Starseed (28 page)

“Heal,” she said aloud, balling her fists.

Energy emanated from her brain like an electric river.

“Heal!” she said louder. She summoned every circuit in her brain, pouring energy outward, all the while realizing she hadn’t received the instruction on healing.

No hologram was forthcoming.

“I refuse to accept this,” Kaila said. “I can do this.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. She tried another way. Closing her eyes, she lifted her chin. “Please, please heal.”

The awful dead stillness of the time lock felt like a tomb at midnight. “I am begging, please heal him. I am begging you with all my heart and soul, please heal him.”

Kaila concentrated with every muscle, every fiber, every cell, every atom in her body, shooting her will outward. Thick silence encroached on her ears. She opened her eyes. Paw Paw sat on the recliner, suspended in time, pale, thin, bald.

Kaila realized she hadn’t the power to heal. She had the power to abduct and harm humans but could not heal.

“Damn you!” she shouted in the vacuum. “Damn you all to
hell.
”

She crumpled to her knees. She took Paw Paw’s frail hand in hers, pressed it to her lips. “I’m sorry, Paw Paw. I tried.”

She stifled a sob as her eyes went black. She nodded and returned her family in the wheel of time.

“I’m afraid,” Paw Paw said to Kaila, as he sat up in his recliner. “This time next week, I won’t be able to get up.”

Kaila was silent, her heart breaking, her Paw Paw blurring.

Paw Paw lifted his head. “Do you know, Goosy,” he said. “How much I love you?”

“Oh, Paw Paw,” Kaila whispered. Lucy licked his hand. Woofy panted at Kaila, his lower tooth sticking out.

“I saw a ghost last night,” Paw Paw said. “She walked through the house, floated into the living room. And she looked at me. She looked old fashioned with a long gown.”

Kaila grew afraid. Paw Paw had always been pragmatic, one for horses, dogs, or football, but not ghosts. Had they come to feed on his pain and fear? So help her God, none of those predators would come near her or any of her loved ones again. She’d rip them a new asshole and blast them to the next galaxy.

But how? Her mind whirled. What could she do?

Kaila returned to the breakfast table.

“It’s the drugs,” Nan whispered. “And the cancer. They do things to the mind. Makes him think he sees things.” She absently sipped her coffee. “But sometimes,” she said. “I think he’s seeing our relatives who are gone and waiting to meet him.”

Nan burst into tears. “What will I do without him?” she sobbed. “We been together sixty years.”

“Stop that cryin’ woman!” Paw Paw called from his recliner.

In the ensuing silence, as Lee looked tearfully at Nan, Kaila realized that she could not reveal anything right now. This was not the time. She would have to handle this alone.

In her mother’s yoga class in the parlor, Kaila performed the poses, inhaling full, conscious breaths. After, in meditation she dove deep inside her mind. She recalled that yoga and meditation were over five thousand years old.

Doing the physical poses cleared the mind for meditation. By clearing the mind of thought, it offered peace, and more so, protection from the feeders. They could not feed if your mind was serene, free from anger or despair.

Humans had been taught divisions. In race, religion, sex, politics, and class. Even in school, the clothes defined you, and thus divided you. But the clothes were not who you really were. Yet they’d all bought into it.
She
had bought into it.

She lay on her mat meditating, aware that the class had ended. People were leaving.

There was a key here, but what. She heard voices in her mind.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

These voices sounded different. She recalled Priscilla Snowden coming . . . was this her? Or was this
them
, attempting a mind-screen to lure her back?

She pondered what she had just heard.

To get an answer, one had to go inside and analyze how it felt. Ultimately, her gut never lied. This didn’t feel predatory.

She opened her eyes. Her mother hovered over her. Kaila knew that her mother had been abducted, and why she’d been so insistent on Kaila wearing the black plastic and caps. Her mother didn’t remember, but at a subconscious level, she knew. Just like Pia and Melissa. But more than that, she saw her mother’s care and concern.

“Are you okay?” her mother asked. “You’ve been distant lately.”

Kaila rose and put her arms around her mother.

“What’s with the hug?” Lee asked. “That’s not like you.”

“I guess it’s time to grow up and say thank you, Mom. You’ve always had my best interests in mind.”

Lee held the back of her hand to Kaila’s forehead. “You feeling okay?”

“Mom, I have some friends who are going through some stuff. Do you mind if they spend the night?”

“We have a huge house with lots of rooms. They’re welcome anytime.”

Kaila hugged her mother again. Nothing from those outside worlds could compete with this; humans had something aliens never could understand. Still, her throat caught, her eyes filled with the thought of
him
—no, block it out!

“Something you want to talk about?” her mother asked.

“We’ll talk,” Kaila said. “There’s just so much going on now.”

Her grandfather was dying. She’d been betrayed by the one she’d loved. Half her blood was of
them
. And now she knew the horrifying truth of their intent.

Her mother, thinking of Paw Paw, said, “It’s going to be very hard.”

“Yeah, Mom. It is.”

They held one another in the centuries-old parlor.

Sometimes a text message won’t suffice. Kaila called Pia and Melissa on a three-way. She apologized profusely for defecting. She explained that she’d broken up with Jordyn.

