Uncle Jack had given Anna his old bike to use. It weighed a ton and was ancient and rusted. She had to stand up on the pedals and push down with all her weight to get it started, but once she did, the thing could really move. After dinner, she made her way down the dirt road to the end of the lane, then leaned the bike up against the white fence and peered down the road in both directions. No sign of her friends yet. Across the road, a cow absently stared at her while slowly chewing a large clump of grass.
“Hi,” Anna said, half-waving.
The cow snorted in reply.
Anna looked down at her phone. No new texts. The air was still warm, and the flies that swarmed the cow looked like a halo in the evening light. Her shadow stretched far down the road. Anna lifted her arms to her side and watched her shadow wings unfurl. She began waving her arms, trying to make the motion smooth like a wave, when she heard a voice behind her in the distance.
“Nice noodle arms,” someone shouted.
Anna jumped and turned. Scout was pedaling furiously to keep up with Fiona and Lula.
Their brakes squeaked in unison as the three friends rolled to a stop.
“Hey, Anna,” Lula said, smiling.
“Hey, guys.”
“Sorry, but it looks like we picked up a stray on the way here.” Fiona nodded toward Scout.
“Don’t worry. I’ve had my shots,” Scout said, smiling.
Anna straddled her bike.
“My uncle says the best stakeout spot is hillside over the lake. It’s supposed to have a clear view of the valley from up there. Follow me.”
The three girls pedaled down the lane side by side, just fast enough that they could still carry on a conversation. Scout followed behind, singing to himself while weaving his bike back and forth in a snake pattern.
As they rolled closer to the farmhouse, the research barns and greenhouses came into view, glistening in the evening sun. An autonomous electric tractor rolled slowly down the center of the barnyard like a giant green toy as a dozen people made their way along paths that connected the buildings. The end of the workday. Patches of conversations in multiple languages faded in and out as the friends rode their bikes through the center of activity. A small white drone buzzed twenty feet above their heads as it headed in a straight line to the fields in the north.
“Your uncle’s place is huge.” Fiona looked around the facility in awe. “I didn’t know all of this was here. You can’t see it from the road.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Some kind of research farm,” Anna said.
“Wait! I’m an idiot.” Fiona stopped her bike. “Your last name is Armstrong, right?”
Anna slowed down and looked back. “Yeah. Why?”
“Doh!” Fiona slapped her forehead. “Your uncle is Dr. Armstrong.”
“You know him?” Anna leaned against her handlebars.
“All the kids in FFA and 4H know him. He and Dr. Gloria judge the innovation event every year,” Fiona said.
“FFA?” Anna asked.
“Future Farmers of America. Fiona and I took first place at the fair last summer,” Lula said. She and Fiona high-fived.
“Future Freaks of America, more like it,” Scout said as he pedaled his bike in circles around them. “I thought we were supposed to be hunting aliens, come on!”
He quit circling and started pedaling straight toward the farmhouse.
“But that’s not the . . . direction,” Anna said quietly.
“He’ll figure it out eventually,” Lula said. “Let’s go before he notices.”
Anna stood up and leaned down hard on the bike pedal to gain traction. By the time she hit the dirt lane that led to Tyson Lake, she was moving full speed. The three girls laughed as they made their escape. Their bike tires flew over the deep ruts in the road as they sped uphill toward the setting sun. Warm wind whipped Anna’s hair and made her eyes water. Within a half mile, they neared the top of the steep hill and slowly rolled to a stop. The valley opened before them. A dense patch of woods lined the lake in one direction. Farmland seemed to spread out forever in the other. A flock of starlings, silhouetted against the evening sky, whirled in constantly shifting patterns just above the light reflecting off the lake. Amid the quiet, in the far distance, they could hear Scout shouting for them to wait up.
“Think we should?” Anna asked.
Lula and Fiona shrugged. The three laid their bikes on the ground and stretched.
“By the way, did you know Dr. Gloria is Del’s uncle?” Lula smiled knowingly.
A dull ache struck Anna just above her solar plexus. “Who?”
