Where the Forest Meets the Stars

by Vanderah, Glendy

  “Only if you want to.”

  “I do. I’m worried about Ursa, too.”

  “How can I help with dinner? Looks like we need a vegetable.”

  “I’ve got it covered. Lacey and my mother had leftover green beans and corn in the refrigerator. They only need to be heated.”

  An hour later, they sat down to the chicken, stuffing, and vegetables. Gabe had also brought a partial container of fudge ripple ice cream for dessert. Jo was too full to eat it, but Ursa and Gabe each had a bowl. “That knock on the head certainly hasn’t affected your appetite,” he said to Ursa.

  “I told you I didn’t need to go to the hospital,” she said.

  “Well, you gave us quite a scare. So much for your magic forest.”

  “It’s not the forest’s fault,” Ursa said. “I made it happen.”

  “You made a branch conk you on the head and nearly kill you?”

  “It wouldn’t have killed me. But like I told Tabby and Jo, sometimes a bad thing has to happen to make a good thing happen.”

  “What was the good thing that came of it?” Gabe asked.

  “You’re staying overnight again.”

  “You knew I would stay overnight if you got hurt?”

  “I didn’t exactly know . It all just happens. People from Hetrayeh give off these invisible specks, kind of like quarks—except different—and they make good stuff happen around us when we meet earthlings we like.”

  He laid his spoon in his empty dish. “So I guess these quark things are kind of like giving off good vibes.”

  “They can change people’s fates.”

  “What’s so good about me staying overnight?”

  “Jo and I like you.” She picked up her bowl and drank the last of her melted ice cream. “You didn’t want to be over there with your mean sister anyway, right? That’s another way it’s good.”

  “What do you think, science lady?” he asked Jo.

  “Why not? We can’t see gravity, and it has a strong effect on us.”

  “True.” He stood and nested Ursa’s bowl inside his. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll find a million dollars under my pillow.”

  “Probably not,” Ursa said.

  “Why not?”

  “The quark things know what you really want.”

  “I don’t want a million dollars?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Darn it.” He went to the sink and washed the bowls.

  “Do you have that medicine Earth people call Motrin?” Ursa asked Jo.

  “Do you have a headache?”

  “Only a little one.”

  “Don’t lie. How bad does it hurt?”

  “Kind of bad.” She saw Jo and Gabe glance at each other. “I’ll be okay. I heard a cold washcloth and Motrin helps a lot.”

  She must have had that remedy in the past. Who had taken care of her when she was sick, and why hadn’t that person reported her missing?

  They took Ursa to the couch, gave her a Motrin, and had her lie down with a cold washcloth over her eyes and forehead. They darkened the room and lit Ursa’s two candles. She fell into a deep sleep immediately. Jo sat on the edge of the couch watching her breathe.

  “You can’t sit up like that all night,” Gabe said.

  “I have to be next to her.”

  “Let me put her in your bed.” He carried her to the first bedroom and rested her on the queen mattress on the wooden floor. He drew Jo’s blanket over her, carefully tucking it around her shoulders. He pulled aside the strands of hair that covered her face. He looked up and caught Jo’s smile. “Are you going to bed right away?” he asked.

  “I’ll stay awake as long as I can to keep watch on her.”

  “Do you mind if I sit here next to the bed?”

  “Not at all.” She retrieved the two candles and put one on the dresser and the other on the nightstand. She sat on the mattress facing Ursa, and Gabe sat on the floor on Ursa’s other side.

  “I had a good day,” he said. “Before Ursa got hurt, obviously.”

  “You stood up to the heat, insects, and bushwhacking very well.”

  “Not to mention the stinging nettle.”

  “Yeah, don’t mention it.”

  Silence lingered between them. He lifted the book lying next to Ursa. “Slaughterhouse-Five ,” he said, turning the book in his hands. “I’ve never seen it in hardcover. How old is it?”

  “Printed in 1969, the year it came out.”

  He looked up at her. “With the original cover? It must be worth a fortune.”

