Nowhere on Earth

by Nick Lake

  “Shall I take that as a yes?”

  He shrugged again.

  “If you’re just going to shrug like that, why did you want to talk to me?”

  “Your parents don’t remember what really happened,” he said. “Don’t remember him. Which is usual.” His eyes seemed to focus in closer on her; like the twist of a lens on a camera. “But you and Mr. Simpson do. Which is unusual.” He paused. “Unusual is perhaps the wrong word. This is hardly a common occurrence. So let us say unprecedented.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “Yes, you do.”

  Emily took a sip of her mint tea. It was weird. Like drinking candy, except not as sweet as candy. She didn’t say anything.

  “If you’re not going to talk about him, why did you come in and sit with me?” the man asked.

  She sighed. “I just…I don’t know.”

  “You’re pleased—part of you is pleased—to speak to someone else who knows. Someone other than the pilot. I mean, your parents being oblivious. It must be difficult.”

  He was completely right, of course, and she realized in that moment that was why she had come in. Because this man, Mr. Smith, whatever his real name was, knew who Aidan was. Remembered Aidan.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Something like that.”

  His eyes stilled for a moment, brightened. He was rolling a pen along his fingers, but he didn’t seem to have any paper or notepad of any kind to write on. “Have you seen him again? Since?”

  “Aidan?”

  “If that’s what you want to call him.”

  She shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “OK. If you do, call me.” He pushed a card over to her. It had a phone number on it, nothing else. “What about…anything he left with you. A gift? Bob said he gave him a gift, that he might have given one to you as well. It is important you tell us anything he gave or…communicated…to you.”

  She noticed him omitting Bob’s surname: an attempt to establish intimacy.

  “Bob said that?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Did he tell you what the gift was?” She hoped the answer was…

  “No.”

  Good, she thought.

  “Well,” she said, out loud. “Can’t you torture it out of him? Isn’t that what you guys do?”

  “This is America,” said Mr. Smith. “Not Russia.”

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  “Touché,” he said. “But don’t quote me on that.”

  “Also,” she said, “your men shot at me. A lot. You’ll forgive me if that kind of sticks in my throat. It’s not an easy thing to forgive, someone trying to kill you.”

  He sat back in his chair. “Wait—you think we were trying to kill you?”

  She blinked at him. “Yes. Obviously.”

  He spread his hands, a gesture of: The things I have to deal with. “Our men all had orders to keep you alive,” he said. “Warning shots only. This isn’t a movie.”

  “They shot Bob when all he’d done was wave at them.”

  Mr. Smith shook his head. “I wasn’t there. But I imagine they thought he was armed.”

  She made a face of: Yeah, good one, tell me another.

  “Emily,” he said. Long-suffering tone—I’m being rational here, and you’re being hysterical. “We’re not in the business of shooting teenage girls.”

  “So Bob was acceptable collateral?”

  Silence.

  “Is that a yes?”

  He sighed. “We’re not in the business of shooting teenage girls,” he said again. “Nor are we in the business of torturing those who have had…encounters. And the pilot wasn’t talking. So, please: tell me about the gift. What did Aidan give you?”

  “Why do you want to know?” she said.

  He looked at her with frank stupefaction. “Security,” he said. “My job is to protect the integrity of the United States.”

  “What he gave me…It has nothing to do with that.”

  “We’ll make that judgment, I think,” he said. “What was it—an object? A map?”

  “No.”

  “Something he told you or showed you, then?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What? A weapon? Instructions? Clean power? Renewable energy?”

  “Are you serious?” she said.

  “Are you not?” he retorted. “This is vital military intelligence. I don’t know why you can’t grasp the import of all this.”

  “Military?”

  He sighed again. “This…creature…violated U.S. airspace. Landed. Evaded capture. Then went away again, after showing God knows what to a pilot and a girl. We have to protect our territory.”

  She thought of when she sat with Aidan outside the cabin, him talking about how men always wanted to own bits of the world, how to them, this marvelous, this miraculous land was often only territory. She thought how absurd that must have seemed from his wide-angle view of the world.

  She realized she was smiling only when she saw Mr. Smith frowning.

  “I fail to see the humor in all this,” he said.

  “No,” she said. “It’s not funny. It’s just…”

  “Yes?”

  “You wouldn’t understand what he showed me. You can’t understand. Your whole…your whole way of looking at the world. How you believe everything is yours to question, analyze, dissect. The way you think everything is war. You will never understand what he knows, or what he is.”

  “Do you know what he is? Where he comes from?”

  “Yes,” she said. She thought of the last thing Aidan had shown her, and smiled again at the thought of explaining such knowledge to this man.

  “Then tell me.”

  “I can’t. I would have to show you, and I can’t do that, either.”

  Mr. Smith leaned back, fingers steepled. “Then tell me what he showed you. Tell me his gift. We can help you, you know. We have funds. We can ensure you a brighter future.”

