Chapter Thirteen
Flying South
Valentina dreamed she was a baby sleeping in a cradle tied to a tree, like in the old rhyme. Only in her dream a fox kept creeping up to her cradle to push it hard and send it swinging head to foot as well as side to side, and it was not comforting at all. She woke with a start, half afraid that she had been wailing aloud. The cabin was dark except for a panel light that outlined Hazel’s ponytails in a bright green halo.
“Where are we?” Valentina asked, sitting up. There was a bunk directly over her so she had to slide to the edge of her bed before she could sit up entirely, and that only by leaning forward.
“Pretty much where we were when you conked out yesterday,” Hazel said. “Mars is big.”
“Yesterday?” Valentina repeated. If it had been dawn, but it wa
