From a Distant Star

by McQuestion, Karen

  I knew the tenor of his voice, the sadness behind the words. I’d heard it before, when Lucas’s family had taken a trip to Kansas for his grandfather’s funeral. Lucas had called me after the service and told me how heartbreaking it was to see his grandpa laid out in the coffin, and how his father, the usually tough-as-nails Steve Walker, had broken down and cried, shocking both his sons. Lucas had said, “Everything is wrong here, Emma. I feel like I can’t breathe. It would be so much better if you were here.” I could hear the yearning and sorrow rolled into his words. And that’s what I heard now in Scout’s voice.

  “You’re homesick,” I said, reaching over to rub his arm.

  His head dropped. Without looking my way, he said, “I want to go home.”

  Oh man, now he was breaking my heart. I said, “I know. You miss Regina.”

  “She thinks I am dead.”

  “No, she doesn’t,” I said firmly. “If she’s like me, she wouldn’t give up on you. Everyone else thought Lucas was doomed, but I never gave up hope. If she loves you like I love Lucas, she’s waiting for you. Even if everyone else tells her it’s over and that you’re dead, she won’t believe them. Your bond is too strong.”

  He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Emma. That is a nice thing for you to say.”

  “I’m not just saying it. I believe it. Love trumps logic every time.”

  And then he laughed his odd little chuckle, so different from Lucas. “Love trumps logic every time,” he repeated slowly. “You are very funny, Emma.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be funny,” I said. “I believe it to be true.”

  After that, we didn’t talk much, except to break out the snacks. When I asked, Scout rummaged through the cooler at his feet, coming up with string cheese, bottles of water, and small, red boxes of raisins, the kind my mom used to pack in my lunches in grade school. On the bottom, he found two packages of dried apple slices and a note from Eric, which he read aloud: Sorry about all the nutritious stuff. My mom is on a crusade to abolish junk food and this is all we had in the house. Scout didn’t find it as funny as I did. I guess you had to know Mrs. Walker to realize that the word “crusade” perfectly fit her way of doing things.

  I watched the GPS to see how much longer before we reached Erickson Ryder Incorporated. I imagined it as a huge office building with all kinds of security measures in place. Would we get past the front desk? “Scout,” I said. “When you were getting the signals from the place in northern Wisconsin, did they tell you anything about where they came from? Do you know any names or anything at all?”

  He shook his head. “They did not tell us scouts very much. I already told you what I know.”

  “But I thought you could hear everyone’s thoughts and feelings, so I’d think there would be no secrets.” I frowned.

  “We can hear everyone’s thoughts,” he said, with the emphasis on the word can. “But you do not understand. We can still hold back from others. They have levels. If you are not on a high level, you will not be able to access some things.”

  “Like you’re on a different frequency?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, bobbing his head enthusiastically. “Exactly. Very good, Emma.” He sounded proud, like I was a kindergartner who’d comprehended an advanced concept. “I was not supposed to know about the friendly messages. Only someone with advanced clearance can access that kind of information. And I did not have clearance.”

  “So how did you find out? Did you overhear someone else talking about it or something?”

  “No, I . . .” He turned his head to look out the window on his side. “I did a bad thing. I looked where I was not supposed to and found out about it.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, don’t feel too bad about it. I’ve done that kind of thing before. A person gets curious. Sometimes you can’t help yourself.”

  His head whipped around, his mouth open in amazement. “You have done this kind of thing? Really? Oh, thank you, Emma, for saying this.”

  “No need to thank me. It’s all true, my friend.” I popped a dried apple slice in my mouth and pondered this for a moment. Scout really hadn’t given us much information to go on, and what he knew came from an unverified source. From there, Eric had jumped to some pretty major conclusions. I might be on an idiot’s mission, getting in trouble with the law to talk to some people who had absolutely nothing to do with the messages Scout’s people had been getting. Thank God the agents couldn’t get a lead on our location anymore. We would be totally screwed if they could.

  When we turned off the interstate onto a county highway, I breathed a sigh of relief. Hours had passed since the pancake house with no sign of the police or highway patrol. We were that much closer to our destination and less likely to be spotted on the highway. Initially, Eric’s GPS had directed us toward Ashland, Wisconsin, but Erickson Ryder was actually about thirty miles away from Ashland. Now that we were on a two-lane highway, we were less than an hour from our destination.

  I didn’t realize how much I looked at my phone until I didn’t have it with me anymore. Even when driving, I usually listened for incoming texts or glanced to see what was new with friends. I never texted and drove, and I was proud of that because, believe me, even though I’d been tempted to do it many, many times, I always held back. When I first got my license, a kid from my high school, Derek Taylor, rolled over his car while texting, and he wound up being in the hospital for a month. The school held two different assemblies on the horrors of texting while driving and showed us disturbing video clips with wrecked cars covered with blood, and other clips featuring funerals and crying parents. One of them had a paralyzed teenager sitting in a wheelchair, sobbing that she’d only looked away from the road for a second. Just one second. Every single student in my school, even the ones who were too young to have a license, signed a contract promising never to text when driving. Not everyone stuck to it, but I did.

