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prefer cooking to any other part of housework, and discovered he had a flair for it. After he left the monastery, and he did much of the cooking there, he was at loose ends, and Seth told him to go get a job as a chef, so he went to one of the good cooking schools and ended up in one of New York’s most prestigious restaurants. When Cook suggested coming to me, I was flabbergasted. He had a hard time making me believe he was serious. But I have to believe him, that his monastic vocation is basically that of a hermit. He likes the peace of the country, and the lack of stress. He has a few friends he listens to music with, or plays chess with. I will miss him in January when he goes to see Seth, but it is right that he should go. The brothers should not be apart for too long. Now, my dear, I have talked overmuch, and I am suddenly very tired, and when I am tired, my old brain does not work well. Will you come again soon?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œDo you have plans for Saturday? Could you perhaps come for dinner?”
    â€œI don’t have plans, and I’d love to come for dinner.”
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    Going to Aunt Serena’s became my reality in an autumn that was otherwise a drag. Not the countryside, not the glorious
flaming of the trees, but my daily life. I knew most of my discontent was my own fault, but the only thing that seemed to get me out of it was getting off the school bus in Clovenford and having tea and talk with Aunt Serena. As long as I did my assigned chores at home, my parents didn’t mind what I did after school. Suzy was involved in various activities, and we were apt to get home at about the same time. Daddy said I was doing Aunt Serena a world of good, so nobody bugged me about it.
    I began doing most of my homework there in the peace and quiet of the attic. Under one of the windows was an old green velvet sofa, where I curled up with my books. Probably in summer the attic would be too hot, but it was just right in the autumn weather. When I finished my homework, if Aunt Serena was resting I’d go through the boxes of books, most of which seemed to have belonged to Adam II.
    The Halloween dance came and went. I didn’t go. I helped Suzy get dressed, and then I watched an old movie with Rob. I tried not to feel left out. Nanny Jenkins had offered to get me a date, too. I could have gone to the dance. But I didn’t want to. Not that way.
    The next day, while we were having tea, Aunt Serena handed me a big book wrapped in heavy, oiled paper. “One of my Adam’s journals,” she said. “The only one that hasn’t been lost. It gives some of his impressions of Antarctica, and since our present-day Adam is going there so soon, I thought you might enjoy glancing through it.”
    â€œOh, yes! Thank you.”

    I took Adam II’s journal to the attic and curled up on the green velvet sofa. Adam II may have been a marine biologist, but he was also a poet. His description of the wind gave me prickles. Our house in Thornhill is on a hill, and I’ve always thought of it as the windiest place in the world, especially in winter, when the wind is unremitting. I’d even written a poem about it. “The wind is blowing fiercely from the poles / Swirling from north to south / Then south to north …” I’d sent it, and a couple of other poems, off to a contest suggested by my English teacher.
    Adam II wrote, “Wind is the milieu of the albatross, not water or earth or fire, but air, and in the sky they spend most of their lives. They are creatures of the wind, and their enormous wingspan would be crippling anywhere but in the eddies of wind which direct their course. They are the largest of all seabirds, but incredibly light in weight; their bones are hollow and air-filled. Their energy is the wind’s energy. Cookie says my bones must be hollow, too, because I, like the great birds, pick up energy when the wind is at its most fierce. I