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He used to stand over her bed offering s tips on her homework Noouldn’t even step into her room

He nodded toward her book "The uncertainty principle? Tough one The es, the less you know about the other And everything is changing all the ti "I don’t know the difference between variables and constants any to do what’s best for you, Reka"

She didn’t answer She had nothing to say to that, to hiraph introducing the uncertainty principle The chapter’s title page featured a large triangle, the Greek syauze-wrapped thunderstone

She pushed aside her book and opened the box The thunderstone, still wrapped in its odd white gauze, looked s how delicately Brooks had handled it She tried to achieve the sa that she must test the stone alone, that Brooks was not to knohat she had What did she have? She’d never even seen what the stone looked like She thought of Diana’s postscript:

Don’t unwrap the gauze until you need to You’ll knohen the time comes

Eureka’s life was in chaos She was on the brink of being kicked out of the house she hated living in She hadn’t been going to school She was alienated froh the predawn bayou to meet elderly psychics Hoas she supposed to know if noas Diana’s mystical when?

As she reached for the glass on her nightstand, she kept the stone in its gauze She placed it on top of her Latin binder Very carefully, she poured a sht’s water directly over the stone She watched the wet spot seeping through gauze It was just a rock

She put the stone down and kicked her legs out across the bed The dreamer in her was disappointed

Then, in her peripheral vision, she saw the sauze had lifted in one corner, as if loosened by the water You’ll knohen She heard Diana’s voice as if she were lying next to Eureka It auze This sent the stone spinning, shedding layer after layer of white wrapping Eureka’s fingers sifted through the loosening fabric as the triangular shape of the stone shrank and sharpened in her hands

At last the final layer of gauze fell away She held in her hands an isosceles-sided stone about the size of the lapis lazuli locket, but several tis and ih here and there with grainy blue-gray crystals It would havestone for Ander

Eureka’s phone buzzed on her nightstand She lunged for it, inexplicably certain it would be him But it was coquettish, half-dressed Cat’s photo on her phone’s display Eureka let it go to voiceevery few hours since first period thatEureka didn’t knohat to tell her They knew each other too well for her to lie and say nothing was going on

When her phone faded to black and her bedrooht e the surface of the rock She stared at thee She turned the stone over and watched a fa circles Her ears rang Goose bue on the thunderstone looked precisely like the scar on Brooks’s forehead

A faint crack of thunder sounded in the sky It was only a coincidence, but it startled her The stone slipped froers and slid into a recess of her coain and poured its contents onto the bare thunderstone like she was putting out a fire, like she was extinguishing her friendship with Brooks

Water splashed back from the stone and hit her in the face

She spat and wiped her brow She gazed down at the stone Her bedspread et, her notes and textbooks, too She blotted them with a pillow and moved them aside She picked up the stone It was as dry as a cow’s skull on a juke-joint wall

"No way," shethe stone, and cracked open her door The TV downstairs was tuned to local news The twins’ night-light cast feeble rays through the open door of the room they shared She tiptoed to the bathrooainst the wall and looked at herself holding the stone in the es of the hair fra her face et She held the stone under the faucet and turned the water on all the way

When the stream hit the stone, it was instantly repelled No, that wasn’t it--Eureka looked closer and saw that the water never even hit the stone It was repelled in the air above and around it

She turned off the tap She sat on the lip of the copper baignoire tub, which was cra--all were soaking wet The thunderstone was absolutely dry

"Mootten me into?"

She held the stone close to her face and exa it over in her hands A sle’s widest angle, large enough for a chain to slip through The thunderstone could be worn as a necklace

Then why keep it wrapped in gauze? Maybe the gauze protected whatever sealant had been added to repel water Eureka looked out the bathrooot an idea