From a Distant Star

by McQuestion, Karen

  Even as she spoke, we could see dozens of people, mostly men but a few women too, all of them in dark-colored clothing, coming up the driveway. A few of them held long-handled equipment in front of them as they walked. Metal detectors? I wasn’t sure.

  “Who are all these people? Where did they come from?” Mrs. Walker asked, her voice incredulous. I wondered the same thing. They had to have been parked down the road, waiting for the signal.

  “This group is part of our NTSB search team. They’re professionals, experts at recovering aviation wreckage.” Todd looked up from his iPad to talk. “With so many working together, we can cover more ground. That means we’ll be on our way and out of your hair in no time. We appreciate your cooperation.” His speech sounded scripted.

  “Well, I guess it’ll be okay,” Mrs. Walker said. “As long as it’s just outside and they don’t go into the barns. I mean, you wouldn’t have a reason to go in the outbuildings, would you, if you’re looking for airplane parts?”

  Mariah didn’t answer, but spoke again into her communication device. “Team members, listen carefully. You are not to go inside any of the buildings. We do not have clearance for anything indoors. The barns are off-limits. Repeat, search the property, but do not go inside any of the buildings.”

  Todd said, “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Walker and Emma. We’ll be heading outside now to oversee the operation and then we’ll be leaving shortly.” He reached out his hand and Mr. Walker shook it.

  Mrs. Walker saw them to the door, and watched as the pair walked back toward the others. “The operation?” she said. “First they made it sound like the two of them were just going to take a quick look, and suddenly this is a big deal with fifty people searching with equipment. It makes you wonder exactly what they’re looking for. You’d think we’d have heard about a plane collision.”

  Mr. Walker shrugged. “Our tax dollars at work.”

  Then Nancy announced that she really had to do the blood draw right away if she was going to drop off the samples before her next scheduled patient visit. We followed her into the dining room where Lucas and Eric were watching an episode of Cosmos on the laptop. Nancy opened her medical kit on the end of the bed.

  “What’s going on?” Eric asked, pausing the show.

  Lucas’s eyes followed me as I took my new spot in the corner and I gave him a grin.

  Mrs. Walker ignored Eric and spoke directly to Lucas. “Lucas, honey, Nancy needs to take some blood before she goes.”

  Nancy was all business at this point, taking Lucas’s arm and swabbing it with an alcohol wipe. The antiseptic smell filled the small room. He looked startled, but didn’t pull away. Outside, I heard the voices of the team calling out to each other as they swept the field. Would they notice the furrow? Maybe not, since the field was so big and I’d done what I could to stir things up. But even if they did see it, anything could have caused it—a farm implement, an animal, a wheelbarrow. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t arouse suspicion, but I did have another worry. Had any of those people seen me move the object they were now hunting for? I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t be completely sure. Trying not to look nervous, I wiped my sweaty palms on my shorts and focused on Lucas instead of my fears.

  While Nancy cleaned her hands with sanitizer, she spoke to Lucas in that baby tone she used for anyone under the age of thirty. “Now, Lucas, I’m going to be drawing four vials of blood, but I’ll only need to do one poke. It will pinch for an instant and that will be it. And don’t worry about me taking your blood. Your body will make more.” She smiled broadly.

  “I know this,” Lucas said and his family beamed at his response. I was glad he was getting better, but his speech was so odd. It was his voice and the same words he might have used before, but the intonation was like a Russian immigrant doing an impression of an American accent.

  I kept thinking about how Mrs. Kokesh had said Lucas might come back different and I felt a pang of regret. I thought he might move more slowly or be not as quick-witted, but this was something else entirely. It was like he was learning to be Lucas all over again. How long would it take before he was completely himself again? I had said I’d be okay with anything, but the truth was, I wanted him how he used to be. I wanted us like we used to be. I imagined us parked in his car, his hands on either side of my face looking at me like he just couldn’t believe his good luck. I remembered the smell of him as he came in from the fields slick with sweat and teasing me by holding out his arms for a big hug, me squealing and telling him to go take a shower. And after that, the long, luxurious kisses, the kind I wished would never end. We were constantly looking for ways to be alone. I knew the contours of his body and the feel of his skin, and even now the thought of him made my pulse race. Over time, we’d become more and more intimate. We were just a breath away from having sex when he became sick and then there was the diagnosis and the treatment. And the medicine to treat the side effects of the treatment. And it just got worse from there. We’d been through a lot, but now that it was going in the other direction, we’d have a second chance at a lifetime of happiness.