  “It’s not in the greatest shape—but it is priceless. It was handed down from my grandfather, to my dad, to my brother, to me. My mother read that copy more than once, too.” She reached over Ursa and took the book from him, resting it on her crossed legs. “This book often came up in our conversations,” she said, stroking her hand over the cover. “It was a favorite for all of us.”

  “My dad would love that.”

  “What?”

  “How you still connect with your parents through a book.”

  She did, and not only through that one. She had most of the books that had belonged to her parents, and she read passages from them every night before she fell asleep or when she had insomnia. As she read, her fingers touching the same pages theirs had touched, her father and mother were right there with her.

  “Your family sounds interesting if they all liked an unusual book like that.”

  “We were definitely interesting,” she said. “Kind of weird, truthfully, and sometimes that made it hard for my brother and me to relate to other kids.”

  “How so?”

  She thought for a few seconds. “Since I’ve gone into field biology, I’ve noticed most scientists who work out in the natural world are a little different from other people. Maybe it has something to do with how they can turn their backs on the comforts of society for long periods of time. But it’s not just that they can forgo society, it’s more like they need to. For people like that, the natural world is vital, a spiritual experience.”

  His candlelit eyes were intent on her.

  “That’s how my parents were. They rarely took us to do the things other kids did—amusement parks and touristy beaches. On weekends we hiked and kayaked or went in search of salamanders or fossils. Our vacations were usually camping trips, sometimes to far places like Maine to see puffins or Utah to see rock formations. And anywhere we went, we would go rock-hounding to look for minerals and gems.”

  “Cool,” he said.

  “It was. You should see our family collection. My dad’s excitement about geology was contagious, almost manic. He was always pointing out the geology of the landscapes around us. That probably sounds boring, but it wasn’t. The way he described how the forces of nature had shaped the earth was almost poetic.”

  “Sounds like an interesting guy.”

  “He was. And my mom—she was a force of nature, too, but in a relaxed, rippled stream kind of way. If I got into some screwed-up situation at school or with my friends, she could always help me see it was no big deal and bring positive light to it. And her garden . . . it was gorgeous, a wilderness of flowers and ponds and trees in the middle of suburbia. My friend Tabby used to say she was pretty sure fairies lived in my mother’s garden—it was that magical.”

  “Where did you live?” he asked.

  “Evanston. My dad taught nearby at Northwestern.”

  “Really! Not far from where my dad taught.”

  “To Chicagoans it’s far,” she said. “Did you live in the city when your dad was at U of C?”

  “In Brookfield, in the house my dad grew up in. Do you know where that is?”

  “I do. I went to the Brookfield Zoo a few times.”

  “My house was about a half mile from the zoo.”

  She gazed down at the book in her lap. “It’s weird . . .”

  “What is?”

  “When I first bought eggs from you, I never would have thought our backgrounds were s
o similar.”

  “You thought I was just a dumb, gun-totin’ redneck?”

  “I didn’t know what you were.”

  Neither knew what to say next, but the silence didn’t feel awkward. Jo got up and put the book on the bed stand. She grabbed the pillow and blanket off the living room couch and laid them next to Ursa on the bed. “You look tired,” she told him. “Why don’t you lie down?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “If we’re both here, we have more contact with her. Anytime you wake up, you can check her, and I’ll do the same.”

  “I think she’s okay.”

  “She fell asleep so fast, and all this time we’ve been talking she hasn’t moved.”

  “Because she’s exhausted.”

  “She is. I’d better let her sleep in.”

  “Good idea.”

  Jo set her phone alarm for 7:00 a.m. and blew out the two candles. She stretched out on the mattress and heard him do the same on the other side of Ursa.

  “Do you have enough room?” she asked.

  “Enough to sleep in.”

  The air conditioner hummed and rattled in the window. She hoped it didn’t bother him. She preferred the sounds of field and forest at night, but she slept poorly when the bedroom was warm and muggy.

  “I’m sorry I talked your ear off about my family,” she said.

  “Don’t apologize. I enjoyed it,” he said.

