The darkness out by the siding didn't just fall. It pooled. But because there wasn't a single streetlight or neon sign within ten miles to choke out the horizon, the Illinois night sky was something fierce and beautiful. The Milky Way stretched across the flat landscape like a thick river of white sand. The stars burned so bright and clean they looked like sparks thrown from a massive, silent fire. They hung low and heavy over the dark, whispering wall of the eight-foot cornfields, completely ignoring the rust and the mud of the gravel lot below. Inside the trailer, the air had cooled only a little bit. It carried the sweet, heavy scent of damp earth and crushed stalks right through the open, screened windows. Rune was sitting on the wooden floor in the corner of the small living room. His back was propped against the base of the built-in sofa. In front of him sat a glass-globed hurricane lantern. Its wick was turned down low, so the flame burned a soft, steady amber that mimicked the starlight outside. The light cast long, dancing shadows across the fake wood walls. It caught the tiny dust motes drifting through the air. Scratch. Scratch. Click. He set his pencil down. He blew gently across the page, sending a small cloud of black dust into the lantern light. Every few seconds, his dark eyes would drift back toward the window screen. He was tracking a shooting star as it zipped through the darkness and dissolved over the distant grain silos. "You're gonna ruin your eyes, kiddo," I said. I leaned back against the kitchen counter, wiping down a set of tools with a greasy rag. "That lamp ain't much better than a candle. Though I guess you got a better view out that window than any of the rich folks uptown." Rune didn't look up from his pad. A quiet, knowing smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. "The light is better this way, Cas. It makes the shadows look real. When the sun is out, everything is too flat. You can't see the edges of things. But at night, the whole world opens up. It feels bigger than Oakhaven." "Spoken like a true artist," I muttered. I tossed the rag into an empty coffee can. "Just don't come crying to me when you need thick glasses and we gotta trade the dirt bike to pay for them." Rune’s smile widened. It was a rare, soft thing. "Valen wouldn't trade the bike. He likes the sound of it too much." "He likes that it gets me to the shop so I can bring home forty bucks a week," I corrected. But we both knew Valen secretly loved the mechanical rumble of that old engine as much as I did. The screen door creaked. The rusty spring whined into the night before slamming shut with a dull thud. Valen stepped out of the back bedroom. He had finally scrubbed the worst of the railroad grease from his forearms. He’d changed into a faded, threadbare gray undershirt. His dark hair was still damp from the cold water he’d splashed on his face at the sink.
He walked over to the kitchen table. His eyes immediately dropped to a creased, heavy piece of paper sitting next to the sugar jar. It was an official letter from the Oakhaven School District. The school secretary had hand-delivered it to the rail office earlier that morning. Valen picked it up, his thumb running over the typed ink. He didn't read it out loud. He’d already read it three times under the buzzing light bulbs of the maintenance shed. But I knew what it said. The principal wanted a meeting. Rune was missing too many algebra assignments. His notebook was filled with sketches of crows, rusted tractors, and the faces of the men who worked the tracks instead of math equations. "Rune," Valen said. His voice was low. It carried that quiet weight that always made the room feel smaller. Rune paused. His pencil hovered a millimeter above the paper. He slowly tilted his head up, his dark eyes meeting his brother's. "Yeah?" "We're going into the school office on Friday morning. Before my shift." Valen folded the paper, sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans. "The principal says if your grades don't pull up before the harvest break, they’re going to file a truancy report with the county." A heavy, suffocating silence descended on the trailer. It was punctuated only by the distant, frantic chirping of the cicadas in the oak trees outside. Rune looked down at his sketchbook. His fingers tightened around the charcoal stick until the brittle black wood snapped cleanly in two. "I don't see the point of algebra," Rune whispered to the floor. "None of the men at the tracks use it. Dad never used it." Valen crossed the room in three long strides. He didn't drop to his knees, but he leaned down. He placed both of his heavy, rough hands on Rune’s shoulders, pinning him gently against the wall. "Dad is gone, Rune. And the men at the siding are breaking their backs for pennies because they didn't have a choice. You're going to have a choice. You're gonna finish school, and you're gonna get out of Oakhaven." "I don't want to get out," Rune said. His voice cracked slightly as he looked up at his brother. "I want to stay here. With you and Cas." Valen’s jaw tightened. A muscle leaped in his cheek. For a second, he looked incredibly young. He looked like a scared nineteen-year-old kid trying to hold the roof up with his bare hands. "You're leaving, Rune. Even if I have to carry you out of this valley myself. Now put the pad away. It's past midnight." Rune didn't argue. He blew out the lantern. The living room plunged into instant, heavy darkness, save for the pale moonlight filtering through the window screens. He scrambled up and headed down the narrow hallway to the bedroom we all shared. His bare feet slid softly against the floor. Valen stayed standing in the dark for a long time. His silhouette was framed against the window, staring out into the endless, silent wall of the cornfields and the brilliant, uncaring stars above. I reached out, turning the knob on our old battery-powered radio. I kept the volume down to a faint whisper. I dialed through the static until the weak signal of a late-night country station crackled through the small speaker. A steel guitar hummed softly in the dark. It was a lonely sound that felt exactly like the landscape outside. "He's a good kid, Val," I said quietly into the dark. Valen didn't turn around. He just leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the windowpane. "That's why they'll take him if we give 'em an excuse, Casdian," he murmured. "Because he's the only thing in this trailer worth saving." First: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1381119738 Previous: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1381119738 Next: Next Week On Monday
