The Age Of Miracles

After that afternoon of watching the Orion, Julia and Seth start spending most of their time together: “Ours was a sudden bond, the kind possible only for the young or the imperiled. Time moved differently for us that spring: A string of long quiet afternoons was as good as a year” (223). They quit spending their lunches in the library and instead spend them outdoors at the far end of the quad, watching clouds drift across the sky.

The latest environmental devastation is called the “wheat point” (224). Julia recalls, “I was with Seth on the day we passed the wheat point. Now it was official: What could no longer grow on this planet without the aid of artificial light” (224). Meanwhile, hostility is growing toward real-timers, and the windows of Sylvia’s car are smashed in her driveway. Her garage is also vandalized with spray-painted words that read: “Get the fuck out”(225).

Julia and Seth’s romantic relationship continues to progress. They spend most of their time together skateboarding, playing in the canyons, and watching television. One afternoon, the electricity goes out. During a period of darkness, Seth and Julia light candles, and Seth teaches Julia how to build a house of cards. Julia, at this point, reveals that her father has been cheating on her mother with Sylvia. It is the first time that Julia has revealed this secret to anyone: “Now that I’d said it, the facts seemed more true than they ever had before” (227). Seth reacts with kindness, saying that the situation is unfair to Julia’s mother, and that he hates things that are unfair. Soon after, they share their first kiss, right around the time the power is restored to the neighborhood.

It is springtime, and Michaela invites Julia and Seth to her twelfth birthday party, marking the first time Julia has been invited to one of the big dance parties. She senses that it might be because word has now spread that she is dating Seth. Julia and Seth decide not to attend and spend the time with one another instead. Michaela is incensed that they decline her invitation.

Despite it being April, and it being an unusual occurrence in California, Julia’s neighborhood gets five inches of snowfall. Seth suggests that they go sledding. Julia is in awe of the snow: “I had never seen it fall, never knew how soft it felt at first, how easily it collapsed beneath feet, or the particular sound of that crunch. I never knew until then that snow made everything quiet, somehow silencing all the world’s noise” (230). Julia’s grandfather remains missing, and Julia’s father says aloud that he hopes, wherever Gene is, that he is witnessing the snowfall.  

The natural world continues to crumple under the effects of “the slowing.”Julia explains, “One day we heard a strange sound in the sky: a crinkling, a tearing, like cellophane rustling in the wind” (232). The sound is what scientists refer to as “the dynamo effect,” or the theory that Earth’s magnetic field is reliant on the steady spinning of the Earth’s rotation. When “the slowing” occurs, Earth’s magnetic field begins to wear away, thus the “crinkling” sound. Since the magnetic field had been shielding Earth from the Sun’s radiation, when it begins to wither and fade, toxic radiation starts streaming into Earth’s atmosphere. This makes it extremely dangerous to be outside in the sunlight: “We swallowed vitamin-D tablets to make up for what we were missing from the sunlight. We hunkered down and waited for the all-clear” (234). On daylight days, everyone is forced to stay indoors and out of the Sun, so much to her dismay, Julia is unable to see Seth on those days. The days now last 60 hours long.

Julia notes that she has not seen Sylvia in weeks and wonders what has become of her. Since Sylvia is a real-timer, Julia and Seth speculate that perhaps Sylvia only goes out during daylight hours, so that’s why they never see her. Seth suggests that he and Julia sneak out of their houses in the light of a white night to observe Sylvia at her house and see if she appears. The next night, Julia and Seth lie to both of their parents. They run through the streets, which are devoid of people and traffic, toward Sylvia’s place.

At Sylvia’s, they hide behind a row of trash cans, out of sight. After a brief waiting period, they see her emerge from the house: “Suddenly, the side door swung open, and there she was in the side yard, as thin as ever in an orange linen dress, no shoes” (239). Sylvia is packing her car, they realize, when Seth coughs and exposes their hiding place. Sylvia is frightened, not expecting to see anyone outside at this hour, and asks them what they are doing there. She tells them they should go home immediately when suddenly Julia’s father emerges from Sylvia’s house carrying two brown suitcases. Julia’s father angrily asks what they are doing there in saying, “I thought you were at Hanna’s” (240). Seth rebuts on Julia’s behalf, countering, “She thought you were at work” (240). Julia is unable to tell if her father is leaving with Sylvia. Joel does not reveal what his intentions are, and he insists that Julia and Seth leave Sylvia’s place and return to Seth’s house: “After some argument, we agreed, but we refused to let him drive us. He followed us in his car, moving at the slow pace of our strides. Seth held my hand the whole way” (242). By the time they arrive back at Seth’s, it is two in the morning, and they fall asleep right away. 

The next morning, Julia and Seth both have such extreme sunburns that they are “feverish and thirsty” and their “whole bodies are bright red” (243). Julia’s mother tends to her, rubbing aloe on her blistering and sloughing skin. A moving van comes to Sylvia’s house, and movers take away floor lamps, a dining room table, a velvet couch, and other furniture items. When Julia’s father does not return home from work immediately, it is unclear if he is joining Sylvia wherever she is going. As the day progresses, Julia’s mother becomes increasingly worried that she has not heard from Julia’s father. She calls the hospital, but he is not there.

