But if she wants to waste some time on this planet so I can bond with the human girl, more power to her.
“You’ll be alright?” she asks.
“Might burn the world down,” I say, “but I’ll have a good time, so sure. I’m good.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” I tease, but the terrified look on her face gives me pause. “I’ll be fine if you will. Do what you have to, then come back soon.”
Tinley
I wake on the same blankets Łin laid me down on. I’ve been carefully tucked in, though my wrists and ankles are bound to the makeshift bed. I wrap my fingers around the chain and tug, choking on a lump in my throat when there’s just enough give to squirm, but no way I’ll be breaking free.
Breathe. It’s fine. This is fine.
I peer around cautiously. The ovular space is pretty, the walls dark but decorated with a prism of lights as though it were carved out of crystals. It glows naturally, like moonlight is captured in the facets of the stone.
“Don’t worry about the chain.”
Łin’s voice startles me enough that I roll over, forgetting momentarily I was meaning to play dead. She settles on the bed beside me, leaning into my stomach and looking down at me with soft, curious eyes.
“It’s merely a precaution to settle my sister,” she continues. “I assure you, you’re safe here.”
“Where is she?” I ask. “Your...sister, I mean.”
“Off looking for a jet to borrow,” she says. When I stare at her, she chuckles. “I know. It won’t help fix the ship, but she’s determined to try.”
I swallow, trying and failing to stave off a panic attack. “What are you?”
“Szirish,” she answers. “A descendant of the old race, much like sirens, or even yourself. The history books say we split off from some mother planet ages ago, but.” She shrugs. “Honestly, who knows.”
I’ve never truly believed humans were the only intelligent lifeforms in the entire damn galaxy, but I never thought I’d be in a situation like this. Not chained to a bed with one right in front of me.
I didn’t think I’d be looking at a blue, otherworldly woman and feel hot about it.
“Sirens,” I say. That’s easier, I read about those all the time.
She grins. “Yes. We’re closely related to those. We don’t thrive in waters, though.”
“Is that…” I start, then pause, licking my lips. Maybe it’s loneliness, touch starvation, or some superpower she possesses, but her proximity, the way she looks at me makes me weak. “Is that why, like… your voice, it’s…”
She leans in close, and the words die on my tongue. She braces one arm by my head, her warm body fitting easily against mine as she ghosts her lips across my cheek and over my chin.
“Affecting you?” she asks.
I whimper in response, arching towards her involuntarily before forcing myself to turn my face away. Her lips curl into a smile at my neck, but she pulls away and grabs my chin, bringing my eyes back up to hers. “What’s your name?”
I swallow, and she follows the bob of my throat with her eyes. “Tinley Jameson.”
She raises her brows, the question marks clear in her eyes. “Łin,” she says.
Then she pulls away, leans back against my hips like I’m a chair. “It’s not something I can help. Tempting you like this,” she says apologetically. “But I won’t take advantage of it.”
A sick part of my mind kind of wishes she would, but I don’t voice that aloud. Instead I nod, and let her sit beside me, and we just talk like old friends. Until she’s comfortable enough to pick the locks and sit with me like regular people.
We talk until the day is done, and then we talk some more.
And it’s the most right I’ve felt in a very, very long time.
Łin
Haerlo returns a week later, dragging a trailer of machinery with her. She barely acknowledges either Tinley or I, surely pissed off I broke the girl out of her chains even without the key. We leave my sister to her mindless puttering and simply watch her together out the gondola window.
“So what happens when it’s fixed?” Tinley asks.
I shrug. “We’ll go back home.”
She nods, looking down at her hands. She fiddles absently with the hem of her shirt, then asks, “What’s waiting for you there? Family, or…”
“Haerlo is the only family I have,” I admit, avoiding Tinley’s curious gaze. “The planet is war-torn, we’ve lost many of our people over the years. But, we do have friends there. A movement of women trying to rebuild from the ashes.”
She grins, but it’s sad. “That sounds nice.”
“What of you?” I ask. “Once we leave you. What family do you return to?”
She opens her mouth and closes it again, looking out into the forest quietly for a long moment. She shakes her head, her voice soft and heavy with pain when she admits, “None.”
“None?” I ask, disbelieving.
She draws in a short breath. “I don’t know, like…how the whole sex thing goes on your planet. If it matters if you’re with women or men or something else, but. There are books here, religious organizations and such that says it’s wrong for people to love one another if they’re the same gender, or outside the male-female spectrum. So… when I came out, and told my family I like girls, I lost them.”
My heart sinks at the pain in her voice, but I merely nod. She looks as though she’s about to break down in tears, and no pretty words of sympathetic understanding will help her through this.
Humans do have some disgusting little tendencies.
“Alright,” Haerlo grunts, slamming the ship door closed behind her. “I think I’ve got it. But it’s about to be real loud and real cold in here, and I want to avoid detection.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” I ask.
