“I get it,” James said finally. “Maybe I don’t want to share a sleeping nest with you. Did you ever think of that?”
“I can make another one just for you if you like, but it’s going to be cold, and it’s much warmer with two in a nest.” Falling Star held up his two index fingers and brought them together like two people spooning.
“I’ll take my chances. I can make a fire by snapping my fingers, you know.”
“I know.”
“I mean, we don’t know each other at all, and I’m not in the habit of sleeping with someone I don’t know.” James crossed his arms in front of him.
“We’ll have to get to know each other better.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” James said and tried not to roll his eyes. “And kissing my hand doesn’t count. I need more than that.”
Falling Star pondered that statement for a few moments. A look of inspiration came across his hairy face making his mustache twitch. He took James by the shoulders and bent down and gave him a quick peck on the lips.
“I didn’t mean you should kiss me again!” James said as he pushed himself away from Falling Star’s powerful grip. “I meant we should talk to each other, you know, get to know each other better.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I know you really like me, but you’ve got to work on your relationship skills, dude,” James said and smiled kindly up at the bashful yeti. Despite the unwanted kiss and all the awkwardness that followed it, James felt flattered by Falling Star’s attention. In fact, a little bit excited by it. It all might just be part of a prophecy that really had nothing to do with him personally, but it was flattering just the same. “You can’t just go around kissing people you hardly know.”
“I will try harder to get to know you better.”
“You could start by asking me about my life,” James said and began walking down to the island shore.
“We can talk when I gather branches and leaves for the night.”
“That would be great.”
“I’ve only had a few humans who were real friends.”
“I can tell,” James said and punched Falling Star lightly on the arm.
“Maybe after we get to know each other better, then we can kiss?”
“Maybe,” James said and felt the first heat of a blush forming on his cheeks. “But you’ve got to cool your jets for now. Don’t be in such a hurry.”
James followed the path through the bent ferns back to the rocky edge of the island.
“Do you want me to carry you across again?”
“That’s better,” James said encouragingly. “Ask me if it’s all right before picking me up. And yes… if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” Falling Star said and grinned. He placed his smooth hands beneath James’s arms and lifted him onto his furry shoulder.
“I’m beginning to like the view from up here.”
“You’re lighter than a chipmunk,” Falling Star said and tightened his grip. “And just as cute!”
The two quickly crossed through the cool water to the other side of the lake. Once on the sandy shore, James stretched up his arms and yawned. Falling Star did the same.
“Copycat!” James teased. His stomach suddenly growled. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too. We’ll see what we can find to eat in the forest,” Falling Star said as he moved a few low branches and peeked underneath but found nothing.
“Do you eat meat?” James asked politely.
“No. That’s one of the reasons I like Morrissey. We’re both vegetarians.”
“My mother’s a vegetarian. I like vegetarian food, but I do eat meat occasionally.”
“That’s fine with me,” Falling Star said as he walked into the mouth of the forest. He turned and said, “Let’s go find a nice spot to make our sleeping nests for the night.”
“Okay, but I get to choose the place.”
“That’s fine with me.”
James hurried after Falling Star, brushing the verdant ferns and mustard flowers away from his legs as he walked. The yeti’s stride was much longer than James’s; he moved very quickly through the undergrowth beneath the redwood canopy. James had a hard time just keeping up. If he stopped to catch his breath, Falling Star would disappear behind the trees ahead of him. Fortunately, he left enormous footprints in the moss and leaf litter that were easy enough to follow.
“How did you get us out of Fort Bragg?” James asked as he finally caught up with Falling Star.
“It’s easy to get out. You just have to push really hard through that electric plasma. They’ve never been able to hold me anyway,” he said happily. “But each time I escape, they capture members of my clan and force me to return before they will release them again. This escape only bought me a little bit of time.”
“I want to get back there as soon as possible too. I have to help Keira and Lumen escape.”
“We will do that together now that you’re better,” Falling Star said.
“You don’t have to help me,” James said. “I mean, I don’t want them catching you again. This is my problem. I want you to be safe.”
“I’ll help you, James. Don’t worry about them catching me. I can get away any time I want. I’ll help all of you escape.”
James smiled gratefully at Falling Star. “Keira and Lumen must be wondering what happened to me.”
“They know you’re with me,” Falling Star said. “They know you’re safe.”
“Did they see you rescue me?” James asked as he shooed a black fly away from his face with his right hand.
“Yes.”
“But what about Paul?”
“What about him?” Falling Star asked.
“Did he see you save me?”
“I don’t know. Why, do you want to help him escape too?”
James wanted to dodge that question. He hadn’t had time for any sort of closure around his relationship with Paul. As far as James was concerned, Paul had gone over to the dark side and he wasn’t coming back. And now that James was getting to know Falling Star a little better, he wasn’t sure he wanted Paul back anyway. Hadn’t there been little glimpses of this breakup coming all along? Hadn’t Paul said mean things about him, Lumen and Tenzing too? Didn’t he want to be treated like a god? Hadn’t he seen the evil part of Paul before? But still, they had been best friends for years and then lovers. Is it really all over? Do I still care about him? I don’t know! James’s thoughts spun around in his head, confusing his emotions further. “We’ll see when we get there. I have a feeling he won’t want to leave with us anyway.”
