Sandra’s chair creaked. Under the desk, Kepler sighed.
“Or what about this?” Lucy continued, the words coming slowly as she tried to piece together her scattered thoughts. “What about our subconscious desires for this abduction theory to be reality? We want this to be what happened. We want the alien theory to be right because it’s easier for our brains to accept that Nolan is alive in a spaceship somewhere, touring other galaxies with an advanced race of beings. As crazy as that theory is, we like it better than the one that’s probably true.”
“Which is?”
Lucy stared at the lines crisscrossing her palms. “That something terrible happened out there. That he’s gone and not ever coming back. That he, that he died, that he’s dead.”
Sandra pushed away from the desk, her chair screeching across the concrete floor. Kepler got to his feet too. She went to a tall filing cabinet, opened the top drawer, and began rifling its contents.
“We might always disagree on this, you know,” Lucy said. “You and I, we might never be on the same page when it comes to extraterrestrial life, but we are on the same page when it comes to Nolan.”
Sandra stopped rummaging.
“We both want to know what happened to him.”
Sandra slammed the filing cabinet shut and returned to the desk. She slapped a stack of papers down next to her and moved the mouse, waking the computer screen from sleep. “Does that mean you’re going to have another session with Cici?”
“What? No.” Lucy focused her attention on the screen, surprised to see a picture she recognized accompanying a new article posted on Strange Quarterly.
The picture used to hang on the wall outside her bedroom door. In it she looked to be about seven or eight years old. They’d taken a trip together as a family to the observatory and her mother had made her and Nolan stand together at the base of one of the telescopes. They had their arms around each other. Their grins huge and silly. Her hair was flying off to one side. It had been so windy that day. Sand caught in her hair, her eyes, her teeth. She raised her fingers to her hair now, feeling for something that was no longer there.
Next to this picture was another photo of the fake blue orb. The headline read: UFO PHOTOGRAPH HOAX, BUT MISSING BOY’S FAMILY STILL BELIEVES.
Lucy’s throat went suddenly dry. She had to swallow several times before she could finally ask, “What is that?”
“I wanted to tell you about it earlier, but Wyatt said to wait.” Sandra scrolled slowly through the rest of the article. “We didn’t use your name.”
Lucy curled her fingers in her lap, squeezing tight. “Why are you letting him publish this stuff?”
“People deserve to know the truth,” Sandra said. “The articles are just the beginning. When the book is finished—”
“Book?” Lucy stared at her in disbelief. “What book? About Nolan? You’re writing a book about Nolan?”
Sandra nodded.
“You can’t possibly think this is a good idea.”
“Wyatt says that a book is the best way to reach more people,” Sandra said matter-of-factly. “He says by sharing Nolan’s story with the world, we’ll be paving the way to a new paradigm. We’ll be helping a lot of people who are struggling to make sense of the experiences they’ve had. People who are struggling the way I struggled. The way you’re struggling. You were at the observatory the night he went missing, Lucy. You can’t deny that anymore. Now you have to come to terms with what you saw. That’s what we’re trying to do with this book. We want to help people like you recognize and accept what’s really happening.”
She reached for Lucy’s arm, but Lucy stood and backed away from her. Kepler padded over and pressed his nose into her hand. She pushed him away too.
“I can’t believe you’re even considering this,” she said. “This is a family matter. It’s nobody else’s business. And these ideas you’re spreading, they’re worse than useless, they’re dangerous.”
Sandra’s jaw tightened. “The more people who know about Nolan, the more eyes we have on the sky. The more people listening. The more people looking. And maybe someone somewhere will find him.”
“Why do you even want this to be real?” Lucy asked, anger rising in her voice. “How could it possibly be any better for him to be abducted? If it is true, who knows what They’re doing to him. He might be hurt. At the very least, he’s scared.”
“Nolan was never scared of Them, so I won’t be either.” Sandra opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a stack of papers that Lucy recognized as pages photocopied from Nolan’s casebook. The police had kept the original. “He welcomed Them into his life. He wanted this. I have to believe They’re benevolent, that They’re keeping him safe.”
“But what could They possibly still want with him after all this time?” In all the other alien abduction stories Lucy had heard over the years, the ones she sought out and the ones foisted upon her by strangers who thought she cared, every abductee was returned to Earth within hours of their abduction. At most, a few days. “Why haven’t They brought him back?”
“What happened to your brother, what’s happening even still, it’s revolutionary.” Sandra spread her fingers across the casebook pages. “It changes everything. Our entire way of thinking about the universe and of being human. I don’t know why They’re choosing to keep him from us, but I believe it’s because he’s special in some way, that he is of use to Them. It might be forever beyond our comprehension, but that doesn’t mean we have to be afraid. We can embrace this change the way Nolan did. This is how I’m choosing to do that.” She gestured to the computer screen. “By moving forward and accepting our new reality. And by sharing my truth with others.”
“Wyatt’s helping you write it?” Lucy asked.
“It was his idea.”
“Of course it was. And I bet he’s taking half of whatever you make from this book, too, isn’t he?”
