From a Distant Star

by McQuestion, Karen

  Mrs. Walker put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get you inside and put you to bed.” Her soft voice turned sharp when she added, “Emma, I think it’s best if you go home now.”

  They went inside and left me standing there, a cloud of mosquitoes swirling around my head. Mrs. Walker was so quick to dismiss me, so fast to assume we’d had a teenage squabble. What if I’d warned her that her son thought he was possessed by an alien? I almost laughed when I thought about what her reaction would be. If he denied it, she would think I was crazy or lying. She didn’t really like me to begin with; this would just seal the deal. But there was no way I could keep this to myself. I desperately needed to tell someone and hopefully, that someone would help me figure out what to do. I slapped at a mosquito and got into my mother’s car to go home.

  When I pulled out onto the road and glanced back at the house, I saw a light on in a second-story room and a figure silhouetted in the window. Eric. Watching, always watching. That kid didn’t miss a thing. He was the smartest one in the house and the only one likely to believe me. Eric would be the one I could tell.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The next morning, I slept late and waited until ten o’clock before getting on my bike and heading over to Lucas’s house. Not getting there too early was deliberate on my part. I wanted to give Mrs. Walker a break from me.

  After driving my mom’s car the night before, biking seemed to take way too much time and effort. Pedaling, pedaling, pedaling. It never ended. If I had my own car, life would be so much easier, but as it stood I was lucky to be able to use Mom’s once in a great while.

  When I’d gotten home the night before, earlier than expected, my mother was watching TV, a bowl of popcorn on her lap. “Hey, baby,” she called out, not even turning her head to confirm it was me. She always left the door unlocked until I came home. I often joked that someday instead of me coming in, it would be a serial killer, but she claimed to know the sound of my footsteps. She wasn’t one to worry about anything. “I didn’t expect you back before ten.”

  I settled down in a chair next to her. “Yeah, Lucas was tired, so we didn’t go to the game.”

  Mom was wearing loose cotton pajama bottoms and a white cotton T-shirt, a definite sign she was in for the night. To be polite, she held the bowl out to me. The smell of hot buttered popcorn was tempting, but I wasn’t hungry, so I shook my head.

  “Something bothering you?” Mom asked, shutting off the TV and giving me a concerned look.

  “No, not really. Well, maybe, a little bit.”

  “Hit me,” she said, crossing her slipper-clad feet on the coffee table, like she was settling in to hear an interesting story.

  “What if someone told you something that you found hard to believe? Well, almost impossible to believe? What do you do with that?”

  “Is this someone Lucas?”

  I nodded. “He’s been so different since he recovered and when I ask him about it, his explanation is bizarre.”

  Her lips closed and she made what I thought of as her thoughtful face. “Hmmm . . . Is this something you can share with me?”

  “No. I mean, I’d like to, but I promised to keep it between us.”

  “Oh, okay.” Yet another great thing about my mother. She never pushed for more than I could give. “Well, I guess whatever he’s saying is either true or it’s not. Has he lied to you before?”

  “No. Never.” Lucas was honest to a fault. Always had been, as far as I knew. I said, “But what if what he’s saying is because he’s mixed up from all the medical treatment?”

  “That could be, I guess. I mean, I’m not a doctor, but I suppose it happens.” She popped a kernel into her mouth and the room was silent except for her soft crunching. I changed my mind about the popcorn, and got up to grab a handful. A moment later, Mom said, “Is what he’s saying consistent, or does it keep changing?”

  “So far, it’s been consistent.” Now I was the one chewing.

  “And is this bizarre thing he’s telling you plausible?”

  “Maybe.”

  Mom shifted the bowl on her lap. “I guess your options are either to believe what he’s telling you or not believe him. Sometimes a leap of faith is required. Listen to your gut, Emma. Your gut knows the answer.”

  “My gut is confused.”

  She laughed. “Then listen to your heart. And give him time. He nearly died of cancer and he’s only been better a short while. Time is what you need.”

