The Boy who Lit up the Sky (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 1)

by J. Naomi Ay

Once, when I was about nine years old, as I was climbing a tree in the park behind my elementary school because some bratty boy had dared me to do it, I fell down and broke my leg. I was wearing my fuzzy Ugg boots which were not only the height of fashion in those days but very warm. Unfortunately, they had no grip on their soles and as soon as I got up to my destination branch and let go with my hands, I went crashing to the ground. School had let out for the day, so no teachers were around, but my girlfriend had a cell with which she called her mom, while the boy, who had dared me to climb to that dangerous height, ran off, certain he would catch it for having killed me.

  My girlfriend's mom rushed me to the emergency room and waited until my own mom arrived. Then, due to the severity of the break, I had surgery. I spent one woozy night in the hospital and was released the next day, cast in a very heavy and awkward apparatus with orders not to move from my bed for a minimum of two weeks, except to get up and use the bathroom.

  I lay in my bed the next night, stiff and drugged with painkillers but hurting enough I was unable to sleep. Just before midnight, my dad popped in to check on me, refilled my water glass, and dosed me with another round of child size Vicodin.

  “Leave your vid on if you can't sleep, Sweetheart,” he said shutting the door behind him.

  So, I did, staring dully at the bright cartoonish pictures that played as reruns throughout the night, until a light appeared in the middle of my bedroom as if a door was opening. Calmly, I watched as a boy stepped through and the light disappeared. The boy remained there though, standing dumbly in the middle of my room and equally as dumbly, I stared at him.

  “Allen is the next room,” I said for my initial impression was that he must have been a friend of Allen's. He looked about the same age which was at that time twelve years old.

  “Are you having a sleep over?” I asked, guessing that he had gotten up to use the bathroom and gotten lost on his way back. I didn't recognize him. He had longish, wavy black hair and was dressed only in a pair of pajama bottoms. His eyes were shut tight. Perhaps he was sleep walking?

  “Allen, Allen!” I called into the night. “Your friend is here!”

  The boy sat down against the wall by my closet wrapping his arms around his knees as my father came rushing into the bedroom.

  “What's the matter, Katie?” he demanded groggily. “It's three in the morning.”

  “Allen's friend came in my bedroom by mistake,” I said pointing at the boy.

  My father turned and looked at the wall and then rubbed his eyes.

  “Allen's friend?”

  “Yes,” I cried. “The one who is sleeping over.” Emphatically, I wagged my finger.

  “There's no one sleeping over,” my dad sighed. “There's no one in here but you and me.”

  “But there is!” I insisted. “He's right there.”

  “You're imagining things, Katie Anne,” my mother snapped, coming into my room, as well. She was wrapped in her gold silk satin bed robe, and her hair was tied up in a knot on top of her head. I loved that gold robe and considered it the most beautiful garment I had even seen. When I was smaller, I would play dress up in it, putting my hair in a knot on my head and then adorning it with a paper crown. My mother would say I looked just like an angel without wings. I imagined my six year old self looked exactly like a princess.

  “Could it be the Vicodin, Manny?” my mother asked, nervously putting her hand upon my forehead to check for a raging fever.

  “Probably,” my father yawned. “Let's try not to give it to her tomorrow.”

  “Well, who is the boy sitting there?” I demanded.

  “There is no boy, Katie Anne,” my mother sighed. “It's your imagination. You don’t have a temp. Just go back to sleep and he will go away.”

  “But I wasn't asleep,” I insisted. “I was watching Nick Jr. reruns. He's sitting right there still. I can see him.”

  “Sweetheart.” My father perched on the bed and stroked my face. “All the medication you've been taking is giving you hallucinations. Don't worry, there is no one and nothing here to hurt you. Go back to sleep and we'll call the doctor in the morning and see if we can get you something else to take.” With that, he and my mother left the room and soundly shut the door.

  “But!” I called after them.

  “Shhh!” the boy said. “Don't call them back.” He said this directly into my head. The only sound in the room was the laugh track on the silly cartoon.

  “Who are you?”

  He pulled himself to his feet and walked toward me. As he came closer, I saw terrible bruises and wounds on his skin. His ribs looked as if they were bashed in and his chest had spots of purple, yellow and deep red. There was a wound just below his right shoulder that looked as if it were still bleeding and there was another one through his left breast that was puffy and red and still another just right of his belly button. His right arm was bent crooked and swollen.

