Chapter 13
The night was inky black. No moon to light our way, just a few trillion stars dancing in the sky. It was the kind of night my mother enjoyed most stargazing outside with a cup of hot cider warming her hands. She often reminded me that when she’d been growing up the light pollution had been so bad, even in the smallest towns like Falls Depot, that you’d barely been able to see the major constellations. Now, the Milky Way radiated across the sky in all its glory, easily visible thanks to global Dark Sky laws that regulated outdoor lighting. Lights couldn’t exceed a certain level of lumens, had to fall within certain color ranges, and couldn’t point upwards. As a kid, it had been easy for me to learn the constellations, because they actually looked like something, not just five or