  The next day, I thought about our conversation while I was biking to the Walkers’, down the country roads and past the strawberry fields, where I could have been earning spending money if I had put in an application early enough, but I didn’t because I’d been preoccupied with Lucas’s situation. The muscles in my legs ached. I was tired of biking. If I ever got a car, I would never ride a bike again.

  When I arrived, I left my bike in the front yard and knocked politely on the front door. No one answered, so I let myself in, hoping that the first person I came across wouldn’t be Mrs. Walker. But the house seemed empty. Mack, I knew, was outside. He’d gradually come to accept cancer-free Lucas and had stopped growling, but he still seemed wary of him, so Lucas’s mother decided he was an outdoor dog, at least while the weather was nice. So Mack wouldn’t be inside. But where was everyone else? Out in the barn? I raised my voice and called out, “Hello! Anyone home?”

  “We’re up here!” Eric’s yell came from upstairs. “Come on up, Emma.”

  I didn’t usually go upstairs. Actually, I wasn’t allowed upstairs. Mrs. Walker equated bedrooms with sex, so she made it a rule that there would be no girls in the bedrooms, a rule I’d violated only once when Lucas and I were there alone. We’d made out pretty passionately on his bed, but that was as far as it went. I wasn’t worried about breaking her rule now, though. With all that had happened with Lucas’s recovery and the fact that Eric was there, it was probably okay. Probably.

  I took the stairs two at a time, glad that Eric was around for a talk. When I got to the top, I found Eric and Lucas in Eric’s room. Both of them were sitting on the floor, their backs against the wall, legs stretched in front of them. Eric had his laptop open and they were staring at the screen. When I walked in, they looked up.

  “Hey, Emma,” Eric said. “What took you so long? I thought you’d be here by now.”

  I dropped my bag on the floor and sat in Eric’s desk chair. In the old days, I’d have nestled in next to Lucas, and he’d have wrapped his arms around me, pulling me so close our bodies would have melded tight against each other, but those days were over. “I wanted to give your mom a breather. She was annoyed with me last night.” I looked at Lucas’s face to see if he’d acknowledge the fact that he’d been crying or mention that the reason we’d left the porch was because he’d dragged me behind the barn, but his expression was blank.

  “We need to talk,” Eric said, lowering his voice. He waved a finger toward the doorway. “Everyone’s outside, but you should close the door anyway.”

  I swung the door shut and settled back in the chair. Eric closed the laptop and said, “We’ve been talking.” He gestured to Lucas. “He told me about his aircraft crash and how he needed a host body to survive so he latched on to Lucas. We’ve been brainstorming ways to fix this all morning.”

  “Really,” I said, my breath catching in my chest. Eric spoke so matter-of-factly that it took me aback. “You believed that story?” I looked at Lucas, who had the good sense to look sheepish.

  Eric said, “It’s not just a story, Emma. It’s what happened.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this all night,” I said. “I can tell he believes it, but I just can’t wrap my brain around it. His story is pretty out there.”

  “It is true,” Lucas said with conviction.

  “Well, I believe it,” Eric said. “I knew right away he was telling the truth. It explains everything—why the agents were looking for wreckage and why they were interested in Lucas’s recovery. And why Lucas�
��s cancer is gone now.”

  And it also explained Mrs. Kokesh’s feeling that there was a “disturbance in the force,” I thought, then pushed the idea out of my mind. Thinking that Lucas was mentally ill was easier to fathom.

  “We’ve been working on a plan.” He put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “Obviously, he can’t stay here. And we want Lucas back.”

  I leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Maybe we should start from the beginning. Tell me what he told you because I don’t think I got the whole story.”

  Eric got up and put the laptop on his desk, then sat on the edge of the bed. Lucas watched, then got up and sat next to him, copying the exact way he positioned his arms and legs. Eric said to Lucas, “Is it okay if I tell her what happened?” Lucas nodded in response.