  I covered my mouth with my hand and tried not to scream.

  “Are you a ghost?”

  “Nearly,” he replied.

  I made some kind of noise. You know, the kind you of noise you make when you're trying to scream, but no sound will come out.

  “No, I'm not a ghost,” he said, probably noticing how my cast was shaking wildly. “But I'm sort of not really here either.”

  He climbed into my bed and lay down next to me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You're hurt, and I'm hurt so I'll stay here with you and we'll get better together. You don't need to be afraid. I'm your friend.”

  I glanced cautiously at his face. He had long, black eyelashes covering his closed eyes.

  “Can you open your eyes?”

  “No,” he said. “Not until I get better and then I'll have to go back.”

  “Back where?”

  “To my body.”

  “Your body's not here?” I hesitantly touched his hand. “I can feel your hand.”

  “That's because I want you to,” he said in my head. “I want you to hear me and understand me too even though I don't speak your language.”

  “Okay,” I replied in my innocence. “Whatever. What's your name?”

  “Senya.” He yawned.

  “I'm Katie.”

  “I know.” He burrowed in next to me. “May I hold your hand?”

  “Okay. You don't have cooties or anything yucky, do you?”

  “No,” he mumbled. “No cooties.”

  I gave him my hand and in a short time, I was sound asleep too.

  “How are you feeling, Katie Anne?” my mom asked the next morning as she came in with a breakfast tray.

  “Fine,” I replied. “But the boy is still here.”

  My mother left with a stricken look on her face.

  “Don't say that,” Senya told me once she was gone. “No one else can see or hear me. She'll think you are crazy and put you on even more drugs.”

  “Maybe I am crazy,” I suggested.

  “You're not,” he said still clutching my hand.

  My mom called the doctor anyway, and I heard her whispering to my dad outside my door. It was normal for a child who was traumatized to invent an invisible friend for a while. “He'll go away as soon as she is better,” she said.

  “Will you?” I asked.

  “I'll go away when I am better,” he mumbled. He tried to sit up and leaned against the wall for a little bit but then he got too dizzy and slumped back down. I felt very sorry for him and did my best to keep him warm by tucking the blankets around him, and I made certain he got most of the pillow. At night he curled around me and held my hand.

  “Do you want something to eat?” I asked one morning. “Don't you need to go to the bathroom sometimes?”

  “I told you, my body is not here,” he replied tiredly as if he had not slept all night. His wounds looked puffy and gross in the daylight.

  “Where is your body?” I turn
ed on my side, propping my foot on top of the pillow my father had left at the base of my bed.

  “Far across the galaxy on my planet in a hospital bed on life support.”

  “What happened to you anyway?” We were face to face, nearly bumping noses.

  “I got shot and then fell off the roof onto a marble terrace.”

  “Ew,” I whispered since we were so close together. “That’s terrible. Why did someone shoot you?”

  He didn't respond. I think he fell asleep although his breathing was hard and unsteady. “Better sleep some more.” I pulled the blanked all the way up to his ear.

  It was boring lying in bed for two weeks. Even with Senya there to talk to, I was restless and itchy. I had a stack of books to read already loaded onto my tablet and to keep Senya entertained, I decided to read the classic Harry Potter series first. After the first fifty pages, Senya called Harry Potter a twit and was not impressed by the wizardry at all.

  “Harry can do cool magic things,” I insisted. “Let’s read more.”

  “I can do cooler things,” Senya replied a little huffily although today he looked even more ghostlike than before.

  “Really? Do something then,” I challenged.

  "I'm here, aren't I?"

  "That's not enough,” I protested. “Do something magical."

  “I can't. I'm sick right now. Read something else.”

  “You can't do anything magical. You’re fibbing."

  “Of course I can and I can do it without saying silly words or waving around a stick.”

  “Can you fly on a broom?”

  “I can fly without a stupid broom.”

  “But you can't right now because you're sick. Sure.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have a cape like Superman?”

  “No,” he scoffed. “I have wings.”

  “Where?” I look him over searching for wings. “You are lying.”

  “I'm not. I don't lie.”

