Chapter One Perfect Darkness--­1992 Miguel Torres stands in the old cemetery and aims his telescope at the sky. It''s a clear, cloudless evening. And there''s no moon. So it is easier to see the stars when there''s no moon. Miguel stumbles as he adjusts his scope. He has difficulty navigating the uneven terrain of tree roots and crumbling stone. Still he likes the old cemetery. It gives him the best view of the night sky.

Near the trailer where he lives with his mother, there is too much light. He comes here for the darkness. A brisk wind blows through the branches of the old oak tree. It blows through piñon trees, and the air is redolent with the scent of pine. But it is also a dry, dusty wind and Miguel has to keep wiping his lens with a soft cloth. He buttons his thin jacket and peers into the eyepiece. Squinting, he pans the sky. It is late spring and a good night to be out.

The days are already hot on the high desert plain, but the nights remain cool. He focuses on Cassiopeia. He likes to begin with this constellation because her major stars form an M. The Celestial M some call it. Or the Lazy M. Whatever the case, Miguel feels as if it''s his signature in the sky. From Cassiopeia he moves up to Ursa Major and then over to the North Star. This orients him.

Once he gets his bearings, he locates Jupiter and sharpens his focus on its moons. Named after Zeus''s lovers, the largest moons of Jupiter and their orbits were what Galileo used to determine that the Earth is not the center of the universe. But, of course, Galileo went to prison, recanted, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Miguel has never been to prison, though he has spent a month in juvenile detention. But juvie was a little more like what he imagined summer camp to be--­bunk beds, sports, three meals a day--­except for the razor wire. It was a year ago when he''d gotten caught with a gang of his pals playing chicken on the highway, and next thing he knew, the cops were rounding them up. His father, who lives down the road, thought it might be good for him to spend some time straightening out, and his mother didn''t argue. He''d shared a room with three other boys and they all had lice.

The room had a small window, and the only pleasure he''d gotten that entire month was staring at the night sky. Since getting out, it seems as if that''s all he wants to do. As his father likes to say, there are worse things to be hooked on. Miguel stumbles again, almost toppling over as he makes a fine adjustment to his scope. But then he often stumbles. His feet don''t seem to know where the rest of him is going. His mother calls him a long tall drink of water. Over six feet tall, lanky.

His muscles haven''t caught up with his bones. And those bones have just grown and grown. He is almost odd-­looking. He has green eyes like his father. Some of his friends call him the Praying Mantis because he is so skinny and because he falls for girls usually a few years older who are known to devour boys. As he stands with his feet apart in the cemetery, he can see the skies. He is hoping to find a moon. Not a moon that anyone else has ever found but one of his own.

A moon that no one else knows is there. What will he name it? Maybe after a character in Star Wars? Han Solo? Luke Skywalker? Princess Leia? He''s always surprised at the names given to the moons. Ganymede, Callisto, Locaste. So why not Star Wars? Miguel can never dream of discovering a galaxy or a comet. Or even a new planet somewhere deep in the Milky Way. That''s for people who spend their lives with high-­powered scopes fixed to the stars. But it is not out of the question for a boy to find a moon. Moons have long been a preoccupation of Miguel''s.

He is drawn to them more than he is drawn to other celestial bodies. Moons are manageable. You can stare at one and it won''t hurt your eyes. And they have low expectations. He prefers the cooler, reflected light to the burning stars. In this high desert where Miguel lives, the sun cracks his lips and makes his throat dry. Whenever possible he seeks the shade. If he could, he''d be nocturnal.

Miguel doesn''t like his position so he moves the telescope to the right until he is on firmer ground. Carefully he sweeps the skies as he looks for Arcturus in the constellation of Boötes. It is one of the brightest stars. He feels certain that Arcturus has planets in its orbit, and he''s sure that those planets must have moons. The universe interests him. He doesn''t know why. Perhaps it''s because each night when he steps out of his mother''s trailer and stares at the sky, he wonders if there isn''t a better life for him somewhere out there. When he was younger, he''d go outside to get away from his parents'' fighting.

