letter in her one less-than-twenty-pounds bag and everything it contained.
They exited at Garden Plain and, after parking, got out of the car without exchanging a word.
A scattering of journalists waited for them, calling Adri’s name as they got out of the car. A few cameras flashed; a reporter called out, “Good luck!” Lily gave a friendly wave and followed Adri up the gangway into the building. Families had come into town for good-byes, and the vestibule was crowded.
They were separated while Adri suited up and while the last tests were being performed. The others all gathered around their locker pods, but everyone was quiet, in their own heads, and only vaguely acknowledged one another. Adri could hear the roar of the shuttle outside the building, hear people announcing the results of different diagnostic tests over loudspeakers.
She felt suddenly, terrifyingly breakable. What if their ship exploded before it even got there? Why had she never thought to worry about that? What if it caught fire the moment they took off? She thought of all the things she’d forgotten to be scared of.
She looked over to see Saba’s hands trembling a little on her locker as she closed it.
“We’ll be fine,” Adri said. “If you want to vomit on someone, you can vomit on me.”
Outside, in a room that gave way to the hallway that led to the ship, Lily stood among the other families, tiny compared to everyone else, her white hair and pale face standing out in the crowd. She looked like a little kid on the first day of school—excited, proud, scared, lost.
“Are you ready?” Lily asked, as they lingered at the edge of the crowd. People around them were saying their good-byes, hugging, crying. Adri’s heart began to pound out of her chest.
“I guess,” Adri said. “I guess this is what feeling ready feels like.” She swallowed. “Any advice?”
Lily’s face crumpled up and tears ran down her cheeks. She took Adri’s hands in hers and squeezed them hard, hers were small and thin. “Enjoy yourself,” she said.
They stared at each other. So many thoughts were running through Adri’s head, but there would never be enough time to say them all. And because she couldn’t say all of them, she didn’t say any of them. She reached down into her bag and pulled out an envelope, handing it to Lily.
“Read it after I take off,” she said.
Lily nodded.
Now people were starting to trail down the hallway, and a technician took Adri’s bag and told her it was time to board. Adri couldn’t bring herself to let go of Lily’s hands. She held her hand to Lily’s cheek before letting it drop.
She backed toward the hallway. And softly, the moment faded away. She let go.
The simulations couldn’t have prepared her for what it was like looking out a window of a ship that was already far from Earth. The contrast of Adri’s small warm bunk, her blankets around her that night . . . and what lay beyond the glass: the immensity of space, the hazy blue planet she was leaving, suddenly small and far away. It was like looking out at a rainstorm from a warm, dry house, and thinking of everyone else outside, exposed to the sky.
That night, the ship was quiet, everyone deep in their own thoughts. Adri watched the Earth spin behind them in its restlessness and thought about the future. Mars would have a history one day too, and she would be a part of it. It might be just the beginning—using Mars as a launch point, they might find life everywhere, scattered throughout the universe, pulsing and humming and wanting, inevitable, instead of just a fluke like so many believed.
If that was true, she hoped she lived long enough to find out.
CHAPTER 13
Lily got home late, long after dark. She’d stayed to watch the launch and then stayed with the other parents and friends to stare up at nothing for a while and listen to the echo of the coordinates being read off by someone on the ground crew. By now, she knew the ascent would be over and the shuttle would be in temporary orbit—she’d read about it in some literature the families had received.
The house was quiet. But also full. She guessed that was why people had housewarmings. Adri had warmed her house.
She put off opening the letter until after she’d put on her pajamas and climbed into bed. She tried to read a chapter of her latest romance novel, Hearts on Fire, to put it off. She wanted to savor this time when Adri still had something to say to her. But she couldn’t concentrate, and finally she put down the book and picked up the envelope, tearing it open slowly.
Lily,
I’m writing this as fast as I can. I’m not much on writing, and I always wondered why some people are so drawn to it. But now as I sit here trying to think of what to say, I think I understand. No one wants to disappear. Words made things real, and they last so much longer than we do.
So, for the record, here are the things that I want to be real. And I hope that words are enough to make them that way:
One: Lenore Allstock dies in childbirth but wakes up in heaven, surrounded by angels.
Two: Ellis Parrish tries to bury his memories of Catherine Godspeed in his bunkhouse floor, but time proves love can’t be buried. He sails to England. He follows her.
Three: You are happy and safe, always.
Four: Everyone in the world is happy and safe, always.
Five: We get to Mars safely. We make something new, and we do it right. We pay attention.
I love you, Lily. I wanted to tell you most of all that I think it’s our love that gets passed along.
Onward and forward.
