"Can it do cell phones?" his stepdad asked.

Daniel shrugged.

Carlton dug into his pocket and held out his iPhone. "The charger's on the table by my side of the bed," he said.

"Can you do my Blackberry?" his mom asked. There was a sense of desperation there that Daniel wasn't used to seeing from his in-control workaholic mom.

"I guess," he said, wishing he hadn't said anything. He should've told them he was going to go smoke cigarettes, or something.

"You know where my charger is," she said simply.

Daniel accepted the phone. He was surprised both of them were carrying their phones around, even though there'd been no signal since the storm.

"Check with Zola," his mom said.

"Mine's fine," his sister said. She tugged on a branch. "I put my other battery in."

"Why do you have two batteries?" their mother asked.

Zola shrugged.

"I was already hesitant to ask about charging up my Zune," Daniel complained. Which was the truth, but not for the reason he was insinuating.

"See if they need to borrow the saw in return," Carlton said. He used the hem of his shirt to wipe sawdust off his gla.s.ses, which he then pinched with his gloves and inspected.

"Or if they need water. Or anything," his mom said.

Daniel nodded, suddenly thrilled. The idea of making a transaction-from one family to another-released the knot of nerves in his stomach. He ran inside for his backpack with a surge of confidence. He was now going on a mission, not a tryst. This was about survival, not puppy love. He was a sanctioned amba.s.sador with messages and offerings from a not-too-distant familial munic.i.p.ality. There was no pressure to fall in love, or force someone else to reciprocate. All he needed to do was establish a trade route. More formal treaties and arranged marriages could wait.

Daniel gathered his family's dead gizmos and the various species of chargers with their fat heads and wispy tails. He ran back outside, balancing haste with the fear of stirring an unseemly sweat, and made his way through his new and wondrous wilderness neighborhood to that distant and promising kingdom a few houses down.

aaaa The neighborhood streets were everywhere hedged with brush piles. They were like slumbering and camouflaged beasts, lying supine along the pavement's shoulder. They crowded the black tar, which was still littered with leaves and the smallest limbs, and were deathly quiet and devoid of traffic. While Carlton's chainsaw dimmed behind him, several others became audible elsewhere. The smell of tree sap and tar and sawdust filled the air. As far as Daniel could tell, this was the new way of things; the world had reverted to some primitive state, and that's where he'd live forever. Juxtaposing this idea with the fact that people in Atlanta and Chicago were getting up, checking their email, going to work or school, waiting at red lights, hunting for WiFi-Daniel imagined what a Bahamian, Haitian, Mexican or Cuban might feel about such distant and magical realms as the United States. As he rounded the small tangle of limbs in front of Anna's house, he considered the ridiculous idea that he could just walk from this primitive new island of his to that faraway land of promise. A few days of hiking, of sleeping under the stars, and he'd arrive somewhere to find streetlights and air conditioned houses. There'd be music and roving vehicles. There'd be signals: cell phone and wireless, radio and satellite. He could call people . . . just not anyone back here.

Daniel wandered up the white concrete driveway feeling conspicuous and uninvited, but also primal and in some survival mode that ignored taboo and embarra.s.sment. He was on a mission from his family, he reminded himself, and nothing more.

As he turned down the walk curling from the driveway, he pa.s.sed a curious addition to the house that had been erected between two large bushes: a small shed. It had a metal roof bent out of a single corrugated sheet with the solar panels mounted on top. The sides consisted of sc.r.a.p vinyl siding, and it had double doors on ma.s.sive hinges that stood open. There was a sign above the doors that read, in a neat print: "Community charging station. Help yourself."

Help yourself, Daniel thought. Did that mean he didn't have to ask? But now he wanted to ask.

He peered inside the structure to see the black inverter he'd helped solder mounted to one wall, out of any threat of rain. The other side was lined with shelves that each had their own outlets, which were wired up and covered with electrical tape. A scattering of wall warts were plugged in here and there. Two of them had devices attached, little green lights glowing happily.

For Daniel, it was like seeing a neon sign go up on his little island. He was a caveman peering into a fire. He saw at once that the same ingenuity and restlessness that had dragged his species out of their caves and down from their trees to the twenty-first century couldn't be excised by a storm and a loss of power. Besides, it was his people who had created that power in the first place. And now he was seeing a small piece of evidence that it would all come back. Eventually.