  Nancy wrapped a rubber tourniquet around Lucas’s arm and flicked at his vein with her fingernail. He watched, fascinated, as she quickly slipped the needle in and blood flowed out. She filled four vials, and then expertly covered the needle with a square of gauze before pulling it out. “Lucas, could you hold the gauze in place, please?” Nancy asked.

  Lucas didn’t move, so I stepped forward and placed two fingers over the pad. Nancy unwrapped a Band-Aid and nodded to me to let go, then removed the gauze and used it to cover the puncture mark. “There you are,” she said. “Good as new.”

  “Now I can stand and walk?” Lucas said. “I can leave the bed?” He looked from Nancy to his parents.

  “It’s up to your mom and dad,” Nancy said. “If you feel up to it, and have someone nearby for support, I think it would be fine.”

  “I’m better.”

  “I know you feel better,” Nancy said. “And that’s definitely a good thing, but we’ll know more once we get the test results.”

  Mr. Walker edged over to the window and lifted the blinds to see what the team was doing outside. I saw a slight frown cross his face, but I was distracted by Lucas who had pulled back his covers, exposing the catheter tube and everything else. “I want this out,” he said. “It’s not needed.”

  “Lucas!” Mrs. Walker hurried over and moved the blanket to cover him up. “Not in front of Emma.”

  But Lucas was yanking at the tube now, determined to remove it. Mr. Walker rushed away from the window and both he and Nancy had to restrain Lucas’s hands.

  “It’s not needed,” Lucas said again, looking miserable. “Take it out.”

  “Can you take it out?” Mr. Walker asked.

  Nancy hesitated. “The doctor didn’t say—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, just take it out.” Eric’s voice rang out loud and clear, commanding the attention of everyone in the room. I’d almost forgotten he was there, but now he stepped forward, looming over all the adults, who were leaning over the hospital bed. “Lucas can get up and walk to the bathroom on his own now. He doesn’t need it.”

  Startled, Mrs. Walker’s eyes grew wide. “Eric!” she said and that one word said it all—that he was being disrespectful and speaking out of turn. That this was not his decision.

  But Eric didn’t budge. “What’s the big deal? He doesn’t need it, so just take it out. If you leave it in, he’s just going to yank on it anyway.”

  Mr. Walker cleared his throat. “I think Eric’s right. Would you take it out, Nancy? You can put in your records that it was at our request. His mother and I will take responsibility.”

  So it was decided that Lucas would be freed from the pee tube. Eric and I were asked to leave the room, which was fine by me. Much as I loved Lucas, this was not an image I wanted to commit to memory. I wandered into the kitchen and looked out the window of the back door. Eric had the same idea, and so
on we were shoulder to shoulder.

  He said, “You know, I searched the news while you were talking to those people in the other room, and I came up with nothing. What did she say—there was an aircraft collision? You’d think it would be a big deal if they have all these people searching.”

  “That’s what they’d like us to believe.”

  “You don’t believe it?” He took a step back to take in my expression. “How come?”

  “Something about their story doesn’t add up,” I said, and leaned in to whisper. “I think there’s more to it than they’re saying.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him more, to confide in him about the object I’d found in the field, but I held back. Not just yet.

  “Yeah, something’s off about this,” he agreed. “It’s probably one of those top-secret military things. And if they don’t want the public to know, there’s no way we’re ever going to find out.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  That night, when no one was looking, Lucas pulled off his pain patch and left it on the side table next to his water cup. When his mother asked about it the next morning, he said he didn’t need it anymore.

  And that was just the beginning. Every day, he seemed better. His wispy hair seemed noticeably thicker from one day to the next. It was happening so fast it was like a dream. And every step of the way I proudly thought, I did this. Me. If it had been left up to the Walkers and modern medicine, he’d be dead by now.

