When the Sky Fell on Splendor(37)

Levi gaped at him. “What if it rains?”

Arthur stared back. “I don’t think a little rain would stop an alien from coming back to its hideout.”

“No, dude,” Levi said. “What if it rains on my camera?”

“Then you’ll order another one,” Arthur said, impatient.

Levi huffed but seemed to have no argument for that.

“The battery will die,” Sofía pointed out.

“Levi just charged it.” Arthur pocketed the bullet. “It’ll get at least a couple of hours. For now, let’s head back to our house. Who knows what brought the sheriff out here or when he might be back.”

“Right.” Sofía looked toward me. “Who knows?”





THIRTEEN



ON OUR WAY OUT of the cave, I searched Sofía’s face for signs she knew about the thing in me, but if she did, she was working hard not to acknowledge it.

I wanted to ask her if she was keeping a secret, but among the Ordinary, there was so much we didn’t talk about that avoiding touchy subjects was second nature. And aside from that, if I asked her if she knew more about all this than she was letting on, she’d probably ask me the same question right back.

Keeping things from each other was easy; outright lying would be harder.

ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL you tell no one about what you’ve experienced. NOT EVEN—PERHAPS ESPECIALLY—those you are closest to. All that you share with them will put them in greater danger with those who might wish to find you.

But what if Sofía, like Remy, already knew?

And what kind of danger was Bill talking about?

A jolt of dread went through me every time the thought hit me, which happened over and over again while Arthur and Levi were fixing the camera to a tree branch that overlooked the cave. They’d made do with what they had––Levi’s bike lock and one of his shoelaces––and they’d wiped the whole contraption down as thoroughly as if it were a bank vault we’d just robbed without gloves.

The air felt sticky and unpleasant after the cool of the cave, and with my bike’s bent tire, the walk home was miserable. I kept waiting for the sheriff to pull up alongside us and demand to know where we’d been, or for Sofía to announce that she remembered the light-thing going into me.

But we made it to our brick house without any more discussion of the incident, the Jenkins House, or the debris. We propped our bikes against the shed and were headed across the field when a hunched silhouette jumped up from the steps.

“Franny?” Nick called through the dark. In the wash of the moth-encircled porch light, he looked harried and white-faced, even more skull-like than usual.

“Already missing us, huh? I knew it!” Levi cried.

“I knew you’d join the investigation,” Arthur said.

Nick marched right past them and bore down on me. “I’ve been trying to call you for an hour!” His voice was hoarse, edged with panic, and his face was rigid, angry.

“Me?” I looked around at the others, who were as evidently stunned as I was. Nick was like a third brother to me, but he was way closer with Arthur. We rarely called each other.

“Yes, you,” Nick growled. “What happened? You sent that gah-damn message, then dropped off the face of the planet!”

“What are you talking about?” Arthur said.

“The piano!” Nick snapped.

The piano?

The picture I’d sent him. The red kid’s piano with the embossed gold lettering. That was what this was about—not the alien inside me, not the secret that had been pressing down on me all day.

“Where’d you see that?” Nick grabbed my arms. The already sharp lines of his face went razor-edged with tension. “I need to see it, Franny.” His accent thickened. “Take me to it.”

“Chill out,” Levi said. “You look like Beetlejuice right now, and it’s freaking me out.”

Nick shook my shoulders. “Where is it, Fran?”

Arthur shoved him so hard he stumbled back, then reeled toward us, looking like a wounded animal. “Franny, tell m—”

“It’s at the Jenkins House!” I snapped, rubbing my arms where his fingers had dug in. “It’s nothing to lose your shit over.”

The fire faded from Nick’s eyes. He jammed his mouth shut and blinked. “It’s . . . it’s at the Jenkins House?”

“You must have seen it the other night,” I said. “That’s all.”

Nick stared for two complete seconds then let out an embarrassed laugh. He dropped his head, rubbing the back of it. He gave another uneasy laugh. “I’d just about convinced myself it was, like, some kind of message, from . . . you know, your little green friend.” He tipped his chin toward Arthur.

“Gray,” Arthur said. “It’s way more common for people to see gray aliens. But ours isn’t like that anyway.”

Nick gave his head another restless rub. “I really am losing it.”

Sofía folded her arms over her chest. “Well, I hope you find it fast. Look, we never should have climbed that fence, but we did, and now we have to deal with the consequences. You don’t have to believe Arthur’s theory, and I certainly don’t, but something’s going on here, and until Cheryl Kelly’s magically orgasming microphone is put back on its shelf and the sheriff’s investigation is over, you’re as stuck in this mess as the rest of us.”