  Now I had both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, going just over the speed limit with no other vehicles in sight when a flash of brown leapt through the trees directly into our path. My heart seized up and my brain registered everything at once: the fact that it was a good-sized doe, along with the knowledge we were traveling way too fast to stop in time. It all happened so quickly that my reflexes took over. The deer jumped in front of us, and I braked and turned wildly to miss her, skidding and sliding into the ditch next to the road.

  I felt the yank of the seat belt across my shoulder as we slammed into the ditch. It wasn’t until it registered that we’d come to a full stop that my heart started up again, pounding at how close we’d come to total calamity. The ditch was deep and wide and the front end of the car tipped downward, so I felt like we were falling forward. I cursed loudly and slammed my hand against the steering wheel. “You okay?” I asked Scout, who didn’t look at all upset. He nodded to let me know he was fine.

  I knew we weren’t going to be able to drive forward so I threw it into reverse and stepped on the gas. “I can’t believe I was so stupid,” I said.

  The tires spun, making a horrible, mocking noise that told me we were going nowhere without a tow truck. Still, I tried rocking it back and forth, getting more frustrated each time, but not giving up. I was like a maniac, determined to make the unworkable work. Throughout all of this, Scout said nothing. His silence made me wish for Lucas, who would have known what to do. Honestly, this accident wouldn’t have happened if Lucas were around, because with him driving, we wouldn’t have wound up in a ditch.

  Finally, I gave up. I turned off the engine and put my forehead against the steering wheel, letting the tears come. I didn’t hold back, didn’t worry about how I looked, which was probably ridiculous and pathetic. My chest heaved as I sobbed. I knew that carrying on like this accomplished nothing, but it was the culmination of months of stress and sorrow and worry and I couldn’t help it.

  I was still crying when I felt a hand on my back. It was Scout, awkwardly patting the space between my shoulder blades. “D
on’t be sad, Emma,” he said. “You have done a wonderful thing.”

  “Oh yeah?” I looked up and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. Thank God for waterproof mascara. “What wonderful thing have I done?”

  “You saved her from pain and death,” he said, pointing in the direction the deer had disappeared. “She was afraid when we came close, and when the car did not hit her, she felt relieved. Her baby was alone. If you had killed her, the baby would have died. You are a hero, Emma.” His eyes glistened with admiration.

  “You got all that in the one second she was in front of us?”

  “Fear is one of the strongest emotions,” he said solemnly. “And fear for a loved one is stronger yet.”

  He was so sweet. Too sweet, really. There was no way he’d have survived if he’d been an earthling. The kids at my school would have seen that sweetness as weakness and pulverized him. I took a deep breath. “That’s very nice, Scout. I’m glad the deer can go to her baby. But do you realize that we’re stuck? Because of me we’re totally screwed. We are this close to Erickson Ryder.” I held my thumb and pointer finger a few inches apart. “This close! And now we can’t get there.”

  “We will work something out,” he said, with way more confidence than I was feeling.

  His attempts to cheer me up had not cheered me up, but at least I didn’t feel like sobbing anymore. Scout and I got out of the car, and I showed him how to push on the front, then I got back inside to drive. We tried every combination, forward and back, the engine whining from exertion, but nothing worked. If anything, the spinning wheels grooved us in even deeper. When I got a whiff of something burning, I decided to officially give up.

  I yelled out the car window, “Okay, that’s enough. You don’t have to push anymore.” I rolled up the windows, gathered up the water bottles to put in my backpack, grabbed my car keys and both pairs of sunglasses, and got out of the car. I handed Scout his sunglasses and he put them on without question.

  I slung the backpack over one shoulder. “Let’s go,” I said, gesturing to the road ahead.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “We’re walking. Looking for help.”

  I recognized the look on his face. He was puzzled. “Who will help?”

  “We don’t know that yet,” I said. “But we’ve been here for twenty minutes and no other cars have passed us, so it doesn’t make sense to wait here. There has to be a farmhouse or something ahead, and maybe those people can help us push the car out of the ditch.”

  I watched as he processed what I was saying and then he nodded, as if my idea suddenly made sense. “Okay, Emma. I understand.”

  “Okay, let’s go.” I was ten steps down the road before I noticed he wasn’t with me. Looking back I said, “Scout? Teleporting isn’t an option. We’re going to have to walk.”

  He stared at the back end of the car, then glanced my way and back again. “I cannot leave without it.” He lifted his arm and pointed toward the trunk.

  I sighed and backtracked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Inside. It belongs to me.”

  I got out the car keys and unlocked the trunk. The lid popped open. “What is it you’re . . .” He reached in quickly and snatched up a cloth bag. From the general size and shape, I instantly knew what it was. “Your pod,” I said. “You didn’t tell me it was in the trunk.”

  “I told Eric it had to come with me,” he said.

  Of course. When I wanted it to show Mrs. Walker proof that I wasn’t lying, no one would let me have it. But now, magically, here it was. “You want to put it in my backpack?”

  “No. I will carry it.”

  “Have it your way.” I shrugged. “Anything else before we leave?”

