“Wow!” Erik exclaimed.
Sam looked less impressed. “Why wow? Our town’s got hundreds of these.”
“I don’t know. Maybe because it’s this gigantic chasm in Jory’s own backyard.” Erik swiped Randall’s baseball cap and tossed it to Sam, who pretended to throw it into the canyon. Randall tackled him around the waist. Jory laughed, though he wished they’d lower their voices a little.
“So do you guys actually own all this?” Erik asked him.
Jory wasn’t sure. “Part of it, I think.”
They crowded as close as they could to the canyon’s edge. A hawk swooped overhead, but that was the only danger in today’s blue sky. The color, the sunlight, his classmates’ jokes…they made it seem almost silly now. That anything could possibly threaten them from above.
Or that he’d be spending so much time below.
Suddenly, Jory noticed Bonnie, the neighbor lady he’d spoken to, on the canyon’s opposite side. She looked about as big as one of those plastic army men. Small enough to squish with two fingers.
Alice waved at her. She waved back.
Jory caught Alice’s hand. “Don’t,” he said. “She’s weird.”
“Weird like how?”
“Weird like…” Jory tried to look at her without actually looking. “She’s old, but she wears short shorts all the time.”
Alice laughed. “Why’s that weird? I plan on wearing short shorts when I’m old. That’s the whole point of being old—you can wear whatever you want. Like go-go boots and a Renaissance neck cuff. Or a wedding dress and a horse mask.”
The other boys laughed.
“Fine,” Jory said. “But rumor has it, all she and the other neighbor lady eat is—pickles. They only eat pickles. Nothing else. Also, they’re building a house in the bottom of the canyon.”
Jory wasn’t sure why he’d said that—it’d just come out. All five of them stared into the canyon.
“Why in the world?” Erik said. “They’ve got a perfectly good house right there.”
“I don’t know,” Jory said. “I guess they’re just a little crazy.”
“No kidding,” Sam agreed.
“Probably all the sodium,” Alice said.
Randall raised his eyebrows. “The sodium?”
“From the pickles. Those things are loaded.”
“Okay, but, for real? They’re really building a house down there?” Erik stepped even closer to the edge. A pebble clattered down the slope. “We should go check it out.”
Jory was horrified. “Oh no, that’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because…poison oak! There’s tons of it down there. The evil kind. Six hours later you’d be one big oozy blister.”
“Doesn’t your neighbor tramp around down there in short shorts?” Sam asked.
Oops. “She’s probably immune,” Jory said. “I read that like one tenth of the population is immune to poison oak and ivy. But the odds are against us. Anyway, there are other things too. Scorpions. Coyotes. Spiders—hairy ones.”
Alice shrieked, then started laughing. Erik had tickled the back of her neck. Jory looked away, feeling kind of annoyed.
And then his heart dropped.
Mom was heading toward them.
For a split second, he saw her through the other kids’ eyes. Her lopsided, frizzy braid. Her broken-bird frailty. Her pale skin—like she hadn’t seen the sun in months.
Then she was Mom again. Frail and frazzled, sure—but worried. Distressed. Even more distressed than when he’d brought Kit home bleeding. Home was home and school was school, but now they were colliding.
Jory cleared his throat. “Hi, Mom. These are my…they’re kids from my class.”
“We’re his friends,” Alice said.
Jory glanced at her, then swallowed. “They just wanted to see—where I lived.”
Mom blinked over and over, like she had something in her eye. “I’m afraid Jory needs to come inside now,” she said softly. “It’s time for dinner.”
“Really? But it’s only—”
Alice elbowed Erik in the side before he could finish. “No problem. It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Birch.”
Mom smiled in a strained way. “You, too.”
Jory followed her inside the house, battling not to glance back. His stomach swarmed with butterflies, angry hornets, miniature dragons with fiery sighs. He felt upset with everybody—Sam and Randall, Erik and Alice, Mom and especially himself.