  “You are. You're a liar and a bratty boy. I like Harry Potter better than you.”

  “Fuck Harry Potter,” he hissed and turned his back to me.

  “Senya, don't swear!” I practically screamed and slapped him on his back. He ignored me and wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the day.

  The next day I apologized for hitting him and then we watched a Disney movie and played vid games. Rather, I watched the movie and played vid games, and he listened with his eyes closed and made comments, which sometimes riled me with his criticisms, and other times were the funniest things I'd ever heard.

  My parents truly thought I had lost my mind. I was constantly chatting, laughing, sometimes snapping and later playing board games and cards with my invisible friend.

  By the second and third week when I was allowed out of bed and into a chair or the sofa, Senya, too, seemed to be improving and would sit up for several hours. We would play chess; I, white, and him, always black. He would move the pieces without even touching them which I guess was an example of his cool powers. He always won, he never let me win just to let me win, and he would lecture me on what I did wrong which really annoyed me. At some point I decided that he was winning because he played black and I insisted we switch sides. He took white and promptly beat me in five moves.

  One night we were playing chess, and I had lost four times in a row. I was so pissed off that I told him I was never going to play chess with him again even though he had waved his hand and reset the board for a new game. He smiled at me as if he knew a great secret and replied that I would.

  “No, I won't,” I insisted and moved as far away from him as the twin bed would allow.

  “You will be the white queen, and I will be the black king,” he said. “Do you know what the queen's job is?”

  I shook my head.

  “To wear pretty dresses, smile at the people, and fuck the king.”

  “Senya!” I shrieked. “Don't talk nasty!” I shoved him against the wall as I hard as I could. He pushed me back and I nearly toppled out of the bed and onto my head. I screamed at the top of my lungs as he grabbed my arm and yanked me back up.

  “Get out of here. I hate you! I don't want you here anymore!”

  “Are you fighting with your invisible boyfriend?” Allen said, sauntering into my room with an ice cream cone dripping down his hand and onto my rug.

  “Get of here, Allen!” I screamed for good measure, tears rolling down my cheeks, furious at Senya and now Allen.

  “Poor Katie,” Allen sighed dramatically while licking his ice cream. “They're going to have to lock you away in the funny farm. Fighting with your invisible boyfriend.” He shook his head. “Since you're going to be leaving anyway, I think I'll take some of your stuff. How about this?” He looked at my shelf and selected my favorite Breyer plastic horse, a black thoroughbred stallion. Grabbing the horse, Allen started to leave the room.

  “Allen!!” I shrieked. “Give it back!”

  “Nope,” Allen replied and waved it around. “Giddi-up Midnight. Let's go see what GI Joe is doing in my room.”

  I started to yell again, but all of a sudden, the horse just flew out of Allen's hand, soared across the room and landed in my lap.

  “Hey!” Now it was Allen who screamed.

  “Ah!” I nearly jumped out of bed.

  “How did you?” Allen looked at me with wide eyes. As he said this, the ice cream cone flew out of his other hand and smacked right into his forehead. “Ahhh!!!” Allen cried.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” my mother shrieked, bursting into the room. “Allen you are making a mess! Get that out of your hair and go throw that away! Katie Anne, what is all this noise about?”

  “I almost fell out of bed,” I sniffed meekly and snuffled some tears. “It hurt.”

  She came over and ran her hand across my forehead. “Maybe I should give you another pain pill,” she muttered.

  I shook my head sadly. “I just want to take a nap.”

  “Ok Sweetie.” She turned off my bedside lamp and kissed my forehead. “Allen, what are you still standing for? Go on!” She hustled him out the door.

  I lay back on my pillow hugging my horse and cautiously looked at Senya. I realized then that since Allen saw the horse fly across the room and got the ice cream stuck on his head, I didn't imagine it and so I must not be imagining Senya. I wasn’t crazy after all.

  “Say you're sorry,” I whispered.

  “For what?”

  “For sticking an ice cream cone in Allen's hair, pushing me off the bed and swearing.”

  He thought about this for a minute.

  “I'm sorry for pushing you off the bed and swearing, but I'm not sorry about your brother. He's a twit.”

  “Yes, but you were mean to him.”

  “He deserved it. He's mean to you.”

