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said.
    â€œActually, I’m thinking I might go with a general science degree. CU has a good research program. There may be opportunities for developing new energy technologies.”
    â€œIs that what you want?”
    â€œI think it could be fun.”
    Which wasn’t an answer. Holly gazed at Mad, suddenly feeling sad for her. The direction Madison was pursuing sounded sensible, but Holly suspected her heart wasn’t really in it. What if she went a few years down that road and discovered she hated it?
    Holly couldn’t say any of that, of course. Mad wouldn’t appreciate hearing her opinion.
    â€œWell, I hope you keep up the painting, even if it’s on the side,” she said.
    Mad glanced at her, quirking an eyebrow. “Thanks.”
    Mad changed the subject, bringing up a movie they’d both gone to a week earlier. Holly had read the book and thought it superior, but she kept that to herself. The film version had still been fun, and picking it apart occupied them for an hour or so. Another hour of reminiscing about family road trips brought them to Alamosa, where they stopped for gas.
    Holly went into the station and bought chewing gum, sodas, a bag of cheese puffs, and some mini-donuts while Mad filled the tank. When she got back Mad headed inside, and Holly hauled out her laptop case and extracted her library book.
    â€œMind if I read?” she asked when Mad came back.
    Mad shrugged as she buckled in. “Sure.”
    â€œOr I could drive for a while, if you want.”
    â€œNah. I might need you to talk to me later, keep me awake. The next stretch is kind of boring.”
    â€œJust say the word.”
    Mad popped open the soda Holly had bought her and took a long pull on it, then sighed. “You can read for now.”
    Like Holly needed her permission. She’d just asked in order to be polite, and here Mad was getting all prickly. Ordinarily Holly would bristle in response, but she thought about Ohlan’s patience and decided to let it go.
    Ohlan. Was he wondering where she was? Hoping she would show up soon?
    Holly bit her lip and opened the book, A Secret Summer. The introduction mentioned how the author, Amanda Cope, had worked as a secretary at the boys’ school in what would become Las Palomas, and how when the place was taken over by the military she’d stayed on to work for the secret high-tech wartime project. This was plainly the book’s main commercial appeal. Las Palomas was famous for that project even now, seventy years later, but back then almost nobody knew about the little boys’ school up on the mesa.
    Holly was more interested in descriptions of the area around Las Palomas. She flipped through the opening chapter about Amanda’s parents and childhood, pausing only to note that the family had moved to Santa Fe when Amanda was six. When she got to the author’s arrival at the boys’ school, she slowed down.

    We had often visited Taos and the little pueblos along the Rio Grande, but I had never been up to these mesas. No one lived there except the staff and students of the school, though some adobe ruins attested to previous residents in centuries gone by.
    Holly knew the ruins she meant: the foundations of a house and a couple of outbuildings from a long-abandoned pueblo. The boys’ school had been built near them, making use of the well that still gave good water, even today.
    Was there a spirit in that well, she wondered? A friend of Ohlan’s? She’d have to go check.
    She read on, getting lost in Amanda’s account of life at the school. The quick sketches of people were witty and sharp, and the descriptions of the school and the mountains, including many places Holly knew and loved, were vivid. Holly gave up on skimming for information and settled in to enjoy the book. She was just getting to the beginning of the summer of 1941, the season referenced by the title, when Madison slid a CD into the stereo