But he also felt loyal to them. All of them. His family, but also his friends. It wasn’t their fault they didn’t know any better. It wasn’t their fault they had nobody to warn them of the danger.
His friends.
Alice had used the word herself: We’re his friends, she’d said. She’d used it other times, too. Did that make it true? Was that how friendship always was? People easing into each other’s company bit by bit, until suddenly they cared?
In the kitchen, Mom leaned against the counter with her arms crossed.
“They’re not…” Jory began. “We weren’t…”
She watched him, waiting.
He took a deep breath. “They just showed up. They followed me—”
“It’s okay.”
“And I know you have to tell Caleb—”
Mom touched his arm. “I won’t.”
Jory gaped. “You won’t?”
“Did you tell them anything?”
She didn’t specify, but he knew what she meant. “No, of course not.”
“Then Caleb doesn’t need to know.” Mom smiled, almost sadly. “I’m heading for bed—I’ve got a bit of a headache. Will you be all right making your own dinner?”
Jory nodded.
But his stomach dragons had flown off with his appetite. He sat at the kitchen table with his hands in his lap, staring at the blinds that shaded the kitchen window.
He knew he should feel relieved. Even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, not really. Mom was right—Caleb didn’t need to know. Still, he felt uneasy.
Trust was a fragile thing. So was belief.
And both were starting to crumble.
ON SATURDAY, JORY, KIT, AND ANSEL sat together at the kitchen table, a mound of Worldbuilding houses between them. They typically played on the back porch or in the fields, but Jory was feeling daring. Mom and Caleb had left early to run errands, and they said they’d be gone all day.
“That’s a house,” Kit told Ansel, pointing. She was speaking more often now, though still only to her brothers.
“Howf,” Ansel repeated.
“Close enough.”
Ansel seemed to like Worldbuilding. Kit had given him a block and a brush of his own. So far, he’d painted the whole thing bright yellow, and his hands, too. And his forehead.
“You’re a mess, buddy.” Jory chuckled, even though knew he’d have to scrub him before Mom and Caleb returned. “You look like Big Bird.”
“Bird,” Ansel said.
“Exactly right!” Kit exclaimed, and Ansel beamed. “What’s Big Bird, anyway?”
Jory glanced at her in surprise. “Oh—I guess you haven’t seen Sesame Street. He’s a great big yellow bird with orange legs. Taller than a man.”
“Sounds freaky.”
“He’s supposed to be friendly,” Jory tried to explain.
Rap. Rap. Rap.
He accidentally painted a green splotch over his window.
“The door,” Kit said, eyes wide.
He set down his house and rinsed his hands in the sink, trying to act calm. “Stay here. Clean up while I answer it.”
Rap. Rap. Rap.
Each knock was a sharp pang of fear in Jory’s chest. Should he answer the door? Or should he hide? What would Caleb want him to do? There wasn’t enough time to figure it out. He hurried to the door, took a deep breath, and opened it.
Two strangers stood on the other side. Two strangers in trim suits and shiny shoes. White collared shirts. Serious expressions.
“Hello,” they said in unison.
The female Official was short and pudgy, with curly hair and glasses. The male Official had cropped gray hair and a sunburst of smile lines around his eyes. Other than the formal clothes, they looked almost normal. But looks could be deceiving, Jory knew. He didn’t trust them one bit.
“You must be Jory Birch,” he said. “Eleven, almost twelve years old, right? Are your parents home?”
“They’ll be back soon,” Jory said. “I mean, I don’t know when they’ll be back. You should probably stop by another time.”
He started to close the door.
“We’d like to talk to you, then,” the male Official said. “If that’s all right. Can we come in and chat for a bit?”
Jory shook his head. “That’s probably not a good idea. Because of…”
“Because of what?”
“Because of serial killers.”
They both smiled. Jory didn’t like the man’s teeth—his canines seemed too sharp. “We’re not serial killers,” the female Official said, fumbling through her pocket. She held out a badge.
