SHE LAY ON THE FLOOR, chin on fists, trying to understand the words, but they slipped through fingers like sand, like water. 

He stuck his head in the room and sensed the restlessness. “What is it?”

Sara met her father’s eyes for a second, then turned back to the book of red cloth, tattered, frayed around the edges, but a treasure nonetheless.

“It says here that life started with light.”

The look in her eyes left him no choice but to go in and hear what she wanted to know. She always wanted to know so much.

“What are you reading?”

“A book from the encyclopedia.”

“What do you want to know?”