  “He's my brother,” I explained. “That's the kind of thing big brothers do. Don't you have any brothers or sisters?”

  He shook his head.

  “Do you have a mom and a dad?”

  “Not really.” He yawned and looked very tired.

  “Well who takes care of you?”

  He shrugged. “Taner, I guess.”

  “Does he do stuff like pack your lunch for school and…and decide if you need more medicine?”

  Senya shrugged again and then burrowed down in the blanket without answering. He was quiet and pretending to sleep.

  “You have crooked teeth,” I said a few mornings later. “You need braces.” I was an authority on braces since I had avidly watched Allen get his on.

  “Really?” Senya replied. He was stretched out on top of the blankets today with his hands propped behind his head. He seemed to be feeling better. The wounds on his stomach weren’t quite as puffy and bruised looking anymore. It was Sunday morning, the sun was shining in through my windows and the next day, I was going back to school.

  “Yes.” I pointed
at his incisors, which were longer than his other teeth and curved. “Only on those teeth though. The rest are straight.”

  “Which ones?”

  “These pointy ones are all bent.” I touched his tooth with my finger. It was sharp, much sharper than my own teeth. “See how mine are straight?” He touched my tooth with his finger. Then he touched the rest of my teeth and my tongue. I sucked on his finger and giggled. This was silly. Both of us had a finger in the other's mouth. Then, he touched my face gliding his fingers across it like a blind person would. Abruptly, he turned away from me and faced the wall.

  “What's wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he mumbled. “Leave me be.”

  “Why?” I climbed on top of him and stuck my tongue in his ear.

  “Just go!” He shoved me off.

  “Stupid bratty boy.” I shoved him back and then climbed on top of him again, pinning him face down on the mattress with my heavy cast.

  “Let's play beauty parlor. Your hair's a mess. I'm going to brush your hair.” I snatched my hairbrush off the bedside table.

  “Leave me be!” His voice was muffled by the pillow.

  “Maybe I should cut your hair,” I mused, pulling the brush through his long wavy strands. “Your hair is way too long for a boy. See how short Allen's is?”

  “I don’t want my hair cut.”

  “Why not?” I brushed it until it shone. Then I played with it, braiding and twisting it. “It’s sort of uneven. It’s longer on this side than over here. If I cut it, will it be cut wherever you really are?”

  “No.”

  “If somebody cut it there, would it be cut here?”

  “Yes. They are already cutting it. That’s why it is uneven.”

  “Who is cutting it?” I made a pony tail.

  “The nurses and the doctors. They are taking bits of it when Taner's asleep.”

  “Why are they taking bits of your hair?” I leaned down and put my face next to his so that our cheeks were rubbing together. I could feel his eyelashes on mine.

  “They sell it.”

  “You're making that up. Who'd want to buy bits of your hair?”

  “Get off me!”

  “Fine,” I said and climbed off him. “I'm done playing with you anyway.” I got out of bed, threw on my ugly blue terrycloth bathrobe and headed to the kitchen to get some Corn Pops before my mother made me eat an egg.

  The next morning, I dressed myself for school. I was wearing a walking cast now and could move about fairly easily. As I slipped my school sweater over my head, I turned back to look at Senya. He was sitting up on the bed looking at me, and for the first time, his eyes were open. Silver light streamed out from beneath his long black lashes.

  “OMG!” I cried. “What's wrong with your eyes?”

  “This isn't wrong,” he replied. “This is how they are supposed to be. I'm better now.”

  “Are you leaving?”

  “I will soon. Today I want to come to your school with you.”

  “You can't come!” I protested.

  “Why not?”

  “Well,” I fumbled. “You're not in fourth grade, right? You're in seventh grade, like Allen. That's in a whole other building. You'll have to take a different bus.”

  Senya cocked his head a little and his weird eyes flickered. “I don't know what grade I'm in,” he said after a bit.

  “Well, you're twelve, right? Like Allen?”

  He nodded.

  “So that's seventh,” I concluded. “You need to go to school with Allen."

  “I will come with you just for today.”

  “Do you promise to behave?” I demanded, planting my fists on my hips. “And I mean it, Mister.”

  He nodded again.

  “Okay,” I agreed. “But you can't talk to me, especially when I am in class. You have to promise to be perfectly quiet.”