Jory pretended to examine it. PROTECTIVE SERVICES, he read. Very Official-sounding. If the badges were fake, he wouldn’t know the difference—and what did it matter? He couldn’t trust Officials, even if the badge was genuine. “You still can’t come inside,” he said.
“Fair enough,” the female Official said. “If you could just answer a few—”
There was a tug on Jory’s jeans. “Jawee,” Ansel said.
“Who’s this?”
“That’s my brother,” Jory said grudgingly.
He tried to pat down Ansel’s messy hair. Where was Kit? Staying out of sight, he hoped.
“Heya, Buddy-Boy,” the male Official said, kneeling down. “You’re an awfully cute little fellow. How would you like an Andes mint?”
“He’s allergic to chocolate,” Jory lied. He wondered whether lying to an Official was a federal offense.
“I’ve also got some saltwater taffy. Let me check my pockets…”
Jory didn’t trust any of this man’s candy. “We’re fine.”
“So it’s just the five of you?”
“Yeah, the—” Jory stopped. “Mom, me, Caleb and Ansel. And our dog. Five.”
“So you don’t have a sister?”
“No.”
“That’s funny. We have reports of a little girl living here. With dark hair, about eight or nine years old, is that right?”
“I told you,” Jory said. “I live here. My mother lives here. My stepfather, Caleb, lives here. And Ansel lives here.”
“And the little girl.”
Jory felt like screaming. “It must have just been my friend Alice Brooks-Diaz. She’s got dark hair. Maybe—”
“No, it couldn’t be,” the male Official said. “It was Alice’s mother who called us about your sister in the first place.”
Alice’s mother had called? Jory felt punched in the gut. How did Mrs. Brooks even know about Kit? There was only one possible way—Alice had told her. But why? When? After Kit had fallen from the swing? Or yesterday, after his friends had followed him home? Probably yesterday. She’d looked at him so strangely when he’d said Kit was sick.
He was so stupid! Alice was so stupid. She had no idea how dangerous the Officials were. They didn’t want to protect Kit, no matter what they said.
He stepped forward. The male Official leaned backward, just a bit.
“I don’t know who told you what,” Jory said, “but I don’t have a sister. There’s no little girl living here. There’s just me and Ansel and Mom and Caleb.”
“And your dog.”
Jory wished he hadn’t brought the dog into this. “I swear on—on everything in the world. On a stack of holy Bibles. On my mother’s grave. All right?”
Finally, the male Official nodded. “All right.”
“Everything else is okay?” the female Official asked.
“Everything’s fine.”
“Remember, Jory, we’re here for you. Here’s a card with our office’s phone number on it. Feel free to call anytime.”
Jory shut the door—as politely as possible, even though he wanted to slam it. Then he crumpled the card in his fist.
It was just like Caleb said. The Officials were out to get them. They were out to get Kit. And if Caleb was right about the Officials…
Maybe he was right about everything else.
JORY WAITED UNTIL THE REST OF HIS FAMILY HAD FALLEN ASLEEP. Then he found Caleb studying by lantern light in the patio, flipping pages in one of his thick binders. Jory heard the low murmur of the radio—“not telling you…proprietary information…coming storm…”—before Caleb reached over and switched it off.
“What’s the trouble, son?” Caleb asked.
Nervously, Jory handed him the female Official’s crumpled card. Caleb smoothed it with callused fingers as Jory shared what they’d said.
“So they were interested in Kit,” Caleb said quietly.
“Yeah, but…” Jory hadn’t really specified. “How did you know?”
“It was only a matter of time before they learned about her.”
“Why are they interested in her?”
Caleb shut his binder and sat back in his Adirondack chair. His face was turned away from the lantern light, so Jory couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. “Because Kit is special.”
Kit is special.
Jory thought about Kit’s star-shaped eyes in his dream, that impossible wind. Her fingertip electricity that had ruffled Ansel’s hair. He thought about the way she always seemed to know what Jory was thinking. Whether he was awake or asleep. Her creative brilliance, and the energy that crackled through her. Jory didn’t know what special meant exactly, but he wasn’t surprised.