  She stood. This was a pointless conversation. She’d wanted to talk to someone who would understand, and she knew now that this man would never understand; his own intelligence, his inductive mind, prevented it. She thought briefly about what she was throwing away—what he’d said about helping, giving her a brighter future, how he’d implied they could support her in wanting to dance.

  Well. Screw it.

  She was going to have to sort that out herself, with her parents—make them understand, somehow, that she needed dance in her life. Maybe she could go back to Minnesota sometimes, train with Jeremy and his mom. Maybe Bob would give her a discount on flights.

  “But that’s just it,” she said. “There is no future, bright or otherwise. Not yet anyway. The future is whatever I make of it.”

  She started to leave.

  “What?” he said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well,” she said, turning. “I did say you wouldn’t understand.”

  And then she walked out.

  CHAPTER 60

  WHEN EMILY CAME downstairs the next morning, her parents were both in the kitchen. She could smell that her mom was cooking something delicious, and it wasn’t even Sunday—it was a school day. Usually, her dad would have left early, to prepare for his lessons. At the breakfast bar, her plate was laid out, her cutlery, her glass.

  And next to them, a laptop, open.

  Her mom’s laptop.

  Which her mom was standing next to, half smiling, half embarrassed.

  “Um…,” said Emily. “What’s this?”

  Her dad nodded to her mom. Her mom woke the screen by tapping the touchpad, and YouTube popped up. She pressed play on a view of mountains, it looked like.

  Emily took a step closer.

  She sa
w: 7,789,005 views.

  She saw: “Girl dances in the snow.”

  There was no sound: and then there was. Gentle violins, tracing a delicate melody. The footage was wobbly, woozy, almost as if filmed through water, and then she realized: no. Not water. A plastic window, in a cabin.

  Outside the window, she, Emily, swam into focus. Snow was falling around her as slowly she began to dance. She almost glided across the stones of the narrow beach, white mountains behind her, the lake shimmering in the moonlight. The snow fell as she spun and leaped into the air, and the music swelled, accompanying her; she seemed to hang suspended, like the snowflakes, as if gravity had exempted her temporarily, and her feet and hands drew long shapes in the air as she pirouetted and stretched and crouched and arched her back, her body speaking in a language of movement and form.

  “Oh,” she said.

  The dance continued: it was mesmerizing, even she could see that, with the stars and the snow. She saw something else: she was good—it was something she was good at; it was something her body fit into, the movement of the dance, like worn old clothes.

  Bob must have been filming from inside the cabin. Next time she saw him she was going to kill him.

  Then: she caught her breath. In the video, she reached out her hands, pulled an invisible partner into a turn, her arms encircling empty space: Aidan. Except he wasn’t there; she couldn’t see him; the viewers of the video couldn’t see him.

  As if he’d never been there.

  As if he’d never existed.

  She danced, with an invisible partner, and then, just as the video neared its end, her feet left the ground and didn’t return to it; she floated up, into the night air, above the lake, and slowly rotated there, as if held up by ropes, but there were no ropes, and then—

  The video ended.

  Emily’s mom scrolled down, to the comments.

  Emily saw: this girl was born to dance.

  She saw: who is this?! someone needs to find her.

  She saw: amazing. such talent.

  She saw: HOW DID THEY DO THAT BIT AT THE END?!

  Her mom closed the laptop.

  “I didn’t know he was filming that, I swear—”

  “It’s OK,” said her dad, holding up a hand. “Your mom and me, we just want to talk to you…about…this.”

  “We never really addressed…what happened at school,” said her mom. “The arson. I’m not sure why.”

  I know why, thought Emily. Because that was when Aidan turned up.

  She didn’t say that, though.

  She noticed too that they didn’t mention the part at the end of the video, the part where she seemed to fly. Averting their eyes from the sun of full awareness.

  “Listen…,” she said. “About that. I never meant to burn anything down. And I wasn’t smoking, like I told Miss Brady. It was…There was a guy who kind of…Well, he was pushy. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. I wanted to burn a hole in his football jacket, or whatever. Teach him a lesson. That was all.”

  Her parents exchanged a look. “We wondered,” said her dad.

  “Really?”

  Her mom did a strange smile. “Well. Not specifically. But we felt like…something was off. We’re your parents. We like to think we know you pretty well.”

  “You need any help?” said her dad. “With this guy?”

  “I think I’ve got it covered,” said Emily. “But I’ll let you know.”

  He nodded.

  “We’re not…cruel, you know,” said her mom. “You hated cheerleading, right? I don’t think I understood that, not quickly enough, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” said Emily.

  “But you love to dance?” her mom continued. “I mean, you can just see it on that video.”

  Emily nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” said her mom. “For pushing you, for pushing you with the cheerleading stuff. I think I just…I didn’t get it. The dancing, and what it meant to you. I mean, you never said how much you wanted to do it. I just thought it was…”

  “Pointless?” said Emily.

