Toby cornered her at one end of the swings. Jess watched from a safe distance. Bianca wasn’t trying too hard to get away. She made sport of it. Now she kept one of the poles between Toby and herself, dodging back and forth in response to each shriek-inducing lunge.
“That was all you, big guy!” she mocked. “You little … turd burglar!”
That got him going in earnest. He lunged again and this time kept coming. Bianca ran him around the pole a few times, shrieking in genuine fear now, then off across the yard. Jess could tell Bianca was trying to get away this time, but Toby’s long legs gave him the advantage. He caught her in just a few steps, grabbed her and took her to the ground in a tumble.
He was careful, though, Jess noted, to roll first to his back so Bianca fell on top of him as they went down, and in that instant she realized Toby was loving the game too. He wasn’t just wrestling with a friend. He wanted to touch Bianca like she wanted to touch him.
Huh, she thought.
Maybe I am jealous.
Bianca rolled on top of him, laughing, cursing—complaining about this or that thing he was ruining. Her nails, her skin, getting grass in her just-conditioned hair …
Jess pocketed her phone, turned and walked away. She went all the way to the edge of the yard, to the point where it curved down to the shallow valley and the fields beyond, stopped and deliberately made herself take in the view. The sounds of her friends wrestling behind her were distracting, but the spectacular vista was almost enough to soothe it all away. It was her favorite time of day, the sun heading for the horizon. All summer, in fact, every chance she got, she’d come out around this time and stand and stare into the clear Idaho sky. Compelled, in a weird way. It was one of the most beautiful, serene settings, and it was right there in her own back yard.
Venus shone bright this afternoon, all alone, a single white dot in the crystal blue heavens. No clouds, no moon yet. Just that lone planet, sparkling in the deep, deep blue.
The first “star” of the night.
Unable to stay distracted long, she glanced over her shoulder at her two friends. Bianca was going on about her hair. How Toby was, of course, ruining it. After it started to feel awkward Jess made herself stop staring. Deliberately she put her attention back on the inspiring scene.
Her hair had no special anything about it. Certainly nothing to be worried about if it got a little grass in it. Bianca called Jessica’s hair “auburn”. Jess called it brown. No style. Pulled up in a ponytail, which was how she usually wore it.
She blew a loose strand from her eyes.
There wasn’t anything special about her, really. She wasn’t tall. Definitely not model material. Not that she cared. Being drop-dead gorgeous was not in any future vision of herself. She looked her age, though she knew she didn’t help her cause by failing to wear makeup, get a real hairstyle, wear the right clothes or any of the thousand other things a girl could do to make herself look like something more. Bianca certainly tried to give her advice on the matter, but Jess was hardly a willing subject.
She turned and lingered longer this time, watching as the two of them wrestled, both now covered in grass. Bianca’s pretenses had fallen completely away and she was as dirty and disheveled as any kid her age might’ve been after such a romp.
If only, thought Jessica, I could find a boy that wasn’t such a …
Boy.
Why did they always have to act that way?
“Stop!” Bianca finally brought a halt to the shenanigans. Toby, tired himself, relented. Bianca rolled off him and stood, dusting herself with frustrated swipes of her hands and continuing to complain.
“I better get home,” Toby decided, rising to his feet.
Bianca smirked at the way he said it. “Mama calling?”
“Ha ha.” He rose to his full height, shoulders back, chin up. “I’ve got band practice, thank you very much. Future rock star, right here.” He glanced at Jess. “One day you’ll have me on your phone.”
“Whatever,” Bianca continued picking bits of grass from herself, unimpressed. Of course that was all part of the act. Jess knew she was very impressed. With everything about Toby.
He’d already grown tall, probably six feet, and seemed to tower over Bianca as he stood beside her. Her head was down, attention on a particular bit of something on her leg, and when she looked up …
He stole a kiss.
“Gotcha,” he said and ran off before she could smack him. She pretended to be offended.
“See ya, Jess!” he called over his shoulder, stopping to grab his flip-flops as he bolted from the yard.
“Toby!” Bianca spluttered. “Jerk!”
Jess could tell by the look on her face, however, that the kiss was exactly what she’d been after. Everything had been carefully engineered for that moment. Toby continued running, around the house, looking back a few times to laugh. Bianca kept her attention on Jess.
“Is he gone?” she asked after a minute, doing a fine job of acting perturbed.
“Yeah,” Jess turned and went closer to the absolute edge of the back yard, starting a little bit down the slope.
Bianca followed, footsteps scrunching in the thick grass as she drew close and stopped. Jess glanced at her from the side. B’s exotic features glowed in the orange light of the fading sun, gentle breeze blowing her shiny black hair.
So beautiful.
Like a magazine picture.
Jess turned back to the vista.
Bianca, however, was ready for the next whatever.
“What do you want to do now?”
Jess just wanted to be alone. Unfortunately there was no way that was going to happen.
“I don’t know. Watch the sun set?”
“Come on. It’s our last night of freedom.”
“I like this time of day,” Jess insisted. “The world is at peace.”
Bianca didn’t push. Instead she tried to stand there patiently, looking out into the distance. Trying to appreciate the splendor.
