Dinner is quiet. The absence of Dad’s voice, as grating as it could be when he was prattling on, makes the farmhouse feel even bigger and emptier. Mom picked up KFC on the way home from work, which helps a little. Grease eases a lot of pain.
Not that we’re in pain. Not me, not Mom.
“What’d you do today?” she asks me over wine and Cokes. She’s dressed again in her pink pj’s, which makes me wonder if she went to work like that and I just didn’t notice. But no, my mother is tough, not crazy.
I shrug. “Rescued a cat from a tree. Helped an old lady cross the street. Shit like that.”
“Nice.”
“How about you?”
“Saved the world from a deadly virus.”
“Damn. You got me beat.”
My mother waves a drumstick in the air. “Well, it was just one person and he had strep throat, but it could have been the plague.”
“Until you stopped it.”
“Until I stopped it.” She starts to eat the chicken but takes a sip of wine instead. “What’s on the agenda for tomorrow? More of the same?”
I cock my head, chewing. “That would be my best guess.” Which is true. Maybe we’ll go to the lake, or if it’s stupid hot, we’ll go to the mall at the edge of town and soak up the AC. “And you?”
My mother drops the drumstick and rubs her eyes with her forefinger and thumb like she wants to poke her eyeballs out. “I should probably go see Jack.”
My uncle. Carol’s husband. Dad’s brother. “He doesn’t know?”
Mom scowls. “You think he didn’t get the memo?” Before I can answer, she lets out a breath. “His note was probably better written than mine. Carol went to Penn State, after all.”
And Dad went to the School of Life.
“He might know more about what’s going on,” she says.
I rip into a hunk of thigh meat, chewing sloppily. “What do you mean? What else do you need to know?”
Mom rests her hands on the table. “It’s not . . . it’s not that simple, Matty. When people leave—”
“The ones left behind get on with their lives.” How does she not understand this?
She starts to say something, her mouth open and moving, but then she stops and smiles. “You’re right. That’s what we do. But . . . Jack and I still need to talk.” When she sees me about to protest, she quickly adds, “He owns the farm too. He might want to do something with it now that DJ’s gone.”
“I doubt it. What would he want with a farm? It’s dead. And even if it were doing well, he’s already got a job.”
My uncle’s a car salesman. He met Carol about five years ago when she was looking for a car. She didn’t buy one but she married Jack. In retrospect, maybe my uncle should have tried harder to sell her on the car instead.
“Matty, I don’t want to argue. I’m tired and it’s been a long-ass day.” My mom slumps forward with her chin on her hands. “Would you mind cleaning up tonight?”
“Oh yeah, sure, sure.” I scan the table. I can easily scarf down the rest of the chicken and sides. Except for the green beans. Who likes that crap?
“Thanks. And I can do the coffee in the morning. Sleep all you want,” she says, her words a bit slurred. Too much wine, not enough wings? Nah, she’s probably just tired.
She leaves, taking her glass with her, and something occurs to me. “Hey? You called him, right? You called his cell?”
My mother’s head bobs and then stops. “Oh. No. I didn’t.”
“Did you . . . do you want me to?”
Her eyes brighten. “Would you?”
I reach for my phone and scroll through my contacts. Is he under “Dad” or “DJ”?
“They have GPS, right?” Mom creeps back to the table. “Like, we could find him through his phone?”
“He’s not . . . Mom, he’s not lost.”
My mother’s cheeks flush. “I know.”
I tap the phone icon next to my dad’s number and wait for it to connect. I feel hyperaware of my mom’s anxious breath beside me. It rings once, then twice, then . . .
The sound of the Enterprise’s transporter, a ghostly shimmer of chimes, echoes in the empty house.
Dad’s ringtone. He left his phone here.
My mother’s face falls but she recovers quickly. “All right, so . . . I’ll let Jack know.” She pushes herself away from the table.
“Yeah, sure.” What does she care? He’s gone and it doesn’t matter. We don’t need him.