  “I promise,” he said and stood up. He towered over me. I guess I didn't realize he was so tall when he was lying in my bed.

  “Wait outside for me,” I told him and headed to the kitchen for my breakfast and lunch bag.

  “Are you sure you're going to be alright?” Mom called as I headed out the door.

  Senya was waiting on the front stoop dressed in his pajama bottoms. If anybody saw him they'd probably laugh, so I figured it was a good thing only I could see him. He had his face turned to the sky like he wanted to get a sun tan even though it was pretty cloudy and would probably rain all day.

  “I’m fine,” I yelled back to Mom.

  “This is a nice place you live,” Senya said as we headed up to the bus stop which was on the corner a few steps from our drive.

  We boarded the bus together, and since I was still in a cast, the bus driver gave me the front row. Senya sat down in the empty seat next to me. He looked strange in the bus, so much bigger than all the other kids. He looked different too with his shiny black hair, pale skin and weird flashing eyes.

  "You look like an alien," I realized.

  "What was that, Katie?" The bus driver called over his shoulder. I bit my lip.

  When we arrived at the school, Senya walked beside me as I headed to the classroom and sat down at my desk.

  “Welcome back, Katie,” my teacher, Mr. Hopper said.

  “Thank you,” I replied, distractedly watching Senya wander around the room touching everything, the globe, the maps, the books, the vid, the chairs and tables and finally settling on the couch that was really for the parents who wanted to come watch in the back of the room. He didn’t stay there long though. For a guy who had been in bed for nearly three weeks, he now couldn’t seem to sit still. All morning long he was walking up and down the aisles of the classroom seemingly right in front of the teacher and the other kids. He stood next Mr. Hopper while the teacher explained how to do our math problems by writing everything out on his screen. Senya came back and squatted down next to me.

  “This is too simple for you,” he said.

  “Mhm,” I agreed. “But sometimes it's harder.”

  “What?” Peter said from the seat next to me. Peter was one of the popular boys and had always been mean to me. “This is too hard for you, Katie? Are you stupid?”

  “Shut up, Peter," I replied.

  "Shut up, Peter," he repeated in a simpering voice. "You gonna make me, Katie?"

  I turned my back to him and tried to continue my work when I felt a spit wad hit the back of my head. Another hit my cheek. Peter howled with laughter.

  "Stop it, Peter," I growled and just as I did so, Senya stood up, went over to Peter and pulled him up and out of the desk with one hand wrapped around the boy’s neck. Peter’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. Senya was holding Peter up in the air, his feet barely touching the floor, and his face was turning blue.

  “What's going on here, Pete?” Mr. Hopper trounced over. "Stop goofing off and get back to work."

  Peter made a choking sound.

  "Senya!" I hissed. "Put him down!"

  Peter dropped on the floor gasping for breath and rubbing his neck.

  Mr. Hopper helped Peter up. "You okay there, pal?"

  Peter burst into tears and snot ran down from his nose. I looked away because it was gross. Senya was back on the parents’ couch again. "There was a kid," Peter wailed. "A real creepy looking kid with long black hair."

  "There's nobody in here like that," Mr. Hopper said doubtfully. "Maybe we ought to get you to the nurse’s office."

  Peter wailed even louder as the recess bell rang. Everyone bolted out of their seats and out the door.

  During recess, I didn't play with anyone. I had been absent for so long that my friends all forgot about me. Mary Beth Stevens, a popular girl was playing jump rope with Adrienne and Leslie which made me madder still. Did Adrienne and Leslie actually think they were popular too? I was having a totally rotten day, and it was still morning.

&nbs
p; "You want to hold the rope?" Adrienne asked me.

  "No way, not her," Mary Beth scolded Adrienne. "She's not cool even if she has a cast."

  “Shut up, Mary Beth,” I said, distractedly scanning the playground for Senya. Maybe he stayed in the classroom. I started to worry about what kind of trouble he might have gotten in to.

  "You shut up, Katie," Mary Beth replied. "Nobody likes you anymore."

  “Shut up, Mary Beth!” I practically shrieked. “Or I'll…”

  “You'll what?” she said still jumping and doing a double deluxe skip with two ropes. “You gonna chase me with your broken leg?”

