Our Child of the Stars

by Stephen Cox

  The murky waters stilled. He must brief the Storytellers, the shadowy department tasked with explaining away the inexplicable to the press and the public. Ordinary people, other countries, the whole world, in fact, must know nothing. When Dr Pfeiffer solved this conundrum, America would be first to the stars and his rightful place in history would be secured.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Sheriff

  Gene was the last person in the library. It’d been a long day and he wanted to get back to his family, but he needed a few minutes to martial his thoughts. He sat at a reader’s desk, unfolded the letter and tried not to think about a cigarette. Cory pulled such a face when he smoked, and he even dreamed of the smell now, which was weird.

  His parents wanted to drive over. The last time Mom had called, she’d pressed him: how were things with Molly? He loved his parents, but his mom had some sort of magic antenna that picked up problems in the marriage. Gene had given her a few nothings; the truth still stunned him.

  So, Mom, we rescued an alien and lied to the FBI. There’s a germ-warfare scientist running around with soldiers who will snatch our son away – yes, he’s my son, and day by day, it’s like the most frightening thing in the world. I worry even about letting him into the woods or climbing a tree, which he can’t stop talking about. And it’s wonderful, beyond words, the most extraordinary thing. You know, he comes into our dreams . . .

  Gene smiled. Every day was a new little story. This morning Cory wanted to know why cars didn’t talk or take orders and then make their own way to the destination.

  Gene couldn’t tell his parents; he couldn’t. But if he said Molly was ill, his parents would ask them to the farm for some R&R and good home cooking, and they’d keep offering. And if he kept stalling, his dad would find some flimsy excuse and drive over, just like he had during the bad years, saying, ‘Not for me to stick my nose in—’

  Gene thought if he could be even half the father John Myers was, he would be doing a good job. But he couldn’t tell them. Not everyone had loved Cory. Nurse Hooton had taken against him from the start, and clearly something odd had happened with this Dr Bradshaw.

  Mom would be fine; Mom once rescued a crow with a broken wing and kept it flightless as a pet; she approached everyone trusting they were good. Molly would get her on side in a heartbeat. But Dad . . .

  There had been long arguments about the war until John went red and Gene felt beyond reason. ‘They should pass a law,’ John would say, ‘anyone burns the flag, they should be drafted, right then and there. The army knows how to sort ’em out.’

  Gene worried what his dad meant by ‘city radicals’, and yet when he’d met Diane, he’d given her a little bow and said, ‘Gene tells me you’re a teacher, Mrs Alexander. What a job, to give young people their learning. Bet no one you teach will ever dare to grow up to throw rocks at the police.’

  Diane pursed her mouth, sharing a silent joke with Molly, but she didn’t rise to it, even though she’d done plenty of marching and sitting-in against unjust laws in her time.

  Anyway, Gene couldn’t picture his father and Cory, the alien with the strange face, a fugitive from the government, sitting together by the farm stove. He’d never kept a secret from his father and that worried at him like a dog chewing a slipper. Maybe it would be fine. Maybe it wouldn’t.

  There was someone thumping at the main door, even though it was clearly closed and only one light was on. He needed to leave anyway, so he picked up his coat and went to the door. Sheriff Olsen stood there.

  Gene felt fear, an actual nausea, a cold clamminess in the warm room. He tried to settle his face into public servant neutrality as he unlocked the door. Maybe this would be something about Dr Jarman, who was still in custody. Rosa Pearce and Nurse Fell were free, but had yet to make contact.

  ‘Mr Myers, sorry to bother you.’

  Was this the look of a man getting ready to arrest him? ‘That’s all right. What can I do for you, Sheriff?’

  ‘Any odd jobs around the place?’

  Gene blinked. Olsen looked – well, hard to say how he looked. Like a man who’d fleeced Jarman at poker.

  ‘It would . . . help me,’ Olsen said. ‘You know Luke Barnes? Well, his horse won, he got drunk and he threw up in Carl Waite’s back yard. Knocked the fence down.’

  Gene’s librarian mind said, Yes, Carl, bald, irritable, why are there no new Westerns in yet? He nodded. And Luke was a handy­man; he did work for the county and all sorts. They said he was simple, slept in a tent, until the frosts came.