As soon as my mother is out of the room, nausea hits me, a thick, gross wave of the meat sweats. I wrap the leftovers quickly and toss them into the fridge for breakfast.
A whine startles me; Ginger’s at the screen door. “You want out, girl?” Her tail swishes from side to side on the floor. I flip the latch and she tears like a bolt toward the field as soon as I open the door. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
While I wait for her to pee and do a sniff around the yard, I text-harass Brian about Miranda. Ginger usually returns quickly, panting and wagging her tail, ready for a treat before bedtime, but after a few minutes, she’s still not back.
I stick my head out into the darkness and glance around. She’s not in the side yard doing her business, not in her doghouse waiting for a Milk-Bone.
“Ginger! Ginger! Come on, girl!” I clap my hands and whistle.
Only silence in response.
What the hell . . . Where is she? Seriously, with this dog. I step into the yard, cup my hands around my mouth, and shout her name until I’m hoarse.
Fine, whatever. Let her stay out all night. She’ll be back. She’ll have to eat.
Out in the empty field, the “space field,” something moves, catching my eye. A flash of gold—it has to be my dog. “Ginger? Ginger!” I can just about see the white of her tail flicking in the light of the moon. Damn dog.
The field isn’t far—just about fifty yards away—but I have to cross a stream to get there. My dad, in his crappy Pennsylvania accent, calls it a “crick.” Water burbles over mossy rocks; a tangle of weeping willow branches drip across the surface. I carefully hop from rock to rock, pushing away the soft branches until I reach the other side.
The field is not empty.
There is my dog. And . . . a girl.
I blink a few times to make sure it’s not a trick of the moonlight, but no, Ginger’s sitting at the feet of a girl.
According to my dad, people used to travel up and down the coast to check out the space field, to feel its energy, he said. But that was years ago. Since I’ve been alive, maybe a couple dozen or thirty visitors have trooped in and taken pictures.
But no one came in the middle of the night. There is quite literally nothing to see.
This is really weird. A shiver runs down my back even though the air is still and warm.
“Hello!” I call as I approach. “Is my dog bothering you?” I don’t want to scare her. Strange guy. Strange dog. Strange night.
She turns to me and her body is in silhouette. Long, slim legs and a slender figure, awkwardly skinny. Her arms dangle by her sides from her shoulders as if they’re pinned to a clothesline, and her shoulder-length hair looks white under the light of the moon. Not blond, but stark, flat white.
I raise my hand in a wave, expecting her to lift hers in return, but she just stands there, unmoving. I know she sees me. Whatever. I’m here to get the dog and go home.
“Ginger! Come on, girl! Let’s go!”
Ginger, that disloyal canine, stares up at the girl, completely ignoring me.
“Treats, Ginger! Come on! Treat time!” Not even that can tempt her. I wish I had a biscuit with me, or even a chunk of that cold KFC, but I’m empty-handed.
Out of nowhere, a wind kicks up around us, lifting leaves and bits of paper from the ground and whirling them in the air. The breeze feels electrically charged; the hairs on my arms and neck stand up.
What the hell . . .
The girl’s arms lift from her sides, as if she were about to take flight, but instead she waves her hands and fingers like the air itself is tangible, touchable. Her long fingers grasp for a leaf, for a candy wrapper, but each twirls out of her reach, teasing her and then escaping.
I hear a twinkle of delight, a thin whisper of a laugh, when her hand finally plucks a leaf from the air. Both hands hold the leaf reverently, as if it were something sacred in her palms, and she brings it closer to her face.
Is she going to eat it? No, that would be crazy. My feet find their way closer to her until I’m just a yard away. I watch, entranced, as she brings the leaf to her nose to sniff it. Suddenly her tongue darts out.
“Don’t!” I yell. “My dog probably peed on that.”
“My dog probably peed on that.” Did I really just say . . . ?
Why yes, yes, I did.
The wind dies down just as quickly as it started, almost as if my shout disturbed something. The girl glances up at me, her eyes narrowing.