“Are the roads still blocked off?” Tinley asks shakily.
Haerlo glares at her automatically, but doesn’t answer.
“My family…or…” she trails off, shaking her head to clear it. “I know this place. It’s a cabin, deep in the woods, near a lake. No one can get to it if the roads are still closed. We’d be safe there. Alone.”
I meet Haerlo’s skeptical eyes and nod my approval. She doesn’t look pleased, but she gestures for me to take the wheel. “Onward, then.”
The cabin is plain and simple, giving the illusion it’s held together like an intricate wood puzzle. There’s enough space between the building and the lake to hide the ship without fear of detection, and the near frozen water absorbs the horrendous racket Haerlo makes as she struggles to piece the machine back together.
“Thank you,” I say to Tinley, “for bringing us out here.”
She shrugs. “No one was using it,” she says. “I’m kind of happy I get to see it one last time.”
She studies the fixtures with longing, trailing her fingertips across the fireplace mantel and the railings on the stairs like they hold the secrets of the universe. Her family must have been up here once or twice before the avalanche, as the interior is half decorated in red and white lights and strings of fake pine. Stockings line the fireplace, and a naked tree stands proud in the corner behind boxes and boxes of ornaments.
If this is truly her last Christmas in her beloved childhood home, I feel it needs to be special. She deserves one last happy memory in this place, even if her world has abandoned her.
“We don’t celebrate Christmas on Szire,” I tell her. “Or any human holiday, really. I’ve never seen such…bizarre traditions.”
She grins. “Maybe you can take what you’ve learned home with you. You have to admit, stories or not, the lights are pretty.”
I watch her closely, giving a delicate smile. “There are many pretty things here.”
She blushes, lowering her eyes.
“How would you feel about showing me how this goes?” I ask, gesturing to the boxes of trinkets needing to be hung on the tree.
Her eyes are sad, and a little bit scared by the invitation. But after a long moment of contemplation, she nods and reaches for my hand. She’s quiet and tearful as we finish hanging the lights, but by the end, she’s smiling.
There’s a spark of joy in her melancholy eyes, and that’s all I could ever hope to give her.
Tinley
Łin doesn’t stop at putting up the tree with me. While her sister fusses for hours on end outside, leaving us to our own devices, Łin has me show her every last ritual we can possibly think of. We read stories and watch Christmas movies—after I convince her the television is, in fact, safe—and she even ventures outside with me to skate on the coldest side of the lake.
By the end of the day on Christmas Eve, Haerlo is sleeping heavily in the chair by the tree, and Łin is a bigger Christmas nut than I’ve ever been in all my life.
“This is most exciting than your music,” she cheers, clutching her mug of hot cocoa to her chest. “I dare say, this is the most beneficial advancement of humankind.”
I giggle, the first time I’ve laughed in a while. “Well, I’m glad you like it.”
She nods, shifting her body closer to mine and resting her head on my shoulder. We’re hunkered down under a quilt, curled around each other to fight off the frostbite that tried to overpower us outside.
“Thank you for sharing your holiday with me, Tinley Jameson,” she whispers.
I swallow back the tears that struggle to overflow whenever she thanks me for this. Truth be told, I never would have done such a thing if it weren’t for her. There would be no decor, no movies, no stories, no dinner and drinks. I’d have been at work, thinking about my family, crying in the locker room and wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think my Christmas would be saved by a pretty alien, but it’s the best outcome I could’ve hoped for.
“Thank you back,” I whisper.
She turns her face into my neck, sighing deeply. Haerlo failed to fix the throttle on her ship, however, after smashing three different GPS navigators and two cellphones into tiny bits, she did make contact with their home planet.
Their rescue brigade was on the way as we spoke. Our time was almost up.
“Łin…”
She raises her head to look at me. “Yes?”
“They’re coming to get you soon,” I say. “Your people, your friends, and… I was wondering…”
No.
It was a crazy idea. A stupid idea. For all I know, none of this was real. I cracked my head on the ice, I had to, and this was some off-the-wall coma dream. The doctors were sure to change my meds any day now, try to bring me out of my sleep, and all of this would go away.
Even if that’s true, what is there to go back to? A life of misery, scraping by in my car and hoping I’ll find my footing? I know I could pick up the pieces and make something beautiful out of my life, enough people are forced to do just that every day.
But why should I throw away this insane, once in a lifetime opportunity? If it is all a dream, then it doesn’t matter anyway.
And if it isn’t?
Well. I don’t want it to be fake anyway.
“Wondering what, Tinley?” Łin prompts gently.
This is it. Now or never.
“Take me with you.”
About the Author
Helena Novak (she/her) has been making things up and bending people to her will from a very young age. She loves animals, tattoos, music, laughing, and reading, and you can usually find her entertaining one of those muses. She spends an obscene amount of time finding pretty new words and thinking up awful ways to torment her characters, and has the attention span of a gnat.