  Olsen spread his hands. ‘Carl wants to haul him in front of the judge. I said, Luke’s sorry, he’ll put your fence back up, better than ever, and I’ll tell him, never bother Mr Waite again, or you go to jail. Usually Luke picks just three-legged horses and that keeps him dry as July, but somehow a horse came in at 20-1 and he got drunk. Well, Luke drunk, I’ve seen fireflies in a jar with more sense.’

  ‘We’ve hired everyone we need,’ Gene said.

  ‘So I need some public-spirited thing Luke can do for free, to calm old Carl down, or the judge will fine him, and if that happens, well, I need to make sure Luke has work to cover it.’ Olsen could have sold encyclopaedias with that smile.

  ‘I just don’t have anything,’ Gene said apologetically. ‘We’d have to take paid work off someone else.’

  Olsen nodded. ‘Sure, I’d never rob another man of his work. I just had to ask.’

  But he wasn’t moving. Gene distrusted the Sheriff and yet, he was the one who’d found Cory and his alien mother, talked to Dr Jarman and never said a word to the authorities. That was a strange story, one Gene wanted to hear, though he doubted he ever would.

  ‘We gotta look after our own, Mr Myers,’ Olsen said. ‘These crazy times, and now the Meteor? Rough times for all of us. Army and FBI all over the place, getting in the way, treating the people who know and love our town like hayseeds. How’s Mrs Myers?’

  This was it: the clever question. All this stuff about looking after the simple handyman? That was a ruse and he’d fallen for it. Gene hoped the sudden leap in his pulse wasn’t visible. He started to feel warm in the face.

  ‘She’s been better, she’s been worse,’ he said. ‘I need to get back to her.’

  ‘Jarman said she’s a fine nurse, one of the best. A real asset on Meteor Day, he said. Give her my best wishes.’

  Was that some hint? Change the subject, ask if he’d seen Jarman, still held in some legal limbo. But he dared not sound too inquisitive – suppose Olsen followed up with more questions?

  ‘I’ve kept you waiting, why don’t I drop you home?’

  Gene’s mind failed him; he couldn’t think of a single reason better than, ‘Oh no, I couldn’t put you to the trouble.’

  To which Olsen said, ‘But it’s no trouble!’ so Gene got in the passenger seat of the big police car, Olsen revved the engine and they were away.

  It was a hellish drive. Gene felt like he was being watched every second. Was the cat playing with the mouse? Something Olsen wanted to say hovered in the car, unsaid. Twice Gene had thought him close to speech; a couple of times he’d said something pithy about another driver, but there was no actual conversation.

  At last they reached Crooked Street and home. Olsen parked and said, ‘Well.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Bad business up at the hospital. Jarman’s got some crazy ideas, but he’s a good man. The Feds oughtta let him out.’

  Gene felt his heart skip a beat; he felt like he twitched. This was not a conversation he could have. ‘Yeah,’ he said, opening the door. ‘Let’s hope it gets sorted soon.’ He lifted a friendly hand in farewell and turned to walk to the porch. His father had raised him to speak the truth and shame the devil. He felt like someone had painted a target on his back.

  He wished Jarman was free, for a thousand reasons. What was Olsen playing at? The fir
st man to stand with the aliens . . .

  Gene turned at the door. The Sheriff was still watching him. But he raised his hand and drove off.

  CHAPTER 13

  Motherhood

  Molly stood with Cory’s clothes in her hands. He was playing I-don’t-want-to-put-them-on, running along the corridor with a towel inexpertly wrapped around his head and nothing else.

  ‘Got haaiiirr,’ he crowed. He would put anything vaguely furry on his head as a big joke; two hairbrushes, bristles out, held to his cheeks were ‘beeard!’

  Smiling, Molly chose to chase him. Out of the shower, he was slippery and fast. He might hide, just for the seconds he needed to get behind her. It was a great game, not real rebellion: Molly knew she could go downstairs and put the kettle on and five minutes later he’d appear, ready to be civilised. He could manage most clothes himself, but often he just chose not to. Tomorrow he might want to ‘wear-tie-like-Dad’ and be overdressed.

  Cory had been home for twenty days, twenty full of laughter and wonders, but always on edge. Gene and Molly started at shadows; they fretted every time Cory’s temperature went up, and at each strange alien dream.

