by Nick Lake
Not Aidan.
She hadn’t reached for Aidan.
“I remember holding his hands when he was learning to walk,” said her mother, and now she was crying. Maybe her subconscious knew something, but her conscious mind didn’t. “It hurt my back—he always wanted to hold them—he didn’t cruise along sofas like you did, Emily—but I did it because I loved him, and, and…”
“Look what you’ve done,” said her dad to Emily. “I don’t know why you’re being so cruel but—”
“Give me your phone,” said Emily, suddenly thinking of something.
“What?”
“Just give it to me,” she said.
“I thought you didn’t want me to use it?”
She held out her hand impatiently.
Her dad handed over his phone. She tapped in his code—he’d change it now, but, hey—and called up the photo stream. “Here,” she said, handing it back. “Find me a photo of Aidan—from before, like, a few months ago. Any photo. From when he was small.”
“Sure.” Her dad scrolled through the photos.
Time passed.
The fire flickered.
Her mom made a whimpering noise.
Her father’s frown grew deeper, carved into his face, black-shadowed by the firelight.
“There must be…I mean…something has…”
“There are no photos,” said Emily. “Because he didn’t exist.”
Emily’s mom took out her own phone, silently, from her pocket. She looked at it for some time, swiping and swiping, photo after photo.
“I don’t have any, either,” she said.
“Now,” said Emily, “you should probably switch off your phones.” She remembered reading something about how your cell could be tracked, even when it wasn’t making a call. “There are people who want to get hold of Aidan. Bad people. Government people, I think. That’s who was shooting at us.”
“This doesn’t prove anything,” said Emily’s mom. “It’s all crazy. Someone must have done something to our phones.”
Emily looked at them both, and her heart broke for them, despite everything. She got up, and went around the fire to her mom, to…She wasn’t sure what. Give her a hug, or put her arm round her, or something, it didn’t matter what because her mom recoiled and Emily stood there awkwardly for a moment, her hand hanging in the air.
She looked over at her dad, for support, but he turned away.
Emily went back to where she had been sitting. She sighed. What was she meant to do here? How did you convince your parents that their son wasn’t real?
Then a memory appeared in her mind: that squirrel, walking toward the bear, against its will.
“Aidan,” she said.
“Yes?” He was looking at her with infinite sadness in his eyes, and she knew he didn’t like this any more than she did.
“Touch my hand,” she said.
His fingers closed on hers. Cold.
“Do you see the picture in my mind?” she said. She concentrated on it, on what she wanted him to do.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said. Then, after a pause: “Yes. I can do that.”
“What?” said Emily’s dad.
“This,” said Aidan.
He closed his eyes, lowered his head. His skin glowed in the firelight.
“Is something supposed to be—” began Emily’s mom, but then she stopped, her mouth open.
CHAPTER 43
OUT OF THE woods, the animals were coming.
Emily and her family—her family, ha-ha!–were in a circle of light, surrounded by darkness. The fire burned hot and bright, and lit the grass and leaves around them, and threw long shadows from their bodies.
And into the half light, where the brightness of the fire ended and the darkness began, the creatures poured, from all directions, reverse-fading into view like a magic trick.
A squirrel.
A pair of mice, twitching their noses.
A deer, its antlers brushing the low branches.
A wolverine, low to the ground, bristling slightly.
A weasel, and then another.
And birds: birds everywhere, on every branch—owls, their eyes huge in the firelight, songbirds, crows, even a seagull that had been passing, maybe.
An eagle, enormous against the darkness.
In the middle, by the fire, Aidan, his head down.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “You can go.”
Emily knew he probably didn’t have to do that, to say it out loud, but it added to the theater of it, and now he looked up and opened his eyes and at the same time the animals and birds melted away, back into the black all around them, until they were alone, huddled by the fire, their little family.
Well. Their fake family.
Emily’s mom was blinking at Aidan, her hand opening and closing for no reason; some kind of nerve spasm due to stress.
“But how is…,” her mom said. “How did you…”
“I can feel their minds,” said Aidan. “I can tell them what to do.”
Emily’s dad was staring at him. “Can you do that to us too?”
“Yes. To some extent. It’s harder because you’re more…conscious. I can’t make you do things. But I can…plant ideas.”
“Have you, ever?”
A glance at Emily. “Yes, but—”
“This is insane.” Her dad bit his lip.
“Yes.”
“Why do we see you as a boy?” her dad continued.
“Why do we…think…you’re our son?” said Emily’s mom. It was clear the very words hurt her. Like they were made out of poison gas instead of air.
“It’s something I do,” said Aidan. “A survival mechanism. I make people see me as theirs. As something to look after. I don’t mean to do it. Sorry.”
“So…you implant memories?” said Emily’s dad. “I mean, I don’t believe you, just…” He trailed off.
“No,” said Aidan. “You make the memories yourselves. To reconcile the two irreconcilable things you know: that I am your son, and that I am not your son. I know your memories, though—your experiences. I can obtain them by touching you.”
