The Age Of Miracles

Despite “the slowing,” sixth grade rites of passage continue as usual, and Julia observes that her classmates are now having coed dance parties: “Gone were the days of single sex parties. Now D.J.s were hired and dance floors rented” (166). As something of a social outcast at school, Julia is not invited to any of these parties by her classmates. Julia’s own birthday is a week away, but she knows she will not be having a party of any kind, let alone a dance party.

A quarter of the students at Julia’s school has dropped out since the onset of “the slowing.” Gabby tells Julia that she is planning to run away to Circadia to be with her boyfriend. Gabby begs Julia not to tell her parents, or anyone, about her scheme.

Later that evening, Gabby's parents are distraught over their missing daughter and Julia caves. She informs them about Circadia and the police retrieve Gabby at the compound. Soon after Gabby returns, her parents decide to send her to a private boarding school hundreds of miles away. Julia remembers, “She was the last friend I had left, and just like that, she was gone” (174).

Michaela’s mother gets a new, wealthy boyfriend named Harry, so when it comes time for Michaela’s party, the bash is hosted at Harry’s huge gated mansion, complete with Jacuzzi and swimming pool. This is much different from the apartment where Michaela and her mother used to live.

Julia is surprised to be invited to Michaela’s party, which is a small gathering: Michaela and her boyfriend, Kai, Julia, and Josh, who is Harry’s son. Michaela’s mother and Harry leave the kids alone in the house to attend an event.

As soon as the adults leave, Josh produces some beers. They then decide to play a kind of hide-and-seek game. Julia hides in the safe room and is soon joined by Josh in the darkness. He announces that he’s never kissed a girl and tries to kiss her. Julia rebuffs, which angers Josh. He cruelly tells her that the only reason she was invited to the party was because of Michaela’s mother. The game soon dissipates, and Julia falls asleep in her jeans on the couch. First thing in the morning, Julia calls her dad to come pick her up. Her father asks, “Is something wrong?” Julia lies and responds, “I just felt like coming home” (187).

Two days before Julia’s twelfth birthday, a group of whales washes up on the coastline near Julia’s family home. “Mass beachings were growing common all over the world” (188), with ocean life from killer whales to dolphins washing ashore everywhere. Scientists do not quite understand why this is happening, but they suspect it has something to do with “the slowing.”

Meanwhile at school, Julia becomes more isolated than ever. She takes to spending her lunches in the library, which she describes as the “land of the friendless, where Trevor Watkins sat hunched at a computer, powering a spaceship with the fuel of correctly answered algebra problems, and Diane Kofsky read romance novels, sneaking cheese puffs from her backpack” (188). One day, Seth Moreno joins this group in the library, resting his skateboard against a chair. He begins to draw in a sketchbook in silence. Seth and Julia have a brief exchange, in which Seth says, “I can’t handle it out there, you know?” (190). He also mentions that he will be going down to the beach to check out the beached whales and invites Julia to join him.

After school, they make their way to the beach where the whales lie stranded. In seeing the whales dying, Seth suggests they try to help them. He and Julia use empty plastic cups to collect ocean water to bathe the whales: “We rushed to fill our cups with water and then ran back across the thick band of mud. We looked for the driest whale, the one most in need. […] Seth poured our meager water supply over its head and into its mouth. He petted its side. I felt an urgency like love” (194). Suddenly, a man approaches from behind and informs them that the whale they’re tending to is already dead.

When they leave the beach, Seth says that he thinks the whales are beaching because of the magnetic pole. Julia can barely concentrate because she is consumed with thoughts and feelings of love toward Seth: “My mind was elsewhere. I was a little bit in love. I’d spent an entire afternoon with Seth Moreno” (195). 

It is Julia’s birthday, and her isolation is more apparent than ever. She does not receive a birthday balloon, which is a tradition at her school, nor does she have a party with her classmates. Instead, she opts for a dinner with her family. When her and her parents arrive at her grandfather’s house to pick him up for dinner, they find that all of the grandfather’s possessions have been cleared away: “The boxes were gone. The table was clear. Everything of any value had vanished” (205). In looking through his empty house, they notice two newspaper clippings taped to the grandfather’s fridge, both about the dangers of clock-timers, which implies that Gene may have been a real-timer. When Joel discovers that Chip, his father’s teenaged neighbor, has moved to Circadia, it seems even more likely that that is where Gene has gone. 

The family heads to Circadia to retrieve the grandfather, but this proves difficult because of the well-hidden nature of the compound. “Circadia did not exist on any map” (207),but they know it is deep in the desert somewhere off an unpaved road. As they drive along, Julia’s mother comments that it’s hard to imagine Gene joining anything, let alone a real-timer organization. Julia’s father is less convinced and seems to have hope that his father is in Circadia.

Around 10 p.m. on the white night—a night in which the Sun does not set—the family arrives in Circadia after hours of driving. The houses of the compound are in “varying stages of completion,” in which “some lacked garages, others roofs” (209). Julia’s father approaches a resident standing alongside the road and asks if he’s seen a man in his eighties named Gene. The resident somewhat brusquely says that he has not seen such a man. Most of the residents that Julia’s family approaches are curt, not wanting to reveal if in fact Gene is hidden in the compound. The family finds Chip, the rebellious teenager who most likely helped Gene get to Circadia, and asks if Gene is indeed there. Chip is living in a dorm-like house with former college students, all smoking marijuana and playing music, and he reveals that, while Gene does “think clock time is total bullshit” (214), he did not move to Circadia. 

The chapter opens with a flashback anecdote about Gene’s uncle, who vanished while fishing in 1970 in Alaska. This uncle was very important to Gene, and many years later Gene caught a glimpse of a man he believed to be the uncle in Norway. It is implied that Gene respects the uncle for abandoning his entire life and starting anew elsewhere.

The family arrives home from their trip to Circadia at midnight, in the middle of a “bright white night” (217). Julia’s parents stay up all night calling hospitals, trying to locate Gene, but they are unsuccessful.