  ‘Come on, Cory,’ she called. Then the doorbell rang.

  This must be what it felt like to be a criminal: that sudden leap of fear – who might be at the door and what might they want? She’d had charity collectors and the Girl Scouts and limping, half-blind Mr Forster who’d had a parcel delivered by mistake, did she know whose it was? It was probably just someone selling door to door.

  ‘Cory, no time to play. Go hide,’ she ordered. She went down the stairs and looked through the peephole to see two men in dark suits carrying attaché cases. FBI, although she didn’t recognise these particular officers. Those suits were almost a uniform. The younger looked very young though. Do they have a cadet branch?

  She schooled her face and opened the door. ‘Yes,’ she said, neither rude nor encouraging.

  ‘We’re just here on this lovely morning to talk about the Good News,’ the older man said.

  Oh, them. A vulgar response came into her head, but she reined it back. Don’t be too memorable. ‘That’s kind, but no thank you.’ She began to shut the door, enough for a hint but not enough to be rude.

  ‘Take a magazine,’ said the boy, producing one. Why isn’t he in school? The cover showed an impossibly sugary family at prayer. She took it, saying, ‘My husband really disapproves. Sorry.’ Then she shut the door.

  Every time they answered the door was a risk, but they had Cory, at home and well, and every day was precious.

  She counted to a hundred to herself. At eighty-seven, Cory appeared at the top of the stairs, looking perplexed. He’d wrapped her best scarf around his head. He wore underpants now, but back to front, putting his tail through the wrong hole, which she suspected was another game. ‘Bad Men?’

  ‘No.’

  He came down the stairs for a hug. ‘Cory don’t-like Bad Men. Scaaaared.’

  ‘Well, they’ve gone now and it’s time to get you dressed.’

  ‘No-no-no—’

  ‘Would you rather have hair, Cory? For real?’

  His laugh was a bubbling stream. ‘Cory big-furry-monster. Ho-ho-ho.’

  ‘I’m going to wrap you up in the bathmat.’

  ‘No-no-no-no-no!’ And he was off again, giggling and hopping up the stairs on all fours: a boy, a frog, her son.

  Every hour, every day, be vigilant.

  *

  Molly heard a whimper from the front room. ‘Cory? What’s wrong?’ He was sitting in the middle of the carpet, surrounded by books, his ears right down, rocking to and fro, crooning, ‘Cor-cor-cor.’ She wrinkled her nose at the rank, assertive smell that only Cory could make. He had soiled himself.

  ‘Love, what is it?’ She squatted down and threw an arm around him, shivering at the cold coming off him.

  ‘Made-mess sorry.’

  ‘Well, you’ve been sick. Accidents happen.’ Like she needed to disinfect a carpet right now. ‘What’s the matter?’

  What had he been looking at? A child’s dictionary and some of Gene’s history books. One showed a Civil War battle scene . . . That book had a photo of a lynching. She should have thought to hide things like this. ‘Let me get a towel and I’ll clean you up.’

  ‘Bad-Men Bad-Men. Sowl-jers,’ he wailed.

  Last night’s conversation had been about soldiers, but he hadn’t understood them, or didn’t want to understand; he had disappeared in the middle of an explanation to stop the discussion . . .

  And now he’d gone looking and found pictures of corpses. Human history was full of blood and terror and she was ashamed of it.

  ‘Long ago,’ she said, hoping her tone of voice would reassure him, but he was looking at her, angry and scared.

  ‘No-no-no . . . Sowl-jers now, now so-many. All-round hospital. Sowl-jers hurt people.’

  What to say? ‘You’re safe, sweetie-pie. They won’t find you.’

  ‘All wrong. People hurt people must-be sii-iick. Take hospital, make well. Few-few. Sowl-jers sick.’ His eyes pleaded. ‘Make better.’ His stubby purple hand prodded the photograph. ‘Hurt dead, lots.’

  Ignoring her clean clothes, she took the distraught, smelly alien onto her lap and tried to make sense of him. He was burbling away in his own language, then he said, ‘One sick person hurt someone, make sleep, make well. One. Not many-many-many.’