“It’s not about the money,” Sandra said. “We have let fear and uncertainty rule our lives for too long and fooled ourselves into believing that the reality of life on Earth is all there is. But there is more, Lucy. So much more. Your brother understood that. He tried to get us to understand too. Wherever the Visitors are from originally, They are here now, in this space and time. They have chosen to interact with us and you can bury your head in the sand and cover your ears and pretend it’s not happening, but that won’t change the fact that it is happening. They are a part of our reality now.”
As Sandra spoke, her voice rose and fell in waves, in a way that reminded Lucy of the street preacher she encountered last year, and of Nolan before he went missing. It was a strange way of talking, marked by passionate devotion and hinting at violence, and it was obvious that nothing Lucy said would change her mother’s mind.
“I need some air,” she said and walked out of the hangar.
She stood next to the satellite dish and looked up at the milky blue. Dark clouds gathered far off in the distance, but directly above her the sky was clear. The sun warmed her chilled bones. A gentle breeze tugged her hair. On the wind, the scent of rain.
As she stood squinting at nothing, a car pulled into the driveway. A door slammed, footsteps scratched the dirt, the hangar door slid open and shut. Silent again, but for a lonely bird whistling a lonely song. A few more minutes passed, and the hangar door opened again. Wyatt appeared at her elbow holding two cups of coffee and a brown paper bag stained with grease. “Sleep okay?”
“Fine.”
“Got you a coffee, black . . .” He handed her one of the cups. “And a ham and cheese croissant.”
“I’m a vegetarian.” But she took the bag anyway and started walking to her car.
He called after her, “I’m sorry! I should have told you about the book a long time ago.”
She stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“You deserved to know sooner, and you should have heard it from me. But I’m not sorry for trying to get Nolan’s story out there. People need to he
ar it, Lucy. They need to know they’re not alone, that the things they are experiencing have an explanation. They need reassurance that they’re not losing their minds.”
But what if they were? What if the whole world, all of humanity, every single person, was slowly descending into one grand delusion? Lucy tightened her grip on the paper bag.
“Nolan would want this,” Wyatt said. “You know he would.”
Finally, she turned to face him. “Why was your business card in Celeste’s wallet?”
He looked shocked by the question, and his gaze dropped to the ground, searching the sand for answers.
“Why didn’t you go to the police and report her missing too?” Lucy took a step toward him. “Why is no one looking for her?”
He lifted his eyes to hers, his expression shattered. “I fucked up.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say about it?”
“I didn’t know she was missing, not really,” he said. “Not until you found her backpack. This whole time I let myself believe she had made it out, that she was in Hollywood chasing her dreams. I mean, a small a part of me wondered, but . . .” He shook his head. “I took her to the Greyhound station in Lancaster the same day Nolan went missing. She told me she was going to buy a ticket to Santa Monica, that she was going to start over. I have no idea how she got back to town, why she was at your house that night, what she was doing with Nolan. I have no idea. She needed help. I tried to help her.”
“And Nolan? Did you try to help him?”
“Of course I did,” he said. “That afternoon he came here, to the hangar, ranting all kinds of crazy, and I tried to get him to calm down. I even texted Gabriella and told her to send the police out here to help me. I thought he was going to hurt someone, himself maybe. I thought we could get him into a hospital or something, I don’t know. He was pretty far gone, ranting about Celeste and wanting to know what I’d done with her. I should have listened more closely to him. I wish I had. Clearly something more was going on—”
“What time did he leave?” she interrupted.
“What?”
“Your hangar. What time was he here? What time did he leave?”
Wyatt looked confused. “I don’t know. Early. It was around noon, I guess. Or a little after. It was still light out. Why?”
“What were you doing later that night?” she asked. “Where were you when he went missing?”
As he realized what she was implying, his cheeks paled. “I cared about your brother, Lucy. I still do.”
“Because it seems to me like this whole alien abduction theory is a great cover story,” she said, hating herself for it even as the words kept coming. “It’s awfully convenient, isn’t it? And now you’ve got my mom believing in it too. It’s the perfect distraction.”
Wyatt shook his head fiercely. “Stop it, Lucy. You know I would never . . . Is this about the book? Because I’m not doing it for the money. I don’t care about the money. If we make any, it’s all yours. Yours and Sandra’s. For bills, living expenses, school, whatever you want to use it for. Pay for a private investigator, I don’t care. But know this. I did not hurt Nolan. I was nowhere near the observatory that night and if I was, I would have been there fighting on his side.”
He stepped toward her, reaching to cradle her elbow. “Your brother was extraordinary. He looked at the world, at the universe, and saw limitless possibilities. He saw so much that’s invisible to the rest of us and he had so much conviction about it, too. Even as we were telling him over and over that he was wrong, he never backed down from his beliefs. And maybe he took it all too far, or maybe . . . maybe he understood things that none of the rest of us ever will.” He let go of her elbow and opened his hands in a half shrug. “Regardless of what happened that night, we all let him down. You, me, your mother. Every one of us did wrong by not believing in him.”