Of course Kit was special—that was obvious. A girl made of stars. A girl from the moon, magicked into his life—
“I thought so, anyway,” Caleb said.
“So she’s not special?” Jory asked, confused.
“She seemed to be, at first. When she showed up bedraggled in our pumpkin field, and I saw how happy she made your mother, I took it as a sign. Not a bad sign—a good one. I decided the only right thing to do was to keep her safe: from wherever she came, from whoever might be seeking her. To welcome her into our family, even if that meant keeping her a secret. But I’m afraid I made a mistake.”
Jory gaped at his stepdad. “A mistake?”
“The truth is, Kit isn’t special—she’s just a normal little girl. Subnormal, even. She hasn’t spoken or written a word since we found her. She reads, but doesn’t retain anything—”
“But she does. I know she does.”
Caleb sighed, rubbing his beard. “I know you care about her. And Mom does, too. But whether she’s special or not, having her in our possession has brought attention to our family. Our real family.”
Kit is our real family, Jory thought fiercely.
He knew Caleb had never seemed to care for Kit the way Jory and Mom did. And that he seemed more frustrated by her lately. His fuse was shorter, more easily tripped. Like when she’d spilled her milk during Survival. And the night they’d cut into the pipe, when he’d sent her to her room.
But Jory hadn’t realized Caleb thought of her this way. Not as a daughter, but somebody who should be grateful for their care. Maybe even somebody who owed them.
“It’s getting late,” Caleb said. “We have a long night ahead of us. Maybe I’ll give the Officials a call first thing in the morning—I’m sure I can divert their attention. For now.” He stood and rested a hand on Jory’s shoulder. “You were right to approach me in private, son.”
“I was?”
Caleb nodded. “I don’t think we should tell your mother about the Officials.”
It made Jory uncomfortable, this feeling he had knowledge his mother didn’t. Especially after she’d kept the secret about his friends. “Why not?”
> “She’ll worry too much. Your mother has a compassionate heart. Sometimes, it makes her weak. When the danger comes, she’ll need to rely on our strength—on yours, Jory. On your trust, and your love for this family.”
Jory wanted to defend Mom. To insist she was stronger than Caleb thought, stronger than any of them thought. She couldn’t help her migraines, her timidity, her anxiety—and she looked after the family, despite those extra challenges.
But there it was: the danger again. Skulking behind every conversation. Storming his every thought with darkness.
“Can you be strong?” Caleb asked.
“I’m—I’m trying,” Jory said truthfully.
“Good.” Caleb’s eyes smiled. “And don’t worry about Kit. When we took her in, we took on the responsibility to make sure she’s taken care of. And I intend to.”
It didn’t make Jory feel much better.
Jory tossed and turned that night, though he desperately needed sleep. Every time he started to doze—
Rap. Rap. Rap.
Just his imagination knocking. But every time, he’d sit up in bed, certain the Officials had arrived to take Kit away, to take Ansel away, to take him away.
Maybe he was having an existential crisis.
Finally, he kicked off the covers and stuffed his feet in his boots. He considered taking a stroll in the fields, or maybe seeing if Kit was awake. He hadn’t gotten the chance to discuss the Officials with her. It was so difficult, finding time and space for secret talks.
Instead, Jory crossed the room and lifted his blinds. He slid open the window.
No wind blasted him in the face, like on the night he’d dreamed of Kit. He saw the fields, and the blackness of the canyon. The purple-gray sky curved around it, littered with stars.
So many stars.
They flickered at the edge of Jory’s vision, stilling when he stared. He wished he had a telescope. Or an astronomy book. Or an astronomy genius, like he’d pretended Kit was to the neighbor lady. He had no idea which lights were stars, satellites, planets. Which were other things. Things he didn’t know about. Things he couldn’t name.
The sky was endless. And so were the possibilities.
Watch the Sky Page 13