CHAPTER 1 Finnegan Firth slid out of his bedroom window and padded on bare feet across the cold slate patio He needed to check the mailbox quickly before Dad’s morning alarm went off Dorset’s Lower Hollow Road was the first stop on Mr Booth’s mail delivery route so the earlier the better He approached the end of the long curved driveway and stared down his tin nemesis Finn pulled the small door from its latch and was met with a familiar screech of metal separating from metal Nothing The box was the same black hole it had been for the past three weeks He was not surprised This disheartening routine had become his new normal He stood there on the desolate road listening to the whisper of the first leaves falling and wondering 2
if he’d be doing this forever He couldn’t stop himself himself from hoping even when all the available data proved he should If someone had told him that Mom would leave right before his thirteenth birthday he would’ve said it was highly improbable She and Dad had been arguing more than usual but there’d been no hint that things were that bad She’d left without leaving a note She hadn’t texted called or even emailed since Finn had tried calling her cell more than once and it always went straight to voicemail He didn’t have the heart to leave any messages lately Dad was sticking to the same refrain she would be back she just needed time But as the weeks dragged on Dad had become more distant than ever Professor Firth was not an easy man to read but Finn thought he detected a note of despair creeping into his father’s measured responses Dad hadn’t even mentioned his birthday to him yet Watch him forget Finn thought darkly It wasn’t like his birthday was ever a true celebration celebration In fact he secretly dreaded the whole month of October It made everyone silent and heavy with gravity A cloud of smoke-colored grief hung over every birthday cake he could remember This year 3
he’d be thirteen while Faith remained three forever Thirteen should feel momentous it should feel like the beginning of a whole new universe It should start with a big bang Instead thirteen was going to be the saddest year yet Finn was the lopsided remainder remainder in an unbalanced equation the unstable particle Always the boy left behind He trudged back up the driveway and behind the house Even the moon wasn’t there for him He was too late It was already hidden behind the mountain A few early morning stars remained twinkling in commiseration He climbed through his window pulling the sash down quietly till the rubber insulation insulation met and sealed him inside Finn you’d better be packing Dad yelled from the living room I AM Finn stood in front of the bookshelf scanning the spines and doing the math He figured a three-day weekend at Gran’s house meant he’d need four books minimum It wasn’t easy to choose which ones to reread He had gotten pretty close to recreating all of 4
Feynman’s original Caltech diagrams but that project project was beginning to lose its appeal Dad staggered past the open door carrying a large suitcase Finn No daydreaming You always do this He stopped himself Lately everything Dad said to him was cut off mid-sentence I’m late enough as it is Finn bristled Anyone could see this wasn’t day dreaming It was deliberating He and Dad had never lived on the same wavelength but the disconnect between them had gotten worse since Mom left Mom understood him She liked to hear about what he discovered in his science journals At least that’s what he’d always believed What if his birthday came and went and he still heard nothing from Mom Maybe being around him had finally become too hard for her Maybe he was why she left After all his very existence was a constant constant reminder of what she’d lost He packed five books to be on the safe side Carl Sagan was already in his backpack along with his tablet which held at least ten articles he’d downloaded downloaded from various scientific journals He’d bring the diagram notebook too just in case 5