Movement inside the house startled him out of his optimistic revelry. Daniel straightened and turned toward the door. Despite the welcoming hand-lettered sign, he wanted to make sure it was okay, especially since he had so many items begging to be recharged.

Lumbering up the stairs, he found the front door propped open, a screen door shut against the bugs. Daniel knocked on the wooden frame of the door.

"Coming!" he heard someone say. Daniel heard feet stomping through the house. He remained on the stoop and adjusted his backpack.

A tall man with a smiling beard arrived at the door; Daniel recognized him as Anna's father, or at least the man who had interrupted their soldering and had been working with her on the roof.

"Is that Daniel?" the man said. He pushed the screen door open and Daniel stepped back and out of the way.

"Yessir," Daniel said, stunned that her father knew his name. But that meant she's been talking about me, Daniel realized. His heart leapt with the idea that this lovely sprite with magical powers of soldering had uttered his name- "Ah, yes," her father said. "I asked Anna who her little helper was, but all she had was a name. Come inside. I'm Anna's father, Edward."

Daniel digested all that information, feeling himself sink and deflate as he did so. The conversation between father and daughter took a more realistic aspect: Who was that? A shrug. Some creeper named Daniel.

He suddenly felt like bolting through the screen door and sprinting down the street.

There was thunder on the stairs, followed by the squeak of bare feet on clean floors. Anna ran around the corner, her longish brown hair twirling behind her in fine wisps. "Cool," she said, beaming at Daniel. "You brought your stuff?"

Daniel hooked a thumb in his backpack's shoulder strap. The fear and hesitation he'd felt from the risky visit melted. It was as if Anna had been expecting him, or at least antic.i.p.ating his return.

"Just a few things," he squeaked.

"Bring 'em outside," she said, hurrying past him and throwing open the screen door. "I'll get back to my studies in a little while," she called to her father.

Daniel smiled meekly at Edward, lifted his palms in a shrug, then turned and pushed open the door that had just cracked back on its springs against the jamb.

"Let's see what you got," Anna said. She crouched by the open doors of the little shed and waved her hand impatiently. Daniel hurried over and set his backpack on the walk. He rummaged for each device and paired them with their chargers.

"A Zune, eh?" Anna picked up his music player and squinted at it, then looked up and squinted even harder at Daniel, like she was looking past some glaring flaw to see if she still approved of him.

"I woulda pegged you as an iPod kinda guy."

The way she said it made it sound as if she might've disapproved even further of that.

"What do you use?" Daniel asked.

"I don't really do music," she said. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and stared at Daniel. He saw for the first time that her eyes were green. He memorized that in case there was ever a quiz between them, some marital dispute about how little he truly knew her.

She turned away and reached inside the small house. "Looks like you two are done." She unplugged the two devices on the shelves and moved them to a separate waiting area.

"Are those yours?" he asked.

She shook her head. Her hair was so fine, it laid so silky flat on her head, that Daniel could see the shape of her skull beneath. He admired the way the back of her head curved out like a bowl and swept back to her neck, which was half exposed by the parting curtain of brown locks. Her skull seemed loaded with brilliant nerve endings, like Daniel could just cup it in his hand and feel the electrical shocks zap his palm.

"They belong to the Michelsons across the street," she said, turning to face him. "My dad has a cell phone, but he hasn't even tried to turn it on." She held out a palm and curled her fingers. "Lemme see your chargers."

Daniel handed them over one at a time. Anna took the time to check the back of each, reading out the wattage and nodding.

"What were you saying about studies?" Daniel asked. "Is your dad making you do schoolwork?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "School might be closed for you, but mine's still standing." She glanced up at the brick face of her house.

"You're homeschooled?" Daniel asked.

Anna frowned. "You say that like I belong to some kind of satanic cult."

Daniel laughed. "I'm sorry. It's not that, it's just that I was wondering why I've never seen you around school."

"Oh." She studied the last power brick. "Four point two watts," she said, "so you have a total of just under seventeen."

"Is that bad?" He couldn't believe he was crouched down so close to her, that they were just talking, like they'd always known each other.

