First Flight

Thank you:

To my mother, for a love of all things corvid; my father, who always told me I could do anything (except dress badly); Chris C. for her invaluable advice regarding emergency dispatch procedures; and especially to Michelle and Reesa, for encouraging me, even when they should know better.

Chapter One

T
HE
music really couldn’t go any louder, mostly because the crappy little speakers in the doors would start cutting out. Jesse Swanson flicked the knob anyhow, just a bit, pushing the sound system to its limit and reveling in the angry clashing-thrashing sound of the music. What the hell was Kevin’s problem, anyhow? Edie and Lucas had invited
both
of them to go to the movies, and Kevin had said no. And then he’d gotten pissed off because Jesse had gone without him.

Jesse shouted along to the song, as loud as he could, keeping an eye on his speed as he steered his car down the unplowed length of Collins Road. It was mostly wet and sloppy, but slush turned to ice on the edges, and he didn’t want to go into the ditch. The music trailed off into something that sounded like metal garbage cans being thrown down concrete stairs, and his hand flashed out to skip to the next screamy track. A quarter of a mile ahead, an old oak tree stood at the side of the road, its dark branches wide against the sky. Jesse decided to just drive, now; to yell along with his music and get his annoyance out of his system before he went home. If it had been warmer, or if the sky had been less threatening, he would have stopped to bask in the isolation of the area while his music poured over him.

Something dark lay on the side of the road, just the other side of the tree. As he got closer, Jesse realized that it wasn’t the garbage bag he’d assumed it was. No, it was a dead bird, lying on the shoulder. The sight of it pulled him out of his little bubble of indignation; feeling strangely sorry for it, he turned the music off as he pulled over.

He picked his way through the slush to the bird. It was a raven, lying on its back with its eyes closed and its feet curled tightly on nothing. Maybe someone had hit it—a half-dozen pigeons usually met the same fate every summer. Jesse returned to his car and dug around in the space under the hatchback, finally finding his gloves under an old towel burned through in places by spilled bleach.

He gingerly put his hands on either side of the slightly outspread wings and scooped it up, frowning as its head lolled. It seemed both strangely heavy and strangely light at once, and he wondered briefly if it was the fact that it was dead that made it heavy. Then he shook his head and dismissed the thought, gently placing the bird on the towel. It was impulse, really—probably something left over from when the raven’s ancestors used to eat his own—but Jesse folded the towel over the dark form before dropping his gloves and closing the hatch.

Ten minutes later, squinting through late-spring sleet and wondering what he was going to
do
with the bird once he got home, Jesse heard an odd sound. Kind of a shuffling noise, and then a kind of patting, like someone feeling around in the back. As he came to a stop at a red light, he glanced into his rearview mirror, just to see what he could see—

He was… cold. Warm and cold, both at once, but mostly cold. And moving, without wanting to move. He opened his eyes. The world was stranger than he’d expected it to be; the colors were different and the scents were all wrong. Something inside him got his body moving; he shoved himself upright, turning his head this way and that. The cold, boxy metal things were all around him, and he was inside one! Had he been eaten? He recognized the sound of a man, ahead of him, and tried to speak.

“Keh,” he said.

“What the hell?” Jesse turned around in his seat, staring at the head and shoulders he could see. Dark hair, wet and sticking to his forehead, skin so pale it was almost blue, dark eyes. “Who the hell are you and how did you get into my car?”

The words didn’t mean anything to him, but he tried to respond anyhow. Some little thing inside him, voice or sensation or a combination of the two, told him that it was important. Very important. “Uh.” The young man blinked, opening and closing his mouth a few times as if he wasn’t sure how it worked.

“Who are you? What’s your name? Do you—damn.” Jesse settled back into the driver’s seat as people honked at him. He turned in at the first parking lot he came to, pulled across two spots, and nearly fell out of his car in his haste to get around to the back.

When the cover over him rose, he got his first close look at the man. The voice (it had a whispery quality to it) said:
Yes. This is the right one.
Maybe the man could explain, could tell him the right
what
. With this hope in mind, he looked up into the man’s face.

Jesse was ready for a lot of things: apologies, lies, even laughter and an explanation of some kind of weird prank. He was not at all ready for the look the guy gave him, a look that clearly said
I am possibly more helpless than a newborn opossum
. Once he was past that, however, the guy was naked, wet, and shivering, the old towel draped across his lap. The towel reminded Jesse that there had been a dead bird in the back; was the guy sitting on it?

“What happened to”—to hell with the stupid bird—”you? Are you all right? What’s your name? Why are you wet and naked, and more importantly, why are you wet and naked and in my car?” Not that Jesse objected, generally speaking, to guys being naked around him. Or wet. Or wet
and
naked; however, he preferred to get to know them beforehand. Besides, the guy was in his car without so much as an “excuse me,” which was the pimento olive on top of a very weird sundae.

He remained silent, just absorbing the sound of the man’s voice.

“Okay. Uh....
¿Usted habla español?
And that’s about all the Spanish I know, sorry.” After another minute of being stared at like there was nothing else to see, Jesse sighed. “Here,” he said, taking off his jacket and offering it to the guy, “at least you’ll be a little warmer.”

The thing that was offered to him was
warm
. It smelled good, too, and he pressed it to his face, trying to sort out and memorize the notes that made up its scent. The smell made him want something, but he didn’t know what it was.

“Uh, don’t—well, I guess it would have gotten wet anyhow, but….” Jesse tugged at his jacket, mildly surprised when the guy let go of it. “Here, like this.” He draped it around the other young man’s shoulders, carefully keeping his eyes on the fabric as he fastened the middle three snaps. “There. That’s better, right?” No answer but that same constant gaze.