She was bored within minutes.
“You should ask Mike out,” she said randomly, breaking the way-too-brief tranquility.
Jess blinked. “What?” Then: “Mike Skarsden?”
Bianca shrugged. “He’ll probably never ask you. I’ve come to the conclusion he’s too shy.”
You couldn’t argue with that logic. Not that Jess would ever try. Bianca had already made up her mind—before summer even started—that Jess and Mike should be together. And once Bianca decided on something like that …
Jessica’s greatest fear, more even than asking Mike out, was that Bianca would take matters into her own hands. Try and set them up or something. It certainly wasn’t beyond her.
“I’m going to swing,” her friend announced and turned, the casual remark already forgotten. The implications of it, however, had kicked Jessica’s mind into an unwelcome state of anxiety. Tomorrow was the first day at a new high school—this one started at sophomore; the tenth grade rather than the usual ninth—and if there wasn’t already enough stress, now she had to worry about what Bianca might be planning.
Great. She watched her friend head back to the swings, trying to read any hint of purpose or intention in her expression.
Thanks, B. Way to ruin my last evening.
Then a bright flash.
Jess snapped her attention to the sky.
What the … ?!
For an instant it lit everything; brilliant, like a giant flashbulb, snapping across the heavens. Her eyes searched the deep blue, thoughts of Bianca’s potentially diabolical plans momentarily forgotten. The flash came from somewhere high overhead, just out of her peripheral vision—intense enough to cast flickering shadows across the land.
Crack! a tiny boom split the air in its wake and she found the source: a small, white-hot object, traveling at speed. Bianca was back beside her, craning her neck too, transfixed, watching as the tiny meteor flew from the spot where it had materialized—it must’ve materialized; there was
nothing there a second ago—arcing down, fading to a point of sun-bright heat as it blazed toward the ground. Mesmerized, Jess watched it trail faint wisps of white smoke across the dusk sky, tiny flames—heading right for them, it seemed, but then she realized it was going to hit further away—and she watched, wide-eyed, as it headed for the distant trees, until … it reached the forest canopy a few hundred yards past the barn and punched through, sending up a puff of debris ...
Poompf! a moment later, a muffled sound, followed by a wisp of smoke that drifted into the air. Marking the spot like a mini mushroom cloud.
Jess stared.
“That was a big frickin rock!” Bianca’s voice had a tremor of awe in it. “I didn’t even see it coming.”
“It came out of nowhere.” Jess gaped at the distant woods. “And it didn’t look like a rock.” Then, impulsively: “Come on!” And for no good reason—what am I doing?—she was running. Taking off down the hill, impelled to action by a rush of curiosity.
A quick glance confirmed Bianca was frozen in place behind her.
“Wait!” Her friend shouted. “What?”
Jess hurried. Faster. Thought to pause, to encourage B to follow, her friend standing dumbfounded by her action, but there was no time for that and she was suddenly, to her own surprise, running as fast as she could. She was well down the hill before she looked back again.
She yelled louder: “Come on!”
CHAPTER 2: PANIC
Behind her Bianca took off. Not really intending to follow, it seemed, more hoping to stop Jessica’s sudden, mad flight toward the wooded beyond.
“Wait!” her friend hollered as she ran, crashing into the tall field grass. Jess was already far in the lead.
“Wait!” she called again, desperation in her voice.
Up ahead Jess slowed though she didn’t stop. Soon she was passing the familiar barn, heading to the edge of the wooded areas where she rarely went. She wasn’t sure what drove her so recklessly but she knew this: if she stopped to get into a discussion Bianca would talk her out of it.
At the edge of the woods she gauged the direction of the fallen object, eyeing the fading trail of smoke that drifted into the darkening sky. She made a mental fix on it then set off into the trees, checking Bianca’s progress.
“What are you doing?!” her friend called out, rushing to catch up. Angrily Bianca followed Jess into the dimness of the woods, cursing with every step. Finally, after what she deemed a far enough distance, Jess stopped and waited.
Bianca picked her way the final distance until she joined her, “What’s gotten into you?” stepping gingerly, ouching and complaining in her bare feet. Jess was barefoot too, only she spent every summer that way—the way you were supposed to spend summer—so to her the hazards of the forest weren’t a big deal. She was used to it. Bianca was just being a princess.
Her friend stopped and took the opportunity to check front and back, wiping her legs and growing more upset by the moment. “Tomorrow’s the first day of school!” she complained. “High school, Jessica! High school! Been planning this day for years?” She glared at her wide-eyed, then shook her head and went back to swiping at her legs. “First Toby, now this.”
“It’s not that bad,” Jess offered.
“Not that bad?! You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, Jessica. Heard that one?”
Jess decided not to continue arguing. Before the next round of protests began she turned back to the woods in the direction of the fallen object, wanting to find it before she lost sight of the trail. Or, what it really felt like, before it turned out to be unreal.
It’s real.
She was walking again.
“Wait!” Bianca was beyond frustrated.
“I just want to see what it is,” Jess made her way deeper into the woods. Bianca stayed where she was.