  And then Eric told me the whole thing. Very early that morning, after his parents had headed out to the barn, he’d heard crying from Lucas’s room. Normally, in the summer, the whole family would be working from early on, but because of Lucas’s cancer and recovery, he got a pass, and because Mrs. Walker didn’t want Lucas to be alone, they took turns staying with him. This morning it was Eric’s turn.

  “At first, I couldn’t figure out what that noise was,” Eric said, “and then I followed it to Lucas’s room. He was curled up in bed and really upset. That’s when he told me.”

  Right from the start, Eric sensed Lucas was telling the truth. Eric believed that the object I’d found was a pod, a kind of shuttle attached to a larger spaceship that had carried him here from another planet. Apparently, the pod didn’t hold the alien’s actual body, though. What it contained was something more like his soul or his energy.

  “His physical body is dormant back on his planet, waiting for him to return,” Eric said, as if he were describing a cool scene in a movie. “And when Mack came up to sniff the pod, Scout jumped out and used Mack as a host.”

  “Who jumped out?” I asked.

  “Scout,” Eric said, pointing to Lucas. “That’s what I’m calling him, because that was his job. He was a scout, part of a team that compiled data about other planets.”

  “What a minute.” I held up my hand and turned my attention to Lucas. “What’s your actual name? What did they call you on your planet?” I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation, but as long as we were, I wanted some answers.

  He smiled shyly, a look I’d never seen on Lucas’s face. Lucas was all confidence and brash good humor. Being shy wasn’t on his list of personality traits. “I can’t say it in your language. We communicate differently than you do.”

  “Oh.”

  Eric continued. “Then, when Mack came into the house, Scout was along for the ride. He figured out he’d have a better chance of surviving if he had a human host, so when he saw Lucas and realized he was dying, he went out of Mack and into Lucas through the membranes in their eyes. After that, he cured the cancer, but then he was stuck.” Eric’s eyes grew wide. “So he had to learn the language and figure out who everybody was. That had to suck. Crazy how well he adapted.”

  “So you’re okay with this whole thing?” I asked Eric. He seemed all right. In fact, he sounded almost happy about the fact that his brother was supposedly possessed by an alien—like it was a cool summer project. Like it was one of his junk piles in the barn he was going to put together and turn into something that worked.

  “Of course I’m not okay with it,” he said with an eye roll. “I mean, this is really bad for Lucas and for Scout. And us too, obviously.”

  I stood up and pointed toward the doorway. “Can I talk to you in private for a minute, Eric?” To be polite, I said to Lucas, “You don’t mind, do you? Just for a minute.”

  Eric looked puzzled, but he followed me down the hall. When I was sure we were out of earshot, I said, “Do you think we can trust him?”

  He shot a glance back to his room. “Who? Scout?”

  “Yeah, Scout or Lucas or whatever you want to call him.” I swallowed the lump in my throat that I knew would trigger tears if I didn’t push it back.

  “Emma, don’t you believe him?”

  Dammit, now the crying had begun. I wiped my eyes. “That’s the problem. It’s so crazy but I think I do believe him. And if it is true, how can we trust what he’s saying?”

  Eric put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Emma, we have to trust him.”

  I sighed. From little on we were told not to talk to strangers. Not to take candy, or help them look for their lost kittens, or get too close to their car. That’s how kids got abducted and killed. Everyone knew that. And now a stranger had taken over his brother’s body and Eric wasn’t even alarmed.

  “But we don’t know what that thing inside of Lucas even is.” I was trying to speak quietly and my words came out in a hiss. “Maybe he’s killed Lucas, or is going to take over one of us next. How do we know?” Part of me still couldn’t believe we were having this discussion. Lucas as a host body for an alien? I was in the middle of a horrible nightmare, one that felt real.

  Eric’s face softened. “You don’t have to worry, Emma. None of that is gonna happen. Scout’s just a kid, like us. This was his first job out of school and he feels like he screwed up by not following orders. He has a major case of survivor’s guilt. You should have heard him crying this morning. It didn’t even sound like regular crying. It was this primal, anguished sound. Man, it was like the worst thing ever. You know Lucas never cried. He was tough as hell. Not this guy. Scout, he’s got tender feelings.” He leaned in closer. “You know, he didn’t even know what crying was. He was afraid he was doing something wrong, like peeing in your pants. Trust me, he’s not dangerous. We have to help him or he’ll never get home and we’ll never see Lucas again.”