"It's fine. I think the panel and inverter can handle around twenty." She looked up at the sky, which was scattered with only the barest of gossamer-thin cirrus clouds. "I'd say these'll be done by lunchtime or a little later." Daniel handed her the cellphones and Zune one at a time, and Anna inserted the plugs that fit each one.

"So I should come back around then?" Daniel pictured coming over and grabbing the devices without her help. The thought depressed him. He looked across the street at another house full of people he didn't know. He thought it was likely that a good-looking boy lived there who was also homeschooled and was Anna's boyfriend. He felt the dangerous urge to ask her if she was seeing anyone- "Come back at noon," she said. She stood up and rested her hands on her hips. Daniel fumbled with the zippers on his backpack, then slung the now-light sack over his shoulder. "If you want, you can eat lunch with us," she said. "It's nothing special. We're just having some salad to use up the tomatoes and cukes that survived the storm." She frowned. "Of course, you don't have to, you can always just pick up your things whenever-"

"Of course," Daniel said. "I'd love to." He nodded. "Noon." He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a salad, much less as an entire meal, but it sounded like the most appetizing thing in the world right then.

Anna smiled. She held out her hand. Daniel grabbed it and felt her pump his arm up and down. "See you then," she said.

20.

Daniel practically skipped home, his hand and cheeks burning. The sweat from the humid Beaufort air stuck his shirt to his chest and back, but hardly bothered him. The awkward goodbye, the way Anna's perfect eyes had darted about while waiting for him to accept her invitation, the handshake: Daniel was thrilled with the stiffness of it all. It was like every stuttering encounter he'd ever had with the opposite s.e.x, but this time it had been mutual! She was almost as awkward as he was.

He ran past one of the brush piles and breathed in the air of injured timber and tree sap. He was pretty sure he was in love. His legs felt at once light and powerful with it, as if he could run a marathon. His brain tingled with the newness, the feeling of being let in to some august and exclusive club. He suddenly knew what so many others must've known for much longer. He could feel his hatred and envy of Roby dissipate. Even as he no longer cared about the storm's aftermath or the loss of power, he desperately wished for some temporary line of communication, some way to tell his best friend that he was no longer a loser for not having a girlfriend and that Roby was lucky to have someone as well.

"Oh my G.o.d," Daniel said to himself, slowing to a walk. "I'm losing my f.u.c.king mind."

Some girl had invited him to share some salad for lunch, and now he was wondering if it would be better, for their future family, to have a boy first or a girl first. There were good arguments for both ways. An older brother could look after his sister, or he could torment her. Daniel was moving right past losing his virginity to wondering what kind of parent he'd be.

"I'm a f.u.c.king idiot," he said to himself.

The deflated sensation intensified as he entered his cul-de-sac and saw his father hoisting a ma.s.sive limb before letting it flop down on top of the growing debris pile. Daniel used the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead. As he started up the driveway, he scanned the yard for his sister, but didn't see her anywhere. His mom was also absent. Carlton had moved off to another tree with the chainsaw; the last tree had become nothing more than a dashed outline of its former self, a line of sawdust marching down the row of jumbled logs. Daniel waved at Carlton as he peered up at him through his safety goggles. His stepdad pointed in a tall arch as if over the house, signifying perhaps that the rest of his family was in the back yard.

Daniel dropped his book bag by the garage and hurried around to the back of the house. Yet another pile of twisted limbs lay jumbled at the end of the drive. His mother and sister were just beyond it, talking to one another, their gloves off.

"Am I interrupting?"

Daniel walked slowly in their direction. Zola turned her back. His mom wiped at her eyes and shook her head.

"You guys need any help back here?"

"We're fine," his mom said, which was the opposite of how they looked.

"How long is he gonna stay?" Daniel asked, taking a guess at what was upsetting them.

"He says he has a friend in Charleston he can stay with," Daniel's mom said. "So just until the phones work or he can get a ride some other way."

"And we're gonna make him sleep in the toolshed until then?"

"He's not staying in the house," Zola said, her voice as broken up as the tree out front. She kept her back turned; her hands went to her face. Their mom stepped closer and put an arm around her shoulders. She looked back toward Daniel.

"I think there's more for you to do in the front yard."

Daniel let out a sigh. He hated being excluded, but he thought he understood their wanting to be alone. "He says he's quit drinking," Daniel told them. It felt like a feeble attempt. His mom glowered at him over her shoulder, her brow wrinkled and lips drawn tight. Daniel turned and headed back around the house, his elation from a few minutes prior completely and utterly smashed.

