This Video contains work on the end of chapter 5 and all of chapter 6
Chapter 5 Differential Edit

Freya took her shoes off, she didn't want to slip in before she got to the deep part of the river. The mud of the riverbank was numbingly cold against her feet, the water was as black as oil in the moonlight.

She stepped out onto the first rock and almost slipped despite her caution. The rocks were slick from the rain and there was mud sticking to her bare feet. She bent down and rolled up the legs of her jeans and dipped her feet into the river, shaking them to get the mud off. The water was cold enough to sting and her sprained ankle hurt. She wondered if she could really do it this way. The gun would have been so much quicker.

She climbed over to the next rock, and the next, the wind kicked up and a spray of leaves flew all around her, each settling onto the surface of the water and sailing off in the current. She climbed over to the big wedge-shaped stone at the center of Sillas River and sat down, staring up at Taurus. A meteor shot by, bright enough to see with the naked eye.

Make a wish.

The memory struck her. It was Jane Yang that had said it, last December, before Betty moved away. Randall had given the three of them a ride to catch the Geminids from the top of White Mountain. He'd set his own telescope up by the car, and let them wander up the mountain together, giving each a set of his binoculars. Freya had taken the oldest and smallest pair, she'd seen the Geminids many times before and wanted her friends to have a better look. Betty had the Celestrons, she was the smallest of them and they looked gargantuan when she held them against her eyes. When they saw the first streak across the sky, Jane had clapped her hands together in delight.

“Make a wish!” she’d said.

"Why would you do that?" Freya had asked, too seriously. It was as if Lassa was speaking through her mouth, spouting her contempt for superstition. Freya had been annoyed at Jane for something, she couldn’t remember what now.

"It's just what you do when you see a shooting star. You make a wish. Maybe it comes true,” Jane explained.

"They're just comet dust. They can't grant wishes," Freya replied. Even though it was too dark to see Jane rolling her eyes, Freya was sure she was.

"It doesn't hurt to wish," Jane had insisted. She'd gone off after that and stood apart from them for a while. Later, when Freya wondered why she and Jane weren't friends without Betty, this was the night she remembered.

Jane had been bored all night, she talked too much, she kept turning her binoculars at the woods to look for deer. She didn't care about the stars. Betty was quiet and attentive. She sat next to Freya on the ledge and gasped when three Geminids shot across the sky at once. After she'd reached down and took Freya's hand and squeezed it, just for a moment. Freya had felt her heart soar, like a choir suddenly singing inside her chest.

Why did she have to be the one to move away?

In the middle of the river, Freya felt the world plunging around her. Everyone she loved was gone. She laid on her back, staring up at the sky with the river rushing around her and she felt herself shrinking, while the cold seeped into her. She stared up at the stars and wondered what Betty was doing right now.

Betty had gotten a C on a test in Trigonometry at the new school and her mother had taken away her computer and phone for the whole semester. Maybe once a week Freya would get a message, either from Betty's new friend June's phone, or an email sent from a library computer. Freya had been good about that, she always responded the same day, no matter how low she felt. She tried to keep her replies upbeat, she didn't want to lose Betty. But still, it was longer and longer between each email. They were too far apart and everything was slipping away.

Freya sat up and stared down the river into the rapids, where the water rumbled and seethed. Betty would cry when she heard about this. But she had new friends now, even if she was grounded and could only see them at school. People liked her better in Wisconsin. It was a high-end private school, and she said she finally felt like she fit in, even though the classes were really hard. Freya had tried to be happy for her, but there was a piece of her that wished Betty hated it there, that she would stand up to her mother and demand they move back.

She wasn't going to move back.

Jane wouldn't care if Freya died. Or, she would care a little, but it would be in a nostalgic way. She would soak up the attention from her crew of dumb girls. Maybe she could parlay it into something, cash in her supposed grief for a date with someone hotter than her, or a better grade on a paper or something.

It doesn't hurt to wish.

Was Jane happy now? Did being popular and smoking pot and going to parties with guys on the basketball team make you happy? Freya tried to imagine herself hanging out Jane's friends, pretending to care about sports. All of them trying to outdo the others, sounding dumber than the next. Taking their mean little jabs at anyone outside of their circle.

Was that what Jane had wished for that night?

Freya scooted to the edge of the rock, she just had to lean forward and she would be in the water. She didn't want her last thoughts to be so petty. She laid back again, with her legs dangling over the edge and two particularly bright meteorites streaked past in rapid succession. Then for a long time, there was nothing, just empty space between the stars.

So much nothing.

It was time to go. She stood up, and looked down into the black water and tried to jump in, but she couldn't do it. She really couldn’t. It was more than just being afraid, it was like her body had mutinied and refused to carry out the order. She tried to shove herself over, the way she would force herself to dive off a high place, but it didn't work. It was hard to kill yourself.

