The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton

side, an eighteen-foot fence of reinforced logs spreads out, enclosing the park. There’s probably a war band based near here for emergencies. I’ve heard that most such postings are considered cushioned ones, because it is extremely rare for any of the parks to see more danger than the occasional pack of wolves. Though given what’s happened in Vinland, that may not be true this week.
    We’re greeted at the gate by a woman in a brown ranger suit, blond braids falling from under her hat. Her eyes barely pause at my tattoo. “You two should be moving along to a city. Didn’t you hear about the trolls?”
    Astrid leans over me and says brightly, “We won’t be long.”
    The ranger purses her lips, but then shrugs. I hand over money for the seven-day pass and an overnight camping ticket.
    “If anything happens, make for the visitor center. There’s ashelter in the basement,” the ranger says. She hands me a glossy brochure along with the change.
    Astrid flips through it as I pull the car forward. “I wish I knew which of these hiking paths Mom and I took that last night,” she says, holding open the page with a green-and-tan map crisscrossed by red roads and tiny dotted lines.
    “Why don’t you look outside and I’ll just keep driving until you recognize something.”
    The dry prairie spreads out all around us, but ahead and to the side are tall spires of layered rock. The road winds us closer to the spires, and when Astrid points, I stop the car on the gravel shoulder. There’s a footpath leading toward the edge of the prairie, where the ground cuts away. I open my door.
    The path crunches under my boots as I walk out through the scraggly prairie grass alongside Astrid. At the end of the path, a small sign proclaims the Badlands to be twenty-two thousand acres square, butting up against the Lakotas Buffalo Reservation to the south. What we’re looking at is the bottom of an ancient sea, where layers of sediment were deposited and pressed into stone. Five hundred thousand years ago the land began eroding with rainwater and streams; it was water that cut these fissures and canyons.
    “I prefer to imagine rock giants hammering their homes out of the flat prairie,” Astrid says.
    “So do I.” The canyons stretch as far as I can see: striped gorges flushed deep golden and orange by the sun behind me.

    We drive all afternoon, around Cedar Loop Road, which winds from one end of the park to the other. Mostly we’re quiet. Astrid stares intently out her window or the windshield, occasionally telling me softly to stop. I do, and follow her as she picks her way down the first few steps of a hiking trail. Some are just boardwalks through the prairie, and we can see black dots on the horizon that must be bison grazing. Some trails cut down into the canyon, and each time, Astrid pauses before descending. “This isn’t it,” she says. At first she’s calm when we head back to the car. But as the hours pass, she becomes more and more frustrated. The dazzling sun and our increasing thirst can’t be helping. Her fingers curl tightly into her skirt and she frequently murmurs “Where is it?” to herself.
    We hike a mile down the Castle Trail, surrounded by sharp stone peaks like miniature mountains. There’s dust in my throat and my shoulders are tense. We’re vulnerable out in the open like this. When Astrid halts suddenly, I nearly run into her. She says quickly, “Soren, I know this is the place. I was here with Mom the last night.” Her lips press together hard enough that they turn white. “Where is he?”
    “Maybe he isn’t here. Maybe … maybe you were supposed to come here for some other reason.”
    “Oh, Soren.” She looks away. “Are you interpreting my seething now?”
    My instinct is to apologize. “Isn’t that what seethkonas need sometimes? Someone … else? To interpret.”
    She nods. “Perhaps I will dream tonight. Let’s go get something to eat.”
    At the visitor center, we first find