“Uh, hi,” I say again. Her gaze on me is so intense, boring into me as if she were studying me. I bend down to Ginger’s level and pat the dog on her stupid fat head. “Okay, Ginger, let’s go.” She once again ignores me, but this time I grab hold of her collar and begin to pull her up. “Come on, girl,” I urge, but she is sixty pounds of stubborn. “Ginger. Let’s. Go.”
I feel like an idiot in front of this girl. “Uh, this happens sometimes. She gets in moods, you know?”
There’s a long pause before the girl responds. “She’s a dog, yes?”
Did I hear that right? Ginger’s big, but she’s not the size of a horse or a goat or anything. “She’s a Lab. A retriever,” I clarify when I see the girl tilt her head to one side. “You know, like if I throw a ball or something, she’ll fetch it and bring it back to me.”
The girl picks up a soft black bag from the ground next to Ginger. I half expect her to take out a tennis ball and test my theory, but instead she pulls out a small notebook wrapped in a thick rubber band. Turning from me and shielding the notebook from my eyes, she jots something with a quick hand.
Does she seriously not know Ginger is a dog? I shake my head to myself. Nah, couldn’t be. She probably just doesn’t recognize a Labrador retriever. Speaking of . . .
“Come on, Ginger, you lazy piece of . . . Let’s go home.” But the dog has planted her haunches into the earth.
“Is this your home?” I hear the girl ask.
“Yeah, over there.” I wave a hand toward the weeping willows and she gasps.
“The tree is your home.”
I laugh. “Uh, no. Behind the tree. The house past the crick—I mean, creek.” I gaze beyond the small stream to my house. The kitchen light is still on, as is the light in my mother’s room.
“You, uh, you live around here?” I ask the girl. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen her, and our town is small. Like, super small. Everyone knows everyone.
I’m totally not surprised when she shakes her head. She’s a visitor—one of those people. Naturally. There’s no way a girl standing in an empty field in rural Pennsylvania in the middle of the night is going to be normal. Why would I think otherwise?
She steps around the dog to get a closer look at the house, and when she glances back at me, I finally see her in the moonlight. I notice her eyes first, round and wide and framed by finely arched brows, her cheeks tawny and unblemished, her chin tapering to a gentle point. Her hair falls past her shoulders, white over a wispy layer of black. Her long neck sinks into a sharp collarbone, and she is so thin I can see the outline of her ribs under her lightweight T-shirt. Her skirt, cropped midthigh, looks like a child’s tutu, layer upon layer in cotton-candy colors: pink and blue and yellow and green, all pale and sparkly as if dusted with starlight.
She is like no girl I’ve ever seen, certainly no girl from our small town. She looks like she might float away with the leaves if the wind picks up again, and I have a sudden urge to grab hold of her bony wrists and tether her to the earth.
“This place is magical,” she says. “You and this dog are very fortunate.”
She seems to choose her words carefully, as if she’s consulting a dictionary in her mind. Her gaze tilts to one side and that white-black hair hangs from the side of her head in long hanks. A wig? It must be. Who has white hair? My hand wants to reach out and sweep it away from her face. I take a conscious step back from her. “I guess it’s okay. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived.”
“It’s magical,” she repeats, adding, “I can feel the energy.”
I snort. My dad tweeted crap like that a lot: The field absorbed the energy of the ship when it crashed. We just don’t know what to do with it. #PAspaceship #ibelieve
Please.
“Yeah, well.” I leave it at that. “So where are you from?”
Her eyes lift upward and drop back down to meet mine. She smiles, her lips in a tiny pucker.
“Um . . . up in the mountains? Altoona?”
She bobs her chin toward the sky.
“Farther? New York? Canada?”
This time she lifts my chin toward the sky; I feel a tingle as her fingertips touch my skin. I gaze upward at the field of stars scattered around the moon. She’s telling me, what? She’s from the moon?
Hoo boy. We may have a live one here.