  “I'll…” I was about to say when all of a sudden Mary Beth caught her foot between the ropes and tripped, landing flat on her face. She let out a wail as blood gushed from her nose.

  “Mary Beth!” My former friends, Adrienne and Leslie cried. “Duty! Duty! Help!”

  Mary Beth was screaming and crying and her face was covered in blood as the Duty came running up. They all carried Mary Beth off to the nurse's office. Adrienne stuck out her tongue as she passed me.

  My nose hurt, and I didn't even fall on it. I turned to go back to the classroom and spied Senya leaning against the building wall that was used for bouncing balls by yourself.

  “You did it!” I realized and then quickly looked around in case anyone heard me.

  “She was unkind to you.” He shrugged.

  “Come on.” I grabbed his arm. I pulled him over to the fence line where I could look at the trees in the woods and pretend I was talking to a bird or a squirrel or something. “You hurt Mary Beth and Peter. How could you do that, Senya?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Senya?” I cried. “That's so cruel. That's…that's like evil.”

  His eyes flashed.

  “I don't want anyone to be mean to you.”

  “Well, you don't have to hurt them! I don't like them either, but I wouldn't do things that would make them have to go see the nurse."

  “I will kill anyone who hurts you,” he said, and his eyes flashed scarily.

  “Then you are a really bad person, Senya," I declared. “Only really, really bad people kill other people."

  He didn’t respond, just looked at me with his weird eyes.

  “Please don't hurt anybody anymore, even if they are mean to me. Will you promise me that?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then you had better go home now,” I said.

  “Alright.” He looked very sad. His shoulders slumped, and he frowned.

  I frowned too. "And I don't mean home to my house. I mean home to your own house on your own planet."

  "I know," he mumbled.

  "You can come again sometime if you promise not to hurt or kill anybody."

  He smiled a little. "I'll try," he said.

  I wanted to hug him, but that would look really weird if anybody happened to glance over this way just now, so I didn’t. Instead, I held up my hand in a wave. He placed his palm against it. For a moment we stood like that hand to hand and even though I knew he was not really there, I could feel a strange current running between us. It warmed my hand and my whole body on the inside. I closed my eyes because the silver light was getting very bright and I felt like the sun was shining right on me. It was a nice feeling. I liked Senya. I really liked him. I decided to marry him when I grew up as long as he promised not to hurt or kill anybody else. I opened my eyes to tell him this.

  “Senya?”

  He was gone.

  About six months later, the doorbell rang.

  “Katie Anne, will you get that?” my mother yelled. She was in the kitchen with her hands in a chicken she was cleaning for soup.

  “Okay,” I called back and putting down my math book, I went to look out the glass panel next to the door. There was a strange man standing there. He was looking around the front porch. He looked nervous to me. I opened the door even though I wasn’t supposed to in case he planned to kidnap me.

  “Hello?” I said.

  He looked at me sizing me up and down and again I realized it was probably pretty stupid to have opened the door.

  “Are you Katie Golden?” he asked. He had a thick accent from somewhere else.

  “Yes. Who are you?”

  “I'm Taner,” he replied almost hesitantly. “I have something for you.” He reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out something. It was a chess piece, a black king. I took it from him and studied it while he reached into his other pocket and then handed me a white queen, as well.

  “Wow,” I gasped turning the pieces over in my hands. They were made of something heavy and had gold on them and were really pretty.

  “Do you know who they are from?” he asked curiously as if he didn't know.

  “I think so,” I replied. “They're from my friend.”

  “Your friend?”

  “Is he okay now?”

  Taner's skin went pale. He scratched at his cheek. “Who are you Katie Golden?” he asked. “Are you a princess?”

  I laughed. “A princess?”

  “How old are you?”

  “Ten.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “What's going on here?” my mother said, coming up behind me, her hands in a dish towel. I showed her the chess pieces.

  “These are from my friend,” I explained.

  “What do you want?” my mother demanded of the man.

  “Nothing,” he apologized. “I was only to deliver these.” He bowed, sort of. “I beg your pardon. I'll be going now.” He practically ran down the driveway to his speeder.

  My mother took the chess pieces from me. “I want your father to see this,” she said even though I started to whine that they were mine.