  Her mom swallowed. “I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t get it. But you love it, right? It’s something that’s important to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Something you’d fight for.”

  Emily and her mom were looking into each other’s eyes. “Yeah,” Emily said.

  “Because you’re a fighter. Like us.”

  Emily looked at her mom’s motivational magnets. YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR OWN STRENGTH. “Yes,” she surprised herself by saying.

  Her dad leaned over and gave her an awkward hug. Her mom kissed the top of her head.

  “OK,” they said together.

  Then her dad picked up a brochure from the sideboard, handed it to her.

  She looked at it. On the front was a picture of a row of young men and women, their hands on a barre, the background blurring into indistinctness, the foreground crisp and light and glowing.

  Summer Dance Intensive at the Juilliard School, said the type underneath.

  She held it in her hands. She looked up at her parents.

  “It’s three weeks,” said her dad. “In the summer. We thought…if it went well, if you liked it…then it could be like a stepping-stone.”

  “A stepping-stone?”

  “To college.”

  She opened it. Saw the course fees. Looked up again. “This is expensive,” she said.

  “They offer scholarships,” said her mom. “For gifted students. Tuition only, but your dad and I can cover the accommodations.”

  “Oh,” said Emily. “I’m sure they won’t—”

  “You think eight million people who saw that video are wrong?” said her mom. “We’re responsible parents; we keep track of the comments. At first we wanted to tell Bob to take it down, but then…One of the people who commented is a professor at Juilliard. She wanted to know who the girl in the video was.”

  “You’d have to apply, of course,” said her dad. “Record a video of your dancing. I guess that’s taken care of. Ha-ha. Personal statement too. But you have two months. If you work hard, train every day, I’m sure you’ll get it.”

  Her dad: ever the military mindset. Discipline. Training.

  “You can do anything, if you put your mind to it,” said her mom.

  Her mom: motivational queen.

  “The future doesn’t exist yet,” said Emily. “I can make it what I want.”

  “Um…yeah,” said her dad.

  She scanned the brochure. Three weeks. Classical and modern dance. On-campus accommodations. Forty-four students from all around the country.

  There was no way she’d get in—but it was worth a shot, wasn’t it? She’d survived a mountain, an avalanche, men with guns. She could fill out an application.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Really. Thank you.”

  She got up and hugged her mom—and her dad hugged her too, so she was in between—a hug sandwich, they’d called it when she was little; she was the cheese, and they were the slices of bread.

  “Love you, kid,” said her dad.

  Her mom tousled her hair.

  “Love you too,” Emily said.

  “There are blueberry pancakes,” said her dad. “You eat them quickly, you could do a half hour’s dance practice before school.”

  Emily smiled. Her mom carried over a stack of pancakes, drenched in blueberry syrup.

  They were good.

  They were pretty incredible, in fact.

  There was something gnawing at Emily, though, some sharp-toothed thing inside, and she wasn’t sure what it was.

  Something to do with what her mom had said: about how they hadn’t talked about the arson, at the time…

  And…

  That was it.
<
br />   They hadn’t talked about it, because Aidan had come. He had come just when she needed him.

  Was that a coincidence? she wondered for the first time. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that he’d appeared, with his ship, just when she’d been thrown out of school, just when she was at her most vulnerable.

  Wasn’t that what he did?

  Hadn’t he said he couldn’t help it?

  Perhaps it was part of his protective mechanism: he made himself something small, something in need of protection, but maybe it was more than that too. Perhaps he homed in on people’s distress signals, or their loneliness; perhaps he could somehow feel who it was who would take him in and make him their own.

  There were other houses next to theirs, after all, other houses backing onto the woods. Other people who could have been made to hear the sound of the ship.

  Had he ever felt what she felt?

  Had he ever been hers, her little Aidan, or was it all an act?

  She thought of the video: how he wasn’t there, how her arms had closed on the thinnest mountain air. She thought of how he’d erased the memory of the fire from her parents’ minds, how he’d promised not to do it to her.

  But what if that was what he’d been doing all along? Making a story, in her mind, so that he could use her.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” asked her mom.

  Emily brushed her cheek. A tear was tracking down it. “Nothing,” she said.

  That was true on one level: it was nothingness that was wrong; the nothingness where Aidan had been.

  Then something made Emily look up.

  Outside the window, the leaves were growing larger and greener every day, the trees seeming to expand. A bird flew past, landed on a branch. A camp robber, just like the one at the cabin where they’d stayed, by the lake, with Aidan.

  But it wasn’t the flight of the camp robber that had caught her eye, it was something else, it was…

  The bird chittered, singing to the lightening sky.

  No: not just lightening, Emily realized, not just lit by the sun that was rising.

  Shining.

  The sky was shining.

  CHAPTER 61

  EMILY HAD ONLY eaten two of her three pancakes, but she slid back her chair. “I’m just going outside,” she said.