1·01GirlsChapter I · OverdueThe establishing image of the whole book. Nothing is happening. That is the content.2·01Eleven Years is the LimitChapter I · OverdueThe opening condition of the whole series in one room. Every lamp lit , and a woman with her back to the window.2·02The Weight of Her HandChapter I · OverdueThe one place in her life with no arithmetic in it. Full afternoon sun, shavings, and a man whose sight is a narrow bright tunnel. She is gone by dusk, always.IThe Booth on Route 9Chapter I · OverdueThe book's everyday world in one frame, and the easiest to generate: two women who have eaten Sunday dinner together since the 1640s, in the latest of a very long line of rooms.UntitledIThe Booth on Route 9Chapter I · OverdueThe book's everyday world in one frame, and the easiest to generate: two women who have eaten Sunday dinner together since the 1640s, in the latest of a very long line of rooms.v0
2·03Youre on the Wrong ForkChapter II · The Wrong ForkThe first meeting. Rain, ferns, a shot-up trail sign. He has three hammers and no idea.2·04Nobody Was WatchingChapter II · The Wrong ForkThe first crack in her, and she waits until the car is gone to allow it. Alone in the frame.
1·02Her Foot Finds HersChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe public version of everything. The joke that nearly kills them is being told out loud and the only answer either of them gives is a foot under a table.1·03Pale Hair Gone OrangeChapter III · Four Hundred WintersFour centuries of marriage conducted as a disagreement about a streetcar line. Both of them enjoying it enormously and neither showing it much.1·04I Am Saying it NowChapter III · Four Hundred WintersKyra lets it sit where it is and does not improve it, which took her about three hundred years to learn. Nobody moves in this image.1·05Youre Doing the Box AgainChapter III · Four Hundred WintersA hundred and thirty years of teasing about a thing that will turn out to matter enormously. The diagrams must not be legible.2·05Marcus Becomes a ThursdayChapter III · Four Hundred WintersNo touching in this one. Two people in a quiet room, thirty feet apart, each watching the other without appearing to.2·06Hasnt Aged a DayChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe central fact of the series said out loud as a joke in a diner by a man who has never adjusted his volume for a room.IIThe Andromeda PlateChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe first time the light is on the page. Val, in a nearly dark library, turning away from a young man looking at a photograph of her home.IIThe Andromeda PlateChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe first time the light is on the page. Val, in a nearly dark library, turning away from a young man looking at a photograph of her home.UntitledIIThe Andromeda PlateChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe first time the light is on the page. Val, in a nearly dark library, turning away from a young man looking at a photograph of her home.IIThe Andromeda PlateChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe first time the light is on the page. Val, in a nearly dark library, turning away from a young man looking at a photograph of her home.IIThe Andromeda PlateChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe first time the light is on the page. Val, in a nearly dark library, turning away from a young man looking at a photograph of her home.IIThe Andromeda PlateChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe first time the light is on the page. Val, in a nearly dark library, turning away from a young man looking at a photograph of her home.v2IIThe Andromeda PlateChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe first time the light is on the page. Val, in a nearly dark library, turning away from a young man looking at a photograph of her home.IIThe Andromeda PlateChapter III · Four Hundred WintersThe first time the light is on the page. Val, in a nearly dark library, turning away from a young man looking at a photograph of her home.
1·06Two Faces in the WindowChapter IV · The Wrong OutsideThe oldest ritual in the series. The image is the reflection, not the haircut.1·07The One Thing in a Lit RoomChapter IV · The Wrong OutsideThe gesture the whole novel is built on. No origin, no explanation, no significance in the framing. It lasts a moment and she takes it away.2·07His Porch is a LiabilityChapter IV · The Wrong OutsideHow Kyra does everything: all at once and with her whole chest.2·08Not at AnythingChapter IV · The Wrong OutsideNo touching in this one. An old man saying the only important thing he will ever say, at a truck, in the dark, without looking at her.2·09Gold in Black WaterChapter IV · The Wrong OutsideThe one image in the book where the gold goes all the way. Use the traits block. It is light on an eye , never a beam and never illuminating the water.2·10Charlie on the SandChapter IV · The Wrong OutsideThe man whose job is noticing things, deciding in real time what to do with what he has just seen. He never says.IIIThe HaircutChapter IV · The Wrong OutsideSomething they have done for each other since before scissors could be bought, and the only place Val ever puts her hand on anybody without a reason.UntitledIVThe HeadlandChapter IV · The Wrong OutsideKyra doing the only thing she has ever been sure she was for, in freezing surf, with her eyes gone all the way gold.Untitled
1·08Hands Under the TableChapter V · FebruaryFaces and a tabletop. Both of them have just started keeping the same secret on the same day and neither knows. Kyra's hands going under the table is the gesture Marcus will catalogue three chapters later and it must read as hiding, not as tenderness.2·11The Step StoolChapter V · FebruaryThe quietest catastrophe in the book. A woman sitting on a stool in a stockroom with the door shut, doing nothing.2·12You Never Once Let Me Have an EveningChapter V · FebruaryThe most dangerous sentence in the novel, spoken kindly by a man who cannot see her. Hard clean winter daylight, and nothing about her shows.
