Once I’m a decent distance from the car, without even really planning to, I lift the crystal out of my pocket and let it go. The crystal spins and an image appears. It’s that guy again—running.
“Hello?” I squeak into the air.
“Mana! Are you out there? Your name’s Mana, right? I’m James Henry Smith. Fey told me your name. Look. I can’t talk.” His breath is coming in rapid bursts. His eyes are dilated. “Something’s chasing me. Fey said to tell you that … they want to find you … Be—”
He screams.
A bright blue figure appears, obstructing my view. Claws fill the vision.
The scene switches but I’m still yelling for this guy I don’t know. He knew my name. Fey must be Pierce. And this guy? James Henry Smith. He might be dead.
Because of me, says the voice in my head.
And my stomach spirals into despair even as the crystal scene changes again to that medical room. I snatch it out of the air. I don’t want to see that. Instead, I lean against a tree and try to slow down my breath, but worry for James Henry Smith pushes my panic to right about the edge of unsafe. James Henry?
My brain just keeps repeating his name.
Please be okay.
Mana …
It’s a voice. His voice. In my thoughts.
Be careful.
And then it fades away just as my phone rings. The sound makes me jump about seven feet in the air. The screen reads Seppie. I answer.
“Seppie! Where are you? Why are you lying to me? What the heck is going on?” My questions come out in a colossal blur, but she talks right over me.
“Mana. Please be careful. A man is searching for you. Whatever you have, you need to hide it. Hide yourself, too, maybe.”
“Seppie! Where are you? Are you okay? What are you even talking about?” I didn’t tell her about the crystal, but she knows I have something.
“Yes. Just be careful.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“I will. Not now.”
She hangs up. I call her right back. She does not answer. I text her. She does not answer. I angry-text her. She does not answer. I pleading-text her. She does not answer. I swear, she’s being as bad as China. But what if it’s not on purpose? She could be in danger and I have no idea where she is or anything.
The woods feel horrible again, dark and foreboding. No squirrels bounce around on tree branches. No birds flit and chirp. Nothing. It’s almost as bad as my apocalypse dream. I stash the crystal back in my coat pocket despite the temptation to try to connect with James Henry Smith again. But what if he’s dead? I am not sure I can deal with that at the moment.
Something moves.
I freeze.
In the distance, maybe half a mile away, something thunders through the trees. It’s big and immense and obviously alien. My heart accelerates. It’s not heading my way; I don’t think it sees me, but I bet it’s looking for me. A dog barks in the expanse.
The world suddenly feels even smaller, even less safe, and I walk fast to my car, suddenly desperate to get to the hospital and check on my mom and get away from the alien stomping through the woods. The entire ride I worry about James Henry Smith and if my using that crystal put him in danger somehow. I worry about it more than Seppie saying that someone is looking for me. I’d rather face danger and get it over with than have it keep lurking in bathrooms and dreams, making me tense and anxious from what seems like a perpetual wait.
I pull over and text Seppie again.
Nothing.
Again.
I roll down the windows, scan the woods for that large alien thing, which I’m trying not to get all scared about, and I’m truly pushing my fear down, into the pits of me, so that it doesn’t take over. When I let my fear take over, I make bad decisions. That’s what Mom always says. I text China even though I doubt it’s any use.
AN ALIEN IS LOOKING FOR ME. JUST SO YOU KNOW.
* * *
Despite all my worries, I try to refocus my thoughts while I drive the cold, snow-dusted streets to the hospital and think about how this makes no sense for Seppie and Lyle to be abandoning me now, or ever. That’s not who we are.