He spent months trying to invent a device that would contact a spacecraft to come and get him. In his early teens he went out to sneak a smoke. But since juvie he just does it to watch. Miguel never cared that much about the earth sciences, but he cares about space. The first time he gazed through a lens, he saw a crater on the moon the size of Texas. He learned that the Earth could slip through the gap between the rings of Saturn. That is how big they are. His science teacher, Mr.

Garcia, taught him to ask questions. Why is it that a supernova is in the same shape as a snail? Why does nature repeat its patterns? He ponders the three-­body problem, trying to understand what keeps the Earth in its orbit. How is it that we keep spinning at all? For years he wanted his own telescope but knew he''d never be able to afford it. Then last year Mr. Garcia gave him a gift: a membership to the Amateur Astronomers of America. In one of its newsletters he read about a man named John Dobson who taught people how to build their own telescopes from scratch and at almost no cost. In the Santa Fe Public Library, Miguel found a book by Dobson, in which he learned the intricacies of magnification. He began with the mirror.

He spent weeks grinding it down, polishing it, getting the shape just right. In flea markets and pawnshops he scavenged lenses from an old pair of 7/35 binoculars and these he used for his eyepiece. Then he built his own sixteen-­inch scope with an eight-­inch focal length that is strong enough to see galaxies and star clusters that are light-­years away. The telescope cost him seven dollars to make and he can see Cassiopeia and Andromeda, her daughter. He can see Perseus. He can even see Algol, the evil winking eye in the center of Medusa''s head in the constellation Perseus. When he presented the telescope to his teacher, Mr. Garcia was amazed at its strength.

Miguel pans along the outer ridges of his own galaxy. The ground is too rocky and he can''t get the scope stable so he moves over a few graves. At least he assumes they are graves. Mostly there are grassy mounds and broken headstones with their strange writing that nobody can decipher. No one has been buried in this cemetery for at least a hundred years. That''s what his mother tells him. In fact no one in the town remembers the last time anyone was buried here. No one comes to tend the graves.

When he was younger, he came here on dares to see who could mingle longer with the ghosts. Then he came with his girlfriend because it was a good place to slip his hand under her shirt and run it along her smooth, warm skin. But since he joined the Amateur Astronomers of America, he''s been trying to get better purchase on the sky. He folds up his telescope. Though he is reluctant to leave this crystal night behind, it''s Friday and his mother expects him home. He makes his way down the hill toward the lights. When he gets to Roybal''s General Store, he''ll give her a call. As he was heading out that evening, she asked him to pick up milk.

It is one of the things that makes Miguel crazy. She''s always asking him to do something. They can''t have a conversation without her saying "Would you mind fixing this?" or "Will you pick this up after school?" Someday this will drive him away. He''ll leave the way his aunt Elena did. He barely knows his father''s sister. He can only recall seeing her a few times. She left Entrada to go to New York City and become a ballerina. Even after she had her accident and couldn''t dance anymore, she still didn''t come back to Entrada.

Instead she travels the world. She sends him postcards from places he''s never even heard of. Kuala Lumpur and Cádiz. Bombay and Melbourne. He uses an old globe to locate them. He keeps the postcards in a shoebox in his room. Cards with rust-­colored animals sleeping in trees, carved figures that rise out of the ground, pyramids of spices and fruits he''s never seen. Someday he''ll travel too--­though it is intergalactic travel that interests him.

The speed of light. He''ll be the first tourist on Mars. As he reaches the steps of Roybal''s, he begins digging in his pockets for change. He is hoping he can get a candy bar as well. The best thing, as far as Miguel is concerned, about living in Entrada is that Roybal''s is pretty much always open. He can pick up a candy bar, a can of soda, or some loose cigarettes at just about any time of day or night. The Roybals live in a house attached to their store and it seems to Miguel as if they must be a family of insomniacs because there are always lights on and there is always someone to ring up a purchase even if it is just for a package of bubble gum and some beef jerky. Miguel is an insomniac as well.

Or at least a night owl, for which he has recently learned there is an actual genetic disposition. At times Miguel feels more closely related to bats and raccoons than to humans. Old man Roybal is at the cash register when Miguel walks in and gives h.