Untaken (39 page)

It looked good.

It looked terrible.

I flopped onto the bed, trying to pull my thoughts together.

Fun. This was supposed to be fun. And it was Brandon’s fault if I looked stupid. It wasn’t like it had been my idea to dress up like this, to impress him or something.

I paused at the attic door, summoning my courage. I don’t know how long I would have been stuck there if it hadn’t been for the music.

At first I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; it’d been so long since I’d heard music. I felt each note as something physical, like invisible fingers were plucking my senses, waking up a whole part of me that I hadn’t realized had been stricken numb until this moment. It was like hearing a message sent through time, discovering one last marvel left in the receding tide of a world that would never exist again.

That
song.

Bowie’s strange feline voice, and the strum of his guitar as he told us about the Starman who lived in the sky.

Out of all the songs in the world, how was it that one that he’d decided to play?

I shoved the door open, tears blurring my vision.

“How did you do it?”

“I found this up at the lake, too,” said Brandon. “It plays records, and I remembered seeing a bunch of Bob’s old ones up here. I scratched the shit out of a couple before I figured out how to make it run. Can you believe our folks used these things?”

He looked up from the player and his face fell. “Hey, are you crying? Hey. You look amazing. You don’t even look like you.”

I laughed through my tears. “Wow, thanks Brandon.”

“You know what I mean. Don’t cry though, okay?”

“It’s just been so long. My dad used to play this record. When I was a kid. On the weekends, he’d fix dinner so Mom could have the night off. He’d put on this album while everything cooked, and I’d stand on his feet and he’d dance me round the room.”

“Hey now, I said
don’t
cry.” Brandon placed a hand on my shoulder.

“He’s never coming back. None of them are. I know that, but I can forget about it most of the time, you know? I can pretend they were never there at all.”

“Hey, hey. I’ll turn it off if you don’t like it.” He put his arms around me and, for once, it didn’t feel weird.

“Leave it on. It’s good to remember. We can’t just forget them all. It hurts so much to remember them, but they’re part of ‘the good stuff,’ too. It’s not fair that we can’t even have those memories.”

“It’s not fair,” he agreed quietly. “Hey, dance with me.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Neither do I.”

We spun together, my face pressed into his neck and his skin as tender there as I’d always imagined it might be.

Outside, the sky was vast, and filled with stars. The record player sent its bright melody out into the great emptiness of the world, until the song ended and the only sound was the thump and scratch of the record, and Brandon’s breath in my ear.

I stepped back and looked up at him, and before I could lose the impulse in the usual confused jumble of my thoughts, I leaned in and kissed him. He paused, but only for a second. His arms pulled me in tighter, his fingertips grazing the bare flesh of my back. I shivered but he was warm. I leaned into him and let his warmth enfold me until there was nothing in the world but his lips pressed against mine.

Jake

he tree growing inside was amazing, and the great web of lights that hung from the roof sent Jake’s senses reeling, but beneath his wonder at everything, he could feel the steady throb of the thing out in the woods.

He didn’t even have to reach for it now, it knew he was there and it called to him. He’d tried so hard to ignore the pull, but it was impossible to silence, like the sound of his own heart beating.

He loved the cabin, and he loved Gracie and Brandon and Dog. He loved the room that was just for him. There were pictures there of animals that Gracie had cut out of a special book called a “magazine” and pinned on the wall. There was a shelf to hold the pretty stones and feathers and leaves he’d found in the woods. There were the meals at the kitchen table with Brandon and Gracie, all three of them laughing together, because he’d started to understand the things they called “jokes” at last. There were the comics that Gracie was teaching him to read, the odd contraption of wood and nails—some of which he’d hammered himself—that Brandon said would be a race car just for him when it was finished.

But behind all that, was the call of the ship.

He knew now that it was a ship, because it was getting stronger, and it had told him so. Something about him hearing it was making it stronger.

Brandon and Gracie were talking about the box that Brandon had set up. Strange sounds came from the box, but Jake barely heard them. He knew he shouldn’t go into the woods when it was dark. He knew they’d be mad with him, but he couldn’t resist.

The cabin was the safest, happiest place he’d ever been, but the thing that was calling him was
Home
.

He stole down the ladder, almost stepping on Dog who’d been waiting at the bottom this whole time. She tried to follow him out through the kitchen door, but he pushed her back.

“No, Dog. You have to stay here.” There was a pain in his heart like a big mean hand was squeezing on it as he closed the door on her, but there was no place for Dog where he was going.

The moon lit his way across the front yard and into the woods. It was a relief to slip into the darkness of the trees. Now, if the Big Kids looked out of the window, they wouldn’t see him.

The going was easy at first. The trees at the edge of the wood were small and grew far apart, but as Jake walked further, the trees grew shoulder to shoulder, and the spaces between them were snarled with fallen branches and thick tangles of creepers and ferns. None of the deer trails he usually followed led in the direction of the ship, so Jake was forced to forge his own path. Thorns snatched at his hair and dragged across his face. Roots caught his feet and made him trip. Too long. This was taking too long! If the Big Kids found him gone and came after him…

Jake took a deep breath and sent his mind out into the scrubby trees that blocked his way, forcing his energy through them, twisting them this way and that to clear a path through the woods.

Now, he could run. His breath came in harsh whoops that were drowned out by the groan of the living wood as it bent back before him. The effort made his head swim, and he was forced to stop until his giddiness let go. His nose was running, and when he wiped at the wetness on his face, his hand came away bloody.

Usually, he’d have been able to feel the minds of the animals and birds who made the wood their home, but tonight, all was silent. They were keeping away from this place.

He must be close.

He ran on until his legs trembled with the effort, but the pulse of the ship gave him new energy as he got closer to its source. He clambered over a fallen tree that bore the scars of the ship’s descent, and there it lay: a long, sleek, silver shape cradled in a nest of broken tree branches. Someone had caused the remaining tree limbs to bend in close over the top of the crash site, hiding the scar in the forest from the air. And Jake wondered at that, his heart beating with a new excitement. The pulse of the ship resonated through his body and he was no longer tired or frightened. He walked closer, right up to the towering gleam of the ship’s flank and laid a hand on the warm, smooth side. Silver shapes pulsed and roiled across the skin of the ship in time to the joyful beat of his heart.

“I found you,” he told it. “I’m going to help you.”

A dark hole yawned open in the hull, and Jake stepped inside.

Brandon

couldn’t believe it was happening. I made myself step back, and looked down at her, my hands on her upper arms, and my lips still tingling from the kiss. “Hey—”

“I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “Don’t be sorry. It was…great. It’s just…”

“I know,” Gracie said. “It’s weird.”

“But not
bad
weird.” The record crackled. “Wanna hear the other side?”

My hands didn’t seem to want to work properly, and I dropped the damn record twice before lining up the little pin with the hole in the center. I couldn’t believe she’d kissed me.