About three weeks ago, Seppie and Lyle and I went out one night, late, and it was dark. I’d come back from visiting my mom at the hospital and was pretty stressed out because I wasn’t hearing back from China. We hiked up Uncanoonuc Mountain’s north peak, following the ski trails that were abandoned before the area was ever opened to the public. Environmentalists were worried about the impact on the ecosystem. Unfortunately they worried about that after the people making the ski area already knocked over a lot of the trees. It’s ironic because the south peak is now covered in transmitting facilities for a whole bunch of the local broadcasters, which seems worse than ski slopes. The highest peak is only about 1,300 feet, but it’s enough sometimes to feel like you could reach the sky.
There is a panoramic view from that mountain, mostly because the area around it lacks any elevation. Above us, the sky went on forever and we could find constellations and satellites, glistening, blinking out ancient signals. What stars hosted the planets our scientists so desperately sought? Where are the aliens from? Can we even see them? All these questions danced above us, but it wasn’t a horrible feeling. It was more peaceful, knowing how tiny we were, knowing that we were together in the mystery. Just the day before, I had read that there was still no trace of life on other planets, no sustainable environments. Maybe that was why we were so important, such a highlight on the alien highway. Maybe it was because our planet is so cool, so full of water and oxygen and minerals, teeming with life and bacteria and growth.
Seppie brought sleeping bags because she likes to be prepared. She even spread them out at perfect angles, all positioned exactly next to each other. I had the middle sleeping bag and I flattened out on it. It wasn’t much of a barrier between me and the cold, bumpy ground, but it was enough.
“The sky is so big,” Lyle whispered. I held his hand and I grabbed Seppie’s, too. Hers was warm. His? Not so much. Lyle always has cold hands. It’s part of his weirdness, we always thought, but then we learned it’s actually part of his species. His earlobes are the same way.
“This place feels haunted,” I said. “Not in a bad way. I love you guys.”
“Are we supposed to be looking for UFOs or are we having one of those group therapy sessions that always happen once you say that you love us?” Seppie asked. She was serious. “I’m not super into those. I hate all the feeling, ‘let’s grow together’ talks.”
I ignore her, because I know that she doesn’t really mean it in a jerk-way, and ask, “What do you think it means, that the aliens made me as a weapon?”
“It means that you’re badass.” Seppie squeezed my hand.
“Seriously, though.”
“I am serious.” She sighed and paused. Lyle didn’t even interrupt, which was sort of earth-shatteringly abnormal. “You are badass. You have skills. We don’t know them all, but you bound around like a kangaroo on steroids. You have sweet, sweet, tumbling abilities. You are stronger than you should be, obviously, and you can kind of hear the thoughts of some aliens.”
“But not all,” Lyle interjected. “Thank God.”
Seppie laughed. “Imagine if you heard Lyle the Crocodile’s thoughts all the time. It’d be Doctor Who this. You’re so hot that. Blah, blah, blah.”
“Not nice,” I scolded.
“Super not nice,” Lyle added. “But true.”
Seppie laughed again and for a second, I worried that she and Lyle weren’t going to put real thought into this and just sort of kid it away, but then she went, “It means that you’re special but that you don’t quite understand how.”
“Which is sort of a theme for all of humanity. Myself included, despite my alien DNA, thank you very much.” Lyle sighed. “I mean, all your questions can apply to me, too. Why am I an alien? What does that mean?”
“You’re an alien because your pa
rents are aliens,” Seppie countered. “It’s biological and understandable in the little-picture way, whereas Mana is engineered for a purpose, a big-picture purpose.”
“True.” Lyle let go of my hand. He moved hair out of his eyes. “But it still is weird and hard and frustrating.”
“Try being the boring, black, human sidekick with no special powers,” Seppie said.
“You are super-special and not boring at all.” I rolled on my side to face her. “That is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said in your whole life.”
“I just feel sort of regular,” she admitted.
A tiny tear scrolled down her cheek. I wiped it away. Seppie never tears up. She made an excuse about the cold impacting her eyes. We scoffed.
“She’s just used to catching us and saving our asses and you just saved hers. Role reversal is hard to get used to.” Lyle spewed this off like there was no emotion behind it.
I studied Seppie. “Is that true?”