  By then, I’d already transferred the object I’d found in the field, moving it from Eric’s barn to my bedroom closet at home. I was afraid one of the Walkers might find it, or worse yet, that the agents might return to do a more thorough search and confiscate it. I still didn’t know what it was, this disc-shaped thing that fell from the sky. Something illegal that had been smuggled into the country? Or a secret military weapon in the testing stages? I was willing to believe anything at this point. The one thing I was becoming sure of was that the object and Lucas’s recovery were somehow connected. It had to be the disturbance Mrs. Kokesh had mentioned. I wasn’t sure how or why the two things were connected. It could be anything. Maybe the military was using this object for chemical warfare and the chemicals had a healing effect on Lucas’s cancer, and the potion was a separate thing entirely. I decided that when all the commotion settled down, I would try to figure it out.

  And there was commotion.

  Word travels fast in a small community, and soon Lucas’s friends, the ones who’d stopped coming around when they thought he was dying, came to visit the farm in droves. I think every member of the senior class came at some point that first week, so many converging on the farm at once that Mrs. Walker made them come inside in shifts. By that time, she’d allowed Lucas to get dressed in regular clothes, though he’d lost so much weight he had to borrow Eric’s jeans. He still wasn’t very talkative, but his speech seemed less halting and he could hold a conversation. The guys on the football team asked if he’d be playing next year since he’d be a senior again and he smiled his new, thin-lipped smile and said, “I’ll have to see how it goes.” They clapped him on the back and told jokes and he grinned at all the right times and I breathed a sigh of relief. He was almost back to normal.

  For days, I yearned to talk to him alone, but there was always someone around. I wanted to ask what he remembered about the night I put the potion on his lips and kissed him. Did he hear me when he was in the coma? Did he know how close he’d been to death?

  The visiting nurses still came, but less frequently, and on day four of the miraculous recovery, Lucas went back to the hospital for more tests. When Eric said he wanted to stay home and work, Mrs. Walker let me come in his place, so it was me and Lucas in the backseat of the car with his parents up front. The hospital was an hour away, so while the adults were talking about traffic and road construction and alternate routes, I took the opportunity to reach for Lucas’s hand resting on the seat between us. He looked startled at my touch and then looked down at our interlocked fingers like he was trying to figure out where I started and he ended. I smiled at him and he smiled back and I felt our old connection come through. I mouthed the words “I love you” and waited for him to do the same, but it didn’t happen. Instead, he just furrowed his brow and turned his attention to the front of the car. Like he had no idea what this lip moving thing was all about. As if we hadn’t mouthed those words to each other a hundred thousand times. I was crushed and confused.

  That was the first weird thing.

  The second weird thing happened after we’d returned from the hospital later in the day. The tests had been run and even though the technicians couldn’t tell us what they saw, off the record, every one of them indicated that the results were mind-bogglingly good. We arrived back at the Walkers’ house happy, so happy, because Lucas’s parents and I just knew that when we heard the final results from the oncologist, it would be good news. Mack, who’d been kept outdoors and away from Lucas for the last few days, came bounding up to the car when we pulled into the gravel drive. I got out on my side and he jumped up on me, as if he knew we’d just gotten the best news of our lives. I rubbed behind his ears and patted his side, exclaiming over him.

  “Good dog, you are such a good dog, Mack,” I crooned. He barked and jumped, like a crazy, happy dog, loving every bit of the attention I was giving him. But that all changed when Lucas and his mom walked around from the other side of the car.

  At the sight of Lucas, Mack bared his teeth and growled. It was a deep-throated growl, a warning of an attack to come. A chill went up my spine at Lucas’s reaction, which was no reaction at all. He kept walking toward the house like he didn’t know that Mack’s growl was abnormal or alarming.

  “Mack!” Mrs. Walker scolded. “What are you doing? You know Lucas.”

  Mr. Walker held Mack’s collar and commanded him to sit, and the dog did, reluctantly dropping to his haunches.

  Mrs. Walker called out, “Lucas, come back here. Let Mack smell your hand.” Lucas turned and walked back, seeming unsure what this was all about.