When not writing every single genre she can get her greedy little brain hooked on, Novak can be found walking one of her many furbabies, making havoc with her credit union work buddies, or jamming out in her car to Taylor Swift or Broadway musical soundtracks. She lives in the beautiful state of Colorado with her fur-babies.
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Starling Wish
E.J. Powell
Trixie
8 Years Ago
Christmas is supposed to be one of the best holidays to celebrate, apart from St. Patrick’s Day and Fourth of July. But Christmas is my favorite, or well, it used to be. As a young girl, I’d always found Christmas to be a joyous occasion, but these past couple years have brought me nothing but misery.
At twelve, I know Santa Claus doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t stop me from doing what younger kids do, waiting in line to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what I want for Christmas. I know it is wishful thinking. I know it is just an old creep behind the white beard and fancy red fat suit, but if Santa can make my wish come true, then maybe life won’t be so miserable at home. One can only hope.
So, I wait in line at the local shopping mall, hoping for a chance. I need a chance to get away from my foster family. Sure, any twelve-year-old wants to run away, but I just need to leave for the better. My foster mom is expecting a baby girl at the end of December, and although it is only mid-November, I don’t want to be around when her daughter is born. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not leaving for just that specific reason.
I also want to leave because they aren’t my real family. None of them are. After being placed in foster care so many times, there is only so much more I can take, and barely any sane person wants a preteen daughter around; so, I’ve been stuck with them. With my foster mom expecting and my foster dad favoring glass bottles, I am essentially left alone most of the time. Forgotten in my room while they do whatever grownups do during the days and nights following beginning the foster care plan for me.
I’d overheard them talking in the kitchen one night, and they want me gone by Christmas. I’m bound to leave, either by my choice or being sent to another foster care home until they get sick of me. I know for a fact that I am never getting adopted, and it doesn’t bug me as much as it probably should. I learned to rely on myself a long time ago, and right now isn’t any different.
A young woman dressed as a green elf gestures for me to step forward and go see Santa.
I try not to let her stare bother me as I move toward Santa Claus.
“Ho, ho, ho! What’s your name, little girl?”
My gaze flickers to the man wearing the red suit and beard. It is hard to see his face, but I will always remember his eyes. They are blue. A startling blue that has greens and grays mixed in as if his eyes are nothing but the pits of the brightest and darkest parts of the ocean. They unsettle me, but nothing can compare to how it feels having them watch me intently as I slowly ease into Santa’s lap. “Trixie,” I say in a quiet voice.
“And what would you like for Christmas this year, Trixie?” Santa asks as he wraps a secure arm around me and turns us to look at the camera guy, who tells us to smile.
I blink away the spotting lights from the flash of the camera and face Santa once more. “My present this year is that I’d like to live on a different planet and never come back to Earth ever again.”
Blue-green eyes flash in surprise. “Are you sure that’s what you truly desire?”
I don’t hesitate and nod. “Yes. More than anything.”
He continues to study me as I clamber down from his lap and the green elf gestures for me to move along. Santa doesn’t say another word as I turn and leave where he’d been sitting in the mall.
My chest feels a little lighter knowing I let someone else in on my little secret. My desire to get away and never return. While most orphans my age wish for families and toys or even a vacation, I just want to go awa
y and never have to return to a place where I’m not wanted, and where it doesn’t hurt so much. Where parents keep their children and don’t just give them up without further explanation.
Zayton
Dressing up as Santa Claus, a fictional character, had sounded appealing, and pretending to be someone else for a day or two helps ease the distress pulsating in my veins. Three years I’ve been on Earth with little to no luck in finding myself a mate. My planet is counting on me to retrieve the perfect mate; whether male or female, I have to choose one to settle down with.
Hardly any of the Starling race has ever dared to set foot on Earth. As forbidden and intriguing the planet is, it isn’t home. Home is SaxZon. A beautiful green planet filled with lush, exotic plants, exceptional water, and above all, endless space. SaxZon is like the paradise almost all humans have talked about, the Garden of Eden. A paradise that very few ever get the chance to witness.
I can’t return home until I find a mate. So, for three years, I’ve been away from SaxZon and calling Earth my “home away from home,” so to speak.
I was utterly surprised when a young girl sat on my lap on my last day pretending to be Santa Claus. Her wish floored me and rendered me speechless for several seconds. For a girl to wish to want to leave Earth means her homelife can’t be great. Being taken to another planet must seem like a dream come true for her.
It calls to me and seems to want to entangle itself with my own pure white aura. My body hums in delight. Her aura encases me in warmth, and I find it hard to resist temptation. Every Starling has a unique ability to locate their missing half. Mine happens to be auras.
A Very Alien Christmas Page 20