The wind picked up. The light shifted, turning gray and then purple as clouds bunched into thick piles overhead, blotting out the sun. Thunder cracked, making Lucy flinch. Lightning flickered. She pressed her fingers to the tattoo on Wyatt’s wrist, tracing the outline of the alien’s bulging head. She pressed her thumb against its eyes. What was it about these creatures that made her so afraid? This silly little freak of nature. This thing that could not possibly exist. She let her fingers linger, feeling the faint, steady beat of Wyatt’s heart thrumming beneath his skin.
“What I don’t understand,” Lucy said in a low voice, “I mean, if aliens do exist. What possible use could we be to them? What wisdom could an infinitely more advanced race of intelligent beings draw from an inferior species with substandard technology who spends their time warring and killing each other over petty differences? Why waste any of their precious time and resources on a race like ours?”
They both stared down at her fingers pressed to his skin, at the alien staring back at them, and then Wyatt said, “We have something They’re missing, I suppose.”
“Like what? Water? Food? Fossil fuels?”
“Solar energy, maybe. Or maybe it’s something more cerebral. Maybe They’re trying to understand art and beauty, or the reasons why we love.”
Lucy let go of his wrist, and there was another moment of strained silence with the wind gusting small dust devils around their feet.
“I can’t stop looking for him.” Her voice sounded unfamiliar to her, thick with grief she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in so long. “When I moved away from here, it was easy to separate myself and my life from his. I have no memories of the two of us in any other place in the world except this one. And it was just like I went away on this dull adventure and when I returned he’d be here waiting for me. But he’s not here. He’s nowhere. And logically, I know he’s not supposed to be here. I’m not going to turn the corner and see him standing there waiting for me, but I still catch myself looking, holding my breath and crossing my fingers.” She was quiet a moment, her gaze flitting over Wyatt’s shoulder, watching the storm approach. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”
“Not at all.” Wyatt took his time, choosing his words carefully. “Maybe somewhere deep in your subconscious mind lies a truth you’re not prepared to bring to the surface yet. That feeling you have? Thinking he’s going to come around the corner at any moment? Maybe it’s there because you know on some instinctual level that Nolan is still alive.”
“Zipping around the Andromeda Galaxy with his alien friends?”
“Something like that.” Wyatt laughed. “Think about the size of the universe,” he said. “Think about the billions upon billions of stars out there. In our galaxy alone there’s something like three hundred billion stars. And that’s just our galaxy.” The excitement began to build in his voice, like a child describing his favorite toy. “There’s something like two hundred billion galaxies in the universe and that’s just a best guess. We haven’t reached the edges of the universe yet. Not even close. It’s all still unfolding. So I mean, if you think about it, really think about it . . .” He lifted his free hand and with the tip of a finger, began circling patches of sky at random. “There are all of these unexplored places, so many billions of galaxies, so many billions of stars with orbiting planets, so many billions we have yet to discover. It’s hard not to believe there’s intelligent life out there. Somewhere.”
She asked, “What about the Fermi Paradox?”
He said nothing.
“If intelligent life does exist on other planets, they have had plenty of time to explore and colonize our galaxy and we should see them everywhere,” she said, feeling the hard and soft edges of every letter. “But we don’t. We don’t see them anywhere. So what do you think that means?”
Wyatt smiled. “Have you ever seen a giant squid?”
“Not up close and personal.”
“So . . . if you’ve never seen one, how do you know they exist?”
She rolled her eyes. “Other people have seen them. They’ve washed up on beaches and scientists have taken samples and run tests. There ar
e pictures and videos and proof . . .”
His expression stopped her.
“No.” She shook her head. “No, it’s not the same thing.”
A timpani drumroll trembled the air. A raindrop struck her cheek. Wyatt hurried to take cover beneath the hangar eaves. When he saw Lucy hadn’t followed, he called out, but she stayed where she was with her head tilted back and her eyes open wide.
A black and churning thundercloud unlike anything she’d ever seen before swallowed up every last inch of the blue day sky. It stayed in constant motion, doubling over and then exploding, roiling and angry and looming closer, making it seem like the world was imploding, folding in on itself, like the universe collapsing. Purple lightning flickered in its center. Then the cloud ripped open, drenching her with rain.
18
The three of them came up with the plan together. They all agreed Lucy needed to talk to Patrick again as soon as possible, but it was Wyatt’s idea to have them meet at the observatory. “Familiar surroundings can trigger memories,” he reminded her. “It’s the only thing you haven’t tried. And now that we know you were there that night, returning might be exactly what you need to remember the rest of it.”
“We don’t know I was at the observatory,” she argued. “We’re making an educated guess.”
“It seems more likely than not,” Wyatt said.
She’d told them about the phone call she made to Nolan pretending to be Celeste, how Patrick confirmed her memory, but then swore vehemently that they’d gone home after, that none of them went to the observatory. But there was also Celeste’s backpack to consider and Stuart’s conflicting testimony that Lucy came home much too late for Patrick’s version of events to be true.
Sandra listened to Lucy’s confessions with a pained expression on her face. Afterward, choking back strong emotions, she said, “Oh, Lucy, I should have been there for you. I should have—I’m so sorry.” She grabbed Lucy’s hand and held on tight.
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