  I wouldn’t have thought there was anything that Eric could say to make me feel better, but I had to admit this helped. Still, it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I took a deep breath. “This whole thing is unbelievable. I kind of want to go back and pretend nothing’s wrong.”

  “Yeah, well that’s not going to work. This is happening.”

  I leaned against the wall, shaking my head. “This is so messed up. I just want Lucas back the way he was.”

  “You and me both.”

  I sighed. “So what do we do about it?”

  “Scout and I came up with a plan, and it involves you,” Eric said. “Are you in?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Am I in?” I said. “I guess so. What’s the plan?”

  A minute later, all three of us were bounding down the stairs, headed outside to the old barn, the one Eric used as his workshop. Before he’d tell me the plan, Eric said he had to show me something. We managed to make it safely inside the barn with the door shut behind us without encountering anyone else. Eric flipped a light switch and the whole place came into view. What seemed like piles of junk in the dark still looked like piles of junk, but at least there was some order to all of it. A wooden workbench on the far wall was topped with pegboard covered with hanging tools. An enormous red metal chest of drawers next to it held still more tools. Lucas had told me once that Eric had more than a thousand dollars’ worth of tools, all purchased with his own money. Off to one side was Eric’s current project, a car covered with a large tarp.

  “You know what’s under here?” he said, striding over and whipping off the cover with a flourish, like a bullfighter with a cape.

  “A car,” I said, stating the obvious. A white car, with a big scrape on one side, but I’d seen worse. I walked around it and noticed that, unlike a lot of Eric’s projects, everything seemed intact. It even had license plates, although they were expired.

  “It’s a Pontiac Grand Prix,” he said, tapping on the hood. “It was ready for the scrap heap when I got it. A barn car.” A barn car was what people around here called the nonworking automobiles that they kept in their barns, hoping to someday have the time or money to fix them up. When someday never came and they realized they needed the space, they’d offer the car f
ree for the taking. When that happened, Eric and his dad would take their truck and tow the vehicle home. For the price of parts and the cost of his time and labor, Eric fixed them up and sold them. He’d done it a few times now and made a crapload of money.

  “It’s nice,” I said peering inside. The upholstery was in good shape and the windshield wasn’t cracked. It was decent, as barn cars went. Through the window, I saw Lucas leaning in to look from the other side, just like me, and I was touched at how hard he tried to fit in. “But old.”

  “It’s not that old,” Eric said. “If it was a kid, it would only be in fifth grade.”

  “Right,” I said, doing the math and figuring that in car years, the Grand Prix was elderly.

  “It was dead when I got it,” Eric said. “Some idiot tried to drive it through standing water when the road flooded a few years ago. Killed it completely. But it purrs like a kitten now. Six cylinders and it only has sixty thousand miles. Probably the best car I’ve turned yet and I could make a big profit if I sold it.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a keychain, which he held out to me. “But I’m not going to sell it. I’m giving it to you.”

  “Me? Why would you give me a car?”

  He still held the keys out, but when I didn’t take them, he set them on the hood. “Because you’re going to need it to carry out the plan. And when you come back with my brother, you’re going to need a car next year. Seniors don’t take the bus.”

  He was right about that. Seniors at our high school didn’t take the bus. The ones who didn’t have cars rode with those who did. Only friendless losers would be caught dead riding the school bus their senior year. Even as a junior, there was something of a stigma, so I always rode with Lucas on the days he went to school. When his cancer treatment kept him home, his friends were glad to give me a ride. But next year was another matter. One I hadn’t even started to think about yet. A car would be a good thing to have, but no one just gave you a car, even a junky Pontiac Grand Prix, without some big strings attached. And only a complete moron would agree to something without knowing the details.