1·09The Quarter TurnChapter VI · The Lights Go OutNo touching in this one. The whole image is one woman borrowing the other's tell in public, and the other one seeing it. A young man is talking and neither of them is listening.1·10Two Plates of PieChapter VI · The Lights Go OutA whole marriage conducted in a crowded room by means of a plate of pie. Everything is wrong between them and neither will say so.2·13The Rock on the TableChapter VI · The Lights Go OutHe is telling two women who have been sitting on that basalt for a century what it is. Neither of them tells him.2·14Shed Be About My Age NowChapter VI · The Lights Go OutA pink-cheeked retiree in a windbreaker nearly ends four hundred years at a raffle table, and goes off to find the pies.2·15When the Power GoesChapter VI · The Lights Go OutThe moment the book turns. Total darkness, a hall full of people, and two faint patches of light at one woman's wrists that exactly one person is looking at — and one other person is watching him look.VThe Lights Go OutChapter VI · The Lights Go OutA whole town in lantern light, and in the middle of it, Kyra seeing that the one person who should never see Val's light can.Untitled
1·11Two in the MorningChapter VII · KalA split image or a single one, as you prefer: two women lying to each other on a telephone at two in the morning, eleven miles apart, both of them hearing it.2·16The Ninth NightChapter VII · KalNo touching in this one — she is alone. The largest discovery in the book, made at a kitchen table at two in the morning, and nothing happens.
2·17Two Folding ChairsChapter VIII · What He Already KnewShe sits. He does not. That staging is the whole scene.2·18A Photograph of a PhotographChapter VIII · What He Already KnewRender the phone, the hand and the reflection — never a clean historical image presented straight. The old photograph must read as something small and degraded on a screen in a concrete room.
1·12Off the ChairChapter IX · Did They Think You LeftThe only unguarded comedy in the book and it is the hinge of the second half. Val delivers it with perfect sincerity and does not know why it is funny.2·19Three People Who Know the Same ThingsChapter IX · Did They Think You LeftThe warmest image in the book. Crates in the next room, wine on the table, and a young man asking whether they actually need to eat.2·20Do You Think They Thought You Left ThemChapter IX · Did They Think You LeftThe question nobody on this planet has ever been able to ask them, asked by a boy whose father is in Alaska. Three people and a long silence.
1·13Nothing Above Them but the SkyChapter X · Nothing KeptFour hundred and nineteen years of the pact in the snow, broken by both of them in the same month, and they sit a foot apart on warm rock and do not touch.1·14You Took it Without Asking HimChapter X · Nothing KeptJudgment without cruelty, delivered by a woman with her face wet and her voice level.2·21Where They Always SitChapter X · Nothing KeptThe establishing wide of the overlook. Two small figures, a great deal of rock and sky, and a valley with no lights in it.VINothing KeptChapter X · Nothing KeptThe longest scene in the book: the overlook they found in 1851, a clear night, and everything either of them has kept coming out at once.Untitled
1·15Down the Deer TrackChapter XI · Out of SightThe only time in the book Val is physically the strong one, and the prose says plainly that it is not graceful. Keep it ugly and keep it fast.2·22Beautifully Half onChapter XI · Out of SightThe best detail in the chapter: the work is perfect up to the exact second it stops. The splint tells the whole story and nobody has to say it.2·23A Long Way Down a SlopeChapter XI · Out of SightThe hardest image in the book to get right. Not a monster and not a possession. It is a body letting go of itself, and it looks like a woman being shaken apart from somewhere too deep to reach.2·24Transported by a Family MemberChapter XI · Out of SightCharlie at the window with a clipboard, deciding what he is going to write down. He writes that she was transported by a family member.VIIOut of SightChapter XI · Out of SightVal, in daylight, carrying Kyra down a deer track and away from an ambulance that would take her to a hospital that would draw her blood.VariationVIIOut of SightChapter XI · Out of SightVal, in daylight, carrying Kyra down a deer track and away from an ambulance that would take her to a hospital that would draw her blood.Untitled · v2VIIOut of SightChapter XI · Out of SightVal, in daylight, carrying Kyra down a deer track and away from an ambulance that would take her to a hospital that would draw her blood.Untitled
1·16Two Things to Hold on toChapter XII · Two OutsidesThe emotional center of the novel. Three people on a floor in the dark with the curtains pulled and the lights off, and nobody doing anything but holding on. Light hurts her, so there is almost none.2·25Time Went Wrong FirstChapter XII · Two OutsidesRepresent it by the room, not by an effect. Curtains pulled, lights off, a clock, a rug, and one woman on the floor. No distortion, no visual trickery, no spiral.2·26Im Not Letting GoChapter XII · Two OutsidesNo touching between the two women in this frame — this one is Marcus's. A young man's hand closing over the back of a hand in the dark, and a woman above them who has stopped arguing.VIIITwo OutsidesChapter XII · Two OutsidesThe night the book turns on. Two people holding Kyra together on the floor of her own front room, and toward dawn, Val's light coming up through all of her.Untitled
