~Sunrise Sunday September 26th, 1909: light cloud, Beaufort 4 (windspeed ~13 knots); visibility poor, declining
Matt peeled away from a leaden and undreaming sleep with a jolt of alarm, sure he'd slept too long. Turning on his back and taking in a long, guilty breath in preparation to rise, however, he saw that it was not quite dawn. A thin pinch of headache gripped lightly at his temples as though raised up by this feeling of time drawn too long and short at once, and some swelling lingered in his eyelids and sinuses from the night before. Hunger haunted him, and some faint ache along the line of his left shoulder, stiffened overnight. His wall was a wall, his bed, a bed.
Hetty woke as though squeezed out of sleep by anxious pressure. She found herself bundled tightly in her blanket, sheets and eiderdown, her nose cold. Outside, the sky was starting to lighten, the soundless pulse of their own Light fading in the pinking dawn. She scrunched herself into a warm ball of bedclothes awhile and listened. Nothing moved in her room except herself.