“Quit talking like that,” said Emily’s mom.
“Freaky, isn’t it?” said Emily.
Her dad glared at her.
Too soon. “Sorry,” she said. “But you do know, don’t you? On some level? That we’re telling the truth.”
Her dad looked down at his phone. Then up again. “I searched my texts,” he said. “I never mentioned Aidan before a few months ago.”
“No,” said Emily’s mom, but it was a longer word than that, it went on, it turned into a wail. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Emily’s dad went over to her and put an arm around her. She was rocking back and forth.
“It’s OK, Mom,” said Emily. “We’ll get him home, and then you won’t remember; it’ll be as if it never happened. As if he never existed.”
Her mom shook even more, and Emily realized this was not the most sensitive thing to say. It was weird; grief, she saw, was not confined to the loss of things that were real.
“I’ve lost my son,” said her mom, through sobs, as if reading Emily’s mind.
“No, no,” said Emily. She moved over to her parents, around the hot fire. Aidan stayed where he was. “No, you never had him. It’s OK. It’s OK.” She regretted the words as soon as they had left her mouth. Because she knew it wasn’t OK, none of it was.
“I feel like I had him. I remember him. So how is it any different?” said her mom. And then she buried her face in her husband’s chest and cried. It seemed to Emily that she might never stop.
“I’m sorry,” said Aidan. “I’m so sorry.”
No one said anything.
Emily looked at her
parents, holding each other, her father’s shoulders shaking too, and she had to turn away from the pain. Toward Aidan, sitting on his own, framed by the firelight, cross-legged. So small. So alone.
“If he’s…an alien…what’s he doing here?” said her dad. An edge to his voice.
“He’s, like, displaced, I guess. Lost. He just needs to get home. Surely you get that?”
Her parents exchanged a look. Her father’s father had come from El Salvador in circumstances that were unclear to Emily because they were always discussed in hushed tones. Her mom’s family was originally German; her grandparents had come over to escape the war in Europe; that was why her mother’s name was spelled with an e: Liese, not Lisa.
They looked over at Aidan, and her dad nodded slowly.
After that, no one said anything.
Emily sat on her own. She wanted to hold Aidan; to be held by her parents. But both those things were impossible.
Mostly of their own accord, her hands reached out for a smallish branch, meant for the fire, and she took out the knife from her pocket and began to strip the bark, to scrape and shape the wood. For something to do. For something to occupy herself.
To replace Goober.
She wanted to go to her parents, but she couldn’t, she was outside their sadness, locked out from it, because their life was not hers, their memories were not hers. Not only that, but she didn’t think her parents were feeling much love for her at that moment. She had just killed their son. As good as. But she couldn’t go to Aidan, either, because how would it look to them? Like she was choosing an imposter over them, and it wasn’t his fault, it was never his intention.
Emily thought of what her mother had always said, when she mentioned having a brother or sister:
We want to give you everything.
Meaning:
Camping trips. Hunting. A school with a football team and cheerleading and no arts facilities at all.
And not meaning:
A place where she could keep learning dance; a city, full of people and potential.
She’d mentioned a ballet performance she’d wanted to go to in New York. Matthew Bourne, The Nutcracker.
“Too far,” her mom had said.
“And we can’t afford it,” her dad had added.
Everything, it turned out, had kind of a narrow definition. It was strange, though: right then, sitting on her own, in the dim light at the edge of the fire, Emily would have given…well, pretty much everything to go back to the way things had been, before she’d run away.
Everything apart from Aidan, that is.
And wasn’t that the rub?
She couldn’t go back. She could only go forward—and that meant losing Aidan, and maybe her parents too, if they never forgave her for it. She’d just have to hope he was right: that they would forget him when he was gone.
For the time being she simply sat, whittling the wood, with the looming shadow of the trees around her, and the licking orange flames of the fire in front of her, and no one to hold at all.
CHAPTER 44
THAT AIDAN WAS not human seemed almost secondary to Emily’s parents to the fact that their memories were lying to them—though as the night wore on and then ended with a slowly rising sun, it was as if those memories were losing some of their power.
By the morning, Emily’s mother looked a little like herself again—the shock initially had rendered her alien, strange-looking, blank. Now she had regained some of her color, though there were still dark circles under her eyes. She occasionally moved toward Aidan, then flinched. Emily tried to hug her, but she stayed stiff, unresponsive. The pain of that was something physical, in Emily’s chest.
Her dad stamped out the last of the embers of their fire.
“So,” he said. A flatness in his voice. “What happens now? What were you guys trying to do, before we found you?”
“We were trying to get to HAARP,” said Emily. “To send a message.”
“I thought that was all conspiracy theory stuff,” said her mom. “All the alien communication stories.”
“It is,” said Aidan. “But the arrays are powerful enough to beam electromagnetic signals to space. To send a message.”
“A message to whom?” said Emily’s mom.