  “No. That is all.”

  As we walked down the highway, I felt like the refugees in other countries you see on CNN. The ones who are uprooted from their homes and have to relocate with nothing but the clothing on their backs and a few possessions. I may have been a little dramatic in my thinking, but that’s how it felt anyway, walking in the heat with my backpack over my shoulder alongside Scout, whose cloth shopping bag held his pod, his only connection to his home planet.

  I kept waiting for a car to come by so I could jump into the middle of the road and stop it like they do in movies. When you’re desperate, normally risky behaviors start to sound reasonable. I never got a chance to try my stuntwoman moves though, because we walked for half an hour without encountering any signs of human life. We heard birds chirping in the woods on either side of the road, and the humming of an insect, the kind that sounds like a live electrical wire. I started to wonder if we’d just keep walking until we hit Lake Superior and then we’d die of starvation, when off in the distance, I heard what sounded like music.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked. Not waiting for a reply, I quickened my pace. Music meant people. People meant air-conditioning and a place to sit. And help. Maybe we were approaching a town that had a gas station with a tow truck. If that was the case, they might be able to get us out of the ditch right away. I was tired of walking and I had a good feeling about this. I was ready for our luck to change.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Scout knew that his curiosity had been the problem. He didn’t have high enough clearance to know about the radio messages from Earth, but Regina did. That kind of classified information was part of her job. Of the two of them, she was smarter and more assertive, and more likely to become a leader. Already, she was a master communication specialist, a perfect fit for her intellect. Frequently, when they spent time together away from their jobs, she would allude to a new development in the broadest of terms, just as a topic of interest, but she never betrayed a confidence. Regina would never do anything that would prevent her from ascending the ranks.

  He was the one who blundered, the one who broke the rules by delving into Regina’s archived work records when she wasn’t around. Scout knew the information was off-limits and that his behavior was appalling, but curiosity overpowered him and he couldn’t help himself. Very few people on his planet would have done such a terrible thing, but when he’d confessed this horrible deed to Emma, she had acted like it was not a big deal. She said she had done that kind of thing herself. It made him both look down on the people of Earth and feel a kinship with them, all at the same time.

  The radio messages came from a coordinate close to Lucas’s house. Close by spaceship standards. The messages were simple in nature, a rhythmic tapping that substituted numbers for meanings. An easy code to crack. Eventually, the source transmitted what he now knew to be video clips. The document he read said that the code experts believed the communication to be friendly and that there was a possibility that this planet might be ready for contact. They were going to proceed cautiously. When he got his orders and knew Earth was the destination for his next job, he knew this was not going to be a standard mission. Of course, he had no way of knowing he would become stranded on Earth indefinitely.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Scout had to break into a jog to catch up to me. Even though his legs were longer, I’d gone into fifth gear, my legs moving so fast they were a blur. He didn’t complain, though. I could say that for him. He wasn’t a whiner.

  As we got closer, I could tell the music was some kind of upbeat country music. Not the new country music, but the old timey stuff. The kind with the fiddles. As we approached a bend in the road, the music came through more clearly. Over the sound of the music, I heard a man’s voice calling out some words I couldn’t quite make out. “We’re close now,” I told Scout. “Once we get around the curve, we’ll be able to see where it’s coming from.”

  We rounded the bend and sure enough, a building that looked like a converted barn came into sight. The letters painted on the side were as tall as a person. They spelled out “Bar None.” Vehicles weren’t parked in front of the building as much as they were scattered. It was as if the drivers had just pulled up anywhere on the gravel lot. There
were a few motorcycles and some pickup trucks along with some older cars. A lot of words crossed my mind, none of them good. Hicks, bikers, hayseed, rednecks. To me, this looked like the place where the unsophisticated and maybe even somewhat scary people hung out. My excited, good feeling was dampened by a shroud of caution. “Bar None,” I read aloud. “That’s what the place is called.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “It’s a play on words,” I explained. “A bar is a place that serves alcohol, but the expression ‘bar none’ means no one is excluded.” I’d never walked into a bar before, much less an up-north country bar. I didn’t like the thought of going in, but we’d walked for so long and it was so hot outside . . .

  “Emma?” Scout said. “Do you want to go inside for help?”

  His voice broke me out of my trance, making me aware that I’d stopped in my tracks. “Yes, we still need help,” I said. “But I’m not sure these are the kinds of people who will help us. They might be scary. Here’s the plan: we’ll go in and ask about a tow truck, but if I want to leave right away, just follow me, okay?”

  I didn’t wait for a response, just walked over to the entrance. There was a regular-sized screen door and I pushed through, aware of Scout coming in behind me, right on my heels. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I did a double take when I saw that we’d walked right into a square dance. A platform on the far end of the building held an announcer bellowing into a microphone. Behind him played a live band of old guys. Fossils with instruments. The dancers were all senior citizens, the women in the poufy skirts you see sometimes on the dolls you win as carnival prizes. For the most part, the ladies were a bit thick in the middle and had tightly permed hair. The men looked somewhat better in shiny black shoes, dress pants, western-style shirts, and bolo ties.