  My father looked them over that evening and satisfied that they did not contain drugs and were not going to blow up, he let me put them on my bedroom shelf next to my Breyer horses, next to Midnight, my favorite black one.

  One night, when I was thirteen years old, I was lying in bed wide awake and unable to sleep. Senya was a distant memory, and if it weren't for the chess pieces, I might not even have believed he was real. Frankly, the chess pieces weren't proof either and as time went on I became more convinced, like my mother, that he was a figment of trauma, stress and Vicodin.

  I was staring out the window at the stars and spaceplanes that dotted the night sky above me. I wanted to go to space. Already I had decided that my future lie with the SpaceForce. I read everything I could about them. I prepped myself already by reading up on Astro-engineering and Astro-navigation in my spare time. My mother loudly hoped that I would change my mind and choose a normal career like an accountant or lawyer. I had my heart set on the stars, though, and would dream of wearing a SpaceForce uniform with strips cascading up my arm.

  Other than that I was a typical teenager. My walls were plastered with pinups of rock stars, my nights were spent chatting with girlfriends about boyfriends, and occasionally studying, and my days were spent hanging next to my locker in school, showing off my latest fashion accessory.

  On this particular night though, I was pondering my future in the stars when all of a sudden it was as if a door opened, a light lit up my room, and Senya stepped through.

  “Senya, you're back!” I cried, wondering again if I was asleep and didn't realize it.

  “I am,” he said into my mind just as he had done before. His eyes shone bright as I stared at him.

  “What are you doing here? You're not sick again are you?”

  “No,” he shook his head and crossed the room to my bed.

  He was about sixteen and his hair was long and wavy and tied loosely into two braids with black ribbons. He was very tall now and had filled out considerably. His arms and legs were hard and muscular as if he played sports all the time and he now had a huge tattoo running down his left arm. His skin was pale but healthy looking. He was
wearing what looked like leather leggings and tunic that had sparkly things sewn on as decorations.

  “OMG!” I gasped aloud. “You grew up!” He was so hot! He was beyond hot! That bratty boy had turned into the most gorgeous guy I had ever seen. All the rock stars on my walls were nothing compared to Senya. “OMG! OMG! Wait! What are you doing?”

  He took off his tunic and unlaced and slipped off his leggings and climbed into bed with me just as he had done before. I stared at his penis, which stood tall and throbbing.

  “Uh…Senya?”

  He slipped his hands under my nightgown and pulled it off over my head.

  “You grew up too, Katie,” he said running his hand across my face.

  “Are you here or are you not really here again?” I whispered, my heart beating strangely as his fingers stroked my breasts.

  “It's complicated,” he replied, and he kissed me. It felt like he was here. “You belong to me, you understand?” He waved his hand and all the pinups fluttered off my walls and onto the floor.

  “Ok,” I said. “Sure.”

  And then he kissed me again with tongue and pressed himself against me. I thought I should be scared. I thought I should probably push him off and loudly say No, like I had been taught in school, but I didn't want to. I wanted him to do this, and I wanted to do it back. I reached for him and I stroked him marvelling at this amazing boy's body.

  He moaned and then pushed himself into me, and I nearly cried. I felt as if we had done this a thousand times before. I felt as if all this time I was missing a part of me and never knew it and now this part was back, and I was finally complete. It didn't hurt. It didn't feel anything like Mary Beth said it would when we sat behind the bleachers and discussed these things after band practice last fall. Like the teenagers that we were, Senya and I coupled over and over that night and even in between lay stuck together like one body.

  “I love you, Senya,” I said about a million times that night. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you, Milaka MaKani,” he said. “I love you in this lifetime and all the lifetimes before and after.”

  I didn't see him leave. When the morning came, I was alone. My nightgown and all the rock stars were on the floor. The chess pieces had been moved to my bedside table and placed on top of my tablet. My virginity was entirely intact.

  I knew he wasn't a hallucination. I never could have imagined that. No book, no vid, nothing could have prepared me for the feelings that raced through my body during that night. Who Senya was and how he came to me twice now perplexed me, and there was no one who could help me figure this out. I googled Senya but nothing came up.

  I was determined to find him though. It would take a few years. I would join SpaceForce and fly around the galaxy, but eventually, I would find him.

  Chapter 18

  Mariya