“A haunting first novel that takes a horrifying family calamity and turns it into a form of magic.”— The New York Times On a sunny spring morning, sixteen-year-old Ethan Shumway walks down his gravel driveway, turns the bend, and vanishes without a trace. As police search for clues, Ethan's devastated family and friends—from his parents and four siblings to the older woman who was more than a teacher to Ethan—grapple for answers in the teenager's enigmatic life. As this elusive mystery slowly weaves its way into the fabric of the family, Ethan's younger brother, Philip, becomes the last, most stubborn searcher of all: a boy caught between the power and fragility of youth, between the bonds and fissures of family, searching for understanding in the unbearable presence of loss. Praise for The Odd Sea “A powerful debut novel.” — People “[An] extraordinarily good first novel . . . The story has a dark, dreamlike quality, and author Reiken tells it with no melodrama nor any word out of place.” — Time “A luminous parable about growing up, about the necessity of dealing with inevitable loss and questions that cannot be answered . . . Reiken is a smoothly seductive storyteller. He has talent for telling but not telling, for revealing only enough information to whet our appetite.” — Newsday “A haunting first novel that takes a horrifying family calamity and turns it into a form of magic.” — The New York Times “A powerful debut novel.” — People “[An] extraordinarily good first novel . . . The story has a dark, dreamlike quality, and author Reiken tells it with no melodrama nor any word out of place.” — Time “A luminous parable about growing up, about the necessity of dealing with inevitable loss and questions that cannot be answered . . . Reiken is a smoothly seductive storyteller. He has talent for telling but not telling, for revealing only enough information to whet our appetite.” — Newsday Charting the Odd Sea Chapter 1 Ethan, vanishing Years ago, on New Year's Day, my older brother, Ethan, and I went skating on a river. No snow had fallen all that winter, and before Christmas we were hit with a week of windy, subzero days. The cold snap ended one late December evening, leaving a sky so clear that stars seemed to be trapped in the netlike branches at the top of each sugar maple. We woke next morning to pale sunlight and a windless twenty degrees. As it turned out, the year's first snowstorm hit the Hilltowns a week later, but for a few days it was possible to skate on the Westfield River for miles and miles. It had been Ethan's idea to try it. That fall we'd each acquired secondhand hockey skates at the annual VFW ski-and-skate swap, held in Dalton. Ethan was ten and I was seven. We had been skating on the pond right near our house since late November. When Ethan heard from his friend Charles Waltman that the Westfield was frozen solid, he asked Mom to drive us over to Cummington, where the river runs right along Route 9. She refused the request at first, but we explained that the Waltmans, even their parents, had gone skating on the river the day before. My mother knew the Waltmans, so she called them. Mr. Waltman said the river had been frozen to perfection, and that his boys had skated all the way to Chesterfield Gorge and back. Around noon on New Year's Day, Mom parked her car in the Old Creamery Grocery lot. We tied our skates with the heat blasting, then she walked us both across Route 9. We made our way down to the river, removed the rubber blade guards, and stepped out onto the ice. Mom seemed convinced the ice was safe, so she informed us that she'd wait inside the Creamery, which was open. Ethan and I headed west on the frozen river. There were some rocks to dodge and logs to jump, but mostly we skated as if entranced. It took close to an hour to reach the village of West Cummington, where we had promised we'd turn back. By then I was freezing and my toes were numb. I knew the plan and I kept waiting for my brother to stop skating. But he kept going, right past the village, and only stopped where the river turns north and runs toward Windsor Jambs. Then he said, "What if we could skate right up to the Arctic Circle? Would that be totally cool or what?'' I said, "We'd probably die of frostbite.'' Ethan said, "Actually, we'd die of hypothermia.'' I said, "Hey, maybe we'd get eaten by a polar bear.'' He said, "Or maybe we'd just keep going, up to the North Pole then down through the Himalayas. That's where a yeti would have us both for breakfast.'' I don't know why this conversation thrilled me. I kept on hearing it in my head as we raced back to the Creamery. As it turned out, I kept hearing it weeks afterward. At random times throughout the rest of that long winter, he'd ask me, "Hey, where do you think we'd be right now if we kept skating?'' I'd say the name of someplace in Canada. Or I'd say, "Lost in the Himalayas.'' Then Ethan would ask me what I thought would happen. I