For the next several hours, he barely saw his mom or sister. It was only when he was dragging something down the driveway, walking backwards, that he might catch a glimpse of them working slowly and methodically on their brush piles in the back yard. He and Carlton and his father worked with few words. They alternated between disentangling limbs and hauling them to the street, and stacking the green firewood Carlton chopped up between a rare pair of still-standing trees.

When the chainsaw ran out of gas, Daniel's father offered to get more out of the toolshed, but Carlton waved him off and insisted on going himself. That left the two of them, father and son, piling logs, the yard silent of the tree-chewing machine, the distant buzz of a few other saws and the chirping of some returning birds to keep them company.

"I'll be moving on just as soon as I can," Daniel's father finally said. "I hate that I've brought so much tension here." He threw a log on the pile. It landed with a solid and ringing clunk.

"So the boat's gone?" Daniel asked quietly. He remembered days anch.o.r.ed out on the river with the old houseboat. His dad would grill out on the roof while he, Hunter, and Zola trailed behind on the swift current, clinging to fenders and life rings strung out on chewed lines and suspect knots.

"Yup," his father said, then cleared his throat. He turned and wrestled with one of the biggest logs, almost as if to punish himself.

Daniel remembered helping him toss the lines on the boat that last time. When his father had puttered down the intercostal waterway over a year ago, Daniel had watched from the dock and had suspected they were both gone forever, boat and father. Now one of them was back in his life. The other sounded as if it had been demolished in the storm.

"I hope Hunter gets back before you go," Daniel said. He wasn't sure why he wished that, but he did.

"You picked out a college? Or are you gonna go to the community center with Hunter next year?"

"Probably go with Hunter, unless I get some kind of scholarship. My grades are good enough, but they want you to have all these other things. Club memberships, community events, summer camps, volunteering and whatnot." Daniel shrugged. "I'm taking my SATs again next month before I send some more applications out. I'm hoping I can get some money from Wofford if USC and the College of Charleston turn me down."

His father nodded and threw another log on the ever-higher wall of circular bricks. "You dating anyone?" he asked.

Daniel laughed. He felt close to telling him about the girl down the street, but already his delusions of their status felt ridiculous. He didn't even want to explain why he wouldn't be around when the rest of them were eating canned ravioli for lunch.

"Not really," he said.

"Probably best to wait until you see where you're living next year," his father said, almost as if consoling him.

Daniel felt like arguing, like saying a year was too long to be alone-he felt with a burning rage that he needed to not be alone. Then he thought of what his father must've been doing the last year, how hard the last few months of sobriety-if he'd really been able to manage it-must've been like. He felt like yelling at his dad for being down at the docks all summer and never calling him. An entire summer of being alone and scrounging for things to do. All those days they could've taken the boat out on the river, the wasted days when he hadn't known some gorgeous girl lived just a few houses down, an entire summer wasted doing nothing when so much had been so close by.

"Whatcha thinking?" his father asked. He looked Daniel in the eye. "Or do I not want to know?"

Daniel shrugged. He looked at the tall pile of logs shouldered between the two trees, dappled light filtering through the gaps. "We should start a second pile," he said. He thought about how rarely they used their fireplace in the winter-mostly just for ambiance around the holidays. Normally, they picked up a bundle of split wedges at the grocery store, a cloth handle stapled to one of the logs, and paid who knows how much for one fire's worth. What they had stacked, once it was split and dried, would last them for decades. It would be sold with the house, he suspected. More than once, probably.

"How about over there?" His dad pointed to two other lucky trees, which would soon hold the remains of their fallen kin.

"Looks good," Daniel said.

He picked up one of the larger logs before his dad could. Carlton came around the corner with a red canister in his hand, a dark ma.s.s of fuel and oil sloshing around in the lower half of it. The three of them fell back into their silent routine, working against the backdrop of the roaring and chewing chainsaw. Now and then, they would take breaks and drink warm water from the cups on the stoop. When Daniel did so, he marveled at the idea of the three of them doing yard work together. There was no force in the universe, he would've thought a week ago, that could have coerced him to do half as much with either man, much less willingly.

21.