Anna sat at her desk and looked out her bedroom window. The sun had set, but the air felt hot and stagnant and the earthy smells from the barnyard hung heavy in the air. She stared at the black feather she had found earlier in the day. It lay at the bottom of a glass jar on the edge of her desk, in safe keeping until she could drop it off at Mara’s in the morning for analysis.
For the past hour she had been sketching images from the alien world she had visited the night before. There were gaps in her memory, but the more she sketched in her journal, the more connections began to form. There was the jagged shape of the coastline. The leviathan just under the surface of turquoise waters. The small round eyes ringed in yellow and blue that peeked out from under the jungle canopy. The giant trees, like skyscrapers. She skimmed through her journal, and the last page gave her pause. Staring at her from the white page was a tall stick-like figure outlined in jagged pencil strokes. Set deep in its bone face were two eyes made of spinning constellations. The other sketches in her journal were fixed memories. This page still felt like a dream.
Anna closed her journal and walked over to the window. She hung one leg over the ledge into the night air. She leaned back against the windowsill and absently began scrolling through the messages on her phone. Fiona and Lula had reached out an hour before on group chat, two-word messages followed by a string of emojis, but from Scout there was radio silence. Anna texted a quick message to Scout directly. No reply.
She remembered the look of humiliation on Scout’s face. There was anger in that look too—and a lot of fear. But it was the pair of glasses that sat lopsided on his head that broke her heart. She had never seen that side of Scout before. He was annoying, sure, but also funny and confident and unflappable. She wondered what it must be like to grow up in that house of his. What happened when no one else was around? The more she thought about it, the madder she got.
She looked at her phone. Still no reply. Time for drastic action. She tapped in his number instead. The phone rang five times. Anna was ready to hang up when she heard Scout on the other line.
“Anna? Why are you calling?”
“I didn’t feel like texting,” Anna said.
“Oh.”
“Are you all right?” Anna asked.
“Never been better.” Scout’s voice was muted.
“I just wanted to thank you for sticking up for us today. That was pretty brave,” Anna said.
Anna could hear Scout shuffling in his room. A brief pause.
“You think so?” Scout said.
“Yeah, I think so. I also think your brother is a jerk,” Anna said.
“You ought to try living with him,” Scout said evenly.
“Can he hear you right now?”
“Nah. He took off with his idiot friends. Probably out drinking by the fairgrounds. He was in one foul mood.” Scout paused. “Hey Anna. What happened today?”
“What do you mean?” Anna knew exactly what he meant.
“All I remember was Tyler getting ready to burn me. You jumped at him. Next thing I know, Tyler is on his butt and I’m missing a handful of hair,” Scout said.
“Trust me. I did not touch your hair,” Anna said.
“No, serious. Did you do that?”
“I may have pushed him. But not a lot. I think he just tripped and we got lucky.”
She knew she had to be more careful in the future.
“I guess.” Scout paused again. “You know I wasn’t hurt or nothing today. I don’t know why I was crying.”
“Yeah. I know,” Anna reassured him. “Hey, Scout. Those scars on your side. Did your brother do that?”
Anna looked out her window and watched a single blinking light move slowly across the sky. A plane. She didn’t push for an answer. She didn’t try to fill in the blank space and gave Scout time.
“Yeah,” he finally said.
Anna could feel her chest tighten and her teeth clench. It was like she was channeling Scout’s anger. Maybe it was the look on Scout’s face that she kept replaying in her head, or maybe something inside herself—the sense of unfairness—but she couldn’t let this slide.
“Where is your brother again?”
“Probably down by the fairgrounds. Why?”
“Nothing. Just want to make sure we stay out of his way,” Anna said. “See you tomorrow?”
“Sure. See you tomorrow. Night, Anna.”
Anna shoved her phone in her pocket and took off downstairs. She had no intention of staying out of Tyler’s way. Not tonight.
Anna opened the screen door slowly with one hand to prevent it from squeaking. In her other hand she held a carton of eggs she’d pulled from the refrigerator. Uncle Jack might notice, but hey, they lived on a farm and eggs were easy to find, right? She tiptoed across the front porch and made it down to the dirt lane before she glanced back over her shoulder. No sign of life anywhere on the farm except for the yellow light that streamed from her bedroom window.
Anna took several running steps then silently glided above the treetops, her fingers tracing the leaves in the top canopy as she flew by. Within minutes she was flying several hundred feet above Smartt and following the few streetlights that ran down the middle of the town. There were lights from the gas station and mini mart. The red neon sign outside Ivanhoe’s shone like a beacon. At the edge of town, as the lights gave way to open fields, there was a large section blocked out in shadows. The fairgrounds.
Even from this distance she could hear a stereo blasting below. She zoomed in with her goggles and scanned for the source of the sound. Tyler’s pickup truck sat alone at the edge of the large parking lot. Its headlights were on and the doors were open. Tyler’s friends took turns throwing rocks at a pyramid of beer cans. She could hear their conversation, a series of shouts straining over the loud music blaring from inside the truck cabin. They were talking about the shadow creature and how it was going to make them famous, how it was going to make them money—enough money to get Tyler out of this stupid town. He also told them that it was his shot to take when the time came. No one else. It took a second, but Anna suddenly realized what he meant. This was a hunting party.
Anna positioned herself directly above Tyler’s pickup. At two hundred feet, an egg dropped from this height would hit around 77 miles per hour. She wanted to get back at Tyler but not hurt him. She turned on her cloaking setting and then floated to fifty feet above the truck. Anna opened the carton and took out a large brown egg. She closed her left eye to focus on the target below her and then guided herself until she was in a straight line just above Tyler’s head.
Bombs away.
The egg silently sailed down and 1.763 seconds later hit the ground, narrowly missing the top of Tyler’s head. Grrr. A miss. But at thirty-eight miles per hour, the egg disintegrated with a loud thwack as it hit the pavement and sprayed yellow slime in a six-foot radius.
Tyler leaped from the pavement like he’d been shot from a cannon and landed in the back of his truck. He cowered in the corner. The big one named Billy looked down at his pants legs covered in yolk and held his hands out in horror as if he’d just been shot. His other friends stopped their game of beer-can toss. Tyler warily peeked his head above the bed of the truck.
“Who threw that!” he screamed angrily.
I did, Anna said to herself. She grabbed another egg from the carton and glided over several feet. She adjusted her aim to account for the wind and then let the egg drop. This time, the egg found its target and exploded like white shrapnel off the top of Tyler’s head.
“Owww!” Tyler shouted as he looked around frantically. “Who’s doing this? I’ll kill ya. I swear! I’ll kill ya.”
His friends remained frozen. They exchanged glances with each other but were unable to move or even speak. Such easy targets. Thank you for your service, Anna said to the open carton as she turned it over and let the remaining eggs fall all at once in a cluster.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Egg bombs shattered in quick succession, coating Tyler and the top of his truck in egg yolk. Tyler screamed in anger and began blindly thrashing his arms as Anna paused to take in the carnage in all its glory. Not one of Tyler’s gang looked up. They scanned the horizon frantically. They looked at each other like they were ready to rat out one of their own. But at that moment, as she flew quietly away back to her home, Anna realized no one had ever looked up. No one ever looked up.