Miles away, Anna sat on the front porch with her sketchbook on her lap. She had brought down the glass cube from her room and set it on the wide arm of the Adirondack chair. The sprites had calmed their movement down to a steady pulse, and the glow of the lights was comforting. She needed it. All day long, she hadn’t been able to shake this feeling that this night was the end of something—or maybe the start. Either way, she was anxious.
The sun was below the horizon, but the thin clouds above her head looked like cotton candy that had been set on fire. Another half hour left of light, maybe less, before she’d be taking flight. She breathed in deep. It was the first cool evening in weeks, and the breeze carried traces of lilac from the bushes on the side of the house.
Uncle Jack and Mara had gone into town for dinner several hours before, leaving Anna alone on the farm. Two quiet hours to herself, and Anna was grateful to be doing nothing at all. She knew it was going to be a long night ahead, and she needed her rest.
To divert her attention from the anxious feeling hollowing out her stomach, Anna sketched in her journal, letting her hand and pen go wherever they wanted. But now she was stuck. The scale in her sketches was all wrong. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t capture the sheer size and wonder of the things she had seen. The dome of stars. The pale red giant in the sky with twisting storms and ever-shifting bands of color. The sheer rock cliff that towered over the expanse of black ocean. The only thing she did get right was the squatty shape of the baobab-like trees and their fractal limbs.
Sketching was a form of meditation, a way to lose herself and think outside the edges. She would often return hours later and find unfamiliar elements in her sketches that her conscious mind couldn’t recall. Still, Anna was surprised when she scanned her sketch of the dead baobab trees scattered along the alien plain and found a ghostlike face staring back at her from a universe away—a face she didn’t remember drawing at all. Its eyes were black sockets filled with white lines. Galaxies spinning.
Bzzzz—bzzzz.
Anna’s phone buzzed and she jumped. Scout’s avatar popped up in the middle of her display. She took in a deep breath then poked his face with her finger.
“Hey, Armstrong!” Scout shouted. His face filled the screen, the camera so close that Anna could see his pores.
“That’s nice, Scout.”
“I need your honest opinion,” Scout said. He thrust his upper lip into the camera. “You like a man with a mustache? Because I’m thinking of growing one.”
Once again, Anna couldn’t help herself and chuckled. It was needed.
“No offense, Scout. But I think I have a better chance of growing a mustache than you do,” Anna said. “Why are you really calling?”
Scout pulled the phone back. He was staring at himself in the camera, tilting the phone to get the right angle.
“I was just checking in on you. Making sure you were okay and all,” Scout said. He stopped posing and looked directly into the camera. “Did you hear about Fiona’s older brother?”
“Yeah, she told me earlier today.”
“Crazy.”
He doesn’t know the half of it, Anna thought.
“Yeah. Really crazy.”
“There has to be an explanation, right?” Scout asked.
“There always is.”
“Yeah,” Scout said. He paused and looked at his phone. A puzzled look crossed his face. “Hey, Armstrong. Why’s your face glowing?”
Anna looked down. The sprites were spinning wildly inside the glass, so fast the colors began to merge into one strobing light that was so bright it cast sharp shadows in odd angles across the porch.
Anna’s iCom powered up on her wrist.
“Scout, I gotta go,” Anna said.
“Hey, Anna, wait—”
Just as she closed the video call, SID’s voice broke through her iCom.
<I’ve detected the creature. It’s approximately five kilometers from the farm and moving fast in Anna’s direction. I’ve provided you both coordinates and will continue tracking.>
Anna’s heart skipped. This was it, but it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Not now. It was too soon. Something caused the creature to come out while it was still light outside.
“I’m on my way!”