“Okay, well, I gotta get home,” I say bluntly, pulling away from her touch. I clap my hands and call for Ginger. Finally, the dog rises off her haunches and follows me. We are at the willows, about to cross the stream, when I stop and turn back.
“You gonna be okay by yourself?” I ask. Maybe I should leave Ginger with her, just in case.
She smiles as if she hasn’t a care in the world. “My ride will be here soon.” She says it in a singsong. Tra-la-la, I can almost hear in her voice.
Well, okay. I wave and hop across the creek.
That was a very bizarre way to end my day. A day that began with Dad leaving and ended with . . . this.
Back in the kitchen, I finish cleaning up, wipe down the counters, and throw out the green bean side dish that congealed while I was outside.
I send Brian a text: dude, new crazy up at the field.
He writes: wtf
shes kinda hot.
she????
Through the window I try to keep an eye on her. The trees are thick with leaves and hard to see through at a casual glance; you kind of have to know what you’re looking for.
It’s been a long time, maybe a couple of years, since we’ve had a UFO tourist. My dad used to envision the field being turned into an attraction, complete with a visitors’ center where people could buy souvenirs or get their pictures taken.
“Junior, take a look at this map and tell me what you think,” he asked me often, pointing out a mock-up on his computer. “Should the parking lot be across the street or should we use our driveway as an entrance? I think we should sell snacks, don’t you? People get thirsty in the summertime, and if there’s a long line, they might get hungry too.”
We were going to get rich. We were going to get famous. We wouldn’t need to be farmers anymore.
But he never got very far because the field doesn’t belong to us. The government owns that portion of our farm and, like my mother and me, the Department of Agriculture doesn’t care about spaceships and blogs about conspiracy theories.
Oh jeez. Is this girl one of them? A conspiracy nut?
Ginger pads over to me at the counter while I stare out the window. She paws at my leg until I realize I haven’t given her a treat. I grab a biscuit from the bag and give it to her, and when I glance back up, the girl is gone.
No, not gone. She’s there, but she’s on the ground.
“What the . . .” Did something happen to her? I run out the door with Ginger at my heels, leaping over the creek and through the willows. “Hey! Hey, are you o—”
I stop. She’s on the ground, all right, legs stretched in front of her, feet pointed as if she were standing on her toes. Her eyes are wide open, staring straight up at the sky as if she were drinking it in, drowning in the moon and stars. My heart pounds in my chest and my lungs breathe a sigh of relief.
“You’re back,” she says. “The magnetism of this place. It’s so strong, isn’t it?”
I lean my hands on my knees to catch my breath. “No,” I say at last. “I thought . . . I thought you’d died.”
She smiles. “No. Not yet. I have a lot to do before that happens.” She pats the ground beside her. “Why don’t you sit down for a minute before you go home again?”
Ginger takes that as an invitation to lick the girl’s face and then plops down next to her. Whatever. I sit too, pulling my knees to my chest.
“So, what’s your name?” I ask.
Her hand snakes over to her notebook but she doesn’t pick it up. “I’m . . . Priya,” she says slowly, as if she were settling on the name. “That’s what people call me.”
“Nice to meet you, Priya.” I try to shake her hand, but it’s awkward, what with her lying on the ground and me sitting up. “I’m Matthew. People call me Matty. Are you, uh, getting a ride soon?”
“Soon, yes.”
No wristwatch, I see, no cell in her hand like every other person I know, although reception at the field is notoriously bad anyway. A sign, my dad often tweeted, that something alien had landed there (#ibelieve). In reality, probably a sign we need more cell towers in rural Pennsylvania.
Priya reaches a hand to pet Ginger. I notice it trembles and I wonder, is she nervous? Hungry? Mom gets trembly when her blood sugar is low, and she ends up scarfing down one of my father’s candy bars.
“You thirsty or anything? Need something to eat?”
“Eat?” Priya shakes her head and continues to stroke the dog’s coat. “I don’t need to eat.”