She'd come this far. She turned around on the rock and edged backward, little by little until her heels were just at the edge. She could just move back, tiny bit by tiny bit, and she would eventually lose her balance and fall in. Her heart was pounding, it wasn't far down into the water but it felt like she was standing at the edge of a huge cliff.

She opened her eyes and took one last look at the moon, hanging pale and lonely in the sky. It had been part of the earth once, and now it was empty and abandoned. A barren void, with nothing left on it but a flag and some footprints around the landing module.

There was a brilliant blue-green flash overhead, the biggest fireball she'd ever seen. An instant later, something struck the river upstream, hard enough to send a huge gout of water in the air. Freya flinched and lost her footing. For an instant she was windmilling her arms but she was too far over the edge and she plunged into the water.

The cold hammered the air out of her and instantly she knew she'd made an awful mistake. She'd fallen in backward and murky river water shot up her nose.

The current was swift, dragging her downstream as she sputtered and choked. She tried to swim against it but she was swept into the rapids and pulled under. Everything was black and freezing, she couldn't tell which way was up. In a burst of effort she kicked her legs hard and managed to pop up above the surface. She gasped for air and then a moment later she hit a rock and got turned around and pulled back under.

Pure terror propelled her. She tried to swim up, but went the wrong way and was dragged along the jutting rocks underneath. She was too frenzied to feel hurt. Freya was gone and in her place was an animal that didn't want to die. Her wet clothes were dragging her down, and she fought back to the surface, moments before she slammed into another rock. She tried to grab onto it, but it was too slick and her hands felt like they were burning. The rapids only got worse downriver, she had to get out.

Kicking hard, Freya was thrown against an outcropping of stone and her arm hooked around a broken branch. She could barely hang on, but panic became strength. In a burst of adrenaline she managed to work herself around it, and her feet touched riverbed. The ridge of stone underfoot was only waist deep. She fought to make it closer to shore with the current rushing around her. Sobbing with each breath, she made it from stone to stone and reached the river’s edge.

When she got to the bank she slipped, crashing on her hands and knees into the cold mud. On all fours she clawed her way up the bank and through the brush to the trail. River water was streaming off her and each breath was a hurt, awful sound. Her teeth were chattering hard.

What a stupid thing to do!

Yet how glorious to have survived it!

She couldn’t tell how badly she was hurt, it was too dark to see on the trail. She grasped at herself, trying to feel if she was injured but the burning in her fingers had become throbbing numbness. Limping, she made her way to the clearing. The river had carried her a long way.

The clouds parted, bathing the clearing in moonlight. Nothing was broken, but her jeans were shredded, one arm had been ripped off from her jacket and hung from the shoulder by threads. She’d lost her big toenail on her right foot and all of her toenails were stubbed.

She found she was banged up and cut, but nothing felt broken. Her jeans were shredded, one of the arms of her jacket had nearly ripped off, it was hanging by threads. She’d lost two toenails on her right foot and every toe had been badly stubbed. None of that mattered.

She was alive. Everything felt new and important.

Had a meteorite really struck right in front of her? Was she just imagining it? Up the river from the rock she’d fallen off, she could see a wisp of steam rising from the sandbar. A meteorite had indeed hit, hard enough to leave a crater. She could barely believe it.

Freya was soaked and shivering, but she had to look. She waded out to the sandbar, carefully planting her feet with each step. She had no intention of slipping back in ever again.

The crater had filled in with dark water. She touched the surface tentatively, afraid it would be boiling hot, but the water was only slightly warmer than the river. The meteorite had sunk deep, she bent down and reached in until her ear was against the water’s surface, at last her fingertips touched something solid.

It was a sphere, smooth and hot, but not too hot to handle. She dug it out and brought it back to the picnic table, clutched in both hands to soak in its warmth.

A meteorite. She held a piece of space. Freya could barely believe it. In the moonlight the orb was dark and pitted, like a small cannonball, about three inches across. She squinted, wishing there were more light. The meteorite was almost perfectly round.

There was an insistent quake in her shoulders, and the stinging in her toes was getting worse. She needed to get warm and get peroxide on all these cuts, or the river might claim her after all. Freya struggled to get her socks and shoes on, wincing as the fabric touched raw flesh.

She wedged the meteorite into the binoculars case and hung the Celestrons around her neck, there was no room for both. She grabbed her bike by the handlebars, telling herself to move faster. Hypothermia was a real possibility. As she left the clearing, she couldn’t help but look back. The river ran black and swift in the moonlight as if nothing had happened.

I almost died here.

She hurried up the trail, shivering.