Only the very treetops caught the first light as Jessica started up Cascade Creek, a sparkling crevice in a vast bed of spruce needles. As she walked, the light descended the trunks and ignited balsamic forest odors, awakening the birds and making it easy to find stepping stones to cross the narrow creek. She’d found this trail on a Forest Service map; the contour lines had suggested a climb she could manage, and by scrutinizing images on Google Earth she had seen the small watershed open into what looked like a meadow or a strip of saturated ground. Jays were foraging in the hawthorns and, as day emerged, the hurrying clouds signalled fast-changing weather. Jessica’s pack held a spare down vest, a windbreaker, and an apple.
She came to a spot where the creek fell through a tangle of evergreen roots to form a plunge pool. Sitting for a moment, she followed the movement of bubbles into its crystalline depths, lost in her thoughts, free of history. Time was not the same dimension here that it was in the rest of her life, and floating like this was something to be savored. The bubbles in the plunge pool reminded her of the stars she had fallen in love with so long ago, years before she became an astronomer and began to spend her days analyzing solar data from the Yohkoh satellite or the RHESSI spectroscopic . . .