Love, Adri
P.S. You told me to take all the letters with me. But I want you to have this one. It’s just a postscript from Lenore. But it’s my favorite.
JUNE 24, 1920
Dear Beth,
We’re almost to New York, and I’ll have to give you this letter in person. But I wanted to write it anyway.
I’ve been looking in the mirror a lot recently. I can’t really picture what my face looks like to other people anymore. Every time I look I see someone different: sometimes young, sometimes old, sometimes wise, sometimes not. What will you see when you see me again?
So close to arrival, and I keep asking myself, since I have so much time to think, where did we lose each other? Was it when you left for America, in those weeks after the first zeppelin came? Or was it when I didn’t get on that ship? Or does it go farther back? Was it when you took me looking for the Cup and told me where it was even though it wasn’t true? Was it when you told me I couldn’t run as fast as you, so I shouldn’t even try?
I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter, because it’s not true. I haven’t lost you, and you haven’t lost me. I don’t care if there are cracks in us, we are still us. We don’t have to be perfect to be right.
The baby is on my mind all the time, even when I sleep. I am sure she is a girl, for no reason I can explain, and it suddenly seems to me that even the idea of babies is exquisitely, blindingly beautiful. How they arrive knowing nothing at all—what year they live in or where they live or that money exists or what Earth even is. My baby doesn’t know yet that she’s even on a planet at all; she doesn’t know about the sun or that hordes of people can be terrible to each other. I think it’s this innocence that is suddenly so shattering to me. I realize how the world doesn’t seem to deserve this innocence. But we’ll try to earn it, won’t we, Beth?
I think now how strange it is that time moves at all. How logical it would be for nothing to ever change. Do you even remember me like I remember you? Am I keeping a dream alive that’s only a childish memory? Do we know each other anymore, my friend? It doesn’t matter. We are connected, you and me. The baby makes me realize that. The separations aren’t real.
When James an
d I were together that last night, and he had his new torch, he said that for once, instead of looking at the stars, the spotlight would be on us. He turned it on and it flickered into bright-white light—putting a glow on our faces and casting a glow around our humble and beloved little room. It lit up his face and mine.
I was so nervous when I put my hand on his cheek and felt the scars and said, “You’re a beautiful sight,” and put my lips to his.
It’s shocking, isn’t it, that a kiss could have led to something so big and violent and full of light as a human being? It makes me dizzy just to think of all the things that start that way. Whole families, whole countries, whole worlds. Isn’t it strange how a whole life can begin with a little spark?
I’ll send you a postcard when I arrive in New York.
Love, Lenore
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Mark for everything he does all the time . . . but especially for being my brave and honest first reader. Thank you to my sweet Owen for being such a good sleeper.
I’m deeply grateful to my editor, Jen Klonsky, and my agent, Rosemary Stimola, for their trust, talent, thoughtful feedback, and generosity. I’m also indebted to my friends and teachers at Bennington College and, in the case of this story, to Joanne Proulx in particular.
Jamie Appel gave me the gift of time by loving and caring for my son while I worked; I can’t thank her enough. I also owe thanks to Alejandra Oliva, my acute and gracious sensitivity reader; Gareth Wade, my treasured pal and British test reader; to Jill Amack for her thoughtful eye; and to Becky Goldenbaum, whose faith inspired this book in ways I haven’t yet expressed to her. Thank you always to my family.
These books informed my writing:
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
Great Britain’s Great War by Jeremy Paxman
Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin
An Optimist’s Tour of the Future by Mark Stevenson
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Sharon Price
JODI LYNN ANDERSON is the bestselling author of several books for young people, including Tiger Lily, one of Time magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time, and My Diary from the Edge of the World, a Publishers Weekly Best Book. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband and son. You can visit her online at www.jodilynnanderson.net.
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BOOKS BY JODI LYNN ANDERSON
Peaches
The Secrets of Peaches
Love and Peaches
Peaches Complete Collection
Tiger Lily
The Vanishing Season
Midnight at the Electric
CREDITS
Cover art inspired by Mark Owen/Trevillion Images
Digital illustration of tent © 2017 by Craig Shields
Photograph of electric ball © 2017 by iStock.com/Meinzahn
of wheat field © 2017 by iStock.com/Sergiy Trofimov
of lightning © 2017 by iStock.com/David Parsons
Cover design by Sarah Nichole Kaufman
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
MIDNIGHT AT THE ELECTRIC. Copyright © 2017 by Jodi Lynn Anderson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017932844
ISBN 978-0-06-239354-8
EPub Edition © May 2017 ISBN 9780062393562
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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Jodi Lynn Anderson, Midnight at the Electric
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