“Okay, you know what? I think we should go see a doctor or something, make sure you’re really okay. So, um, you just stay right there and we’ll do that,” Jesse said, then sighed as the guy tilted his head. “Watch your head.”

T
HE
next morning, the two of them sat at the dining table: Jesse with coffee and toast, the guy with a bowl of cereal.

“Since the doctor said you’re basically okay, and Mom and Dad said you can stay here,
and
you didn’t mind me deciding that you needed to be Christopher Valentine Swanson instead of John Doe, I’ll talk to Betsy and Tanner while I’m at the store today,” Jesse said, between bites. “It’ll have to be an under-the-table deal, because you don’t have any ID or anything, but as long as you’re working, Dad’ll be happy.”

Chris nodded, but his eyes were on the sunlight that fell on his spoon. The cereal that Jesse had fixed for him had long since absorbed all the milk, and he hadn’t even tasted it.

“Are you, uh, not hungry?” Jesse pointed at the bowl. “Or do you not like cereal?”

Chris considered it, then stuck a finger in and scooped up some of the resulting mush. It didn’t
look
very tasty, but his little voice reminded him that he liked things that didn’t look as if they’d taste good. He stuck his finger into his mouth, nodding at the sweetness that spread across his tongue, then pulled the bowl closer and helped himself to more.

“Uh, Chris?” Jesse was looking at him. “Use the spoon, not your hand, okay?”

Spoon
. He looked at the metal thing he held, remembering last night’s instruction on using a
fork
. Wondering what would happen if he tried repeating the sounds—they seemed easy enough—he gave it a try. “Sssp—sspoon,” he said, his voice raspy.

“Oh hey! You said
spoon!
”

Jesse’s face stretched, the man showing his teeth the way he did when it seemed he was pleased about something. Chris nodded again, thinking about the sounds that the other man used to refer to himself. “J-Jesssssee.”

“Awesome,” Jesse said, ignoring the strange feeling that hearing his name had kindled. “I’m Jesse, that’s a spoon, and you are?” He pointed at the other young man.

“C-Chriss?”

“That’s right, and this is excellent,” Jesse said, then frowned as his phone beeped at him. He got up and took his dishes to the sink. “I gotta get out of here, Chris, but I’ll be back for lunch, okay? Eat your breakfast, don’t burn down the house, and I’ll see you in a little while.”

Chris nodded and picked up more of the sweet goo with the spoon, the admonition lost on him. “Okay.”

Once Jesse was gone, Chris abandoned the cereal in favor of opening the refrigerator. There were all sorts of intriguing boxes and bottles and other packages inside, and he wanted to know what was in each of them.

The first thing that caught his eye was a white container with black scribbles on top. The scribbles didn’t matter, because the little voice reminded him that the shape of the container meant
food
. He pulled it open and was delighted to discover that it held—well, he wasn’t entirely sure what it was, other than brown and green lumps, with a pile of white grainy stuff that had smaller, fuzzier green lumps on it.

He sat right down on the floor and happily, messily, began to eat. As he was licking his fingers clean, Chris noticed a box on the lowest shelf with a picture of something he didn’t recognize on it. He knew what the thing beside it was: a nest. In the nest were
eggs,
and the thought of eggs made him feel strange: excited, hungry, the faintest hint of worried. Hunger and excitement won out, though, and he pulled the box into his lap.

The top came open easily, and he stared. Eggs.
Lots
of eggs. More eggs than he’d ever seen in his whole
life
, as far as he knew. Chris picked one out and held it up, suddenly realizing that he didn’t know how to get them open. He needed help. He needed a tool. He needed… a
spoon
.

Spoon retrieved, Chris broke the top of the egg and tipped the contents into his mouth. Cold and thick and the rich oiliness of the yolk—oh, it was even better than finding the whatever it was in the white container. Speaking of which, Chris looked back and forth between the eggs and the remaining stuff in the container, then picked up a second egg, broke the top, and poured it onto the green and brown stuff. He added another egg, then stirred everything together with the spoon.

It was delicious. When he’d finished off the brown and green and white stuff, he focused solely on the eggs. He had eggs, Jesse had been happy that he’d spoken, Jesse would come back, and all was more than well in his world.

“
C
HRIS
? I’m home!” The house felt empty. Well, Chris might have gone out for a walk, since no one had told him
not
to leave the house. On the other hand, he might have decided to take a nap or a bath or something. Jesse trotted up the stairs and discovered that Chris was nowhere to be found: not in Jesse’s nor his parents’ room and definitely not in either cold, dark bathroom.

Downstairs again, he checked the living and dining rooms for a note, finding nothing but Chris’s cereal. After thinking about it, he realized he had no idea if Chris could read or write, so looking for a note was really sort of silly. He glanced into the kitchen and forgot about notes. “What the hell?”

Jesse threw away the half-dozen eggshells and the empty box from the leftover Chinese his dad had brought home, what, almost two weeks ago, now? He couldn’t remember. Then he put what was left of the eggs back in the fridge, shaking his head. Now he
really
wanted to find Chris, because that was entirely too bizarre. As he walked back into the dining room to get the bowl, he realized that the curtain over the back door was moving in the breeze. He stuck his head out and looked around.

“Chris?” The guy was hunched up in the corner formed by the house and the railing of the porch.

“Jesse.” Jesse was back. Maybe
he
could fix it, fix the horrible way he felt.

Jesse looked around the porch and noticed that there was a large puddle of something not too far from Chris. “Oh my God, you
did
eat the leftovers.”

Chris opened his eyes, peering through hair made stringy with sweat. Jesse was standing there and shaking his head, but Chris was too miserable to care. His body hurt, his stomach had been trying to turn itself inside out, and he was pretty sure that he was going to die.