“Why now?” her friend wanted to know, voice growing further away, rooted in the same spot. “It isn’t going anywhere. Why not tomorrow? It’s getting dark and I can’t even see where I’m going.” Then, desperate: “Jessica!”
Jess kept walking. She heard Bianca grumble as her friend realized she was being ignored then, when Jess didn’t slow, the grumble turned to an aggravated growl.
“This was not how I wanted to spend my last day of summer!”
But she moved. She was following again.
Jess kept going. Picking her way through the increasingly dark forest, stopping now and again to make sure she was going the right way. The fading daylight combined with the dense canopy of trees made progress more and more creepy with each step, but she pressed on, driven by a curiosity she could no longer explain.
Then something. Up ahead. A shaft of light, dim but brighter than the ambient gloom, shining through a hole in the trees. Probably the spot where the object punched through. Most of the smoke from the impact had dissipated but a haze still drifted.
“That’s where it fell,” she called over her shoulder.
Bianca drew closer. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
Jess took a few more steps and stopped, looking up at the broken branches as Bianca crunched through the underbrush and joined her. Overhead were a bunch of shattered limbs, snapped away from the entry of whatever fell. One of them was quite big. A large trunk was cracked in half, the pinkish color of the moist, live wood standing out in the deepening dark.
Whatever crashed through made a hell of an entry.
Jess followed the trajectory through the break, from the sky through the hole, all the way to the ground, searching for …
Her eyes went wide.
“Oh shit …”
Bianca grew alarmed.
“What? What is it?”
Jessica’s voice dropped, practically to a whisper.
“It can’t be.”
Bianca cast about frantically, trying to see.
Then she did. She saw what Jess saw and covered her mouth, horrified. For laying face down in an impression in the soft ground was …
A body.
CHAPTER 3: BAD DECISIONS
Bianca screamed.
“Wait!” Jess reached for her as she bolted, snagging an arm but unable to hold on. Bianca was off and running. Jessica, however, was locked in place.
It’s a man!
Terrified yet …
He should be burned to a crisp!
But he wasn’t.
He should be mangled but …
Wasn’t.
She made herself take a few deep, stabilizing breaths.
Bianca stopped somewhere off in the gloom, held in check by an impulse at which Jess could only guess, ready to break back into a sprint at the slightest provocation. Torn between fleeing for her life and not leaving her friend. Her crazy, insane friend who, stubbornly, remained standing at the scene of the crime. Standing, unmoving, right by …
The body.
Is he …
Jess made a closer study. A few tattered, black ribbons of what had probably been clothes were all that covered him. He had short, dark hair. It was a white guy, she noticed, skin slightly pale in the dim light. He was laying in a dent in the ground—he dented the ground! —and looked to be bigger than average. Like, taller than most guys. She steadied herself. Made herself make a calm assessment of the situation. Now was not the time for her typical brand of rambling musings. Here was a guy who just fell through the trees in a fireball and was, impossibly, intact, looking for all the world like he walked there and simply laid down in the dirt. Was there a meteor somewhere nearby? Had the guy just been laying there already when the meteor hit? Or maybe walking in the woods and it knocked him out? A hurried scan of the immediate area, though, and as far as Jess could see in the gloom, there was no meteor. No smoking rock.
Just the smoking guy.
She swallowed. There he was. Right where the flaming object should’ve landed. Tiny, residual bits of smoke curled at the edges of his body, either from the ground or from him, or maybe both. It was him tha
t fell from the sky. He’s the meteor.
How?!
Was he alive? How could he possibly be? The idea of being there with a dead person on top of everything else …
But he looked so fresh. So whole. Not even charred. Compelled, inexplicably compelled, she moved a little closer, looking him over, eyes straining in the low light until …
He was breathing.
She froze. Tried to speak but managed only a hiss:
“He’s breathing!”
“What?!” Bianca hissed back from the dark distance, barely audible and totally incredulous.
“He’s breathing!” Jess confirmed, louder this time but still strained.
Bianca almost ran again but held. “What the … ??” Then, slowly, she started back, driven by a curiosity her reason, like Jessica’s, obviously could not shake. “It’s a man!” her friend said to herself, as if saying it out loud would help it make more sense. “I thought it was a meteor! Holy crap it’s a guy!”
Jess looked up through the opening in the trees. It was getting harder each minute to see.
“Did he not just …” Bianca reached her and followed Jessica’s gaze, looking back and forth between the hole in the canopy above, the darkening sky and the man on the ground, “… fall out of the sky? Did we not just see that?”
“We did.” Jess couldn’t believe it either.
“He came shooting out of nowhere,” Bianca kept repeating the impossible. The incredible. “Landed here,” she pointed. “And he was on fire,” she reminded, inching closer. “Don’t forget he was on fire.”
“I know.” Jessica’s own amazement threatened to overwhelm her. How can this be?! She was trying to understand how she could be staring at a man who just popped out of thin air—all the evidence pointed undeniably to that—on fire, who then shot to ground from a thousand feet in the air and crashed through the trees—breaking a trunk and several large branches in the process—and was now laying, completely whole, and alive, in a depression—that he made—in the ground.
There were so many things wrong with this.
Star Angel: Awakening (Star Angel Book 1) Page 2
