Valley of the Moon

“Okay. I guess so,” said Lux slowly.

“Thank you. Can you estimate how large an area is fogged in?”

“I’m bad at estimating distances.”

“All right. How long did it take you to come through the fog?”

“Well, that was strange. It felt like just minutes, but it must have taken me much longer, because it was midnight when I left my campsite, but then when I got here it was morning.”

Again that stomach-dropping feeling.

“You walked through the fog for a few miles?”

“Um—probably.”

“You were camping? Where?”

“In the Valley of the Moon. Jack London State Park.”

Jack London had his own state park? I knew he was doing well (he’d just spent thousands procuring a neighboring parcel of land), but I didn’t know he was doing that well. A park named after himself? He’d always been a bit of a narcissist.

“Was the fog there when you arrived?”

“No, it was a beautiful clear night. I didn’t get fogged in until after midnight, as I already told you.” She was getting irritated at my line of questioning.

I was about to ask her about the earthquake—How had Glen Ellen and Santa Rosa fared? And what about San Francisco?—when Magnusson came up behind me and whispered in my ear, “Test the fog.”

Yes. Whatever the woman said would be moot if we could now travel through the fog freely as she just had.

“Nardo!” I yelled.

A young man with a head of thick black hair made his way up to me. Our resident pig-keeper.

“We need a piglet,” I said.

“Berkshire or Gloucestershire?”

“Gloucestershire. Get a runt.”

I smiled at Lux, trying to put her at ease, and she shifted her weight from her left to her right foot nervously. “Are we done here?”

“Almost,” I said.

Nardo disappeared and a few minutes later returned with a piglet, pink with black spots, tucked under his arm.

Lux lit up at the sight of the pig. “Oh, he’s adorable.”

“Give the pig to her,” I said.

Nardo handed him over. “He’s scared. Hold him close. Let him feel your heart beating.”

“Will you do me one last favor?” I asked Lux. “Before you go.”

But she was preoccupied with the piglet. “You need a name. I’m going to name you Wilbur,” she said, stroking its silky ear. “You know, from Charlotte’s Web.”

I nodded impatiently. “Will you step into the fog for a moment? With the pig?”

“Why do you want me to do that?”

“I need to test a hypothesis.”

“What hypothesis?”

I’d have to tell her the truth—a partial truth anyway. “The fog makes us sick. But it didn’t make you sick.”

“Why does the fog make you sick?”

I couldn’t think of a lie quickly enough. “I have no idea,” I said.

Her face softened. “Oh. Okay. So you’re wondering if something’s changed. That’s why you’re all looking at me this way. Because I came through and I’m fine and now you’re wondering if you’ll be fine, too?”

“Exactly.”

“You want me to test it out for you. With the pig?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Everybody had left the dining hall now and was standing just a few feet behind us, listening carefully to our conversation.

“Please,” said Fancy.

“All right. But then I really have to go,” she said.

I pulled out my pocket watch. “Sixty seconds. I’ll let you know when it’s time to come out.”

“You’re not worried I’ll run away with your prized pig?” she joked.

That was the least of my worries.

She entered the fog. A minute later I called to her and she stepped back into the sun. The pig lay still in her arms.

“You—it’s dead,” she stammered. She glared at me. “It’s your fault. You did this. You made me kill it. Why did you do that?” she cried.

“I’m sorry. Listen, it’s only a pig,” I said, thinking at least it wasn’t one of us.

She shook her head, angry. “I have to leave right now. I’ve got to go home.” Clearly rattled by the pig’s death, she blathered on. “It’s almost time for my son to start school. I haven’t even bought his school supplies.”

“But it’s only August,” I said.