  “Put your hand out,” Mrs. Walker said, demonstrating.

  Mack stayed seated, but all the while he strained at the collar, growling and showing his teeth in a way I’d never seen before. It made my breath catch in my chest. A few minutes before, I’d have sworn that Mack was gentle as a lamb, incapable of turning on his owners, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  “That’s enough, Mack,” Mr. Walker said, a firm grip on the collar. “It’s just Lucas. You know Lucas.”

  Lucas followed his mother’s direction, extending his hand toward Mack’s snout, and the dog lunged for him, teeth snapping just a fraction of an inch from Lucas’s fingers. Alarmed, Lucas stepped back and Mr. Walker yanked the dog away.

  Mrs. Walker’s hand flew up to her mouth. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked, looking at Mack who’d now stopped growling, although he still looked unsettled. “Why is he acting this way?”

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Walker said. “Maybe Lucas smells different because of the tests?”

  I stared at Lucas. He didn’t look troubled at all that his beloved dog wanted to chomp off his hand, and I knew it wasn’t just that Lucas smelled different from the tests at the hospital. He’d had all those tests before and Mack had never acted that way.

  The way Mack was reacting now was a different thing completely. He was acting like Lucas was a stranger, an invader encroaching on home turf. Someone who meant to do the family harm. I remembered Lucas’s lack of response when I mouthed “I love you.” That was the first weird thing. And now Mack, the closest thing Lucas had to a guardian angel on Earth, was acting like he was an intruder. That was the second weird thing. Each one by itself might mean nothing. But together, they added up.

  I thought about Mrs. Kokesh’s warning that the Lucas who came back from death might not be the same Lucas I knew and loved. She’d been right, unfortunately, and it was worse than I could have imagined. I hated to go back and face her again, but she migh
t be able to help. Maybe she could help me reach the Lucas within, the real Lucas. He had to be there, somewhere underneath the surface. I didn’t know how to reach him, but I had to try. And if Mrs. Kokesh couldn’t find him, no one could.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It took two weeks for me to get permission from Lucas’s parents to take him out of the house so we could be alone. By then, the doctors had proclaimed there was no sign of cancer anywhere in his body.

  The oncologist, Dr. Griffin, said, “We don’t use the word ‘cure’ for this type of situation, but I feel comfortable saying Lucas Walker is in remission. On behalf of the staff of St. James Hospital, we couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome of Lucas’s treatment here.”

  I can tell you what he’d said verbatim, because this was a quote from an interview with our local news anchor, Melanie Fox, from the channel 8 news. Lucas’s story was a six-minute segment. They showed him pretending to do chores around the farm, and they interviewed his parents as they sat stiffly on the couch, Mr. Walker with his arm around his wife’s shoulder. Eric only made a cameo appearance, and I didn’t even make the cut at all. They spliced in some old footage of Lucas playing football before his diagnosis and somehow came up with a photo of him in the hospital bed looking like he was two degrees away from death. My best guess is that they got that picture from Devin Bombeck, this tool from the football team who took photos of everybody all the time, even when you told him not to.

  I watched the clip over and over again, noting the dramatic music and the contrasting before and after shots, the way they cut the conversation with Lucas’s parents to just a short bit of Mrs. Walker saying it was a miracle. The thing that interested me the most, though, was the press conference held by Dr. Griffin on the front steps of the hospital. Lucas’s case was suddenly a big deal, not just locally, but worldwide. Other hospitals wanted to know what protocol they used to get such incredible results, and Dr. Griffin made himself out to be a hero. So I watched the clip, and was so annoyed at how he took all the credit that I barely noticed the way the camera scanned the crowd at the bottom of the steps. Most of the people in the audience were local reporters and staff from the hospital, but there were a few random bystanders as well. I didn’t pay much attention the first time around, but the second time I watched the clip, I did a face palm because who did I see in the crowd? Mariah and Todd, the friendly safety agents, dressed in normal clothes, trying to blend in. I paused the video and made the image bigger, which only made it more pixilated, but there was no doubt it was them. Why were they at Lucas’s doctor’s press conference? It didn’t make sense.