  “I’d like to hear more about your parents sometime. Growing up with a poet and lit professor who built a cabin in the woods must have been amazing.”

  After a silence he said, “Yeah, it was amazing, but not in the way you’re thinking.”

  Jo propped on her elbow and tried to see him in the darkness. “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind.” He rolled over, turning his back to her.

  17

  The windows rattled. Jo opened her eyes and tried to make sense of what she’d heard until another long rumble of thunder shook the panes. She put her hand on Ursa to make sure she was breathing and picked up her phone. It was 6:03. After a few minutes she got enough signal to check the weather. The remnants of a tropical storm in the Gulf were hitting Southern Illinois, and rain was expected until at least noon. More thunder rolled in the distance.

  “Just what we need, another storm,” Gabe said.

  “It is what we need. I get to stay in bed. And that’s good for Ursa.” She turned off the alarm on her phone.

  “You don’t work when it rains?”

  “It’s not good to pull birds off their nests in rainy weather.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Gabe?” Ursa said. She sat up and stared blearily at him.

  “Go back to sleep,” Jo said. “It’s raining. No fieldwork.”

  “Good.” She curled on her side with her arm around Gabe and fell back asleep.

  “Well, guess I can’t get up now,” he said.

  “You can’t,” Jo said. “Rainy mornings are the best.”

  They slept for two more hours. Ursa woke first, laying one hand on Jo and the other on Gabe. “This is like a nest. I feel like a baby bird.”

  “Bet you’re as hungry as one, too,” Jo said.

  “I am, but I never want to leave the nest.”

  Gabe sat up. “Half your nest is going to the bathroom.”

  “Gabe!”

  “Sorry, birdie. I’ll brew some coffee. Stay in bed if you want,” he told Jo.

  “Nope,” Jo said. “I’m aiming in the same direction.”

  Ursa’s nest moved to the kitchen, where her beak was stuffed with fried eggs, half an English muffin, and orange slices. After breakfast cleanup, Gabe worked on the clogged kitchen sink with tools he had in his truck. He ended up taking apart all the pipes. He was putting them back together when Little Bear started barking outside. From the porch, Jo watched Lacey stop her silver SUV next to Gabe’s pickup. She marched down the front sidewalk, ignoring the steady rain and Little Bear’s attempts at scaring her off. “I need to see Gabe,” she announced, striding into the house.

  “Come on in,” Jo said to her back. Lacey stopped in the kitchen doorway. She looked at Gabe on the floor fastening pipes and Ursa seated at the table drawing an indigo bunting with her new colored pencils. “Isn’t this the picture of domestic bliss,” she said.

  Ursa looked like a cave troll had entered the room, and Gabe scrambled to his feet.

  “I guess her broken sink was more important than me leaving,” Lacey said.

  “I guess it was,” he said.

  Lacey focused on Ursa. “I hear you got hurt yesterday.”

  Ursa nodded slightly.

  “What happened?”

  Ursa glanced nervously at Jo. “There was a storm. A branch fell . . .”

  “What did your parents say about that? I bet they were worried.”

  “Is there a reason you’re here?” Gabe asked.

  “Several reasons,” Lacey said. “Thanks to your raid on our kitchen last night, we need groceries.”

  “There’s plenty of food in the big freezer,” he said.

  “Well, there isn’t toilet paper in the freezer, and we need that, too. And Mom’s out of that cream she puts on her eczema. She’s upset you haven’t gotten it yet.”

  “I’ll go as soon as I’m done here,” he said.

  “Too late. I’m on my way.”

  “I thought you were leaving?”

  “I thought so, too, but there’s a lot that has to be done at the cabin while you’re screwing around over here at Kinney’s.” Nodding at the sink, she said, “George will be grateful to you for fixing it. Maybe you should hire on as his handyman.”

  Lacey sniffed a soft laugh before she left the room, and Gabe’s eyes took on a strange glassiness. He turned away, staring out the window, his hands clenched on the sink edge. Little Bear barked at Lacey’s departure, and Gabe turned around, all traces of anger, or whatever it was, gone from his eyes.