“Possibly. But that’s not the point right now. The point right now is, what does it mean that you are this weapon that was subverted and taken back to humanity? What can you do? What will you do?”
Lyle said, “It’s fascinating, really.”
“It’s me. It’s not fascinating. It’s terrifying,” I whispered.
“Most fascinating things are.”
We’d spent the rest of the night there, staring up at the stars. Seppie and Lyle pretended to be sleeping over at other people’s houses (mine and Grayson’s, respectively). I didn’t have to pretend anything. We danced. We raged. We drank things that we probably shouldn’t have drank. We went feral in the coldness of the night. We sang. We pondered. We shook our fists at the sky. We were tired and angry and sad and exuberant all at once because the world, our world, had a million adventures in store for us and we would conquer them together, best friends, forever friends; we made the promises of innocent devils and we didn’t think for a second that those promises would not be true.
No. I will make sure that they are true. Anger fills me. Whatever Lyle and Seppie are up to, it has got to be for a reason. I’m going to find out that reason as soon as I visit my mom and somehow make sure that the Australian guy is okay, and maybe after a snack. But it will happen. Friends don’t let friends blow them off and keep secrets. It’s just not in the code.
CHAPTER 5
Since the events first began, I’ve been reading as much as I can about aliens. I have no idea if the nonfiction books are actually fiction or if the fiction books are actually nonfiction. But there are themes that run through all of them. And one of those themes is that not all aliens are alike.
In Encounters with Star People, a researcher named Dr. Ardy Sixkiller Clarke interviews indigenous people of North America about their encounters with aliens. In one interview she talks to a one-hundred-year-old woman who had been visited by “star people” all her life. A week before she died, the woman was visited by other star people who looked and acted differently than the others from before. They had long fingers and big shoulders and glittery black pants. One of the star people cut a piece of her hair and asked her why she lived so long. Inexplicably, she was suddenly afraid of them, these random hair-cutting aliens who were so cranky and free with their scissors. She had spent one hundred years looking forward to the star people’s visits and a week before she died, that all changed.
And that’s the thing. There are so many aliens. I have lived all these years—okay, not close to one hundred—and not known they existed. My mother actually hunted them down and I still had no clue. My best friend turned out to be one of them, which explains his freaky, effortless running skills.
Refusing to feel dull and broken about Seppie and Lyle, or China never texting me back, I drive my mom’s car to the hospital and park outside because I visit Mom every day, no matter what. The afternoon is white and cold. Clouds cover the sky, cloaking it at great heights. The parking lot smells of exhaust and cold air as I stride across it. The air bites my ankles, nips at my cheeks. A dog barks in the distance. The crystal feels large and obvious in my coat pocket. I don’t want to wrap my hand around it in case it starts projecting images again. It’s warm. Should a rock be warm? Is it even a rock? What if it’s some weird alien life form that will transform into a talking yeti that spews out toxic poop, killing all of New Hampshire?
My brain is weird.
But everything feels dangerous. I almost hear something at the edge of my brain whisper, Come here.
What?
There is no answer, just a tugging from that far corner of my brain. As I stride across the parking lot, I search for threats—anything and everything could be one. A telephone pole could topple down. A car could gun it and rev forward. A man could aim a rifle. A woman could flash a knife. An orc alien thing could thump out from behind a Dumpster. Nothing happens.
I’ve gotten paranoid.
China always says paranoia keeps you alive. But Seppie always says that paranoia keeps you paranoid.
They are both probably right.
I might be paranoid, but I have to protect this crystal thing. It’s important somehow. And the last time I had to protect something, look how that turned out: my mom is in a hospital, perpetually unconscious.
* * *
Inside the hospital, the light is fluorescent and fake. Salmon-painted walls line long, shiny hallways. The nurses at the stations greet me by name and one even says, “School out early today?”
“Sort of.” I shrug in response. She is kind enough not to ask a follow-up question.