I laugh. “Everyone needs to eat.”
“Not me.”
Of course all this talk of eating rouses my dog from her slumber. She nuzzles her nose under Priya’s hand, startling her. “Her nose! It’s so cold!”
“Well. Yeah. She’s a dog.”
She stares at her fingertips, eyes wide. “And it’s wet.”
“Have you never petted a dog before?”
“No. But I sensed she wanted me to touch her.”
“You sensed it?” Kind of hard not to know when Ginger wants to be petted. It’s just about all the time. “She likes it when you scratch behind her ears.” I show her how to rub behind Ginger’s ears and the dog happily thumps her tail against the ground. Priya giggles and reaches her hand toward the dog, but her arm jerks suddenly and instead of touching Ginger’s ears, she grabs hold of the dog’s wagging tail. Ginger yelps and yanks away as she jumps up.
“Oh!” Priya’s eyes fill with tears. “I hurt her.”
“Nah, she’s okay.”
“No, no, I hurt her.” She covers her face with her hands and begins to weep. “I’m so sorry. We are instructed specifically to harm no one.”
We? What does that mean? Ginger is fine, she has to see that. And yet, those tears are absolutely real too.
I pull Priya’s hands from her face and hold them. Her long fingers are so cold, like tendrils of ice; I can feel every knuckle of bone in them through delicate skin.
But it’s her eyes that hit me like a punch to the gut. They’re pools, deep and wide, the water threatening to overspill if she blinks. She’s actually—truly—upset.
“It’s okay, really, it’s fine. Watch.” I call Ginger’s name, and she trots over to me. I guide Priya’s hand behind one of Ginger’s ears and let her scratch for a minute or two. The dog instantly sprawls on the ground, wallowing in the attention. Finally, Priya smiles.
“She’s not injured. I did not permanently harm her.” She stops scratching for a moment and reaches for her notebook. Shielding it from my view again, she scribbles on a page with a pen, then stops, cocks her head to one side, and writes some more. She glances up at me from under her white hair. “Observations,” she says, tapping the pen on the book.
Why are the pretty ones always insane? That’s a famous quote—from a philosopher, isn’t it? Or maybe The Simpsons? I glance out at the road beyond the weeping willows, but there isn’t a single flicker of light meaning a car is on its way here. I wonder how long she’ll give it till she needs to call for a lift.
Which reminds me . . . my home is waiting for me. Mom will flip out if she gets up and I’m gone. Two men disappearing on her in one day would really freak her out—and piss her off. I stand up and brush the dirt from my pants.
But Priya looks so small and fragile. What if something happens to her before her ride comes? I search the field for animals or weirdos, but the place is deserted, as it usually is.
“Look, I have to go. But I’m right over there if you need anything, okay?”
Her smile is placid and calm. “Okay.”
“Your cell won’t work here—”
“Cell?”
“Cell phone. You have one, right?”
She puts her hand on her bag as if she’s checking for one and then shakes her head.
“Well, if you need to make a call or want to use the bathroom, come on over. I’ll leave the side door open.” I point again toward the house. She can’t miss it; we’re the only family on this side of the street for about half a mile.
When I look back at her, her nose is buried in her notebook; a diamond stud sparkles in the moonlight. “So, um, good luck getting home.”
When she looks up at me, I stick my hand out. She stares at it, confused, until I take her hand and shake it gently.
I feel like a moron, but a smile lights up her face. She releases my hand and holds hers out to Ginger, who, being a dog that passed obedience school as a puppy, knows “shake.”
“Good-bye, Matthew. Good-bye, Ginger.”
The dog licks Priya’s nose and then joins me as we start down the gentle slope toward the creek for the second time that night—or morning, I guess it is now. I resist the urge to glance back over my shoulder. She’ll be fine. She’s what, seventeen? Eighteen? Old enough to take care of herself. And I’m pretty sure she was lying about not having a phone. Is there anyone on this planet who doesn’t own a cell?