“My…family,” said Aidan. “My ship was damaged when I landed on Earth. I was unable to activate a distress beacon. If I can send a radio burst, they will know my position.”
“How were you planning on getting there?” That was Emily’s dad: no need to discuss what kind of message, or how, or anything irrelevant like that. Pure focus on the plan. On action.
“Plane to Anchorage, then…hitch a lift, probably.”
He sighed deeply at this; he’d always cautioned Emily against hitchhiking. But then he turned to Aidan. “And when you’re…gone. We won’t remember? As far as we’re concerned, we’ll just have a daughter?”
“Yes,” said Aidan.
Just, thought Emily.
“It’s weird…,” said Emily’s mother. Her voice was dreamy; distant. “I think I can almost remember already…how you were not there, and then there. It’s like…like paint is fading. And starting to see the brick underneath.”
Another sigh from Emily’s dad.
A long pause.
Then:
“OK,” he said.
He gestured to her mom, who came over and joined him, and they linked hands—Emily realized they had discussed, sometime when she was asleep, what they were about to do or say.
“You may not be our son,” her dad said. “And we may not understand…well, any of this. But we love you. And we can see how much Emily loves you. So we’ll help.”
“You’ll help us get there?” said Emily.
“It’s, like, a hundred miles away,” said her dad. “You didn’t think you’d get there alone, did you?”
“Well,” she said. “I don’t know.” She didn’t. She hadn’t. She’d expected them to disown her, to break down, to lose their minds entirely. Apparently, they were full of surprises. But it was like her mom’s beloved fridge magnet: YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR OWN STRENGTH. Evidently, Emily hadn’t known her mom’s.
“We can’t take our car,” said her dad. Clearly, he’d had a long night, planning. “They’ll have the plates. May even have put a tracker on it. Anyway, we’ve gone in the wrong direction. So we’ll have to keep heading downhill.” He unfolded a map that had been in his backpack. “There should be a small town beyond the forest, at the bottom of the mountain. We can get a car there.”
“Get a car?”
He shrugged. “We’ll improvise. What about the spooks?”
Emily had explained during the night how she hadn’t been lying, back at the cabin, about the people turning up in town, the men in suits coming for Aidan. The men in black. How they had landed in the helicopter and kept chasing them ever since.
“At least two from the helicopter are dead,” she said. “There may only be the one you shot in the leg. Of course, they may send others.”
“They probably already have,” said Emily’s mom. “We should assume they’re on our trail. We’ll have to move quickly, and keep alert at all times. Jake: you’ll navigate. I’ll take a sidearm. Emily: you carry the assault rifle.”
Emily’s mom: occasional yoga enthusiast, gym bunny, keen hiker…and straight badass, it turned out.
“OK,” said Emily.
“Aidan, just…” Her mom trailed off. “Stay safe. OK?” That crack appeared in her voice again; Emily could hear the pain under it, sloshing, bottomless.
“Yes,” said Aidan.
“That’s what he does, isn’t it?” said Emily’s dad. His voice had an edge to it. Shining. Honed. “Protects himself. Keeps himself safe.”
“I guess I deserve that,” said Aidan. “Truly, I don’t choose
to do…what I do.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s not you who will be hurt, though. In the long run,” said Aidan. He turned to Emily. There were tears in his eyes; lots of tears; something had rushed up inside him, and out: like a fire hydrant.
Emily was amazed. She hadn’t known he could do that. Hadn’t known he could cry.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“You saw me as a I really am,” he said. “When you found me. So you’re the one who will remember me. When I’m gone.”
She looked down at him, her little brother, whom she’d only just met, who would soon be gone.
“And I will remember you,” he said.
Silence, for a long moment.
Then, Emily went over to Aidan, and very deliberately took his hand.
“Look at them,” said Emily’s mom, her face window-rained by tears, tracking on her pale skin. “They’ve always been a pair.”
CHAPTER 45
EMILY KEPT HOLD of Aidan’s hand as they walked. They were both cold, and their muscles ached, and always she was turning to check behind them for pursuers.
Well.
She was cold, and her muscles ached. So for Aidan it would be worse. For Aidan, it could be fatal. She kept stopping, to hold him to her, try to impart some of her warmth.
“I’m so sorry,” she said after the second hour, when they were coming down a snow-covered meadow, a logging track curving below them, toward a place where smoke rose on the horizon. A town, they hoped.
“What for?” said Aidan.
Emily’s parents were walking ahead.
She made an expansive gesture. “All of it. I wanted to help, to get you to safety, and I just…made this. The crash. Bob. The guns.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said.
“I should have just…stayed in the house when you landed,” she said. “When I heard your ship crash into the woods. Then I wouldn’t have got you lost.”
He squeezed her hand. “Emily,” he said. “We’re still alive. We’re still going. Your parents have a map. We’re nearly off the mountain now. We’re not lost. We’ve come through that. We’re on the other side of lost.”