“That’s good,” Falling Star said and patted James on the back.
“Don’t get any funny ideas about it.”
“I won’t,” Falling Star said and smiled a little bit to himself. “I promise.”
THE FIRST sleeping nest was simple enough, a cluster of uprooted willow saplings woven together to create a six-foot hemisphere, the hollow inside filled with soft pine needles and multicolored leaves. Falling Star sat weaving it for most of the afternoon. For someone with such huge hands, he had extremely nimble fingers. James watched Falling Star move the saplings over and under each other, being careful not to snap them. This sleeping nest was for James, and Falling Star took extra care to make sure it was sturdy and comfortable. He placed it up against the rotting trunk of a fallen redwood for support. Directly across, Falling Star created a larger nest from slender alder and box elder branches. He lined it with downy cattails and bulrushes. It was about nine feet across. Definitely, king-size when compared to James’s queen.
The moon shone overhead half-full and the Milky Way spread its glittering wealth across the black sky. James pointed his finger at a pile of kindling and sent out a green bolt of electricity. A steady fire flamed up. He fed it with dried redwood bark and sticky sugar pine limbs that smoked, spat, and hissed. They sat on tree stumps Falling Star had pulled up and then dragged around the campfire, and they ate their foraged dinner bene
ath the redwood boughs.
Falling Star had gathered bright yellow chanterelle mushrooms and handfuls of ripe blackberries from the surrounding woods. James was hesitant to bite into the mushrooms, after they’d roasted them on long, thin sticks, for fear of a scorpion faerie coming out and attacking him, or at least being pissed off.
“They don’t live in random mushrooms, you know,” Falling Star explained. “They only live in faeries rings.”
“I didn’t know that they even existed, let alone where they lived. I’m going to be much more careful when I’m in the forest,” James said. “I mean, I didn’t even know that yetis were real until I met you.”
“And I didn’t know there were human lightning bugs until I met you,” Falling Star replied between bites of a smoky chanterelle. He had tied his long hair back with a fern frond, so it didn’t fall into his meal.
By firelight, Falling Star’s eyes glowed amber orange like a wild cat’s. It was a little spooky to talk to him with the darkness closing in all around them. And for a vegetarian, Falling Star had huge incisors. James twitched at the noises of unseen things, scurrying around, crying out, and hunting for food. Bats darted through the campground chasing moths drawn by the flame light. It was all very creepy, but sort of fun too. And James was alone out there with someone he’d just met, someone who now seemed to be more monster than man. He had to remind himself that he wasn’t wearing the power-deadening cuffs anymore and he was now at full voltage, ten billion watts. There was nothing in the forest he couldn’t defend himself against.
Even Falling Star.
“Your people have so many beautiful cities, all those electric lights and skyscrapers, but nothing is more lovely than the forest at night,” Falling Star said wistfully.
“I haven’t been to many cities,” James said. “My mother has. She’s a famous artist and she travels all around the world.”
“I’d like to meet her someday.”
“I don’t think that is going to happen. It’s too dangerous.”
Falling Star frowned in the firelight. “I want you to meet my mother. We’ll have to go up to Bluff Creek someday. That’s not too far from here. Have you heard of the Patterson film?”
“Is that the one with the Sasquatch walking away from the camera?”
“That’s my mother!”
“Really?” James asked. “I thought they said it was a hoax.”
“Yeah, well, they wanted to protect her and my family, so the government said it was a hoax. They showed it to me in Washington DC when I was first captured, and they were processing me.”
“That is so weird. That film is so much a part of our culture.”
“The Saesq’ec People have always been part of your culture. You just didn’t realize it. In the days of the Old West, they used to call us ‘Hidebehinds,’” Falling Star said and tossed another log on the fire. Brilliant sparks danced up into the air over their heads.
“I’ve never heard that name before.”
“We’ve been living alongside humans ever since there have been humans.”
An owl hooted from behind them. James jumped. Falling Star scooted his uprooted stump closer to James’s.
“You don’t have to worry about the forest when you’re with me.”
“I’m not worried,” James said. “I can take care of myself.”
“Every creature in the forest respects my people. They know we are the caretakers of the Earth. They won’t hurt us, even when they’re hungry.” Falling Star made a strange chirping sound. He did it again louder. A small bat flapped down from the treetop, squeaking back at him. Falling Star held out his hand. The bat landed gently on his palm. He fed it a blackberry. The bat chirped again and then flew off into the night.
“That was cool!” James said. “I’m supposed to be able to understand animals too. But I guess it only works if they are speaking to me.”
“I wasn’t really talking to that bat,” Falling Star explained. “I imitated the sounds they make. I can’t speak to them.”
“Oh, okay,” James said and laughed. “No wonder I couldn’t understand it. Keira and Lumen can understand animals too.”
“How did you meet Keira and Lumen?” Falling Star asked as he finished the last of the blackberries.