Their long silence stung. Yet, she didn’t blame them one bit.

“I’m so sorry,” Kaila repeated for the fifth time.

More silence. Kaila added, “I want you to come over tonight and have a sleepover.”

“I don’t know,” Melissa replied. “I’m tired. Felt like I didn’t sleep a wink last night.”

“Me too,” Pia added. “Feel like I was run over by a truck.”

As a last-ditch effort at reconciliation, Kaila whispered, “Do you remember when we swore we were a triad and how you guys wanted me to help you?”

Silence.

Pia finally bit. “Yeah?”

“Well, I want to help you guys,” she said.

Pia sighed. “I hope this is real, Kaila. You better not be pulling anything.”

Ouch. Kaila realized that though they might not remember the abductions, their subconscious did. And with the horrific things done to them at night, then having a screen memory implanted to mask the actual event, then seeing her cavort around with the aliens, no wonder they were guarded.

“Pia,” Kaila said. “You have my word, as a human, with a heart, and part of our triad that I will do everything in my power to make it up to you and help you.”

The second Kaila entered the barn, she knew the horses were mad. They stared accusingly.

“I don’t blame you for being mad,” she said, taking Perseus’s lead.

“Course they’re mad,” Mike called from Pegasus’s stall. “You been so involved with that boy, you been ignoring everyone. They know when they’re last on the list.”

Mike stopped shoveling hay, put his hands on the top of the shovel. “Hey,” he said. “We got some bad times coming. It would be nice if you were around. Your mom’s going to need you.”

“I know, I know,” Kaila said.

She threw a saddle over Perseus, hitched herself over her back, and urged with her mind,
Let’s go!
Perseus snorted and took off.

She galloped across the field, past the pond and into the woods. She wished the wind would blow through her mind and sweep away the terrible knowledge.

Out of eyesight, she slowed the horse and stripped off the wig and plastic, tucked it beneath her. She wanted to be free, to tell the truth, to find answers, and not to have to hide.

I missed you,
Perseus said telepathically.
That’s why I was mad.

Kaila patted her neck. “I missed you too,” she said. “I’m sorry. I promise I won’t ever leave you again. I made a mistake.”

Boy, had she made a mistake. The inside of her chest ached, as if those bony fingers squeezed her heart.

As she rode through the forest, inhaling the odor of damp earth and leaves, she recalled riding here with Jordyn on her birthday.

She went to the stream. Fall’s chill hung in the air, and she was grateful she wore her hoodie.

She dismounted and sat by the stream. She’d kissed Jordyn here. The stream blurred. How could he kiss her with such passion then shut off and become like a robot, involved in something so sinister?

Because he is controlled,
she heard in her mind.
Same as you were.

She felt like she’d never recover from this betrayal.

Kaila put her head in her hands.
Please help me. I don’t know what to do. My heart is broken. I can’t stand the pain!

She wept. Perseus bent, nudged her shoulder with her nose.

“I’ll be okay,” she sobbed.

Sunlight filtered through the leaves. Yet across the stream appeared another light. Kaila froze, watching the ball of light.

Kaila jumped up, clenching her fists, her eyes going black. She’d been tutored in alien mind tactics. Now, she’d use those tactics on
them.

The light floated over the bubbling stream then hung in the space a few feet away.

Priscilla Snowden took form.

Her long white hair was loose; she wore a long white dress. Light radiated from her edges.

“What do you want?” Kaila asked.

“I want to help you.”

“How do I know that?”

“This is good you ask questions. I say: don’t trust me. Learn who you can trust. Learn for yourself what is good and what is not.”

“I don’t want to hear any crap!” Kaila shouted.

Priscilla smiled. “I know you’re tired.”

“Tired? I’m ready to kill myself.”

“Don’t say that. Words have power. Same as thoughts.”

“Look,” Kaila said, folding her arms across her chest. “I don’t want to hear any mumbo jumbo. What
are
you? Why are you so interested in my life?”

Priscilla gazed at her. “Kaila, know that we are not all here to harvest people.”

“
We?
” Kaila cried. “Are you one of them?” She stepped back.

“No, I’m not one of them.”

Perseus approached Priscilla, nudged her arm. Priscilla petted her nose.

“What I meant was that I’m not of Earth either.” She looked left, then right. “They’re trying to come to you now.”

Kaila noticed the blue patches of sky through the leaves. Listened with her mind. She heard nothing. Only the stream bubbling over the rocks. They must have erected mind blocks.

“I can offer some protection,” Priscilla said. “And there are many more of us. We want to help you.”

“How?” Kaila asked.

“You’re on the right path,” Priscilla said. “You heard us in meditation today. Know that where you put your attention is what you get. Call to those you hold sacred and everything that is good. But more so, look into your heart.”

She started to fade. Her edges went blurry and her form transfigured to ethereal white light.

“Wait!” Kaila called.

Take the light in you and form a golden shield,
Priscilla said to her mind.
Help your friends. And we will help . . . if you are receptive, and if you ask.

The glowing ball lifted, floated through the trees. Then evaporated to nothing.