My mother’s small body barely registers in the hospital bed. Her hair has been recently washed. Her monitors beep and hum, which is supposedly reassuring, but to me the noise is a reminder of her condition—not dead, barely alive … waiting. What if the waiting never ends? That’s the question, really.
I perch on a chair and shimmy it closer to her. “Hey.”
She doesn’t respond. She hasn’t responded for weeks. She is almost in a coma, but not quite. She is officially unconscious and nonresponsive. It’s easier to just say coma.
“School was bad today,” I whisper, reaching out a finger to touch the skin of her hand. It’s so dry. It’s almost flaking. I grab some of the hospital moisturizer off the side bureau and start slathering it on, but it won’t do much. The dryness is coming from the inside. She’s dehydrated despite the fluids pumping into her. “How is the hospital doing? Any exciting nurse gossip? Cool visitors? Epiphanies about the state of mankind?”
I babble to her, tell her the events of my day, especially about the crystal, glossing over the Lyle incident, but then giving up and explaining it all. I tell her about the aliens, about Lyle and Seppie, how I appreciate her having the bills on automatic payment, but I don’t know how much money is in her checking account, and then I tell her about Lyle and Seppie again, focusing on Lyle because at least Seppie said she was going away while Lyle just shoved me away. And I’m not sure how to process that. Or the obvious lie that has to be behind them both going away to camps on the same day, suddenly … or at least suddenly to me.
“I told you that boy wasn’t good enough for you.” The voice comes from behind me, startling me so much that I drop the moisturizer bottle. Liquid globs out all over the floor.
Patrick Kinsella, also known as China, also known as text ignorer, moves forward, grimacing. “Sorry.”
He yanks some paper towels out of a metal wall dispenser and then squats next to me, helping me to clean up the mess. His sunglasses shroud his eyes.
“It’ll be a well-moisturized floor,” he says as if nothing has happened, like he hasn’t ghosted me for weeks. He just says it like the confident bastard that he is.
Wonderful, I think. Now he shows up.
I am so angry and shocked and, despite everything, sort of relieved somehow to see him that I don’t know what to say. I haven’t said anything. Not even hi.
China is a muscular guy with dark skin and dark eyes and black hair. He st
ands way taller than my five feet nothing, and has the well-built body of a professional soldier, like a Greek statue that hasn’t been broken in between trips to European museums. He carries with him the smell of leather and man. He crumples all the paper towels into a ball and tosses it into the wastebasket without even looking over his shoulder at where it lands behind him. It swooshes in perfectly.
“Two points?” he asks in his deep voice that makes questions into statements.
“Three.” It was a good shot. I’ll give him that.
“So, heard you talking to your mom. What’s with the boyfriend?” He stands up to his full height and the smell of leather jacket recedes a little bit. He walks to the end of the room, shuts the door to the hallway, and comes back to stand next to me. “He’s always here with you.”
“You know this how?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You’ve been watching me?” I move to put the moisturizer back and check on my mom. He doesn’t have to answer. The answer is obvious. After a minute of silence, I say, “Are you here now because Lyle isn’t here and you don’t want to involve him even though you promised me you would, or are you here now because of what happened this afternoon?”
“What happened this afternoon? You and Lyle having your tiff?” He takes the moisturizer and squirts some out into his hand. Gently, he picks up my mother’s hand in his and starts to spread the moisture in circles. It’s tender. It’s surprising.
“You don’t know?” I scrutinize his face, but it’s hard to read his expression because of the sunglasses. “You really don’t know?”
“Nope.” His voice sounds amused. “I really don’t know.”
“An alien tried to kill me. Another tried to save me. Both died.” I don’t mention the crystal. I am going to keep it simple for now. That way I can figure out what information to share. “And I saw another in the woods.”
His posture shifts into a more erect stance. “What? Where?”
“The deaths? School bathroom.”
“And the type of aliens?”