“I met Lumen at the Paragon Academy in Los Angeles after they tricked my mother into sending me there. It was supposed to be a special school for teenagers with paranormal powers like mine. But it turned out to be an underground Army facility. They did all kinds of painful experiments on Lumen and me. They wanted to use us as weapons against the enemies of this country.”
“That sounds bad,” Falling Star said as he poked the campfire embers with a stick.
“It was. They’re still doing that to all of us at Fort Bragg.”
“I felt your pain.”
“At Paragon I found out that my special powers come from alien DNA. My father is named Kun. He’s from a planet called Hjärta in the Zeta Reticuli star cluster.”
“I’ve met some alien visitors before, but that was a long time ago.” Falling Star removed the fern holding back his hair. “I don’t remember if they told me their names, though. Two of them visited. A couple. They were very friendly and funny. My mother loved them. And if my mother even likes you, that’s really saying something.”
“Kun sent Lumen, Paul, and me to look for a girl in all black. Keira was trying to break into the Oak Knoll Army Hospital when we found her. That was just a few weeks ago.”
A strange cry of pain came from right behind them, followed by the sounds of branches snapping and a loud thump. James and Falling Star leaped up and scanned the darkness beyond the campfire.
“What was that?”
“Something is badly hurt nearby,” Falling Star said, concern in his deep voice. “Let’s go see if we can help.”
“Okay,” James said hesitantly.
Falling Star moved quickly into the shadowy forest.
“Wait! Wait for me!”
James listened to the snapping and breaking sounds as Falling Star made his way through the thick dark foliage. James’s foot struck a rock, and he fell forward on his hands and knees on the damp soil. “Dammit!” He stood up and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He paused for a moment and then began to concentrate. His whole body began glowing with a bright green light, illuminating the surrounding trees. “That’s better.” James quickened his pace until he caught up with Falling Star. In the emerald glow, James saw a deer on its side. He bent down slowly and stroked its trembling body. The deer breathed rapidly.
“She has a broken leg,” Falling Star said and indicated the bloody limb.
“What can we do?”
“Hold her head up while I make a splint for her leg.”
James sat next to the doe. He held her head in his lap. Her ears felt plush and downy like a rabbit’s ears as he petted them. “We’re going to help you.”
The doe looked up wide-eyed at James. She blinked. From the look, he knew she understood him.
James smiled at her. “You’re going to be fine.”
The doe sighed heavily and rested her head in his lap. Falling Star had already set the bone between two sticks and bound it with wild grasses and long strips of bark. He placed his hands on either side of the break and held them together tightly. James thought he could see orange light emanating from beneath Falling Star’s palms. It reminded him of Paul’s healing powers.
“Wow, my healing ability usually isn’t this strong. Maybe some of your power is rubbing off on me?”
“I don’t know,” James said. “Paul only got his healing power after I accidentally zapped him.” James instantly regretted bringing up Paul’s name. No, I’m not going to think about him. He’s dead to me. I don’t want to deal with negative feelings right now. Focus on the task at hand. Falling Star didn’t seem to hear or didn’t care that James mentioned his ex-boyfriend. Good. I don’t want to talk about Paul anymore.
Falling Star lifted his hand
s away from the doe’s leg. To his surprise, the wound had healed completely. “Wow, that should do it,” he said. “You can let her up now.”
“Be careful,” James said to the deer. “Don’t put too much weight on that leg.”
The doe nodded to James and slowly made her way to a standing position. She was a little wobbly but finally found her balance. The deer licked at the splint a couple of times, adjusting it.
“And leave that on for now,” James cautioned. “Just to be on the safe side.”
In the next second, the doe leaped over a rotten log and disappeared into the redwoods.
“She didn’t say goodbye,” James said.
“Maybe she knows you will meet her again?” Falling Star suggested.
“How could she know that?”
“Some animals have psychic powers too.”
“Maybe they do.” James smiled and stood awkwardly next to Falling Star.
“We make a good team,” Falling Star said as he brushed the dead leaves off his legs and backside.
“You think so?”
“I’m glad you can make your own light. It’s very handy,” Falling Star observed. “Although I don’t need it because I can see in the dark.”
“I can’t. I already tripped and fell when I was trying to catch up to you.”
“You really are a lightning bug,” Falling Star said as he shielded his eyes.
“I can only do it when I’m in the dark.”
“Would you need it in the light?” Falling Star asked sarcastically.
“Duh!” James replied and slapped his forehead comically. “Don’t mind me. My brain isn’t working tonight.”
Falling Star reached over, then gently tapped the tip of James’s nose. “My adorable Lightning Bug.”
James blushed at this attention again, and his light took on a pinkish hue. He looked up into Falling Star’s dark eyes. He is very handsome: his charming mustache, high cheekbones, and all those muscles. But beyond that, he has a very kind heart. I like that the most. He’s so gentle with animals. I shouldn’t be afraid of him. He really likes me, and I think I’m beginning to like him too. He’s strong, compassionate, and brave. James felt himself leaning a little toward Falling Star, despite himself, as if expecting to be kissed. Falling Star noticed and leaned down to make his move.
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