Page 1 of Sky Song
Chapter 1
The rustling of leaves was loud. Strong gusts of wind swept over the dense tree canopy, making it gowhoosh. When the wind subsided, the rustling quieted down more slowly, uncertainly, as if the trees were unsure of what was happening to them.
Cricket walked past the entrance to the local park, her cheap canvas sneakers tapping lightly on the pavement.
Another wind gust came, bringing along anotherwhoosh,the cool air going right through Cricket’s thin sweater covered in lint pills. She shivered slightly as she took in a large wooden sign that spelled in carved cursiveSerenity Forest: Where Nature Welcomes You!
She sighed, feeling despondent. The trees were a fitting metaphor for herself, stuck in place, at the mercy of winds that lashed out at them, standing still when she wanted to run, fly, go away from here. But she had nowhere to go, and no means. There was no point.
An older couple dressed for hiking emerged from the park.
“What a beautiful day!” the man said to her. His companion smiled at Cricket.
Stretching her lips in an answering smile that felt as wooden as the park’s sign, Cricket nodded at them as theypassed by in their matching boonie hats and lace-up hiking boots.
Picking up speed, Cricket headed for the medical center, wondering when - or if - her general dissatisfaction with life on Meeus was going to lift. It had been six years, long past the acclimation period.
She walked, enjoying the tempered warmth of the spring, squinting at the bright blue sky where Meeus’ sun Kle shone cheerfully between a handful of fluffy clouds. It was, indeed, a beautiful day.
When Cricket approached the hospital, she came up against quite a crowd gathered outside.
“What’s going on?” She frowned, eyes sharpening.
And then she remembered about the symposium. The alien delegation was arriving today!
Cricket spotted Salty’s stringy dark hair in the crowd next to Kim Creek’s unflattering brush cut and moved closer to them.
“Oh, hi,” Salty uttered in her usual depressed monotone. “You missed the first four.” Salty’s tone said she didn’t care if Cricket missed all of them, or if Cricket lived or died.
Ignoring Salty’s unchangeable Eeyore disposition, Cricket made regretful noises. “Who did I miss?”
“I don’t know their species. They’re so strange looking - I’ll have bad dreams all week,” Salty gave a weak shudder inside her blue laboratory scrubs.
“Why don’t you go back inside if aliens upset you?” Cricket suggested.
Salty threw a hateful glance at Kim who must’ve dragged her out here. “Kim says we need to learn who they are. To be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” Cricket asked the pointless question. Kim always prepared. She lived her life in preparationfor the apocalypse. Doomsday was coming, and aliens were the devil of it.
Kim turned her eyes, hard as chips of hazel rock on her equally unyielding face, to Cricket. “Watch,” she said, and her eyes narrowed into malicious slits. “See how they move. Learn how they act.”
“They get out of the riders and go inside. What can you learn?”
Kim scoffed. “You’re never going to understand. Good thing there are people like me watching over people like you.”
A rider glided to a stop, and a security guard stepped forward to make sure no one tried to get too close to the alien guest.
The rider’s door opened up like a wing, and the alien emerged. The crowd quieted down as if people beheld a miracle. The alien was dressed in a clinging and shimmering bodysuit under a long duster made of the same material. The clothes blazed under the light of Kle, so bright Cricket wanted to close her eyes. Underneath the glow, she discerned a heavyset body and a head full of beautiful tawny hair.
The alien paused, giving the crowd a sweeping glance out of a pair of huge black eyes, then moved one shoulder as if shrugging them all off and walked inside the hospital in an ambling and unhurried gait.
The rider pulled away from the curb under the resumed chorus of excited chatter.
“Did you see the eyes? Ratchet!”
“Man or woman?”
“Silly clothes.”
