Page 17

Our last guest is at a hostel by the airport. A young guy, early twenties, climbs in as soon as the door slides open. Neither Nick nor I have a chance to get out.

“Lars.” He holds out his hand, and I take it. He’s all long limbs and youthful tan, backpack slung over his shoulder, German flag stitched to the front, in a blue Patagonia puffer, unzipped. I’m finding you can tell a lot about a person by their choice of outerwear.

He takes the single seat by the door, and I pass him a bottle. Nick puts a headset with a mic over his ears, and his voice crackles through the speakers.

“We’ll begin our journey out of Fairbanks heading east. The sky is clear, and if the forecast is to be believed, should stay that way for the evening. Solar activity has been getting stronger, so hopefully we’ll have a good show for you tonight.” We travel through an intersection, and the streetlights start to thin. “We’ll make camp in about an hour. If you have any questions, please ask Ellery or myself.”

Nick slips off his headset right as Lars pipes up.

“So, what makes the lights? My hostel friend said it’s the sun.”

“It’s mostly the sun.” He doesn’t bother with the mic. Just talks louder. “It throws off a stream of charged particles called the solar wind. When there’s been a flare or a coronal hole facing us, that wind⁠—”

“Coronal hole?” I ask.

He finds me in the rearview and I queue up an apology for interrupting.

“Coronal holes are thinner regions in the sun’s outer atmosphere.”

“Right. Holes in the sun. Got it.” I smile over my shoulder at the rest of the group.

“Well, not…” Nick brakes for something in the road, and I grab hold of my water bottle before it can roll away. “Anyway, when the coronal holes face us, the wind picks up. The particles ride down Earth’s magnetic field lines and slam into our atmosphere.”

“Kaboom!” I say helpfully, throwing my hands up.

Yuki giggles. Nick doesn’t.

“The lights are gas getting excited and letting go of that energy as photons.” He waits. “Fairbanks sits under the auroral oval. Best seat on the planet.”

“And the colors?” Lars again, leaning forward now.

“Altitude.” He’s enjoying himself. “The green you’ll see most of the night, that’s oxygen somewhere around sixty to a hundred and twenty miles up. The eye picks up green easier than anything else, so it reads brightest. If we’re lucky and the storm’s strong enough, you’ll get a purple or pink fringe along the bottom edge. That’s mostly nitrogen, or a mix, lower down. And the red, way up high, that’s oxygen again, but it’s rare. Takes a real energetic night.”

His expression is lit up, boyish almost. He loves this. “If you get a clear night like we have, mid-September’s a great time to see it. And the lakes haven’t frozen yet, so you get the reflections.”

I can’t reconcile this guy with the man who watched me have a meltdown in the rain.

Nick drives down a bumpy dirt road, hemmed in on both sides by thick forest. It’s a level of darkness I’ve never experienced before. There’s always light in Manhattan, even in dark alleys and dimmed theaters, but here there’s no ambient glow to bring out the shapes of things.

We come to a stop in a small clearing, and he leaves the headlights on. They catch on a body of water, and above, the sky is littered with stars.

“Hop out and stretch your legs, folks. We’ll have camp ready in a moment,” Nick says.

The side door opens and I meet him at the back of the van.

“There’s a fire pit to the right.” He hands me a headlamp and unloads a stack of folding chairs. “Get these set up around the pit while I get the fire going, and start serving the coffee and hot chocolate.”

The rest area is on a pebbled beach about thirty feet from the lake edge, big enough for a couple of tour vans, though we’re the only ones here tonight. Nick builds a fire with an efficiency I have to admire while I wrestle with the camp chairs. In the basket, I find two packs of hot dogs. One vegan, one reindeer. I unwrap both and push a herd of doe-eyed Bambis out of my mind. There are marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate, as well, and a bundle of long barbecue forks.

Nick unfolds a small table, and I lay out the food. Twice, he opens his mouth to give me a task, only to close it again when he realizes I’ve already done it.

“Look.” Yuki has her arm straight up, and we all turn to the sky.

Flickers of green and purple spark faintly across the inky black. The group edges their way down to the shore of the lake, away from the firelight, and Nick gives a quick lesson on how to take the best pictures, whether it’s a top-of-the-line camera or a phone. Lars sets up his tripod deeper into the dark, serious about getting some good shots. Cindy and Donald get comfortable by the fire with Yuki and Kenji, content to watch the show after snapping a few photos.

With everyone occupied, I wander along the shore as the dancing ribbons intensify.

Alone on this rocky beach, the lake laps at my boots, with swathes of galaxies stretching over the water.