This Magnificent Desolation by Cara Shores, Thomas O'Malley Page A

sleep. Dressed in his pajamas and wrapped in a blanket, with Brother Canice’s radio glowing from his bedside table and crackling and hissing with static, Duncan sits on his bed and stares out at the night sky. High over the prairie shines a full moon encircled by a ring of bluish-white phosphorescence. The ghostly haze of ice and moisture casts its shape in magnified projection: its great maria, those shadowy plains known as seas, and its cratured scars—the illusion of cheek, nose bridge, and brow—creating the sense of some benevolent, slightly curious or confused face, peering down upon and illuminating the snow-covered plains of Thule. From the radio comes a sudden high peak of static and then the disembodied and fractured sound of voices carried by radio waves across the vast distance of space over a decade before:
    102:44:45 ALDRIN: 100 feet, 3½ down, 9 forward. Five percent. Quantity light .
    102:44:54 ALDRIN: Okay. 75 feet. And it’s looking good. Down a half, 6 forward .
    102:45:02 DUKE: 60 seconds.
    102:45:04 ALDRIN: Light’s on .
    102:45:08 ALDRIN: 60 feet, down 2½. [Pause] 2 forward. 2 forward. That’s good.
    102:45:17 ALDRIN: 40 feet, down 2½. Picking up some dust.
    102:45:21 ALDRIN: 30 feet, 2½ down. [Garbled] shadow.
    102:45:25 ALDRIN: 4 forward. 4 forward. Drifting to the right a little. 20 feet, down a half .
    102:45:31 DUKE: 30 seconds.
    102:45:32 ALDRIN: Drifting forward just a little bit; that’s good. [Garbled] [Pause]
    102:45:40 ALDRIN: Contact Light.
    102:45:43 ARMSTRONG: Shutdown
    102:45:44 ALDRIN: Okay. Engine Stop .
    102:45:45 ALDRIN: ACA out of Detent .
    102:45:46 ARMSTRONG: Out of Detent. Auto .
    102:45:47 ALDRIN: Mode Control, both Auto. Descent Engine Command Override, Off. Engine Arm, Off. 413 is in.
    102:45:57 DUKE: We copy you down, Eagle.
    102:45:58 ARMSTRONG: Engine arm is off. [Pause] Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.
    102:46:06 DUKE: Roger, Twan … Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot .
    102:46:16 ALDRIN: Thank you .
    And when Duncan whispers JFK’s words, he might have been praying: Dear Lord,
as we set sail, we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous
and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked
. Amen.
    He hears Billy’s words clamoring in his head again:
They never made it. They never made it off the moon. The moon jumper failed to blast off and they were left stuck there. They all died
. He cannot possibly believe it is true even as he stares up into the night sky and imagines that he sees the small dark shapes of the two men splayed and bent aslant the surface of the moon. But they came home, didn’t they? They must have. Mustn’t they?

Chapter 11
    July 1981
    A haunting music reverberates off the stone and echoes in the stairwells as Duncan enters the center hall from the chapel, and with its shifting, fractured quality, it takes him a moment to recognize the voice of Elvis. Rising and then falling, the song materializes fully and then is gone. Duncan walks the halls, moving from room to room, searching for its source.
    From Father Toibin’s room comes the faint sound of music, and when Duncan passes and finds the door partly ajar, he pauses. A thin slant of light spills across the hallway. A familiar crooning music plays upon a mahogany upright turntable that stands varnished and gleaming in the corner of the room. There is the scent of tobacco and of age—a comforting, spicy, pleasant smell of polished wood floors, ancient carpets, beeswax, and tallow.
    Father Toibin’s voice calls from the other side of the door, whereDuncan cannot see him: Come in, Duncan, come in. The door is open and I’ve just made tea.
    Duncan pushes against the door and it swings wide slowly. A cat blinks its green eyes at him lazily from its perch upon a red velvet chair covered with its white and