Suddenly the dogs of the neighborhood “howled from all directions, their voices swelling like a tide. A Great Dane sprinted down [the] street, his leash whipping behind him” (245). This marks the beginning of a solar storm, or an extended period of daylight.

Julia’s father returns home later in the evening, at which point he informs them that the phones are down, validating why he could not call. He explains that he is late because he is coming from his father’s house.

Joel informs them that they have located Gene and that he is dead. Julia and her mother learn that Gene passed away in the bomb shelter on his property that had been built in case of nuclear war. Julia’s grandfather had repurposed the space due to fears around “the slowing.” On the night of Julia’s birthday, her grandfather had been in the bomb shelter arranging board games. Julia notes that the games were the ones she likes best. The ladder her grandfather stood on slipped: “It was estimated that he died on the same day he disappeared, two months earlier, my birthday” (250). His head struck the hard cement floor of the shelter, causing his death. He died in a gray suit he wore special for Julia’s birthday dinner. 

A funeral service is held for Gene on a rainy afternoon. This marks the first experience Julia has with death: “I could not believe he was in there, my grandfather, lying dead. I could still hear the sound of his voice in my ears. I could still see his face. I’d never been to a funeral before” (251).

To highlight the extended length of time, Julia remarks how “[s]even sunsets later, it was June” (252). Julia recovers from her sunburn relatively quickly, but Seth is ill for weeks. His skin sloughs off dramatically, and he has intense fevers that land him in the hospital. Julia alludes to Seth possibly getting cancer, triggered by the extreme sunburn: “Some things that happen during youth, you carry with you into later life” (252). School lets out for the summer, but summer is quite different for children now, as they are forbidden from going into the Sun. Solar storms worsen in intensity, damaging wiring and sparking fires in their wake.

Julia’s mother’s sickness comes and goes, and Julia’s father takes a more proactive role in caring for her: “I read their interactions from a distance, but I sensed a new closeness between them” (254). Julia never sees Sylvia again, and she does not know if her father ever does. Julia and her father never discuss his relationship with Sylvia: “Together, we worked hard that summer to imagine that certain events had never taken place” (255). On a walk to the soccer field, Julia’s father asks her is she knows what “paradox” means. She indicates that she doesn’t know, and he implores her to remember that not everything in life is clear-cut. “‘A paradox,’ he went on, ‘is when two contradictory things are both true’” (255).

By the time Fourth of July rolls around, the days are 72 hours long. Seth grows weaker as the days wear on, but he and Julia try to have as normal a summer as possible. They buy candy from the liquor store, take trips to the beach, and hang out with the beached whales. The crises related to “the slowing” multiply. Food shortages occur as fresh produce becomes scarce, resulting in widespread famine. To survive, humans must consume a plethora of vitamins for basic nutrition.

By August, radiation shelters are built beneath backyards throughout the neighborhood. One day, Seth and Julia are out for a walk when Seth passes out. He is having a seizure, and Julia panicks, quietly and protectively:“I was grateful to that woman during those first few seconds but then I wanted her to get away from us, and not crouch next to me the way she did while Seth rolled on the sidewalk, his head jerking, my young arms unable to hold his body still, my mind even more useless, those minutes too intimate for a stranger to see” (262).

Seth, they find out, has an extreme case of the syndrome. Soon, he can barely walk, and he and his father suddenly move to Mexico. Julia remembers the last time she saw her love: “I still remember the day they packed the van, his father carrying Seth in his arms. […] I’d help Seth pack his things, and he’d given me his skateboard; he couldn’t ride it anymore” (263). When he arrives in Mexico, Seth sends Julia an email saying he is safe and that Mexico is “strange and weird” and that he misses her. Two days later, all of America has a major power outage. After three days, power is finally restored. However, things are not the same. Certain major servers are never repaired, and without email, Julia loses touch with Seth forever. 

Julia reflects: “We never determined the cause of the slowing. The source of our suffering remained forever mysterious” (266).

Julia’s narrative zooms through the future and skips over her teenage years. Julia, 23 years old, explains how plans for The Explorer are made. The Explorer, which is a rocket, will be sent into space carrying a disc that contains information about humans and planet earth. This is a final attempt to preserve a record of humanity in case Earth is completely obliterated. As a young adult, Julia still lives at home in the house where she grew up. “The slowing” has slackened in pace, but it continues to persist, and days continue to elongate. The future is bleak: “As I write this account, one ordinary life, our days have stretched to the lengths of weeks, and it’s hard to say which times are most hazardous now: the weeks of freezing darkness or the light” (268).

Julia knows that it’s only a matter of time before humanity dies out, unable to maintain the necessary fuel supply. She thinks about “the artifacts that will never be found” (269) and spends a lot of time reminiscing about the past. She thinks of Seth and wonders what happened to him. She often thinks back to the day, just before Seth left for Mexico, when they wrote in a patch of wet cement on their block “the truest, simplest things [they] knew: [their] names, the date, and these words: “We were here” (269).