“Who?” Lula laughed. “Look at her acting like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”
“What?” Anna shook her head. “I don’t even—”
“Even what? I saw your expression when Del called out to you today,” Fiona said.
“You guys are crazy. I don’t like him. I don’t even know him. I don’t know anybody.”
Lula opened her eyes in disbelief and stared accusingly. “Oh! You’re so lying.”
“Well, I mean, sure, he’s cute and all . . .” Anna’s voice trailed off. She frowned. “Was it really that obvious?”
“To everyone except Del. He’s clueless. Always has been. Cute and clueless,” Fiona said.
Anna buried her face in her hands. “Oh my god. I want to die.”
“Cute and clueless. You girls . . . must be . . . talking about me.” Scout rolled to a stop behind them. He was winded.
“Little legs couldn’t keep up?” Fiona asked.
Scout fell off his bike in exaggerated exhaustion and rolled onto his back. Beads of sweat lined his forehead.
“Can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m too,” he huffed, pausing for a breath, “fast.”
Fiona pulled a blanket she had packed from the back of her bike and unfurled it over a small clearing overlooking the lake. The three sat down, legs crossed. Scout made his way over and the four sat in silence for a moment, taking in the view before them.
“Oh man—I know where I’m hanging out this summer,” Scout said, chewing on a long blade of grass and pointing at the lake. “The Armstrong public pool, right here.”
“I think there’s a height requirement,” Fiona said. “Sorry.”
“Ha-ha. You’re hysterical. But seriously. This is sweet.” Scout pointed down toward the lake. “You even have your own little island, Anna. We could totally throw a party there. Turtle Island.”
A small hump of land, covered in trees and bush, floated a couple hundred yards from shore. Scout was right: it was small and looked like a turtle shell peeking above the water, but it seemed big enough for a campout.
Anna showed her friends where she had seen the light from the night before and pointed out the direction of her uncle’s house just behind the patch of woods. They spent several minutes quietly surveying the sky, then boredom set in. The next hour passed as they talked about music, the other kids at school, the movies they loved, and the foods they hated. And just like that, they had forgotten about the mysterious light as the evening sky turned from a pale orange to a deep plum blue. Stars began to dot the sky behind them. Then the sound.
Lula was the first to hear it. She popped up from her seat and began scanning the sky for the source.
“Uh, can you hear that?” Lula said, sounding uneasy. She stared down at her arms.
“Hear what?” Fiona asked.
Anna felt the sound before she could hear it—a kind of static shock like someone had rubbed a balloon across her skin. The hair on her head began to stand up now. Her body itched.
“Whoa—that’s weird.” Anna stood up and began rubbing her arms.
“What the—” Scout jumped up as if someone pinched him. He began bouncing back and forth and laughing in a panic.
From nowhere and everywhere at once, an impossibly deep horn blared across the sky, followed by silence. The four friends stood unmoving. Seconds ticked by, but no one was willing to move.
“Uh . . . that wasn’t me.” Scout tried to smile.
“Shut up, Scout,” Fiona whispered.
“Maybe it’s—”
Another trumpet blast, but this time the pitch changed, becoming a sound like twisting metal that vibrated through their bodies. Lula jumped. Scout let out a squeal.
“Is anybody recording this?” Fiona shouted above the noise.
Anna started the video on her phone, but she didn’t know where to point. The sound was everywhere. Another horn—that’s the only way Anna could describe it—began to blare in a slightly higher pitch. Then another quickly followed. All three sounds ran into each other like the sky was ripping open.
The starlings that had been flying in synchronized patterns scattered. Their form dissolved into individual black dots, each flying in a different direction. Lula covered her ears and shut her eyes tightly. Fiona put her arm around her instinctively. Scout, still laughing, ran back to his bike. Anna kept filming, frantically looking across the sky for the source of the sound. From the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of light. She turned in time to see a figure in white on the far side of the lake: a woman floating a good twenty feet above the far shoreline. Anna dropped her phone. The woman vanished, and suddenly the sound stopped as an echo rolled across the valley like a departing wave.