  “What was with that dig about being George Kinney’s handyman?” Jo asked.

  “Just Lacey being Lacey.” He got on the floor to finish the plumbing.

  For the next two hours, Jo entered data from her nest logs into her laptop, and Gabe showed Ursa how to play war and solitaire with an old deck of cards. At twelve thirty, the rain was still pouring down and Jo decided to give up on fieldwork. She needed to make good use of the day off work with a much-needed trip to the Laundromat and grocery store.

  She asked Gabe if he would stay with Ursa. She didn’t want to risk taking her near the Vienna sheriff’s station in case she ran into Deputy Dean. If Ursa was going to be taken into custody by the police, the handover had to go down on Jo’s terms. She was well aware, though, that everything that had come to pass so far had transpired wholly on Ursa the Alien’s terms.

  Jo wedged two dirty kitchen towels into her laundry bag, already overstuffed with the addition of Ursa’s clothing. Gabe and Ursa were seated at the kitchen table, waiting for tomato soup to boil. He was teaching her how to play poker, and they were using oyster crackers as betting chips.

  “First guns, now gambling,” Jo said. “You’re a bad influence.”

  “Not for long,” he said. “We can’t stop eating our money.”

  “I’m sorry there’s not more to eat around here,” she said. “I’ll bring back lots of groceries.”

  “Don’t forget macaroni and cheese!” Ursa said. She laid the five cards in her hand on the table. “I have three aces. I beat you.”

  “Quit cheating with your quarks!” he said.

  When she arrived in town, Jo ordered a chef’s salad at a café near the Laundromat. She looked out the window at the slow bustle of small town life, relaxing into accustomed solitude. In quiet moments of the past year, she had often dwelled on those who were gone, her mother and father, or her presurgery self. Today she contemplated the living, Ursa and Gabe. She let her relief for Ursa’s recovery from the head injury sink in. She wondered what would have happened if they�
��d taken Ursa to the hospital, if she and Gabe had been questioned by the police. Whatever might have happened, one thing was certain: Ursa would no longer be with Jo. Jo didn’t even want to imagine the moment when Ursa was forced to leave her and Gabe. Fortunately, her food arrived before she dwelled on it for long.

  She folded the top layer of egg slices into the heart of her salad. A few weeks back, she’d never have believed the enigmatic Egg Man would be a part of her daily life. Something that improbable almost had to be caused by an alien’s intervention. She smiled, remembering how Ursa had snuggled up to Gabe that morning, fully trusting in his gentle nature.

  She stopped eating to focus on a surprising sensation. The kind of inner warmth she used to feel when she was attracted to a man. She was relieved her body could still feel that way. But maybe it wasn’t her body. It was probably the replacement hormones.

  The warmth faded with her cold appraisal. Such was life with a double dose of analytical genes. Falling for Gabe would be too inconvenient anyway. Her research was an ambitious project that normally would require at least one assistant. And why risk her emotional recovery when he’d shown no interest beyond friendship? He’d slept over twice and hadn’t made even the slightest move.

  Not one move. Maybe he was turned off by her body. Or simply by the idea of the cancer. As compassionate as he was, he was unlikely to want a woman who lacked the usual anatomy. She let her fork fall into the last bit of her salad, paid the bill, and left.

  The last of the gray rain clouds finally cleared away as she arrived home. The forest around Kinney Cottage was glorious, every leaf and bough sparkling with raindrop jewels of golden sun.

  Gabe and Ursa weren’t in the house. Gabe’s note read,

  We’re at the creek catching fish with a holey net. Understandably, this may take some time. Come join us if you enjoy frustration.

  Ursa left a note next to it that said,

  I hope you got pie!!!!

  Jo had bought a pie, dutch apple, and vanilla ice cream to go with it. After she put groceries and laundry away, she decided to start a spaghetti dinner rather than go down to the creek. At around seven, Ursa burst in the front door shouting, “Did you get pie? We caught these pretty fish called darters! And Gabe showed me water beetles! They carry a bubble of air under their body to give them oxygen underwater.”