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spewed. Water drenched the carpet, sloshed against the bottom step in the stairwell. The forceof the spill tipped over kitchen chairs. One of them tripped Diana, who’d been moving toward Eureka, too.
    “It’s only going to get worse,” Diana shouted at her husband. She pushed away the chair and righted herself. When she looked at Eureka, a strange expression crossed her face.
    Dad had made it halfway up the stairs. His gaze darted between his daughter and the gushing water tank, as if he didn’t know what to attend to first. When the water thrust the busted closet door into the coffee table in the living room, the shattering of glass made Eureka jump. Dad shot Diana a hateful look that crossed the space between them like lightning.
    “I told you we should have called a real plumber instead of your idiot brother!” He flung a hand up toward Eureka, whose wailing had deepened into a hoarse moan. “Comfort her.”
    But Diana had already pushed past her husband on the stairs. She swept Eureka into her arms, brushed the glass from her hair, and carried her back to her bedroom, away from the window and the invading tree. Diana’s feet left soggy footprints on the carpet. Her face and clothes were drenched. She sat Eureka on the old four-poster bed and gripped her shoulders roughly. Wild intensity filled her eyes.
    Eureka sniffed. “I’m scared.”
    Diana gazed at her daughter as if she didn’t know who she was. Then her palm flicked backward and she slapped Eureka, hard.
    Eureka froze mid-moan, too stunned to move or breathe. The whole house seemed to reverberate, echoing the slap. Diana leaned close. Her eyes bored into her daughter’s. She said in the gravest tone Eureka had ever heard: “Never, ever cry again.”

4
LIFT
    E ureka’s hand went to her cheek as she opened her eyes and came back to the scene with her wrecked car and the strange boy.
    She never thought about that night. But now, on the hot, deserted road, she could feel the sting of her mother’s palm against her skin. That was the only time Diana had ever hit her. It was the only time she’d ever frightened Eureka. They’d never spoken of it again, but Eureka had never shed another tear—until now.
    It wasn’t the same, she told herself. Those tears had been torrential, shed as her parents broke up. This sudden urge to cry over a banged-up Jeep had already retreated inside her, as if it had never surfaced.
    Fast-moving clouds clotted the sky, teeming with nasty gray. Eureka glanced at the empty intersection, at the sea of tall blond sugarcane bordering the road and the open green glade beyond the crop; everything was still, waiting. She was shivery, unsteady, the way she got after she’d run a long trail on a hot day without water.
    “What just happened?” She meant the sky, her tear, the accident—everything that had passed since she’d encountered him.
    “Maybe some kind of eclipse,” he said.
    Eureka turned her head so that her right ear was closer to him, so she could hear him clearly. She hated the hearing aid she’d been fitted for after the accident. She never wore it, had stuffed its case somewhere in the back of her closet and told Rhoda it gave her a headache. She’d gotten used to turning her head subtly; most people didn’t notice. But this boy seemed to. He shifted closer to her good ear.
    “Seems like it’s over now.” His pale skin shone in the peculiar darkness. It was only four o’clock, but the sky was as dim as in the hour before sunrise.
    She pointed to her eye, then to his eye, destiny of her tear. “Why did you …?”
    She didn’t know how to ask this question; it was that bizarre. She stared at him, his nice dark jeans, the kind of pressed white shirt you didn’t see on bayou boys. His brown oxford shoes were polished. He didn’t look like he was fromaround here. Then again, people said that to Eureka all the time, and she was a born-and-bred New Iberian.
    She studied his face, the shape of his nose, the