2·27The Steel DoorChapter XIII · The MillThis is the only built object in the novel and it must look like a competent amateur's work. No instruments, no screens, no glow. A shed inside a shed.2·28Nobody to See itChapter XIII · The MillThe one image in the series where the light is unconcealed and total. Even here it is light on a body , not a lamp in a room — the walls are lit because they are inches away and metal, not because she is radiating.2·29A Quarter to Nine in the MorningChapter XIII · The MillNo touching in this one — she is alone. Four hours nobody will ever account for, and the only thing on the page is a woman standing in a mill looking at a wristwatch. She never tells anybody.IXThe MillChapter XIII · The MillVal alone, the morning after, in the room she built: the one place on Earth she is fully visible, and nobody there to see.Untitled
1·17Its Your FaceChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredFour centuries of a woman who checked the archives every other week, handing over the decision. The folder is never opened by either of them.1·18She Asked FirstChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredKyra on a sidewalk in the sun, looking in through a library window at a woman working a date stamp, and knowing exactly what is going to happen on Thursday.1·19It Has Never Once Worked on MeChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe ritual gesture of the entire series, continuing for the first time past its ending. Everything that happens afterward happens because the hand did not come away.1·20The Blue June Gives at TenChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredFaces and nothing else. This scene runs on the lacing and the grip and the ring, none of which is ever depicted. No hands in frame, no bedclothes arranged, no mark visible anywhere. What the image carries is a woman who is frightened of a date eleven years off and is saying so to a ceiling.XThe Light SwitchChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe shortest night of the year. Kyra reaching for the light out of an old habit of hiding her own eyes, and Val holding her wrist while she turns it off.Equal Height Eye ContactXThe Light SwitchChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe shortest night of the year. Kyra reaching for the light out of an old habit of hiding her own eyes, and Val holding her wrist while she turns it off.Equal Height Fitted JeansXThe Light SwitchChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe shortest night of the year. Kyra reaching for the light out of an old habit of hiding her own eyes, and Val holding her wrist while she turns it off.Fitted Jeans Fuller BustsXThe Light SwitchChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe shortest night of the year. Kyra reaching for the light out of an old habit of hiding her own eyes, and Val holding her wrist while she turns it off.Untitled · v2XThe Light SwitchChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe shortest night of the year. Kyra reaching for the light out of an old habit of hiding her own eyes, and Val holding her wrist while she turns it off.Untitled · v3XThe Light SwitchChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe shortest night of the year. Kyra reaching for the light out of an old habit of hiding her own eyes, and Val holding her wrist while she turns it off.Untitled · v4XThe Light SwitchChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe shortest night of the year. Kyra reaching for the light out of an old habit of hiding her own eyes, and Val holding her wrist while she turns it off.Untitled · v5 · Pearly LightXThe Light SwitchChapter XIV · I Haven't AnsweredThe shortest night of the year. Kyra reaching for the light out of an old habit of hiding her own eyes, and Val holding her wrist while she turns it off.Untitled
2·30Not Far NowChapter XV · The PorchThe last page. The smudge must be genuinely faint — if it reads as a nebula the image is wrong. She has her arms round her knees and the gray light has taken the gold out of her hair and left it the color of nothing much.
CHILDREN OF ANDROMEDAStudies & Variants
Alternates, studies and loose plates.
Children of Andromeda Small TitledTitledChildren of Andromeda SmallChildren of AndromedaDrawn UpwardIdentity Refined TitledScene 1 Library ValIdentity RefinedScene 1 Library Val Taller Jeans SneakersScene 1 LibraryScene 2 Carpathians 1607Scene 3 Hallam Lake OverlookCorrectedScene 3 Hallam Lake OverlookScene 4 Sorren Dael and NishatScene 5 Val Back RoomScene 6 Porch at Dawn ValIdentity RefinedScene 6 Porch at Dawn Val Longer Legs Corrected BootsCorrectedScene 6 Porch at DawnTitled Variation 3 Drawn UpwardTitledUntitled Variation 1 Twin PortraitsUntitledUntitled Variation 2 Two DirectionsUntitledUntitled Variation 3 Drawn UpwardIdentity Refined CopyUntitled Variation 3 Drawn UpwardIdentity RefinedUntitled Variation 3 Drawn UpwardUntitledArchive FolderUntitledBreakfast After Short NightUntitledDaughters QuestionUntitledFinal Overlook ShoulderUntitledFirelit ArgumentUntitledHand Off CouchUntitledKitchen Table LaughUntitledPie at Book TableUntitledTruck Off RidgeUntitledTruck Off RidgeUntitledVal Arrives LateUntitledChildren of Andromeda