  How she needed to talk to Dr Jarman. She was missing something – or could it really be that Cory’s people had no war? No fighting? If that was true . . . that would make sense of their confused discussions. But Jarman was still under house arrest, and she was certain his phone would be tapped. Could I find some way to talk to him?

  She took Cory for his second shower of the day.

  Cory flapped his ears. ‘“Where Flowers Gone”, pleeese.’ One of his favourites.

  She sang it as if a song about loss could make things better.

  *

  Molly opened the door to Dr Jarman, who was grinning and holding up his shabby doctor’s bag. His coat and umbrella dripped water. ‘House call.’

  ‘You’re out! Oh, it’s so good to see you!’ She could have hugged him right there on the porch. ‘Come in, come in – coffee?’

  The doctor sat at her kitchen table and spooned sugar, one, two, three, four. Interrogation didn’t seem to have done him any harm; he’d even had a haircut. That expensive shirt had lost two buttons, though.

  ‘I wasn’t followed,’ the doctor said. ‘I parked on Elliott Street and walked up through the woods.’

  ‘How was it?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve had about a hundred more hours listening to Pfeiffer than any human being should suffer, but they bought the story and they can’t put me on trial for anything because I might tell the world. Besides, Pfeiffer needs me: he keeps calling me, trying to pick apart my notes. They’re throwing dozens of scientists at our little friend. Not that I blame them; he’s a fascinating problem. Sister Pearce got rid of Hooton, by the way.’

  ‘Yes, she told me.’ The famous Pearce’s choice: resign and get a decent letter of commendation, but only for jobs a long way away, or be fired without anything. Hooton grudgingly took the resignation, with much sniping complaint, and Molly devoutly hoped they would never hear of her again.

  ‘Somehow I’ve got to find time to work on this myself – I mean, what do we do if he’s injured again? He might be here for years. We need to make more of his drugs, in case he needs them.’

  Soft rain tapped on the window as she asked, ‘So is he safe? Are we?’

  Jarman shrugged. ‘I don’t know that we’ll ever be sure. How’s he been?’

  She gave him the physical rundown, professional and concise.

  ‘Rosa said you’ve had trouble maintaining isolation.’

&n
bsp; That was polite; Molly knew she’d failed on infection control. ‘Oh, it was one thing after another,’ she admitted. ‘Cory got exposed during the escape. He hated wearing the helmet, and then it stopped working. And he sleepwalks into our bed most nights. He doesn’t understand the fuss. Their medicine must be so advanced, he’s confident we can fix any infection he gets. I can’t pretend we’ve managed this at all well. I mean, we’re scrupulous about cleanliness, and not playing with dirt outside, but . . .’

  Jarman waited a beat too long before saying, ‘But he’s fine? And you?’

  ‘He’s got hayfever, we think, a little. But us? We’re fine.’

  ‘Well, I won’t pretend I’m not worried, but we were going to have to take a risk at some point.’

  Molly went on to her next worry. ‘He won’t tell us what happened to him, if he even remembers.’

  Jarman frowned. ‘I guess we just have to treat him like a human child: lots of reassurance, let him know he can talk if he wants. Don’t push him. What else could we try?’

  ‘He doesn’t understand soldiers or war. He finds our world real frightening.’

  He took a big swig of coffee. ‘Those aliens have a lot to teach us, don’t they? Better check him over. Where is he?’

  They went into the hallway to find the back door was open. Molly ran to the door and didn’t know whether to scream or laugh or cry. She’d lectured Cory about not going out in his new blue sneakers or the new hooded top: she’d meant look at the garden but don’t go out in the rain. Cory had stripped to nothing at all, leaving his clothes and shoes neatly piled inside the back door. Thank heavens the neglected garden was a jungle, with vines on the trellises making the garden fence more than seven feet high and hiding Cory from anyone walking in the woods.

  The little boy, naked and happy, was crouched down in the rain, looking at the snails while the rain spattered on the path and ran off him. He brought his big violet eyes down to the snails’ level; a webbed hand took one by the shell, gentle as a snowflake’s kiss, gentle as a fly landing, and picked it up, his mouth-tentacles waving, and put it on the back of his other hand. It waited for a bit, then it decided to come out of its shell and wave its eyes at the Cory-mountain.