Max had spent a night last fall telling the family about Leibniz’s feats after trying to use the philosopher as his mystery person in a game of twenty questions. He’d stumped everybody, of course, but the girls had cried foul.
“Gottfried Leibniz?” Susan demanded. “Who ever heard of him?”
Max had said he didn’t see what the problem was. Susan was always coming up with obscure people like Euripides or Charlotte Brontë when it was her turn.
“I’ll take a turn,” Kate had volunteered. Kate had the annoying habit of trying to be helpful when people got mad.
“Clara Barton,” Nell snapped at her.
“How did you know?”
“You always choose Clara Barton.”
Max didn’t care. He liked Leibniz. If you don’t know something, ask questions, why don’t you? If nobody has the answer, then go invent one. That was Leibniz.
Max had been a little boy when he’d first realized that knowing things made all the difference. His ears had been clogged, and as a result the world was a garbled mess. Unable to understand what people wanted of him, not knowing any of the rules, he’d spent the months before they were cleared confused and getting into trouble. That feeling of not knowing had made him want to jump out of his skin.
Well, he was in bigger trouble now than he’d ever been. And that jumpy feeling had returned, worse than before.
That evening, they climbed a steep hump on the mountainside and found another cave perched atop it, larger than the first. Near the end of the day, the dogs had begun to bark again, far below, but no one had the strength to continue, and so the cave was the next best thing. It had a wide mouth that curved around, showing them the slope they’d climbed and the relatively flat piece of ground that rose gently upward from the hump on the mountain. They sprawled weakly across the dirt floor beneath the stone as night consumed the tall trees: ash, oak, and maple.
Kate’s nightmare echoed through the cave an hour later, and when it was done, Max couldn’t go back to sleep. His stomach felt like someone had caged a rabid cat inside it, all teeth and claws.
He felt emptied out, weak in a way he’d always thought old people were when they struggled just to get out of a chair. Hot acid washed up his throat. He wanted to cry out, like Kate did, like Jean did, when the emptiness burned that way. Stumbling, he crawled to the mouth of the cave. Above him, the broad face of the moon looked smugly down through the trees, gloating that it had never gone hungry.
He fell asleep looking at it. And woke a few hours later, ravenous. Powdery moonlight filtered through the cave opening, and he got up and immediately fell down, bruising his chin and tasting mud. He turned to look back at the girls, asleep.
There was Susan, head resting on her hands. She’d gotten them out. She could do things. More than he could, maybe. But she wouldn’t, no matter how much she pretended she was trying. In the night, after Kate’s nightmare, Susan had put her back to sleep telling stories. She’d had the nerve to talk of home, and soft beds, and big dinners.
Anger roused him. Who cared about stories? Stories didn’t fill your stomach. If he’d been the one — if he’d done it — things would be different!
He rested his head against the cool stone at the threshold of the cave, trying to think. A problem was just a nut to be cracked. He’d heard someone say that once, and it was true. There were reasons for things; there were answers. You just had to believe you could find them.
He rose weakly to his feet and stumbled into the forest. There was food there; there had to be. He’d find it. Today, they’d eat.
He wandered up the slope, slow footed. The sun rose and the mist burned away and around him there was nothing but bright, hot green, trees perspiring in the heat. A trickle of sweat rolled down his face, and he caught it with his tongue, tasting salt. The heat made his head swim. He thought of Susan again and got angrier. Soon he was shaking, and tripped over the humped root of a birch tree. Above him, the sun glared through the plump leaves. He sat up, but the world spun, and he couldn’t get to his feet. He leaned against the smooth bark and listened to his heart beat.
She could do it if she wanted.
Somehow, repeating it steadied him. Anger was the only thing that kept him sitting upright now. But then the hunger stabbed at him again, and he tried to swallow. His throat seemed to stick to itself. He wanted to cry.
If only they hadn’t left the orchard. Why had they done that? There was fruit there. Peaches. He remembered the peaches. Plums, too. That was all he wanted. Just something wet, something juicy. A plum. A peach. His eyes burned and he blinked, then closed them. The image of the peach lingered behind his eyelids, bright and perfect. His wanting it was so strong his arm went out toward it. Just a peach. One for each of us. Please. Please.
The heat rose further and pressed against him. He tried to rise but found he couldn’t. His head spun, and he collapsed backward against the tree, seeing flickering lights in front of his eyes. There was darkness now at the corners of his vision. He thought of the peach. Just one. Red and yellow, ripe. The kind so ready to eat that when you held it, your fingers left the slightest mark, a little valley in the soft skin. Orange inside, or almost. Just a peach.
The darkness moved in from the corners, obliterating the forest. In front of him, he could see
